Joseph Watt, or "Joe," as he is more commonly called by those who mention him in connection with the history of Oregon, was born at Mount Vernon, Knox County, Ohio, on the 17th of December, 1817. His earliest ancestor in America was a silk weaver of Scotch-Irish descent who came to this country about 1760, settling in the vicinity of Philadelphia. His grandfather, Joseph Watt, crossed the Alleghany Mountains in 1802 and took up a donation claim in western Pennsylvania. His father, John Watt, who had taken part in the war of 1812 and served with Perry in his first cruise on the Great Lakes, migrated to Knox County, Ohio, in 1815. Here he married and reared a family of ten children, of whom Joseph was one.
As a boy Watt seems to have been always a dreamer, building castles in the air and planning great schemes of business and adventure. Because of these dreams of verdant fields and herds of cattle, he desired to join the movement for the settlement of Texas, then being effected under the leadership of Sam Houston, and was prevented only by the ill health of his father and the large family which needed his aid. As a sort of compromise his father agreed to migrate to Missouri in 1838. This move resulted only in hardship and privation, and soon young Watt was turning his thoughts again toward the prairies of Texas. In the winter of 1840 and 1841 he started south, stopping in the country of the Creeks and Cherokees to earn money at his trade of carpentering. It was at this time that the Oregon country was coming prominently before the people in Missouri. Watt became interested and returned to his home with the intention of migrating to Oregon. On his way through the southwestern part of the State in the spring of 1843 he came in contact with many who were planning to start that year. Senator Lewis F. Linn, of Missouri, had introduced a bill into the Senate in 1838 providing for the settlement of Oregon and offering six hundred and forty acres of land to each settler. Watt read all that he could find upon the subject, listened to everything which he could hear and talked much with his associates. By the spring of 1843 he was ready to start, but his father had become equally anxious to better his condition and proposed that the whole family prepare to go the following year. By the spring of 1844 it was clear that the expense of so long and difficult a journey could not be met, and Watt, unwilling to defer his hopes longer, started with two companions, expecting to earn his way across the plains by driving the teams or cattle of well-to-do emigrants. The assets all told with which he started on this long journey were $2.50 in cash and a stock in trade of a pair of new boots, some pins and fishhooks, to be used in trade with the Indians.
Watt had succeeded in securing employment as driver for a well-to-do emigrant, but fell out with his employer before they had gone far. With a job here and there, and a trade to his advantage, he managed to reach Burnt River with a cow and a rifle to his credit. As the journey neared the end however provisions grew scarcer, and those who possessed them were less able or willing to share with others. Finding that he was not welcome at the camps of the emigrants, and obedient to vigorous hints, he started ahead with a single companion and began the dangerous and difficult journey over the Blue Mountains. The snow lay from twelve to eighteen inches deep, and the trail could only be followed by scratches made on the trees by wagons that had passed over before. Watt's moccasins had given out and were mended with leather cut from his buckskin pants. For provisions they had but a loaf of bread between them. The rifle was useless because there was no game in the mountains. His cow had been left in the charge of a friend in a party behind. All difficulties were surmounted however and the valley of the Umatilla was reached. Here they were in the region of game. A number of prairie chickens were shot, powder was traded to the Indians for a few potatoes, a kettle was borrowed and the weary travelers gave themselves over to a feast, which, at intervals, was prolonged through the night. Their spirits rose when hunger was appeased, and they knew that soon they would be at the mission station at Waiilatpu. Ragged and disreputable in appearance they were not cordially received, and the independent nature of Watt ever cherished a dislike for missions and missionaries. Remaining at the station until the party having charge of his cow arrived he effected a trade by which he secured a supply of provisions for the last part of the journey to the Dalles, where he expected to take a boat down the river. Various experiences were yet to be met. Fate decided that he should partake of but a single meal from the supply of provisions which he had earned so dearly. He escaped death by the arrival of unexpected help when he was grappling with an Indian in which encounter the expectoration of tobacco juice figured as a peculiar weapon of defense. Finally, however, he reached the Dalles where boats belonging to the Hudson Bay Company were at anchor. Those who had money to pay their passage were packing their goods on board and going themselves, but the chances for a passage for a penniless and ragged traveler were small. It was Watt's purpose to work for his passage and he made application to the boatman. "You are like one of those worn out oxen," was the reply, "you haven't strength enough to hold yourself up, let alone work;" and the boatman went on with his loading. Sitting on a rock by the river Watt was a despondent figure. But the boatman, turning back with the exclamation that "it was too bad to leave the poor devil to starve" for he might have some "come out to him after all like a lousy yearling in the spring," asked if Watt could sing. On learning that he could he bade him find a place on the bow of the boat and earn his meals as best he could. Under the title of the "figurehead," therefore, he kept his allotted place on the bow, and by his skill in singing and telling yarns earned his meals as well as his passage down the river. One song, entitled "the bobtailed mare, or the man who went to heaven horseback," made a decided hit, and Watt fared sumptuously for the remainder of the journey down the Columbia.
Ever at the van across the continent Watt was the first of his party to reach his destination at Oregon City, in November of 1844. A curious spectacle he must have made as he appeared upon the streets with his walnut roundabout, buckskin pants reaching to the knees and patched with antelope skin, with a red blanket for an overcoat and woolen hat, so worn in the crown that it hung about the neck rather than rested on the head. Such was the young castle builder who had made his way across the plains with a capital of $2.50 in cash and a stock in trade of pins, fishhooks, and a pair of new boots. Such was the picturesque appearance made by one who was destined to play no unimportant part in the industrial development of Oregon.
For a time he slept in the shavings of a carpenter shop. He tried to trade his last possession, his beloved rifle for decent clothes but failed. One day in his wanderings along the street he chanced to meet the chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company, the hero of his life. After a few inquiries Doctor McLoughlin gave orders to a clerk to furnish Watt with clothing. "Tut, tut, tut," said the old man, "what people these Americans are, wandering vagabonds across a continent. What are they coming here for? Give him some clothes." After a bath behind the shade of a neighboring bank of the river Watt emerged clad in his suit of British corduroy and with all his preconceived and inherited antipathy toward the British and the Catholics removed. With the first money earned from the task of bricklaying, an employment given him by Doctor McLoughlin, he sought to pay for his clothes, and purchasing a bath tub, a cake of soap and some tobacco, which was his one luxury, he had begun his career as one of the pioneer captains of industry in Oregon.
It was not long before an opportunity for advancement presented itself. The Catholic Church on the French Prairie was then in process of construction and its builders were in need of a workman competent to complete the cornice. As Watt was something of an adept at the carpenter trade he was offered the work of constructing seven hundred feet of cornice at $3 a foot, when he was on the point of offering to do it for fifty cents. The return from this employment was sufficient to give him a financial start. Not only industrious but shrewd in the matter of trade, Watt made the most of the opportunity. About this time the brig Henry came up the river at a time of high water, with a cargo of goods, among which was a stock of Seth Thomas clocks, an article for which the demand was great in this remote region. With the savings from his carpenter work Watt purchased the lot, and found little trouble in disposing of them in exchange for wheat. The harvest for the year had been abundant, while the demand was small, and the clocks, which had cost but $4 apiece, were sold for sixty to eighty bushels of wheat. Shrewdness in anticipating the oversupply of the one year would be followed by the scarcity of the next was more than rewarded. Wet weather and other climatic conditions caused a small supply while a large emigration increased the demand and the bushels of wheat were in turn exchanged for the pieces of gold. Thus in the space of two years the capital of $2.50 had increased to over $1,000, and the way was open for larger plans.
Watt had never in the meantime ceased his dreaming. It was not now, however, the broad plains of Texas and the herds of cattle, but, rather, the luxuriant meadows and hills of the Willamette Valley, which his imagination covered with flocks of sheep. Pleased with the opportunities of a country which had profited him so much, and desiring his parents and family to come, he started back to Missouri in the spring of 1847. The return was also to be made the means of realizing his dreams. It was his intention to bring back a flock of sheep. Already he seemed to see the demand that would grow up in a damp country like Oregon for woolen garments, and perhaps, likewise, the need of suitable clothing for his eight sisters. There were but few sheep in the country at that time. Some were in the possession of the Hudson Bay Company; others had been driven over in the emigration of 1844, and possibly there were a few besides. The return journey was made by the southern route. Evidences were visible of the terrible sufferings of the party who, in 1847, had been induced to come that way. Along the Rogue River the Indians were hostile, and Watt was enabled at various times to kindle his fire for breakfast with the arrows which lay thick about the camp. On the broad plains he was frightened by a band of hostile Pawnees, but, escaping all danger, at length reached in safety his home in Missouri.
Before his return to Oregon Watt made a journey to the East, mainly on business. Boston, however, with its bleak weather, had few charms for him. "With all their steamboats, railroads, fine stores, fine cities, fine women and all, give me Oregon," is the reflection which appears in the reminiscences of his visit. While in the East and in the neighborhood of Washington he decided to visit the national capital and carry back to his fellow pioneers in the Far West whatever he could learn of the disposition of the administration toward his country. As this "self-appointed delegate" was walking about the streets of the capital city he was indulging in the reflection, typical of the western spirit, that "a great deal of money was being spent foolishly in that city." He took occasion to look up old friends upon whom the city life failed to exert a helpful influence. His purpose there, however, was not curiosity, but information that might be of value, and to gain this he sought admission to the Chief Executive. President Polk was at the time too busily engaged to give him audience, and the disappointment was great, for his reminiscences record the exclamation: "What right had he to be busy when I was there, all the way from Oregon?" Unable to see the Secretary of War, Mr. Davis, for similar reasons, he finally was advised by his friends to visit the little brick house, on a back street, which was occupied by Senator Benton of Missouri. There he felt he would surely receive a cordial welcome. "I must go and see Benton," he says: "Haven't I shouted for him in Missouri, and hasn't he made speeches in favor of Oregon? Yes, he can tell me what the government is going to do for Oregon." Admitted into the house by the colored servant, he stood in the presence of the Senator whom he thought well named "Burly Benton."
The interview was far from pleasant, if we may judge from Watt's account. Upon learning the residence of his visitor, the Senator immediately began a eulogy upon the services to Oregon of his son-in-law, Colonel Fremont, which aroused the ire of the westerner. "Ah, yes," said Benton, "we know all about Oregon. My son-in-law, Colonel Fremont, has traveled all over that country. The country is, or ought to be, under everlasting obligation to him for the information he has given at the greatest sacrifice a man ever made." To this his visitor warmly replied: "As to any information given you by Mr. Fremont regarding what the people are doing and their prospects, it is certainly guessed at, for I know he was never there. His map of the road is good, but when it comes to making roads, he never did. He followed the road to Oregon made by emigrants, men, women and children to the Dalles, took bateaux to Fort Vancouver, got supplies, returned to The Dalles and struck out for California on the east side of the mountains."
Watt says in his reminiscences that he shall never forget the look that Benton had on his face as he started across the room, rubbing his hands and storming, "Perhaps I don't know the movements of my own son-in-law." While the picture is completed by the clerk, to all intents writing at a desk near by, but whose sides were "prying out and in like a pair of bellows."