Bust view of Watson. Image is slightly light. Cabinet card measures approximately 4.25” x 6.25” overall. Photographer’s backmark, C.W. Yates, Wilmington, N.C. Photograph comes with extensive research.

Alfred Augustin Watson (August 21, 1818 – April 21, 1905) was first bishop of the Diocese of East Carolina in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

Following education at New York University, he was ordained to the diaconate by Benjamin T. Onderdonk on November 3, 1844; and to the priesthood by Levi Silliman Ives on May 25, 1845.

On June 27, 1861 Watson was commissioned as Chaplain to the 2^nd Regiment of N.C. Infantry. In late 1862 he was attached to the military hospital at Goldsboro. He resigned his commission on March 13, 1863. While attached to the 2^nd NC, it was noted that he “gave valuable services as a scout, his knowledge of topography was of great value to the commanding officer.” He Resigned on 3/13/1863, so “that he may undertake parochial duty in a parish left vacant by pastors death of yellow fever.”

At the time of his death, he was the oldest living bishop in the Episcopal Church, and the senior member of General Convention in order of service, having been first elected to the House of Deputies for North Carolina in 1850. He was buried in Wilmington's Oakdale Cemetery, leaving to his beloved diocese his library and part of his estate, which became the Bishop Watson Fund for the Support of the Episcopate. Alfred Watson was married three times. His first wife soon died, as did their infant child. Watson then married Fannie Livingston of New York and after her death, Mrs. Mary Catherine Lord. [jet][ph:L]

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