Alida Wynkoop was born in 1772. She was the last child born to the marriage of skipper and patriot officer 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 her Albany neighbor 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; updated 3/22/09