The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-03-09
is 1875 YEARS old
Old Father Time Has Over
looked Nebraska ScOtchman.
Has Family Bible To Prove
When He Was Born.

Grand Island. Neb., March g.
The doubt that a white man can live
more than 124 years has been dis
PEELED in the minds of many who
reside in the southern part OF Custer
county. In the mills, eight miles
northeast of Ansley, and fifteen miles
southwest of Arcadia, on the farm
of Charles Mitten, there lives an old
Scotchman, named Thomas Morris.
He was aged when he came to this
country, and no one thereabuots ever
knew him other than as a very old
man.
Mr.. Morris was born in Berren,
North Wales Scotland, on January
Is, 1894. The remnants of the Bible
in which was inscribed his birth date
are still in possession of the Mitten
family. Now, in his 125th year, Mr..
Morris is blind, hardly able to hear
and unable to walk. He has not left
his Dom for two years, but he re-
.ains his mental faculties and has
good appetite. Mr.. Morris is believed
to be the oldest white man living in
the United States, and possibly in
the world. When the occasion per-
mitted he used liquor and he still
smokes pipe.
Lived With Foster Son so Years.
Thru a chain of circumstances
Charles Mitten became the adopted
son of the old man when Ia years of
age. Mittens parents were separated
and finding life not agreeable with
either, he was taken up by Mr.. Nor
ris. They have lived together for
says that Mr.. Morris first started
making a livelihood as butcher in
Scotland but soon gave this up and
became a cobbler, working at that
trade about 100 years. He lost his
only sweetheart. Morris often assert
ed to Misten, when a young man. She
was an English lassie and ne re-
manned true to his first affection. MI
Mitten and his foster father ecli-
grated to this country on October :,
1871. The memory of the old man
is still very clear of that time, the
year of the great Chicago fire, he
said. First they located at Streatof,
ILL.,, later at Blackstone, Ill.
Mr.. Morris remembers well how.
on a Sunday morning, they started
from New York for the west after IL
thirteen weeks voyage. They saiie1
from Liverpool in the Colorado" and
landed at Castle Garden. The tw1
lived in Illinois until 1881, when they
moved to Missouri. In 1886 they
came to Custer county, where Mr..
Mitten bought land.
Last Fishing Trip at III Years.
Mr.. Morris continued to follow his
trade as shoemaker and had a shop
!
years. 1t was about twenty years ago
that he quit work, but he was active
| until recent years. When more than
| 100 years old, he took to fishing and
with his lunch under his arm walked
mile and half to Clear creek, and
generally carried home some fish,
| too. He made his last fishing trip
| in his 117th year.
| About ten years ago Mr.. Morris S
eyesight failed him in one eye. Later
J he became entirely blind. He is
gradually losing his hearing and his
| shank horses" as he calls his limbs,
i played out about two years ago, but
| mis- memory remains remarkable.
| Even today he tells of his experiences
| n Scotland and how he spent twenty
years at the Cock O'Forden Inn,
where he was the public cobbler.
Never Seriously Sick.
! Always living a quiet and peaceful
| life, Mr.. Morris was never seriously
sick. When slightly indisposed he
soon recovered, and his remedy was
generally a drink of liquor. One
thing, indeed, the members of the
| household cannot make him under
stand, is that he cannot get any more
of it. To him this is the strangest
/ thing that ever happened