Hello B, It’s good to know that you were able to remove the stem.
I can understand and relate to the confusion here because I was also confused yesterday when I read it. 
I would like to point out the importance of giving as much information as possible when asking about a problem with a watch. It seems that your movement has a set lever that later 16 size and smaller movements like the Elgin 571 used. When you wrote “I got 2 pocket watches–large ones–a waltham and an elgin” I and most likely Bob and others who are following this post assumed an 18 size older movement that would not have had a set lever. Giving the size of the movement would have made it an easier diagnoses since we would have known that there was a possibility of your watch having a set lever and with a picture we would have known for sure. This simple diagnoses would have been the first thing that would need to be checked. There are so many different types of watches so the more information given the better and the less chance of confusion.
Peter
