The Red Cloud chief., 1880-05-13
FAMOUS CENTENARIANS.

wen and Women who Have Lived
heyond the Allotted ~Span-Seyeral
hundred authenticated Cases OF
Persons Dying Over One Hundred
Years Of Age.
HE believers in the venerable Count
ess OF Desmond, in Old Parr, and in
Henry Jenkins, have within the last
lew years received many rude shocks 10
their faith. Mr.. Th0ms, the we'll
known English statistician, has more
recently investigated the subject al
great length and with unwearied ASST
duity- 1t Is unnecessary, even if pos
Side To detail, even to enumerate the
recorded instances Of people who have
exceeded the age of one hundred
years. They are TO be reckoned liter
ally by hundreds. To show how numer-
Gus are these stories, it may suffice 10
Say that III the early part of the present
century a volume was published con-
tanning the names of more than 800
persons who had claimed to be CEN
tenarlans, or for whom a claim was set
up by others. The compiler was i'm no
wise particular; he accepted all the fish
that came into his net. He went up to
nine score years in his enumeration
anu was apparently quite willing to be-
iieve any story OF a observation-disclosures
old phenomenon.
There are three eases concerning
whom a few words NAV be given.
namely, Parr, jenkins and the Countess
OF Desmond. Thomas Parr. according
10 the popular account, was born in
1855; remained a bachelor till eighty
years of age; married in 1868; lost his
wife IN 1895; married again i'm 1908;
ana ilved To see the yea 1856. I'm that
year the Earl of Arundel visited him.
and was SO struck by his venerable an
pearance as to invite him to his town
mansion. Parr was brought by easy
stages TO London, where he became
quite the lion of the season. Charles
L. requested To see him, and asked
whether. rs he had lived so much
longer than other men, he had expert |
cnced and known more in proportion.
"Ies, your Majesty" replied the old
man; II did penance at the are of
100. This penance was for some pee
cadillo he had committed. The veteran |
:ound the excitement of London too
much for him; the fatigue, the crowd
ing of visitors who came to see him
n the unwonted luxury of his diet
carried him off at the wonderful age of
152.
Henry jenkins, according TO the
popular account, was born in 1901. |
When a boy he carried q horse load of
arrows TO Northallerton, { o be en-
ployed by the English soldiers in resist
ing the invasion of James ". of Scot
land, and he lived TO see the year 1870, |
when he died at Ellerton-upon-SwaIe
at tho naryalnrS ana nf 1GQ |
The Countess of Desmond is reputed
TO have been born about 1864 and to
have lived on till about 1904, attaining
the age of one hundred and forty. No
other very aged person has attracted as
much notice as she. Bacon. in his
Natural History" said that she Ibid
dentire twice or thrice, casting her old
teeth and others coming in their
place" Sir Walter Raleigh stated
that she was married in Edward Tvs
time. and he himself saw her i'm 1889.
Sir William Temple wa told a similar
account by Robert, Earl of Leicester.
Numerous minor incidents of her life
have been recorded.
Though still credited by many be-
levers in extreme longevity, there are
others who thoroughly disbelieve in its
possibility-or at any rate, probability.
Their grounds of unbelief are varied.
i'm the first place, most of the alleged
instances occur in the humber grades
of society, where registers and formal
entries are but little attended TO; the
middle and upper classes, among whom
authentic records are more plentiful,
occupy comparatively small parts in
theSe narratives.
Sometimes tombstones are rechiseled
TO restore the half obliterated inscrip-
ton, and then the village stonemason,
puzzled by some of the partly obliterated
figures and letters, makes a guess at
them and puts in the age OF date which
seems I o him the best Interpretation.
There is. or was, a tombstone in Con-
way Churchyard, England, recording
the fact that Lowry Owens Vaughan
died in 1776 at the Q of 1872, and that
her husband, William Vaughan, died in
l735 at the age of ~. If this were so.
the lady must have been nearly 100
years old at her marriage. As the fig
nres on the stone have been found on
careful examination to be comparatively
Freshly cut, it is supposed that 1872 was
An inaccurate recruiting of an earlier in
rision. Some instances of this kind are
most ludicrous. A tombstone i'm Cleve .
Prior Churchyard records the death of
q person at the astounding age of 500!
This is supposed to be a country mason's
way of denoting SO, that is, 30 and nine.
Several years ago the register of Shore
ditch Parish contained an entry relating ,
to Thomas Cam, who died in 1888, at :
the age of 207, having lived in the reigns
of twelve sOvereigns. As Sir Harry
Ellis, in his History of S~horeditch,"
put down the age at 107, the register
examined. 1t was found hat it had !
been altered too rather recently, posi- :
bly some wag who wished to poke fun :
at the antiquaries. I,
Instances of the following kind are :
known to have occurred. "A young :
married couple have a son whom they :
name (say) John, who dies in infancy; /.
twenty wears afterward another son re- !
ceives the same name. and then, in :
neighbors' gossip long afterward, the :
John becomes confused with the /,
nther. and a man really eighty years old !
figures in popular estimation as a GEN. !:
Many aged persons, it is J
worthy of remark, like to be considered !.
older than they really are, on account :
of the celebrity it gives them. AMeth- Y
odist local preacher who had been in =
turn a farmer, a soldier and n dock !.
laborer, was wont to claim the age OF !,
"over a hundred years." he drew great .
crowds to hear such a phenomenon q
preach. He was probably sincere in his
belief concerning his age, and at his
death it was recorded at 108; but v
a subsequent investigation showed that S
he was much less instead of more than n
100.
In his capacity Of editor of Notes and