"An Illustrated History of Whitman County, state of Washington." San Francisco:
W. H. Lever, 1901.  p. 297.
 
JOSEPH E. CANUTT

     Among the earliest settlers of Whitman county and among the most highly
esteemed of its citizens is the man whose life history forms the subject of this
brief review. Mr. Canutt is a native of the west, the place of his birth being
Douglas county, Oregon, and the date 1859. His parents, Alexander and Sallie
Canutt, were farmers in that section of the Web-foot state, and on the parental
homestead he received his first lessons in the habits of industry, to which his
success in subsequent life is due. His educational advantages were only such as
the local public schools offered, but he made the most of his opportunities and
acquired a good common-school education.
     In 1872 he removed to Whitman county, where, as soon as he had attained his
majority, he went into the occupation which had engaged his earliest efforts,
timber culturing one quarter section and homesteading another.  His land is
located sixteen miles from Colfax, on the Penawawa creek. Unlike many Whitman
county farmers, he does not confine his energies to wheat raising, though he
produces about twenty-five hundred bushels of that cereal annually, but gives
much attention, to the rearing of cattle and horses and to the cultivation of
fruit. So successful as a fruit man has he been that he was selected to
superintend the fruit exhibit at the fair for three years.
     Throughout the many years of his residence in the Palouse country the
subject of our sketch has always so ordered his life and relations with his
fellow citizens as to win their respect and confidence, and he now enjoys the
inestimable advantage of being secure in their esteem. He has been summoned by
the franchises of the electors to fill offices of trust and emolument, and has
ever proved himself worthy of the confidence reposed in him. In 1898 he was
elected sheriff of the county, and for two years thereafter he discharged the
duties of that difficult office with his accustomed faithfulness and ability.
Since leaving his office he has engaged in the implement business under the firm
name of Canutt & Carter Implement Company, of Colfax, where he is doing a fine
business.
     In fraternal affiliations Mr. Canutt is identified with the I. O. O. F. and
the W. of W., belonging also to the woman's auxiliary in the latter
organization. His marriage was solemnized in Whitman county in 1884, when he and
Miss Ida Phillips became husband and wife. Mrs. Canutt is a native of Douglas
county, Oregon, and a member of an early pioneer family of this county, her
parents being the well-known L. D. and Mary Phillips. She and her husband have
had four children: Virgil B. and Volney A., living; and Val and an infant,
deceased.
 

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Submitted to the Washington Biographies Project in January 2010 by Diana Smith.
Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned
above.