Elkanah Watson
Elkanah Watson was born in January 1758. He was the son of Elkanah and Patience Mendon Watson of Plymouth, Massachusetts. In 1773, he was apprenticed to a Providence merchant. After the outbreak of hostilities in 1775, he served the Revolutionary cause as a courier for George Washington and others. 
During the war years, he traveled up and down the Atlantic coast on Revolutionary business. In 1779, he was sent to France with dispatches for Benjamin Franklin. Wartime travels in Europe and America provided fuel for his memoirs. While in France, he became a prominent merchant. After the war, he returned to the United States and lived for a time in North Carolina. However, he failed to prosper in the West India trade.
In March 1789, he married Rachel Smith of Norton, Massachusetts. In March 1790, their twin daughters were christened at St. Peter's Episcopal church.
Following his marriage, he settled in Albany. In 1789, he advertized in the newspaper that he offered for sale "fish, liquor, coookeryware" at his Martket Street address. Rather quickly, he became a prominent businessman, land speculator, promoter of public works, and one of the founders of the Bank of Albany. His passion for internal navigation (canals) was shared by important Albany personages including General Philip Schuyler.
By 1800, he had re-located his operations to a large new home near the waterfront in the first ward. In 1807, Watson left Albany to raise Merino sheep on his farm at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. During those years, he continued to travel and was involved in promoting county agricultural fairs.
In 1816, he again was living in Albany with an address listed in the city directory of "474 Washington Avenue." His wife died in 1818. In 1828, he moved again - settling down on the banks of Lake Champlain. There, he authored a number of often-cited works on agricultural and economics topics. His son, Winslow C. Watson, carried on Elkanah's work - most notably with Men and Times of the Revolution, or Memoirs of Elkanah Watson; including Journals of Travels in Europe and America from 1777 to 1842; with his Correspondence with Public Men, and Reminiscences and Incidents of the Revolution (New York and London, 1855). That work memorialized his father's dedication to developing the resources of the new United States.
Elkanah Watson died in Port Kent, New York in December 1842. He had lived more than seventy-four years.
Although he actually lived in Albany for only about two decades, his dedication to improvement had a profound effect on the city's development. In banking, education, and public works, Elkanah Watson stood in the front rank of the agents of change during the late eighteenth-early nineteenth centuries.
Sources:
The life of Elkanah Watson is CAP biography number 6835.
This sketch is derived chiefly from
family
and community-based resources. The main body of his papers are housed at the New York StateLibrary.
Portrait by John Singleton Copley, 1782. Many online sources. Another portrait, an engraving, by John Wesley Paradise, is often encountered in print and online.