Samuel C. Watson (c. 1832 – March 13, 1892) was a druggist, medical doctor, and civic leader in Detroit, Michigan, and Chatham, Ontario.

In the late 1850s and early 1860s, Watson was a part of the Detroit–Chatham Underground Railroad and closely connected with William Whipper and George DeBaptiste.

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Watson settled in Detroit, where he would eventually become a city councilman.

He was politically independent, and found himself on opposite sides of debates with DeBaptiste and other Michigan blacks, and he switched from the Republican to the Democratic party in the mid-1880s.

He had already begun some education, and in Washington, he attended a school led by the wife of abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Leonard Grimes.

He left that school in 1856, moving to Cleveland, Ohio, to finish his studies at the Western Homeopathic College where he graduated in the winter of 1856,[1] and was granted an M. D. in 1857.

[1] In 1863, Watson moved to Detroit, where he opened a drug store,[1] which he ran until his death in 1892,[4] although he was prohibited from practicing medicine there.

Since parties supplied their own ballots, Detroit blacks charged that the misspelling represented a betrayal of Watson by Republicans.

[1] He was chosen a state delegate-at-large for the 1884 Republican National Convention, favoring James G. Blaine for president, but who would lose in the general election to Grover Cleveland.

Watson was politically independent minded, and his selection as a delegate was disputed,[1] with Saginaw lumber baron William Q. Atwood the other candidate to represent black Michiganders.