Elkanah Watson, an American merchant, born in Plymouth, Mass., Jan. 22, 1758, died in Port Kent, N. Y., Dec. 5, 1842. At the age of 15 he was indentured to John Brown, a merchant of Providence, and at 19 was sent to Charleston and other southern ports with more than $50,000 to be invested in cargoes for the European markets. His journal, kept carefully on the route, is the best account we possess of the principal towns and villages of the colonies at the time of the revolution. In 1779, in partnership with Mr. Brown and others, he opened a commercial house at Nantes, France, and in 1784 returned to America. After spending four years in business in North Carolina, in 1789 he removed to Albany, N. Y., where for the next 18 years he was an active promoter of public enterprises, including the Oneida lake or Wood creek and Schenectady canal, the improvement of the navigation of the Hudson above Albany, the organization of stage routes west, and the advancement of education. In 1816 he organized the first agricultural society in the state of New York. In 1828 he removed to Port Kent, on Lake Champlain. He published a history of the New York canals (Albany, 1820), and of agricultural societies; and an abstract of his journals, including an unfinished autobiography, was edited by his son, Winslow C. Watson (" Men and Times of the Revolution," New York and London, 1855; 2d ed., illustrated, 1856).