Elkanah Watson (1758–1842), merchant and agriculturist, was born and educated in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Following a six-year apprenticeship with a prosperous merchant in Providence, Rhode Island, he sailed for Europe in 1779. Watson there entered into a business partnership in Nantes, France, and traveled widely in England, France, and the Netherlands. Returning to the United States late in 1784, he visited George Washington at Mount Vernon and settled for a time in North Carolina. Watson relocated in 1789 to Albany, New York, where he helped found several banks, supported the construction of turnpike roads and canals, and fought for free public education. In 1807 he retired to a farm near Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and devoted himself to scientific agriculture. One of the founders of the Berkshire Agricultural Society, he served as its first president, 1811–15. Watson returned to Albany in 1816 and moved in 1825 to Essex County, New York, where he died. Watson was an early supporter of the construction of the Erie Canal and the movement to establish local fairs and agricultural societies (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; N: Watson Papers; Boston Independent Ledger, and the American Advertiser, 29 May 1780; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends no. 3872; Washington, Papers, Confederation Ser., 2:456–8; PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 40 vols. description ends , 37:526–7; New-York Journal, & Patriotic Register, 20 June 1792; New York Daily Advertiser, 14 July 1792; Albany Gazette, 6 May, 6 June 1805; Watson, History of the Rise, Progress, and Existing State of the Berkshire Agricultural Society, in Massachusetts [Albany, 1819], esp. 9, 14, 29; Pittsfield Berkshire Reporter, 20 July 1811; Pittsfield Sun, 8 Feb. 1816; New-York Spectator, 14 Dec. 1842).

Watson drafted an earlier version of this letter dated Albany, 2 Jan. 1817, expressing as his object the establishment of a national board of agriculture; seeking the support of TJ and President James Monroe for such an institution; noting that George Washington “recommended the measure in his inaugural Speech” and that Watson himself, as president of the Berkshire Agricultural Society, had petitioned Congress on the subject in 1814; stating that he has communicated with James Madison, who “highly approves of the plan”; fearing that constitutional difficulties will be a barrier to success; noting that when Representative John Hulbert spoke in favor of the petition in Congress he was “ridiculed, & laugh’d at for urging the Matter especially by southern Members”; noting that John Mason, of Georgetown, “has promis’d me to bring all his influ[e]nce to bare—to promote the object”; and concluding by expressing his pleasure at learning that TJ also intends “to Sustain it with zeal—and to furnish the public with your views on the Subject” (FC in Lb in N: Watson Papers; entirely in Watson’s hand; one word editorially corrected; at head of text: “Letter to Thomas Jefferson”; at top of second page: “National bord of Agriculture”; adjacent to signature in parentheses: “Vide his answer page 79”; date reworked to 24 Apr. 1817 in an unidentified hand; this version not recorded in SJL and probably never received by TJ).

Watson’s book, A Tour in Holland, in MDCCLXXXIV (Worcester, 1790; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends no. 3872) was in the library TJ sold to Congress.

The outlines of a system appeared in an article entitled “A Board of Agriculture proposed,” which laid out a twelve-point organizational plan that accompanied the petition of the Berkshire Agricultural Society to Congress and concluded with the “Remarks of a Correspondent” [Watson], who asserted that such a society would “tend as a cement to the union, by assimilating our agricultural habits, by uniform excitements and competitions; thus rousing and bringing into activity a laudable and useful spirit of emulation in every section of this great republic” (reprinted from the Albany Argus in the Baltimore Niles’ Weekly Register, 19 Apr. 1817).

The eccentric quaker was Horatio G. Spafford. mr munro: James Monroe.

A letter from Thomas Melvill (Watson’s successor as president of the Berkshire Agricultural Society) dated 10 Jan. 1816 and TJ’s 6 Feb. 1816 response , both previously noted here, were located after print publication of this volume, have been added digitally, and will appear in the concluding supplement to the print edition.