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 lived930
Seth912
Enos905
Canaan910
Mahalaleel895
Jared962
Enoch365
Methuselah969
Lamech777
Noah, who lived before and after the Deluge, in all950

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