INSTANCES OF REMARKABLE LONGEVITY.

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.—Psalm xc. 10.

Haller has noted one thousand cases of centenarians: sixty-two of from 110 to 120 years; twenty-nine of from 120 to 130; and fifteen who had attained from 130 to 140 years. Beyond this advanced age, well-authenticated examples of longevity are very rare. The case of Henry Jenkins, the Yorkshire fisherman, who died in December, 1670, at the age of 169, is one of the most remarkable. He is buried in the church of Bolton-upon-Swale, where may be found a long inscription, chiefly referring to his humble position in life and his patriarchal age. That of Thomas Parr is also well known. He was first married at the age of 80, and afterwards at 122, and died in 1635, aged 152. He was a farmer, and up to the age of 130 was able to dig, plough, and thrash. Had he continued his simple and abstemious habits, his life would probably have been prolonged a considerable period; but the luxurious living of the court of Charles I., at which his latter years were spent, occasioned a plethoric condition which hastened his end. The famous Harvey dissected him after death, and found no appearance of decay in any organ.

The following list of instances of very advanced age is given on the authority of Prichard, Whitehurst, Bailey, and others:—

	Died.	Age.
Apollonius of Tyana	A.D. 99	130
St. Patrick	491	122
Attila	500	124
Llywarch Hên	500	150
St. Coemgene	618	120
St. Mongah, or Kentigern	781	185
Piastus, King of Poland	861	120
Countess of Desmond	1612	145
Thomas Parr	1635	152
Thomas Damme	1648	154
Dr. Mead, Hertfordshire	1652	148
James Bowles, Kenilworth	1656	152
Henry Jenkins	1670	169
William Edwards [^[16]]	1688	168
Petrarch Czartan	1724	185
Margaret Patten	1739	137
John Roven	1741	172
Mrs. John Roven	1741	164
John Effingham, Cornwall		144
Thomas Winslow, a captain of Cromwell	1766	146
Draakenburg, a Dane	1772	146
Jonas Warren, Ballydole	1787	167
Jonas Surington, Bergen, Norway	1797	159
Demetrius Grabowsky, Poland	1830	169
Bridget Devine	1845	147

Czartan’s biographer says of him:—He was born in the year 1539 and died January 5th, 1724, at Kofrosch, a village four miles from Temeswar. A few days before his death, being nearly 185 years old, he had walked, with the help of a stick, to the post-house at Kofrosch, to ask charity from the travellers. His eyes were much inflamed; but he still enjoyed a little sight. His hair and beard were of a greenish white color, like mouldy bread; and he had a few of his teeth remaining. His son, who was 97 years of age, declared that his father had once been a head taller; that at a great age he married for the third time, and that he was born in this last marriage. He was accustomed, agreeably to the rules of his religion, (Greek Church,) to observe fast-days with great strictness, and never to use any other food than milk, and certain cakes, called by the Hungarians collatschen, together with a good glass of brandy such as is made in the country.

The Hungarian family of Roven affords an extraordinary example of long life. The father attained the age of 172, the wife, 164; they had been married 142 years, and their youngest child was 115; and such was the influence of habit and filial affection that this child was treated with all the severity of parental rigidity, and did not dare to act without his papa’s and mamma’s permission.

Examples of great longevity are frequent in Russia. According to an official report, there were, in 1828, in the empire, 828 centenarians, of whom forty had exceeded 120 years; fifteen, 130; nine, 136; and three, 138 years. In the government of Moscow there died, in 1830, a man aged 150. In the government of Kieff, an old soldier died in 1844, at the age of 153. There lately died on an estate in the government of Viatka, a peasant named Michael Kniawelkis, who had attained the age of 137 years, 10 months, and 11 days. He was born in a village of the same district, married at the age of 19, and had had, by several wives, 32 children, one of whom, a daughter, is still living, at the age of 100. He never had any serious illness; some years before his death he complained that he could not read without glasses, but to the last day he retained the use of all his faculties, and was very cheerful. He frequently said that he thought death had forgotten him.

In China, on the contrary, such instances are rare. From a census made a few years ago, we learn that out of a population of 369,000,000 there were but four centenarians.

According to the census of the United States, taken in 1830, there were 2,556 persons a hundred years old, or upwards. The census of 1850 exhibits nearly the same number. This gives one centenarian to a population of 9,000. From this census we also learn that the oldest person then living in the United States was 140. This was an Indian woman residing in North Carolina. In the same State was an Indian aged 125, a negro woman 111, two black slaves 110 each, one mulatto male 120, and several white males and females from 106 to 114. In the parish of Lafayette, La., was a female, black, aged 120. In several of the States there were found persons, white and black, aged from 110 to 115.

There is now living in Murray county, Georgia, on the waters of Holy Creek, a Revolutionary veteran, who has attained the age of 135. His name is John Hames. He is known throughout the region in which he lives by the appellative, “Gran’sir Hames.” He was born in Mecklenburg county, Virginia, and was a lad 10 years old when Washington was in his cradle. He was 32 when Braddock met his disastrous defeat on the Monongahela. He, with a number of his neighbors, set forth to join the ill-fated commander, but after several days’ march were turned back by the news of his overthrow. He migrated to South Carolina nearly 100 years ago. He was in thirteen considerable conflicts during the war of Independence, and in skirmishes and encounters with Indians, with tories, and with British, times beyond memory. He was with Gates at Camden, with Morgan at Cowpens, with Green at Hillsboro’ and Eutaw, and with Marion in many a bold rush into a tory camp or redcoat quarters.

At the time of the Eighth Census there were about 20,000 persons in the United States who were living when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. They must necessarily have been more than eighty years old, in order to have lived at that time. The French Census of 1851 shows only 102 persons over 100 years old,—though the total population was nearly 36,000,000. Old age is therefore attained among us much more frequently than in France.

At Cordova, in South America, in the year of 1780, a judicial inquiry was instituted by the authorities to determine the age of a negress by the name of Louisa Truxo. She testified that she perfectly remembered Fernando Truxo, the bishop, who gave her as his contribution toward a university fund: he died in 1614. Another negress, who was known to be 120, testified that Louisa was an elderly woman when she was a child. On this evidence the authorities of Cordova concluded that Louisa was, as she asserted, 175 years old.

Two cases are recorded by Mr. Bailey, in his Annals of Longevity, which throw all these into the shade; but the evidence furnished is inadequate and unsatisfactory. One is that of an Englishman, Thomas Cam, whom the parish register of Shoreditch affirms to have died in 1588, at the age of 207, having paid allegiance to twelve monarchs. The other is that of a Russian,—name not given,—whom the St. Petersburg Gazette mentioned as having died in 1812, at an age exceeding 200.

The following in relation to Cam is copied literally from the register of burials of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch:—

1588.	BURIALLES.	Fol. 35.

Thomas Cam was buriel * e y 22 inst. of
Januarye, Aged 207 yeares.

		Holywell Street.
		Geo. Garrow,
Copy, Aug’st 25, 1832.		Parish Clerk.

In connection with the foregoing facts, it will be interesting to revert to the ages of the antediluvian patriarchs:—

	Years.
Adam lived	930
Seth	912
Enos	905
Canaan	910
Mahalaleel	895
Jared	962
Enoch	365
Methuselah	969
Lamech	777
Noah, who lived before and after the Deluge, in all	950

In Willet’s Hexapla, in Leviticum, is the following remarkable passage:—

Ludovicus Vives (in Aug. de Civit, Dei, lib. XV.) writeth of a town in Spain, consisting of about an hundred houses, all of them inhabited by the seed of one old man, then living; so that the youngest of them knew not what to call him: Quia lingua Hispana supra abavum non ascendit, because the Spanish tongue goeth no higher than the great-grandfather’s father. And Bas. Johan. Heroldus hath a pretty epigram of an aged matron that lived to see her children’s children to the sixth degree:—

¹Mater ait ²natæ die quod ³sua filia ⁴natam

Admoneat ⁵natæ plangere ⁶filiolam.

The ¹Mother said, Go tell my ²Child

That ³her Girl should her ⁴Daughter tell

She must now mourn (that lately smiled),

Her ⁵Daughter’s little ⁶Babe’s not well.