WATT, PATRICK (1814-1869)

WATT, PATRICK, retail merchant; bap. Fintray parish, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 7 Jul 1814, s/o George Watt and Jane Young; m. 1846, Agnes Mitchell, sister of Peter Mitchell; d. 6 Sep 1869.

Patrick Watt apprenticed in the dry-goods business in Aberdeen before coming to the Miramichi with his parents, who settled in North Esk parish around 1830. For some years after the family's arrival he worked as a clerk for George Henderson and Thomas C. Allan, retail merchants in Newcastle. In 1847 he started a business of his own in Allan's store. He was successful as a general merchant, and in 1867 opened a large new store in Newcastle which stocked a wide variety of goods. A minor public office which he occupied in the 1860s was that of commissioner for taking bail and affidavits in the Supreme Court of New Brunswick.

When Watt died in 1869, at age fifty-five, he was succeeded in business by his son William Watt, who was less than twenty years of age. William, and later he and his younger brother George, as W. & G. Watt, operated the store for approximately ten years, until it was destroyed by fire. William Watt was the original owner of the 'Old Manse', which he built in 1879 and sold to the trustees of St James Presbyterian Church the following summer as a residence for the family of the Rev. William Aitken.