Former Editor

Watson was born May 26, 1939 in Leominster, MA, the second son of Mary E. and John R. Watson from whom he got his hometown and professional career. His mother, a junior high school Latin and Spanish teacher, had graduated from Emanuel College in 1924 where she had a met a classmate, Anna Carroll, from Gloucester with whom she visited. Subsequently, she got a summer job at a Bass Avenue ice cream shop, thus beginning a lifelong passion for Cape Ann. She married John Watson in 1934 in the old Saint Joachim's Church of Rockport. In 1938, they built a summer cottage on Smith Road, first occupied in the summer of 1939. His father Jack worked as a reporter for 30 years until his 1952 death.

Peter Watson graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1961 with a degree in Political Science. It was there that he met Patricia Ward, a classmate and Editorial Page Editor of the University's daily newspaper, The Collegian. He wrote editorials for her and they were married in June 1964.

After graduating from college in 1961, he served six months in the active reserve of the US Army before getting his first job in newspapers as an editor of several weeklies in the Worcester area. In 1963, he joined the Beverly Times as a reporter. After becoming an editor for the Times, he left the paper in 1969 to become an editor of the sailboat racing magazine "One Design Yachtsman", out of Chicago. After covering the 1970 America's Cup Trials, he left the magazine to become the editor of the Gloucester Times. In 1982, he became the founding editor of the Beverly-Peabody Times, an experiment to merge two ECN newspapers. In 1983, the two papers were restored as separate publication and he became General Manager of ECN where, as chief operating officer, he shared overall operational responsibility for the newspapers with the Publisher.

In 1995, Ottaway Newspapers, Inc., ECN's corporate parent, purchased the Salem Evening News and ECN merged with both the Beverly Times and the Peabody News. In a Dow Jones corporate retrenchment, ECN was sold in 2002 and Watson retired.

In an active retirement, Watson served as chair of the Rockport Town Government and By-Law Committee, a member and principal writer for the Task Force for the Preservation of Addison Gilbert Hospital, and an active advisor on the 2005 re-Election campaign of Mayor John Bell.

He leaves his three sons, Seth Watson, a human resource professional with King County, Washington, Jared Watson, senior vice president of the Seattle Foundation, and Kareem Wilson, a senior at Dean College and counselor with the Cape Ann YMCA's Camp Spindrift. His wife, Patricia, died in April 2006.

A memorial celebration will be held at 3:00 P.M. on December 29th at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport with a reception to follow at the Rockport Art Association. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to one of the many causes Peter supported: UNH Journalism Program (c/o UNH Foundation, 9 Edgewood Rd., Durham, NH 03824); Teen and Camp Services at the Cape Ann YMCA
(71 Middle St., Gloucester, MA 01930); Legal Voice (907 Pine St., Suite 500, Seattle WA 98101).

Arrangements by the Burgess & Mackey Funeral Home, 201 Main Street, Rockport. For online condolences, please visit burgessandmackey.com.