Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1858-01-23
miscellaneous.
from the Home JOufhnl.
a CENTENARIAN
necnmhcr q. 1857

DEAR MoRRIs: a remark was quoted to me
yesterday, made 10y II very old woman-Mfs: fGhy
Wood, aged one hundred md three, who died, DAY
before yesterday, at Canterbury, u mile troni lule'
wild-aud | record it to show you how compare,
tive age is, after all, and what Juveniles may stlil
be at sixty. A daughter of her own died ut me
age Of sixty-three, when the ola woman was eiGu'J
i've. The daughter, who. herself, had chiIuren
and grand %cbildr5n, was lald OUT III u ruohi VI '"o
cottage where half a dozen Of this fourth genera
ton were PLAYING around the dror. But, to the
great grandmother, (who had still almost twenty
years to liye) this woman OF only uireescUre years
seemed to have died very rrematurely. An
said she, rs she stood and looked ut tue corpse, ~
ing ia is shruud, Il always told my husband we
never should rear hsr-she was such u aehcate
child ~
But | must 90 back an hour or tive in my history
OF the days experiences.
Taking my morning look at the Storm King, out
Of a front window. Yesterday, / was surprised to
see my ull friend Turrcy, the blacksmith, coming
over the lawn, clad in the slouched hat anu patch'
trousers Of the shop. a visit, ut all, ut that lh'
dustrious hour. was a little uncohlmoh' but an e,
rand so pressing that he had only time to take MI
his leather apron before hurrylhS uo"u u see me-
must be something remarkable -,
Enter Turrey, wiping the sweat from his bald
head, and putting on his hat again as lie sat down
in the easy chair.
To sun up bis business:
Polly Wood made her Granddaughter promise
tuuI Nv uuulu I W DN''
was her one diving request-"she wanted to be
buried espectable"-and Torrey, (who is every
body's friend in extremity had lett his work 10
collect the money. lie had got ten dollars ana
wanted two more. Ard, this special orrand com
municated, my friend was, as usual, ready for a.
half hour of his original and agreeable gossip
though with the disadvantage ia considerable one,
to him of not having his hammer and anvil with
which to EN- phaslze. i
The excited blacksmith had first to let off steam
.. r ,sn,phnl RruyO' Ia 'tlnt |
grandmother of her'n"-und though the eulogium
came from AN un.crayarcd ana bare throat, and
lungs across which WAS buttoued Ohl! the cheapest
kind of IL gingham shirt, ! have seldom heard any
thing more aifectingly eloquent. can only give II
You in brief. however. they were poor, Polly aud
ctand daughter, tut they were SO proud 1t was
awkward giving them anything and, in fact his
Town folks" only found out when they were suffer
ing by Cooking in pretty often hachei mas
maintained her grandmother by her own iaOOr,
for ten or twelve years vi late she mas peeu
the servant of all work TO q family in the village:
and. with her wages and her own personal atten'
lion, she has kent this venerable and bed ridden
relative, with what comfort she could command, IN
q cottage near by the place where she was employ
ed. But the double duty has been hard Inc
fires in her mistre, SIS house were to be lighted very
early in the morning, and before starting for this
bepinnlng of her DAYS work, the old woman's fire
was to be kindled in the stove, and her breakfast
got, and she was to be lifted in and out while her
bed was made, so that she could be lett pretty
much alone and unattended to, till noon. Once or
twice in the day, Rachel could run over for a MN
ute or two, but her work kept her till late in the
evening. and il was very hard to 'see enough to
the old woman"-to gather chips and split wood
and keep her fire going and cook Tor Ter and dress
her. And, with the care OF her IN this last SICK
ness, the girl is so completely exhausted, that, from
the moment her grandmother died, her own tie to
life seems to have given way. and she has been
lying almost senseless Oh lie bed. The doctor,
who has been in to see her, says he doubts whether
she will ever get up again.
(Su,h are the "slde scenes IN our Crama Oh lie
dear Morris
But the life of Polly Wood, the deceased centen.
arian, (who was a young woman when General
Washington rode past ldlewild every day-the
army quartercd along The river and the old town
of Canterbury where she lived, a mile back
through the woods has a point or two Of interest
1t appears that she was the mother of the iusus
nature, 80 well known to the public some years
ago, a person born lcith all has limbs turned back
soards. This son, (whose knee pans were on
the tho baok Of his legs, SO that he knelt reversely,
aod whose hands and elbows were similarly in
yeried,) was like all her descendants, singularly in
telligent. lie lived to forty years Of age, and, but
for his improyidence and habits Of intemperance,
might have accumulated quite q competency by
his exhibition Of himself. His mother ascribed
his mallurmOtion to her getting a severe fall while
out "berrying" on the side Of the Storm King
mountain, n few months before his birth.
Under the shadow of the Storm King, Polly
Wood was born, and she has some Indian blood in
her veins. Her husband, q farmer with a hundred
acres of land, died twenty or thirty years ago
and with the final sale of the gradually reduced
property, she became dependant on her unmarried
grandchild, Rachel, who had conceived for her q
most tender and devoted affection. They lived
together, proud, poor and accomplishing, in their
little cottage and, but for the necessity of the de-
voted girls working cut Tor 4 livelihood, the neigh
bors would have had no communication with them,
They suficed for each other. Some four years ago
Turrey found out by accident that Rachel's work
had failed her, and that they were shut up, almost
starved and frozen, in their unvisited and humble
abode. With his usual sledge hammer directness,
he went into the street. and stopped the n~eighbors
as they CHANGED to cume along, insisting on having
"a dollar anyhUw-and no use to talk about it,
and, with this tax levied LAS | have heard it des-
cribed) with an earnest that would make the dol
lars perspire out of any man. pocket" be collect
ed enough to relieve them.
Confined to her he'd as she had been for many
years, and living on a back street of the village, !
had never seen Polly Wood but, exceedingly in
terested in TorreY's account Of her, now, | awaited
myself of his access to the cottage, while making
arrangements for the funeral and accompanied
him to have the privilege of looking on a corpse 81
venerable.
The sickness of the living and slumber of the
dead were close together! Upon her bed, in the
little room which We first entered lay Rachel, the
Economically devoted grand daughter, lost. appar-
eDtly, for the moment, in a sleep of deathly ex.
haustiou. The gale and hollow cheek, resting in
her hand upon the pillow, looked very little as il
q ! twould ever show life again. Her soiled and
crumpled cap and disheveled hair told a story o.
seit-forgetiuiness, but they enclosed features anC
expression of which an artist would have made
study. Torrcy had told me that she showed NOR,
of the Indian blood than her grand mother anC
there was certainly the almost copper sallowness .
of complexion and high cheek bones but the othe
features we're so clearly lined and SO full of char
acter that the Indian expression-usually a some
,. what stOlid One-was not there. She was IA hard
working servant-woman Of thirty years of age
but with a face that seemed to me, as sb
lay sleeping, land perhaps dying on that neg
lected bed, the ideal of a heroic woman. Their
was the soul of a Florence Nightingale in that hum
BILE servant girl, or | am very much mistaken.
Ny tall friend, at home everywhere with hi
honesnun prav iapkat md his tronsars of nm