The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1873-02-22

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board facing 10 the exterior and libera
application Of whitewash to the inside il
wore a tolerably comfortable look. Soon
George entered with feeble step and
walked slowly, without any aid, to a viii
low-bottomed chair near the fire. He took
but very slight notice OF his visitors unti
his daughter, whose astonishing yyacity
at seyenty-six made us marvel quite as
much as did the far-reaching memory Of
her father, introduced us. He told Mr.
Brodhead that he did not know him, but
he was well acquainted with his gandfa,
ther and his great grandfather. He was
slow to talk at first, saying that he had q
touch OF the rheumatism, but he hoped to
shake II off when the warm weather set in
lie had never been sick but twice in his
life, aud then, as he observed, it was en-.
tirely due to his own indiscreton in Sleep
ing on damp ground out in the woods at
night.
AS he sat opposite to us in the chair he
presented unmistakable marks of extreme
age without the usual accompaniment Of
paralyzcd or impaired senses. His eve.
sight is as good as that Of the average Of
men of sixty. His hearing is slightly de.
fective and made il necessary for us to ad.
dress him in voice somewhat louder than
the ordinary conversational tone.
His memory of events prior to his one
hundredth year is singularly clear, though
the further back he reaches the more IN.
minous his recollections become. He is
not quite sure whether his friend Depui,
who was shot in the whiskey insurrcction
of lI9l, died on the spot or was removed
and fingered till the next day but he is
positive that he saw Washington wear but
one spur the day he road to the Oaks tay.
ern in Easton, in the spring Of l77T, lie
is positive about the length of the rockiish
he caught with line made out of horse
hair in the spring Of 1890. Along with a
companion named Van Campen he went
fishing down the Delaware, having previ,
ously stripped the tail Of a horse to make
the lines, and expecting good days sport
they carried with them two and hall
bushel bag. The first nibble was rock
fish, measuring two feet ten inches, and to
this day he cannot recall, without laughing
the funny appearance of that fish, with
his tail sticking out Of the bag. Think Of
man recalling such trifiug details of his
life after lapse of over eighty years
Sitting in the chair, this very old tussler
of Times appeared no more than four feet
high, though measuring full six feet in his
prime. He was bent almost double. His
blue eyes, though not without some lustre,
had weak and watery expression. His
teeth were long since gone. and his aaky
silver hair remained only at the back of
his head. There was color in his checks.
but his neck had much Of the dried, vel.
low aud shrivelled appearance of mum
my. His legs looked little larger then the
legs of the chair on which he sat, vet three
years ago, in his l12th year, he managed
to make them carry him distance of
eight miles. Two years ago he might
have been seen working in the woods cut
ting railroad ties, and about the same time
back he made a journey to Stroudsburg to
witness the execution of the murderer Of
Mr.. Brodhead, an uncle to my compan.
ion. The people at the Jail refused to
crafty the old mans curiosity. "But
don't you think they mights" his daughter
innoeently asked me, 'seeing he was so
old. Indeed" she continued, ''thcy might
at least have let father see'it, and think
it was real unkind after he went so far,
aud at his age!'
He could not recall the time when he
began to smoke and chew tobacco, but il
was certainly over hundred years ago.
He has continued the habit ever since.
"I am afraid he smokes too much" re-
marked his filial offspring, "and | am try
ing to break him of it." He has also
taken stimulants regularly, in the shape of
plain native whiskey; but he failed to
remember that he ever got drunk but
twice, the first occasion being the day he
went to Easton to see General George
Washington, and the second when he left
his old homestead at Mount Bethel, six
miles from here, and started West with his
father in the year 1908. George was
then fifty and his father eighty-fve. To
show the extraordinary stamina of this
family, the father, having lost his first wife,
took second when one hundred years old,
and lived to the age Of one hundred and
i've. Georges Grandfather, who died at
about an equally advanced age, came to
his country from France about the year
1880 He was Huguenot and man
If great physical strength and prowess.
George says he remembers his grandfather
telling of how he saw Louis XIV, at
iSeyres, passing in his gilded coach from
Paris to Versailles.
After we had been talking in an indif-
ferent kind Of a way for some little time
the old man took drink from the con
tents Of the ginger beer bottle, and re-
marked with a smack Of his lips, as he put
away the empty glass, q like that Yes,
yes In consideration Of his expressed
preference for the beverage We made over
to him the entire Of what remained with
out the smallest scriple Of conscience that
we were fastening his existence TO