Handed Down

One of my most prized possessions is the old Springfield pocket watch pictured here.

It is in workable condition, but missing its original glass face.  Inside is inscribed the name of the original owner "E.M. Blakesley," a railroad engineer who acquired it about 1897.  The movement is a Bunn Special with 21 rubies.

My 3xgreat grandfather Edson McClure Blakesley (1845-1931) was the original owner.  He was a veteran of the Civil War, having served with Company F of the 145th Ohio Volunteer Regiment.  After the war, he moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he began a career in railroading, eventually becoming an engineer based in Kansas City.  He used this watch daily towards the end of his career, and the gold plating is worn in places where he grasped it to check his progress against railroad time tables.  

Grandpa Blakesley retired to Florida in the early 1900s, living first at St. Petersburg before settling in a little house on Mills Avenue in Orlando.  When he died in 1931, this watch passed to his only surviving child, my 2xgreat grandmother Lola (Blakesley) Morgan.

Lola, or "Mammy" as she was known within the family, had lived with her father during his last years.  But, after his death and the loss of his pension income, she could not afford to keep his house on Mills Avenue.  The Great Depression forced her to move around quite a bit, renting small bungalows in the College Park area before going to live with her younger son William Swinney Morgan, Jr.  When she died in 1954, the watch was handed down to him.

William was my great grandfather.  He was a veteran of the US Army Medical Corps, having served in France during the First World War.  He worked many years at the Orlando Post Office, eventually managing the south station on Michigan Avenue.  But, by the time he inherited the watch, he had started a second career as a homebuilding foreman for the Wellborn Phillips Company.

When William died in 1960, the watch was kept in the old family home on Muriel Street by his second wife, my step great grandmother Erma (Barco) Morgan.  Shortly before her death in 1995, she handed the watch down to her only son (my great-uncle) Richard Barco Morgan.

Uncle Richard handed the watch down to me along with some other family memorabilia about ten years later, when he downsized and moved into a retirement tower downtown.

Recently, the "Antiques Roadshow" came to the Orange County Convention Center and I was able to get a ticket entitling me to bring up to three items for a free appraisal.  Of course, this watch was one of the things I brought.  I was a little disappointed to find it was only worth about $100 in its current condition, maybe $300 if the glass cover was restored.  But, to me it is priceless, because it reminds me of all the precious people who have served as its steward since 1897.

#52Ancestors