The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1884-10-03
PEOPLE WHO LIVE LONG.
FACTS OF INTEREST ABOUT HUMAN
LONGEVITY.
Some Instances of Persons who Have
Lived to an Extreme Old Age
soldier Centenarians.

A letter to the Boston Advertiser con-
tains some interesting information about
persons who have lived much longer than
the biblical allotment of seventy years.
Says the writer;
While fully agreeing with the general
conclusion of your article on longevity,
viz, that there is a tendency to exagger-
ate the age of old persons, and that there
are fewer centenarians than most people
suppose. think you judge in an extreme
of skepticism in making 105 years the
outside authenticated limit. The late
Sir George Cornewall Lewis actually
doubted that any man or woman had
ever reached 100 years. Mr.. Thorne ap-
pears at first to have conceded with him,
but the case of Lady Smith, who reached
105, and other indisputable instances, led
him to advance his figure to half de-
cade beyond the century.
think there are numerous thoroughly
authenticated instances of considerably
greater longevity. The late William
Thomas, of Plymouth, recently the oldest
surviving graduate of Harvard college,
was fond of relating in his old age how
on the list of January. 1900, being then
in his eleventh year, he visited with
several ministers, in attendance at an
ordination, Ebenezer Cobb, lifelong
resident of the town, who remembered
Peregrine Whites funeral in 1903, as
we'll as he might, having been born in
1894. He survived until September,
1901, being 1919 years at his death. He
was a respectable citizen of town
whose records were kept and neighbors
abundant, and there could be no doubt
as to his age. In 1878 pauper-a bed
ridden and bitterly idiotic woman-died
in the Dayton CO., poorhouse, mfr
mary, as is the more euphonistic or West
ern term. She had been there forty one
years, and her age was reported at seven
ty-six when she was admitted. There
was no motive for deception or exagge
ration in 1887. If no mistake was made
she was III at her decease, and even if a
decade be struck of by way of caution,
she must have been 107.
A few years ago General II. V. Boyn-
ton furnished me, by request, trans
cript from the pension bureau giving the
ages at which various revolutionary SOL
diers and their widows had died. In
fortunately it is not just now at hand,
but it recorded several deaths of persons
in their centenarian teens" of one. if
/ remember rightly, who had reached
121, and of quite number ranging from
100 to 10 years. The pension bureau
requires clear proof of service and of
continued life. If there was deception
in one or two of these cases there could
not be in all, and there could be no mo-
tive for pensioners to exaggerate their
age at the time of being put on the rolls.
Mrs. Angelina Podesta, native Of
Italy, died in 1878, aged 1O9 OF her
extreme age no one who saw her could
doubt. Her eyes had that hazy, far off
look characteristic of ccntenarians and
monogenarians. Her son, who was not
quite sure of her exact age, sent to her
birthplace, and the Latin document,
duly attested by the parish priest,
declared that her baptism took
place on January ~, 1869. l saw her
when she was past 100. Her bodily
strength was sufficient to allow her to
dance at the annual balls of the Italian
residents of Cincinnati up to nearly the
time of her death but she was mentally
quite childish
" Master" Sullivan, the father of tie
general and the first American ancestor
of the well-known Massachusetts, and
New Hampshire families, is credited with
dying in 1896, aged 105. Mrs. East.
man, mother of Judge Joel Eastman, the
distinguished citizen of Coos County,
n. H., died in 1867, aged 1O5 years and
six months. AS she was one of the little
school girls who discovered in 1868 the
buried infant of the teacher, Ruth Blay
who was hanged because Sheriff
Packer would not wait for Governor
Wentworth's reprieve to arrive-there
can be no doubt as to her real longevity.
l might make the list considerably
longer, but must content myself with re-
ferring to the account of Samuel WEIGH.
OF Bow, n. H., recorded in the second
volume of Farmer and Moore's Histori.
cal Collection of New Hampshire. WEIGH
died April 5, 1923, and Messrs. Farmer
and Moore visited him about a wear be-
fore. He was then in his 112th year.
If the public records Of his birthplace,
Kingston, n, H., are correct, he was
born February -, I'LL, though he in
sisted that he was born the September
previous, the time when his father re-
quested the record to be made having
been inserted as that of the birth itself.
His mind was clear when he was seen by
the two eminent antiquaries. They con-
versed with him at length and we refer
the doubling to the detail of the inter-
view.
1t is true, as you say, that no gradu-
ate of Harvard has ever attained 1903
years. Yale has been favored with fewer
centenarian alumni than Harvard, but
one of these few reached 1O3. Iu 1857
there were living graduates of Dart
mouth, all Presbyterian and Congrega-
tiOnal ministers, Rev. John Sawyer, of
Maine, aged 1O2 years; Rev. Laban
Ainsworth, seventy-fve years minister of
Jaffrey N. H.-the longest pastorate, 1
think, on record and preceded by a year
Of supply aged 100; Rev. Ethan
Osborne, of New Jersey, ninety eight,
and Rev. Zachariah Greene, of Hemp
stead, L. l., aged ninety-seven. Before
1858 had ended all were dead Mr.. Saw
yer at 103, Mr.. Ainsworth at 100 and
some months, Mr.. Osborne at ninety
nine and Mr. (,raana