Innovating businessman and farmer. He was indentured to Brown University founder John Brown, supplier of gunpowder to the Continental Army. While in Brown's employ, Watson became a courier for Washington, Franklin and others. After business failures in France and North Carolina, Watson moved to New York and founded the State Bank of Albany. The bank was profitable, enabling him to successfully promote the Erie Canal and a canal system linking the original states to new ones formed from the Northwest Territory. After leaving State Bank, Watson moved to a farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His efforts to demonstrate the advantages of breeding newly imported Merino sheep became an annual agricultural show which then grew into county fairs that still exist throughout the United States. Watson also founded the Berskhire Agricultural Society, which became the model for similar societies in the US and Canada. In addition to his memoirs, his written works included "A Tour of Holland," "History of Canals," "History of the Rise and Progress and the Existing Conditions of the Western Canals in the State of New York," "The Rise and Progress and Existing State of Modern Agricultural Societies," and "History of Agricultural Societies on the Modern Berkshire System." When John Singleton Copley exhibited his portrait of Watson in London in the 1790s it created a sensation as the first post-Revolutionary War depiction of the US flag in England.
Innovating businessman and farmer. He was indentured to Brown University founder John Brown, supplier of gunpowder to the Continental Army. While in Brown's employ, Watson became a courier for Washington, Franklin and others. After business failures in France and North Carolina, Watson moved to New York and founded the State Bank of Albany. The bank was profitable, enabling him to successfully promote the Erie Canal and a canal system linking the original states to new ones formed from the Northwest Territory. After leaving State Bank, Watson moved to a farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His efforts to demonstrate the advantages of breeding newly imported Merino sheep became an annual agricultural show which then grew into county fairs that still exist throughout the United States. Watson also founded the Berskhire Agricultural Society, which became the model for similar societies in the US and Canada. In addition to his memoirs, his written works included "A Tour of Holland," "History of Canals," "History of the Rise and Progress and the Existing Conditions of the Western Canals in the State of New York," "The Rise and Progress and Existing State of Modern Agricultural Societies," and "History of Agricultural Societies on the Modern Berkshire System." When John Singleton Copley exhibited his portrait of Watson in London in the 1790s it created a sensation as the first post-Revolutionary War depiction of the US flag in England.
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