Benjamin Wynkoop (274)

Benjamin Wynkoop (23 November 1734–2 September 1803) was a merchant and public officeholder, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1768. Wynkoop was born in Sussex County, Delaware, the son of a goldsmith who had relocated from New York. Records of his youth begin when he served as a captain for the local county militia in 1759. By 1762, after serving in the Assembly the previous year, Wynkoop struck out to Philadelphia and opened a store with Thomas Fisher to sell what early Philadelphians wanted: rum, sugar, coffee, and chocolate among other groceries. A few years later Wynkoop relocated to Water Street to open his own store followed by starting a household in 1767 when he married Sarah Woodrop Sims. Together the couple had eight children, though only four survived past childhood. Wynkoop’s family continued to grow with his sisters’ marriages to APS Members John Vining and Dr. Charles Ridgely. During the American Revolution, Wynkoop appears to have kept as much as a distance as possible from the tumult: he even refused to act as security to effect his Quaker’s cousin's release from jail. Throughout his life he supported educational and benevolent causes including the College of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Hospital, the Prison Society, and the Corporation for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of Clergyman. Wynkoop’s real passion, however, was inventions and new ventures: he donated to the Silk Society, received subscriptions for the construction of an air balloon, and invested in James Rumsey’s steamboat. Still a merchant at heart, he was always interested in how these ventures could yield monetary profits and so was crushed when his own “nautical improvement,” a device that would help circulate air in ships, failed to yield a return that would “cradle” him in his “declining years.” His wife, and all four children, survived him after his death in 1803. (PI)