Five of her seven brothers died in the year 1854, and she traveled to the United States in 1856 to claim an inheritance from one of their estates;[1] she worked as a table maid for a wealthy American family during her stay.
[4] According to the case notes of the Aberdeen Royal Asylum at Cornhill, Watt was first admitted on 15 November 1877 with the diagnosis of "mania".
[4] She remained there for the rest of her life, working, on day releases, in the laundry building at Cruden Bay Hotel.
These memoirs tell the story of her own life and the history of her family, which included members of the local minor nobility.
[4] Her writings were published posthumously as The Christian Watt Papers, edited by her descendant David Fraser, in 1983.
[7] However, the style resembles that of other memoirs by less-educated writers, and the use of pencil accords with the fact that asylum patrons were forbidden the use of pens.