It matters not in what country a man may have been born, whatever the
institutions under which one is reared may have to do with the
formation of his character; and as to Officer McWatters' place of
birth, we are not absolutely certain, but believe he was born in
Kilmarnock, Scotland, and was taken thence by his parents, at an early
age, to the north of Ireland, where he was reared.
It is easy to conjecture that a man like Mr. McWatters must have had a
more or less ambitious boyhood; and his friends have sometimes heard
him recite the wakeful dreams he as a youth indulged in, of "the
beautiful land beyond the western waters." Officer McWatters was
evidently born out of place, for he is intensely democratic in his
sentiments, more so than most native-born Americans, and manifests an
appreciation of free institutions, which not unfrequently rises to the
sublime, or intensifies to the pathetic. It is doubtful, for example,
that during the late civil war there could have been found in all the
land a man who took a deeper, soul-felt interest in the integrity of
the republic than he. But of this farther on.
Mr. McWatters after receiving a very respectable education in the
schools of the north of Ireland, became a mechanic; but the monotonous
life of a working-man there, was ill suited to an ardent nature like
his; and while yet a young man, full of the spirit of adventure, he
left his Irish home, and proceeded to London, where he pursued his
trade, and eventually married a most estimable lady, who has ever been
to him a helpmeet indeed. By this lady Mr. McWatters is the father of a
very interesting family of some six children, who have been carefully
reared, and have enjoyed excellent opportunities of education. Miss
Charlotte, the eldest daughter of Mr. McWatters, a lady of refined
culture, as well as extreme personal graces and attractions, was
married in October, 1860, to Signor Errani, then the distinguished
tenor of the Academy of Music, and who not only occupies a first class
position in his profession, but is a gentleman of marked
intellectuality and extensive literary acquirements.