agriculturist Businessman lawyer
Frederick Watts was born in Carlisle, Pa. , the son of David and Julian (Miller) Watts and the grandson of Frederick Watts who emigrated from Wales to America in 1760, was an officer in the Revolutionary army, and was afterward brigadier-general of Pennsylvania militia. His father, a graduate of Dickinson College, was a successful lawyer in Carlisle.
He went to Dickinson College, where he was a member of the class of 1819, which, however, was never graduated. A few months after he left college in 1819, his father died and during the next two or three years he lived with an uncle, William Miles, on his farm in Erie County. There he acquired a practical knowledge of farming and a taste for farm life that lasted throughout his life. Upon returning to Carlisle he studied law with Andrew Carothers and later formed a partnership with him.
His ability and character made him a leader in his community for more than fifty years. Active and influential in the affairs of Dickinson College, he was secretary of the board of control from 1824 to 1828 and a member of the board from 1828 to 1833 and again from 1841 to 1844. He was for many years active in the St. John's Episcopal Church. From 1829 to 1845 he reported the cases of the western district of the state supreme court, publishing two volumes of reports with William Rawle, Jr. , and Charles B. Penrose and a third volume with Penrose only, then ten volumes, for 1832 to 1840, alone, and nine volumes, for 1841 to 1845, with Henry J. Sergeant. From 1845 to 1871 he was president of the Cumberland Valley Railroad Company, in which he had been interested since its organization, and remained a director until his death. In 1849 he was appointed judge of the 9th Judicial District. He served until the judiciary of the state was made elective instead of appointive in 1852, when, as a Whig, he was not elected. He formed a partnership with John Brown Parker and enjoyed a successful practice in Carlisle. In 1869 he retired to one of his farms near Carlisle. For many years he had been a farmer as well as a lawyer and was well known as one who believed in the application of science to farming. He experimented in farm buildings and equipment and in breeds of livestock, and he encouraged agricultural fairs. In 1840 he had been instrumental in bringing about the trial of the McCormick reaper in Pennsylvania. His prominence as a farmer led to his election as president of the Pennsylvania state agricultural society. As president of the state society he was successful in putting through the legislature in 1854 a charter for a Farmers' High School, which developed into the Pennsylvania State College. He was the first president of the board of trustees. In 1871, at seventy years of age, he was appointed federal commissioner of agriculture by Grant. During his term the division of microscopy was established. He was apparently the first commissioner to give much attention to timber interests and obtained an appropriation for a forestry investigation that was the beginning of the forestry division organized several years later. At his suggestion the weather reporting work of the Smithsonian Institution was transferred to the signal service of the war department; and the Congress made an appropriation to collect and publish meteorological information for the benefit of agriculture. After his retirement on June 30, 1877, as commissioner of agriculture, he returned to Carlisle, where he remained till his death. He was buried in Carlisle.
In September 1827 he was married to Eliza Cranston, by whom he had three daughters. She died in 1832. In March 1835 he was married to Henrietta Edge, who, with five sons and one daughter, survived him.
