SNGF: Two Degrees of Separation

I’ve had too many irons in the fire lately with projects genealogy- and other-wise, but I can never resist Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun. Randy recently presented the following mission:
Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with two degrees of separation?  That means "you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor."  When was that second ancestor born?
I have only one great-grandparent that was alive when I was born. It’s been said that I saw her but I sure don’t remember. She, unfortunately, would probably not have known even her grandparents, though. So I could only get back to her father who was born in the Netherlands in 1859.
In several instances I can get to a grandparent who knew a grandparent:
I knew my grandmother Theresa Katsma, who knew her grandfather Martin Katsma born in the Netherlands in 1851.
I knew my grandfather C.B. Watts, who knew his grandfather George Richard Watts, born in 1839, who participated in the Civil War.
I knew my grandmother Amy Hardy, who was raised by her grandmother, Martha Sizemore Hardy, born in 1835.
Martha Sizemore Hardy (1835-1915)

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