The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1878-03-20
WEDNESDAY, MARCH go, 1878.
We're sIr. Edwards and mrs: CEn;
Ger one Hundred Years Old
SShen They Died?

showing how decided is this tendency We
may reiert to an editorial in Monday even
ipsis Pittsburgh Leader expressing some
doubts whether there is a thoroughly
we'll attested case on record Of a human
being having attained the age Of one
hundred years. We quote from II" edi-
torial as follows; .
@Well.read people will not need 10 be-
told OF the recent wide spread doubts oil
scientific men whether any human being
sy.r lived TO be 100 years old; will remem:
her how a gentleman Of fortune and
leisure in England made It his business
for Seyeral years to hunt down the news.
paper accounts Of people over Q hundred
years old; how, in every case, he proved
from parish REGISTERS and searching IN
vestigaions that the claim WA false; hoT,
he offered q reward for the discovery Of
a genuine %centennarian; and how finally
he was able TO write a book in which he
maintained that there was no clear anu
undoubted case Of q man or woman IN
England living to be n hundred years
old.
We believe that since this book was
written there have been . very few cen
tenarians found. We believe there 10 or
was Mt least one in this country, Capt.
Lshrbush, Of New York. We believe
there may be more. But 1t is quite car
tain they do not grow in every bush or
live in every locallty; and certain, 100
that they must undergo rigorous investi'
CATION and croSs.examination before they
will be accepted by h%escientifc world.
This article from the Leader is similar
in tone to one that appeared IN the New
York World a year or two before the
death Of Michael Edwards. Of Mounds
willie, 10 which the WoHdiscredited, even
more decidedly than the Leader, the relia.
bili.y Of the evidence as to the age Of
such persons.
In the nature of things the age of q
csn.enafian is generally hard to prove
with eractuess. It cannot be proved by
living witnesses, and records are always
open to thssuspicion Of being tempered
with. Andy yet there were facts in the cases
otboth Mr.. Edwards and Mrs. Cfuger that
placed each age abovel a hundred years
beyond reasonable doubt. For instance.
MI. Edwards was a member Of a fire
company at York, Pa, his native place,
as far back az the closing years of the
last century, and its minutes show
where he mad been fined for absence from
roll call. Inasmuch as he did not die
until 1875, and inasmuch as be must
have been a youth we'll up in his teens
10 have served several years in a fire
company in The last century, the proba'
abilities are very strong that he was a
hundred years old when he died. What
strengthens these probabilities is the fact
that he not only learned his trade, as a
gupsmith, in York, but worked in that
place as a jOurneyman for some time
afterward.
II was we'll known to Mr.. Edwards
children, as told to them by both thei:
father and mother, that he did not marry
until we'll along in life, and inasmuch as
the ages Of the children were il keeping
with this statement there could be no
room to doubt 1t. And, in addition to all
this, there were old people in and around
Washington, Pa, and also Wheeling,
who remembered Mr.. Edwards as an old
man when they were comparatively
young. He was still alive when they
themselves were known as old people.
Much Of the same sort OF evidence aP'
plies to the case Of Mrs. Cruger. She
was the vile Of Moses Shepherd, who, as
his books showed, kept a store at the
Forksot Wheeling Creek for some years
back in thelast century, when the coun.
~ seat Of Ohio county was at West Lib
erty. She did not die until 1867, and al.
lowing her to have been twenty.dveysar
old when her husband was a merchant in
1905, tits altogether probable that she
was a hundred when she died.
We talked with Mr.. Edwards as late as
1875, and he remembered Mrs. cruger
far back in his life, when she was
several years his senior, and long before
she became Mrs. Cruger. There are old
people still living in Wheeling who re-
member Mrs Cruger in their youth as an
old lady.
We have ignored up to this point the
evidence Of both Mr.. Edwards and Mrs.
oruser as to their own ages. We have
heard Mr.. Edwards say that he voted for
Gen. Warrington Tor President. Now
whether this was at the frat or second
election OF Washington, in 1850 or 1898,
matters little as regards It's bearing on
The probability that he was at least a hun.
bred yea4s old when he died in 1875. He
claimed to have been born in 1867, and
TO have remembered when the news
Of the Declaration Of Independence was
brought TO York. According to this he
was in his Tooth year when he died.
Mrs. cruger, as we all know, claimed
to have been in Fort Henry in 1777, and
her evidence is quoted by De Hass in
settlement Of the controversy as to wheth.
er ii was Mollie Scott or Elizabeth Zane
who carried the powder. There is no
reason to doubt that she was in the fort
at the time named. She lived here all
her life, and all the surroundings Of her
early life point to the reasOnableness Of
the supposition that she was in the fort
at the time named. As q member Of the
Wheeling community where else would
she have been7
We take 1t for granted that 1t would
be next to impossible for any person who
had alwsyslived IN the community who're
they died. to palm OF a serious discrep-
ancy as 10 age on those who had known
them for forty and City years prior to
L Mt.