John Watkins (c.1720-1786)

He was born in Glamorganshire, South Wales. He became a merchant at St. Christopher's in the West Indies and then a shipping merchant in New York City. He purchased 140-acres on Harlem Heights just north of where his brother-in-law built Pinehurst. During the Revolution, he travelled back to Britain to look after the interests he had just inherited there, during which time his wife took her family to Paramus in New Jersey to be closer to her mother and sister. John and Lydia had six children, two girls and three boys who lived to adulthood. Their daughter, Lydia, married secondly James Beekman Jr., and lived at Mount Pleasant.