The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1885-07-30
L~oNG.LlyEp PEOPLE
Features of a Classified Record of len Thou
sand Centeharians.

49, WY kAtS AbCooS
dent to The New York Tribune, is about
to publish a book entitled '.TAe
Encyclopedia of Human Longevity"
which is the result of thirty-eight
years of investigation on his part. The
book will contain an authentic record
of a large number of people, men and
women, who have attained the age of
100 years or more. The only excep-
ton to this is the case of a man who
died at the age of SO wears and 364
days, and whom MIR. Perkins regards
as virtually a c~entenarian. The book
will represent an immense amount of
labor and research, and it's author be-
lieves that it may be relied on as &C.
curate in every instance.
II have," said Mr.. Perkins, speaking
of his book, 'more than 10, 900 in
stances of people VINO have lived 100
wears and more. These names have
been gathered from every part of the
globe. This country leads in longevi-
ty, and Connecticut is at the front
among the United States. In that
state l have gathered statistics In re-
gard to more than 5000 persons who
were more than 80 years of age, and
of this number 20 were beyond the
century limit. AS regards sex the
majority of these 10, 700 ce~ntenarians
were women. l account for this by
the fact, that they lead less irregular
lives than men. / have instances of
so old maids who come up to my cen-
fury standard, and only II bachelors.
AS regards occupation L find that sail
ors, soldiers, and farmers are the
longest lived. Among the professions
l have the instances of 100 ministers
who lived to 100 years and more, while
I could find only 80 doctors, 10 law
yers, and 10 actors who came up to
the standard. l can find no case
among my 1000 of a newspaper man
who has lived to be 100 years old.
Newspaper men do so much brain
work that they die young"
Coming to special instances, Mr..
Perkins added: among the oldest
people in the United States we're Flora
Thompson, a negress of Nashua, N. c.,
who died at the age of $50 years; Betsy
Frautham, a native of Germany, who
died in Tennessee at the age of 154
years, and Sins, a slave, who died in
Virginia, $50 years old. / have the
cases of ten persons who lived in safe
ty for one hundred years and then
burned to death. In Onondaga coun-
tv l have the sketches of fifty centena-
rians. Among them is Rev. Daniel
Waldo, who died in 1864 at the age of
nearly 102 years. For more than
sixty years he vas Il clergyman in the
Presbyterian church, and on the an
niyersary of his Tooth birthday he
preached a sermon in the First Presby-
terrain church of Syracuse. The last
six pensioners of the Revolutionary
war were centenarians, and l have
their photographs. Then there was
John Weeks, of New London, Conn,
who married his tenth wife when he
was LOG years of age and she only'16.
He died at the age of ia. His gray
hairs had fallen off and they were re-
newed by a dark growth of hair.
Several new teeth had also made their
appearance, and a few hours before
his death he ate three pounds of pork,
two or three pounds of bread, and
drank a pint of wine. Nicholas
Schathcowski, of Posen, was another
old fellow. He deposed on oath be-
fore the council of Constance, A. ID.
1414, that he was $50 years of age, and
that his father, whose age at the time
of his death was nearly 200, could re-
member the death of the first king of
Poland, A. d. 1925. Among the oddl-
ties to be found in my book will be the
photograph of a man who died at the
age of 121 years. He had IA children,
grandchildren and great-grandchlld-
rem, and outlived them all. Then
there was Margaret MEDIEVAL, of Edin-
burgh, who died at the age of LOG.
She married and survived thirteen
husbands. John Rovin and his wife,
of Hungary, lived together az man
an wife for 140 years. He was 164
and she 172 at the time they died, and
their Youngest son vas 116 years old
when his parents died.
There is the case of a man who
married sixteen times and had no
children. This case is offset by that
of another centenarian who had forty
nine children. John Riva, an sls
change-broker of Italy. lived to the
age of 116 years, and had a child born
to HIM after he was 100 years old, Betz,
a Sioux squaw, who died a little while
ago, lived for more than 100 years.
She had been the wife in turn of an
army officer, an Indian chief, a Dor
der cavalryman, and a Methodist
minister. William Ward, of Westches-
ter county, died n 1878 at the age of
10Y. He was 4 member of the Ward
family who were among the earliest
settlers in Westchester county, and
the particulars of his life and death
were given in the New York papers of
the time. His brother John was a
magistrate, and attended court in
White Plains as late as 1873. William
Ward, a member of this family, car
ried on business as a banker in 1888 at
No. 80 Broadway, New York. An
other queer incident is that of a CEN
tenarian who was married four times
and had a daughter by each wife.
These daughters married, and each
of them had fourteen children. Then
there was a man who went over the
century line and had twenty-five child
rem. His first was a boy, and girls
and boys came after that in regular
rotation. There was a person known