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Catherine
Brooks Eights
Catherine Brooks was born in Albany in August 1749. She was the youngest of the three daughters of city residents Jonathan and Rebecca Tatten Brooks. Her parents settled on the "Southside" - the home of many Albany newcomers.
In
June 1770, she married recently arrived sailmaker
Abraham Eights at Albany's St. Peter's Church. Over
the next twenty-two years, that marriage produced
eleven children who were baptized in three Albany
churches.
 Catherine
made her home in a house her husband recently had
built on the Albany waterfront. Over the next half
century,Catherine
Eights raised her large family in the modest house
at what became 28 Dock Street - next to the Eights
sail yard. This production-class family was relatively
affluent - owning several parcels of land and having
several slaves to help out in the home and shop.
Catherine's
son and grandson further distinguished the Eights
name in nineteenth-century Albany. Patriarch Abraham
Eights died in 1820. His will left Catherine real
and personal property during her widowhood. Widow
Catherine Eights died in 1829 at age eighty.
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Notes: The life of Catherine Brooks Eights is CAP biography number 342. This profile
is derived chiefly from family and community-based
resources.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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