Alida Wynkoop was born in 1772. She was the daughter of Manhattan merchant/skipper Jacobus Wynkoop and his wife Anna Koens Myers. Her family left New York City for Albany during the American Revolution. She grew up in Albany's third ward in a house near her father's boatyard.

By the mid 1790s, she had married Jonathan Eights, a young physician and the son of one of sailmaker Abraham Eights - one of her father's business associates. Their small family included two daughters and a son.

Dr. Eights set up his practice in his home at 92 North Pearl Street. Alida lived there for the rest of her life.

Jonathan Eights died in 1848 - ending more than fifty years of marriage. Alida died in May 1849 at the age of seventy-seven.

first posted: 6/30/01