| When he that day with th’ Waggon went, He little thought his Glass was spent; But had he kept his Plough in Hand, He might have longer till’d the Land. |
We obtain from a memorial stone at Disley Church a record of longevity:—
Here Lyeth Interred the
Body of Joseph Watson, Bur-
ied June the third 1753,
Aged 104 years. He was
Park Keeper at Lyme more
than 64 years, and was ye First
that Perfected the art of Dri-
ving ye Stags. Here also Lyeth
the Body of Elizabeth his
wife, Aged 94 years, to whom
He had been married 73 years.
Reader take Notice, the Long-
est Life is Short.
On the authority of Mr. J. P. Earwaker, the historian of East Cheshire, it is recorded of the above that “in the 103rd year of his age he was at the hunting and killed a buck with the honourable George Warren, in his Park at Poynton, whose activity gave pleasure to all the spectators there present. Sir George was the fifth generation of the Warren family he had performed that diversion with in Poynton Park.”
We have from Petersham, Surrey, the next example:—
Near the tomb of
a Worthy Family
lies the Body of
Sarah Abery,
who departed this life
The 3rd day of August 1795
Aged 83 Years.
Having lived in the Service
of that Family
Sixty Years.
She was a good Christian
an Honest Woman
and
a faithful Servant.
At Great Marlow a stone states that Mary Whitty passed sixty-three years as a faithful servant in one family. She died in 1795 at the age of eighty-two years.
Our next example is from Burton-on-Trent:—
Sacred
to the memory of
Sampson Adderly
An Honest, Sober, Modest Man
(A Character how rarely found;)
Whose peaceful Life a circle ran
More hallow’d makes this hallow’d ground
In Service thirty years he spent
And Dying left his well got gains;
To feed and cloth, a Mother bent
By Age’s slow consuming pains:
A tender Master, Mistress kind,
And Friends, (for many a friend had he)
Lament the loss, but time will find
His gain through blest Eternity
He was near thirty Years
a Servant in the Cotton Family
and died in its attendance at Buxton
the 30th of September 1760 Aged 48.
Also adjoining to him
was laid his Aged Parent
who died the 21st of February following.
From a gravestone at Sutton Coldfield we have a record of a long and industrious life:—