Born in Washington, D.C. on February 16, 1840, to the former Tilithacumi (Talitha) Black of Spring Hill, Tennessee and her husband, Harvey Magee Watterson, a Shelbyville, Tennessee lawyer and U.S. Congressman. His father was close to President Andrew Jackson, also from Tennessee, and in 1843 would become the publisher of the "Washington Union", the main newspaper of the Democratic party of that era. His uncle in Ohio would also become a newspaper editor, lawyer, Union soldier during the Civil War and ultimately Republican U.S. Supreme Court justice Stanley Matthews.