The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1869-10-07
TaIes, SketeBes, 9netOotes, '&t.
a CENTURY OLD AND UPWARD.

is there any person moro than hun
dred years old The very statement of
such a question seems absurd for we are
no more in the habit of doubling this fact
than that Daniel Lambert was very fat,
or General Tom Thumb very short. And
yet this question has been propounded, in
connection with a doubt whether there is
any conclusive evidence of a person having
oyeglived one hundred years
A book was published about the begin
ming Of the present century, containing no.
tices Of more than seventeen hundred per-
sons reputed te have lived to the age of
hundred or upwards but the author was
so indisposed to cautious inquiry, that we
will dismiss him altogether. We will
gather few instances from chronicles,
obituaries, and registers of various kinds,
sufficient TO show the general nature of the
belief on this subject. Leaving untouched
The decade between 100 and ITO, we will
start from the last named date, and so
travel oEwards.
Popular statements assign the age of
no TO John Locke, who was baptized in
1716, when three years old, and buried
at Larling, in Norfolk, in 1924; to an
old woman at Ennisk illen, who was born
in 1854, and was alive in 1864, and to
Mary Ralphson, who followed her soldier
husband to the wars in the time of George
H., fought by his side in the uniform of a
wounded dragoon who had fallen close to
her, and died in 1903, at Liverpool
Then there was Betty Roberts, who was
born at Northrop, in Fiintshire, in l749,
and was living at Liverpool in 1889, with
brisk young fellew of 80 as her son.
| The age of Ill has been claimed for John
| Craig, who fought at Sheriffmuir in 1715,
and died at Kilrarnock in 1893 and for
| Rev. Richard Lufkin, who died at Ufford,
in Suffolk, in 1876, and who preached "A
sermon the very Sunday before his death.
Concerning the age of 112, there was
Toney Proctor, who was negro servant to
an English officer at Quebec so far back
| as 1859, and yet lived to see the year
| 1861 But more curious instance was
that which was connected with a conviv-
al meeting held at a tavern in London, in
1888, TO celebrate the centenary of the
Revolution of 1858. An old nam said he
was 1l2 years old, and remembered the
Revolution as having occurred when he
was lad OF course his convives chair
ed him in triumph. The age of 1l3 is
claimed for Michael BoyRe, who died at
Armagh, in 1776 Mrs. Gillian, who
died in Aldersgate Street, in l76l a man
i'll whose memory tombstone was put
up in Roche Abbey Church in 1884, and
Ha nd
Patrick Machell Vivian, Vicar of Lesbury,
near Ainwick, who was born in 1546,
and wrote letter in 1867 (when III
years old). in which he said, 81 was never
of a fat, but a slender, mean habit of
BODY" If we want evidence of the age
of ia, we are referred to tombstone in
Mucross Abbey, Killarney, which bears
the epitaph, Erected by Daniel Shine,
in memory of his father, Owen Shine,
who departed this life April 9th, 1847,
aged ia years"
We now go on to another group of five
years. What say the advocates of 1l5?
Nothing that we need dwell upon here;
but among those for whom have been
claimed the age of 116 years, we find
Robert Pooles, who died at Tyross, in
Armagh, in 1742, and John Lyon, whose
death took place at Bandon, in 1761.
David Kerrison, soldier of the Ameri>
can Revolution, died at Albany, in 1852,
at the age of 1T. John Riva, a stock
broker, died in 177l, at the age of 118,
having been accustomed to walk to his
office until within a few days of his death
and if the Parish register of Irthlngton,
in Northumberland, is to be relied upon,
of similar age was Robert Bowman, when
he died in 1929. In hospital at Moss
COW. there was an old man, who was wont
to say that he enlisted in the Russian
army in the time of Peter the Great if
so, he could hardly been less than 119 at
the time when an American traveller visi-
ted him, few years ago. Mr. Sneyd,
in 1858, saw gaunt, large-limbed. ex-
ceedingly wrinkled old woman at Lansle>
bourg, in Savoy, who said she was born
in 1714, and remembered events that
took place in 1921.
When we come to ages between 120
and $50, we must not expect the instances
to be very numerous but let US jot down