Elkanah Watson

Watson was entrusted with increasingly responsible projects and in 1778 at the age of 20, he carried $50,000 sewn into his clothes, to deliver to Brown's southern agents in Charleston, South Carolina.

After delivering the money, Watson set off with two companions to explore Georgia and Florida, and during this journey started keeping a journal, a practice which he maintained for decades.

During the American Revolutionary War, Watson carried Brown's dispatches overseas to statesman Benjamin Franklin in France, who was working to secure French support.

This territory was being plotted, sold and developed for the first time by European-American settlers, as the Iroquois League had been forced to cede most of their lands following their ally Britain's defeat in the American Revolution.

[4] Watson was on the board of the Bank of Albany, but was removed for his progressive ideas, including support of free schools, stage lines and turnpikes.

He founded the State Bank of Albany in 1803, which proved highly profitable, so much so that he retired within a few years to pursue agricultural interests.

John Singleton Copley , Elkanah Watson , 1782, in the Princeton University Art Museum . The ship in the background represents the departure to America of the acknowledgement of the independence of the United States. [ 1 ]