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After winning and losing a large mercantile fortune, he returned from his European travels to discuss, with fervor and typical enthusiasm, canal systems with George Washington, then interested in a project which was not to be begun for another forty years as the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
After a brief stay in North Carolina, where he made and lost another fortune, he returned North, ultimately settling in Albany in 1789, and founding the Bank of Albany, one of the earliest in the country. Soon he was pleading for internal improvements, becoming in turn a leader in the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, and a pioneer in the movement for the construction of the Erie Canal. He crusaded for free public schools, when that was still considered a radical and somewhat dangerous idea; for city planning; for a State's prison system; and other ideas somewhat ahead of his time. He helped finance Robert Fulton's experiments with torpedoes, and was a founder of the Albany Institute of History and Art. Dr. Hedrick, the gracious historian of New York agriculture, calls him "a visionary seer in business, adventurer, the first American if we except Benjamin Franklin, whose friend and disciple he was, to promote an organized attack on the national resources of the Country."
After a life thus busy and full, Watson "retired" to a farm, "the elegant seat of Henry Van Schaick" outside Pittsfield, to pursue "the experiment of seeking 'rural felicity,' - a life I had for twenty years sighed to enjoy," where, in his "retirement," he was to launch a moderately successful experimental farm, and the amazingly potent idea of the county fair.
In 1810 Elkanah Watson founded the Berkshire Agricultural Society "which will ultimately embrace all the respectable farmers of the county, who will bring to this common fund, like bees to the hive, their stock of experience, for the good of the whole." But despite the vigor with which he pressed his idea, the public was slow to respond. "I stood alone, the butt of ridicule, until August, 1810, when I wrote an appeal to the public" announcing the Berkshire Cattle Show. In three years of tireless missionary effort, Watson had secured the support of his neighbors. With that modest group he began in 1810 what is generally considered to be the first modern agricultural fair.
After six years of struggle and discouragement, Watson left Pittsfield again to take up his residence at Albany. Returning in 1816, Watson "indulged the Unworthy hope of basking out the residue of life in inglorious ease. But alas, for my repose, --this dream was for a comparative moment--, the flame had reached the fine state of New-York, where my bones are destined to molder in peace. A bright spark had already emitted in Otsego County." That spark came from the exertions of some of the early residents of Cooperstown, prominent among them were James Fenimore Cooper, who was on the committee which drew up the first papers for the New Otsego County Agricultural Society -- which then staged the fairs --who served as that organization's first secretary, and who was a zealous missionary in the columns of the local papers for the cause of better agriculture.
The upshot was the first County fair held in New York State, October 14, 1817. Apparently the fair was a success. Household manufactures and "all articles of manufacturer," with owners' names written on paper and sewed firmly to each object were delivered; animals were delivered and placed in pens outside the Presbyterian Church. Watson had worked out an elaborate ceremonial, "to seize upon the human heart, to animate and excite a lively spirit of competition, giving a direction to measures of general utility."
Watson created an instrument of tremendous importance in the growth and development - the history - of our country. This nation had duly honored far lesser men than the indefatigable Yorker who founded the Farmer's Holiday, and saw that festival off to a healthy start in this State at Cooperstown in 1817. In 1784, after traveling in France, Holland, and England, he returned to America. He married Rachel Smith in this year. In 1842 Elkanah Watson died at the age of 84. He is buried at Port Kent, New York.
Exhibition History"American 19th Century Painting," Michigan State University, MI, January 30, 1966 - February 22, 1966.
Artist
Samuel Finley Breese Morse
(1791 - 1872)
Related Person
Elkanah Watson
(1758 - 1842)
Elkanah Watson (1758-1842)
Datec. 1825
MediumOil on canvas (medium)
DimensionsSight: 29 × 24 1/4 in. (73.7 × 61.6 cm)
Object numberN0349.1955
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of Stephen C. Clark
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextElkanah Watson was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1758. A man of enormous, restless energies, he was soon to earn the reputation of being the young man who had seen more of the United States in the revolutionary struggle than had anyone else of his generation. During the war, he skillfully carried a large amount of essential patriot currency from Providence to Charleston, South Carolina, successfully detouring red-coat armies en route. He bore important dispatches form the Continental Congress to Benjamin Franklin, emissary of this new-born republic, to its ally, the France of Louis XVI. After winning and losing a large mercantile fortune, he returned from his European travels to discuss, with fervor and typical enthusiasm, canal systems with George Washington, then interested in a project which was not to be begun for another forty years as the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
After a brief stay in North Carolina, where he made and lost another fortune, he returned North, ultimately settling in Albany in 1789, and founding the Bank of Albany, one of the earliest in the country. Soon he was pleading for internal improvements, becoming in turn a leader in the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, and a pioneer in the movement for the construction of the Erie Canal. He crusaded for free public schools, when that was still considered a radical and somewhat dangerous idea; for city planning; for a State's prison system; and other ideas somewhat ahead of his time. He helped finance Robert Fulton's experiments with torpedoes, and was a founder of the Albany Institute of History and Art. Dr. Hedrick, the gracious historian of New York agriculture, calls him "a visionary seer in business, adventurer, the first American if we except Benjamin Franklin, whose friend and disciple he was, to promote an organized attack on the national resources of the Country."
After a life thus busy and full, Watson "retired" to a farm, "the elegant seat of Henry Van Schaick" outside Pittsfield, to pursue "the experiment of seeking 'rural felicity,' - a life I had for twenty years sighed to enjoy," where, in his "retirement," he was to launch a moderately successful experimental farm, and the amazingly potent idea of the county fair.
In 1810 Elkanah Watson founded the Berkshire Agricultural Society "which will ultimately embrace all the respectable farmers of the county, who will bring to this common fund, like bees to the hive, their stock of experience, for the good of the whole." But despite the vigor with which he pressed his idea, the public was slow to respond. "I stood alone, the butt of ridicule, until August, 1810, when I wrote an appeal to the public" announcing the Berkshire Cattle Show. In three years of tireless missionary effort, Watson had secured the support of his neighbors. With that modest group he began in 1810 what is generally considered to be the first modern agricultural fair.
After six years of struggle and discouragement, Watson left Pittsfield again to take up his residence at Albany. Returning in 1816, Watson "indulged the Unworthy hope of basking out the residue of life in inglorious ease. But alas, for my repose, --this dream was for a comparative moment--, the flame had reached the fine state of New-York, where my bones are destined to molder in peace. A bright spark had already emitted in Otsego County." That spark came from the exertions of some of the early residents of Cooperstown, prominent among them were James Fenimore Cooper, who was on the committee which drew up the first papers for the New Otsego County Agricultural Society -- which then staged the fairs --who served as that organization's first secretary, and who was a zealous missionary in the columns of the local papers for the cause of better agriculture.
The upshot was the first County fair held in New York State, October 14, 1817. Apparently the fair was a success. Household manufactures and "all articles of manufacturer," with owners' names written on paper and sewed firmly to each object were delivered; animals were delivered and placed in pens outside the Presbyterian Church. Watson had worked out an elaborate ceremonial, "to seize upon the human heart, to animate and excite a lively spirit of competition, giving a direction to measures of general utility."
Watson created an instrument of tremendous importance in the growth and development - the history - of our country. This nation had duly honored far lesser men than the indefatigable Yorker who founded the Farmer's Holiday, and saw that festival off to a healthy start in this State at Cooperstown in 1817. In 1784, after traveling in France, Holland, and England, he returned to America. He married Rachel Smith in this year. In 1842 Elkanah Watson died at the age of 84. He is buried at Port Kent, New York.
Exhibition History"American 19th Century Painting," Michigan State University, MI, January 30, 1966 - February 22, 1966.
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