Matthew Watson Jr. (b. 1885)
	
Matthew Watson was born in Scotland to parents Matthew and Martha Watson. The family immigrated to the United States in 1887. He was eleven when he travelled over the Chilkoot Pass with his father in 1897. The family lived in Dyea where Matthew Sr. had a tin shop and went to Atlin for the mining season until the family moved to Whitehorse in 1900. Matthew Sr. operated a sheet metal shop and he and Matthew Jr. started mining on Burwash Creek. Matthew Sr. left the Yukon [in 1907] and in 1911 Matthew Jr. bought a general store in Carcross from Frank McPhee and gave the store his own name.((Gord Allison, “Watson Family Yukon Stories.” Welcome to Yukon History Trails: Stories about Yukon history, 2020 website: https://yukonhistorytrails.com/2020/03/09/watson-family-yukon-stories/)) 

Matthew was cutting cordwood in January 1912 when he came across Howard Cochran. His wife, Idelle Cochran, had died after giving birth to their third child at a mine in the Wheaton River area. Matthew arranged for his mother to meet the train in Whitehorse. Martha took the baby home and eventually adopted Norma Idelle Watson. Martha and Norma and Martha’s two sons, Charles and Kenneth, left the Yukon for Chilliwack in the fall of 1920.((Gord Allison, “Watson Family Yukon Stories.” Welcome to Yukon History Trails: Stories about Yukon history, 2020 website: https://yukonhistorytrails.com/2020/03/09/watson-family-yukon-stories/))
	
Bobby and Nellie Watson operated the Watson General Store in Carcross from 1959, when Bobby’s father Matthew retired, to 1982 when they retired. The Watsons always allowed credit and Willard Phelps thought that some Carcross families might have starved if not for Matthew, Bob, and his wife Nell.((Chuck Tobin, “Territory loses another link to its past." //The Whitehorse Star// (Whitehorse), 4 June 2004.))