Thomas Watson was Alexander Graham Bell's right-hand man who helped him create the telephone.
Watson grew up in a livery stable, in Salem. He tried out a number of professions before discovering his gift for mechanics and he soon went to work with Bell to develop the multiple telegraph system. Bell was an ideas man but Watson was brilliant with his hands. They went on to build the telephone together and Watson became a founder shareholder in the Bell Telephone Company.
Rich and restless after seven years of telephony, he quit to pave a new life. Farming didn't suit him, so he set up a successful machine shop. Later he built naval vessels in Boston employing over 4000 employees, he studied voice, studied geology and he searched for gold mines. His wanderlust took him into theatre, and he saw out his life performing theatre; Shakespeare; readings and lectures - realising that variety really was the spice of his life.
