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 i^.EOOitr)s 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL ANECDOTES OF PERSONS 
 
 WHO HAVE 
 
 ATTAINED TO EXTREME OLD AGE WITHIN THAT 
 COLWTY. - 
 
 BY, ,' 
 
 WILLIAM GEAINGE, 
 
 AUTHOR OP " BATTLES AND BATTLE FIELDS OF YORKSHIBE,' 
 
 ** CASTLES AND ABBEYS OP YORKSHIRE," " HISTORY OF 
 
 NIDDERDALE," ETC., ETC. 
 
 PATELEY BRIDGE: 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THOMAS THORPE. 
 
 LONDON: T, T. LEMARE, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1864. 
 
SSI'S. 
 
 
 
hL 
 
 
 / 3i- 
 
 l^0rhs]^irt "^mo^tbxi^. 
 
 [Entered at Stationers,'* Hall.'\ 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 ** The days of our years are threescore years and ten ; and 
 if, by reason of strength, they be fourscore, yet is their 
 strength labour and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we 
 flyaway." Psalm, xc. 10. From this expression of the psal- 
 mist we learn that the age of man has not been shortened 
 for the last three thousand years, — as it was then, so is 
 it now: age, and the many evils *' flesh is heir to," have 
 done their work upon the human frame very often before 
 it has reached the allotted round, and it has become as 
 *^the clods of the valley." Numbers, however, do ex- 
 ceed that period ; yet, generally, ** their strength is labour 
 and sorrow." Old age was regarded by the Hebrews as 
 a blessing from on high, or a reward attached to a life 
 of virtue; it was, also, entitled to peculiar homage; and, 
 no doubt, when men lived to the age of several hundred 
 years, the wisdom they must have acquired would give 
 them great influence in their family, or tribe. Many 
 expressions of scripture confirm the opinion above given, 
 
 B 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 as, "The fear of the Lord prolongeth days; but the 
 years of the wicked shall be shortened." Proverbs x. 27. 
 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and 
 the knowledge of the holy is understanding. For by me 
 thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life 
 shall be increased. Poverbs, ix. 10, 11. " Thou shalt 
 come to thy grave in a full old age, like as a shock of 
 com Cometh in his season." Job, iv. 26. Numbers of 
 texts might be cited, representing the wicked as "cut off 
 in the midst of their days." 
 
 The Egyptians, in the most glorious period of their 
 history, paid grsat respect to old age. The young were 
 obliged to rise for the old, and, on every occasion, to 
 resign for them the most honourable seat. The Spartans, 
 also, honoured the aged, — by saluting them, by giving 
 them place in the streets, and in rising up to shew them 
 honour in all companies and public assemblies : so that 
 it was an agreeable thing to grow old in that city ; and 
 old age had nowhere so honourable an abode as in Sparta. 
 
 The Chinese erect statues, or honorary arches, to the 
 memory of persons who have attained to the age of one 
 hundred years, considering that such individuals must 
 have been special favourites of heaven ; or, else, that 
 they must have led such peculiarly virtuous and sober 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 lives as justly to intitle them to the respect and gratitude 
 of society. 
 
 What is the oldest age that is now attained ? What 
 is the measure of the complete orbit of human life ? 
 The census of 1851 furnishes some aid towards the pro- 
 secution of this inquiry. In Great Britian, more than 
 half a milHon of the inhabitants (five hundred and ninety- 
 six thousand and thirty,) have passed the barrier of 
 ** threescore years and ten ;" more than one hundred and 
 twenty-nine thousand have passed the Psalmist's limit of 
 *' fourscore years," and nearly ten thousand have lived 
 ninety years, or more ; a band of two thousand and 
 thirty- eight aged pilgrims have been wandering ninety- 
 five years and more on the unended journey; and three 
 hundred and nineteen say that they have witnessed more 
 than one hundred revolutions of the seasons. — Registrar 
 GeneraVs Report. — Census 1851. 
 
 Though longevity prevails more in some districts than 
 in others, yet it is by no means confined to any particular 
 nation or climate ; nor are there wanting instances of it 
 in almost every quarter of the globe ; nor does it depend 
 60 much, as has been supposed, on any particular 
 climate, situation, or occupation in life : for we see that 
 it often prevails where all these are extremely dissimilar; 
 
 b2 
 
8 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 one circumstance, common to all instances of longevity, 
 is that of being born of healtby parents ; another, of almost 
 as universal application, is of being inured to daily la- 
 bour, temperance, and simplicity of diet : for it is rather 
 among the inferior ranks of mankind, than amongst the 
 sons of ease and luxury that we shall find most numerous 
 instances of longevity ; not, unfrequently, amongst ap- 
 parently the most unfavourable circumstances, as the 
 old sexton of Peterborough, mentioned in Fuller s 
 Worthies, who, notwithstanding his unpromising occu- 
 pation among dead bodies, lived long enough to bury 
 two crowned heads, and to survive two complete genera- 
 tions. The subsistence of old Parr, and Henry Jenkins 
 consisted of the coarsest fare, as they sometimes lived by 
 begging. Many common soldiers, tinkers, mendicants, 
 and the inmates of workhouses have lived to extreme 
 old age. The plain diet, and invigorating employments 
 of country life, are acknowledged to be highly conducive 
 to health and longevity, while the luxury and refinements 
 of large cities are allowed to be equally destructive to 
 the human species. From country villages and not 
 from crowded cities, the greatest number of instances 
 of longevity are drawn. It appears, from the London 
 bills of mortality, during a period of thirty years, — from 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1728 to 1758,— the number of deaths was 750,322, 
 and that, in all this number only 242 persons had 
 survived the hundreth year of their age. — Fothergill 
 on Longevity, 
 
 Many instances are cited of men living in the ancient 
 world more than a hundred years, — as, Hippocrates, 
 physician of the island of Cos, aged 104 ; Democritus, 
 the philosopher of Abdera, aged 109 ; Galen, physician 
 of Pergamus, aged 140. In the earlier part of the 
 christian era, Italy appears to have been highly favour- 
 able to the prolongation of human life, since we learn, 
 from the taxing of the people in the reign of the Em- 
 peror Vespasian, Anno Domini 76, that there were 
 found, in that part of Italy lying between the Appenine 
 mountains and the river Po, one hundred and twenty- 
 four persons who either equalled, or exceeded, one hun- 
 dred years of age, namely, fifty-four of one hundred 
 years each; fifty-seven of one hundred and ten; two of 
 one hundred and twenty-five ; four of one hundred and 
 thirty ; four of one hundred and thirty- six ; and three 
 of one hundred and forty years each. At the same 
 time, in Parma, were three of one hundred and twenty, 
 and two of one hundred and thirty years each. In 
 Placentia, one of one hundred and thirty- one years. In 
 
10 INTEODTJCTION. 
 
 Faventia, one of one hundred and tliirt3^-two ; six of one 
 hundred and ten ; and four of one hundred and twenty 
 years each. In Rimino, one — Marcus Aponius — of one 
 hundred and fifty years. Extraordinary instances of 
 long life occur in all climates, — from the frozen steppes 
 of Russia to the sultry and pestilential swamps of Car- 
 racas ; from the Orcades to the equator. The negro, even 
 in a state of slavery, in the southern states of America 
 and the West Indian islands, has heen known to attain 
 extreme old age, under what may be considered the 
 most unfavom-able circumstances. A few instances may 
 suffice to prove the position. In 1790, in the parish of 
 EKzabeth, in the island of Jamaica, died a negro woman 
 named Cooba, at the age of one hundred and ten years. 
 She was a slave, the property of the Honourable Thomas 
 Chambers. Her memory was perfect to the last, and 
 she could see to thread a needle until within a few 
 months of her death. She saw four generations of her 
 master's family. Samuel Pinnock, also a negro, of 
 Kingston in Jamaica, died in 1796, at the age of one 
 hundi-ed and ten. Esmina Diamond, a negress pf the 
 same town, died in 1812, aged one hundred and thirty. 
 Ann Wignell, of Port Royal, in Jamaica, died in the 
 game year, aged one hundred and forty- six. She was 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 born in Africa, torn from her friends and kindred, and 
 carried as a slave into tlie West Indies. Sypliax Brown, 
 a manumitted slave of Cumberland, United States, died 
 in 1846, aged one hundred and fifteen. Mr. Lawson, 
 in his travels through Carolina, in 1700, thus describes 
 an old Indian woman whom he saw among the Tuscoro- 
 ras : — '^We saw, at the Cassetta's cabin, the strangest 
 spectacle of antiquity I ever knew, it being an old Indian 
 squaw, that, had I been to have guess 'd at her age, bj 
 her aspect, old Parr's head (the Welch Methusalem) 
 was a face in swaddling clouts to hers. I made the strictest 
 enquiry that was possible, and by what I could gather she 
 was considerably above one hundred years old; not- 
 withstanding, she smoked tobacco and eat her victuals 
 to all appearance as heartily as one of eighteen." Cap- 
 tain Cespedes, of the Caraccas, died in 1789, aged one 
 hundred and ten. He belonged to the militia of Pardo, 
 and was esteemed a prodigy of that climate, where 
 human life is seldom protracted to the extent of even 
 sixty years. Jean Cayetan, of Tesontla, New Spain, 
 South America, died in 1788, aged one hundred and thirty. 
 A Spanish writer, Bartholomew Leonarda de Argensola, 
 in his history of the discovery and conquest of the 
 Molucas and Philippina islands, says, when speaking of 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the island of Banda, **Men live in this island longer 
 than in any other part of the world. The Dutch saw 
 several who exceeded one hundred and thirty years of 
 age." In a list, published officially in Russia, of the 
 number of deaths in 1811, there are five hundred and 
 eighty-four instances of people who died in the various 
 provinces of that vast empire at upwards of one hun- 
 dred years old, viz.: — four hundred and sixty- seven 
 above one hundred; one hundred and thirteen above 
 one hundred and five ; three of one hundred and forty ; 
 and one of one hundred and fifty years. The remote 
 and lonely Shetlands are not without their instances of 
 longevity. Buchanan, in his History of Scotland, thus 
 speaks of them : ** The healthiness of these people ap- 
 peared in one named Laurence, in our own time, who, after 
 he was an hundred years old, married a wife, and when 
 he was one hundred and forty used to fish with his skifi", 
 even in a rough and tempestuous sea. He died only 
 lately, not by the shock of any grievous disease, but 
 merely by the infirmity and languishing of old age." 
 
 Lord Bacon, in his History of Life and Death, quotes 
 as a fact unquestioned, that a few years before he wrote, 
 a morris dance was performed in Herefordshire, at the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 May-games, by eight men, whose ages in the aggregate 
 amounted to eight hundred years. 
 
 The following elegantly written remarks on the dif- 
 ferent periods of life are from the report of the Eegistrar 
 General. — Censics, 1851. 
 
 Every year of age from birth exhibits some appreciable 
 change, and any subdivision is necessarily arbitrary 
 to some extent ; but the century of life may be, for 
 some purposes, conveniently subdivided, as it was by 
 Wargentin in the first Swedish Census, into twenty 
 periods of five years, — twenty lustres ; for others into 
 ten decenniads ; and for others into five vicenniads, — 
 each of four lustres, or of twenty years. We have used 
 the latter division largely in the Report, and shall show 
 that it is well characterized. 
 
 The first age, covering the first twenty years of life, 
 extends over childhood, boyhood, and youth. It is the 
 age of growth ; and it is the age of learning, for the 
 greater number, in the beginning, on the mother's 
 arms ; in the middle of the period, at school ; in the 
 end, at the workshop : where, in succession, the manners, 
 language, knowledge, and skill, — the traditional and 
 hereditary acquisitions of mankind, — are transmitted to 
 the new generation. Generous sentiments, passions, 
 
14 INTEODUGTION. 
 
 enthusiasm, display themselves at the end, and crimes 
 are committed by evil natures. 
 
 The second age, or vicenniad (20 — 40) of which 
 thirty years is the central point, embraces the period of 
 early manhood. Growth is completed ; weight, stature, 
 and strength are at their maximum. It is the athletic, 
 poetic, inventive, beautiful age, — the prime of life. 
 
 It is the soldier's age. The apprentice becomes the 
 journeyman; who attains, at the end, the highest 
 mechanical skill, and earns the highest wages. Marriage 
 is contracted, and the man hears the name of father 
 from the lips of his children. In bad natures, and un- 
 favourable circumstances, it is the age of crime, of 
 passion, — of madness, which breaks out in its wildest 
 forms, — as well as of wasting maladies. 
 
 In the third vicenniad (40 — 60), of which the middle 
 point is fifty years we see men in the higher professions 
 first attain eminence, the capital which has been ex- 
 pended in their education returns rapidly ; their estab- 
 lished character gives them the confidence of their 
 fellow-men; experience and practice enable them to deal 
 as proficients with the great interests and questions of 
 the world. They see their children enter life. The 
 edifices, of which the foundations were laid before, spring 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 up around them. The prudent, tried, skilful, inventive . 
 man now oftens becomes, in England, a master, and 
 controls establishments in which he was once the clerk, 
 the workman, the apprentice boy. It may be justly 
 called the intellectual age, the legislative, the judicial 
 age. The statesman speaks, and his voice reverberates 
 over an attentive nation. But the passions and labours 
 of life wear deep furrows ; the health of the workman 
 is shaken in great cities, and he falls before their 
 pestilences ; the heart and the brain are sometimes 
 over- wrought; diseases acquire force, and the man easily 
 falls their victim. 
 
 The fourth vicenniad (60 — ^80), of which the year 
 seventy is the centre, may be considered the laureate 
 age of a complete life. The veteran retires from the 
 camp, the workman from the workshop, the labourer 
 from the field, where they have done their duty. The 
 age of strength is over; but as civilization advances, 
 men are not now cast aside, but enter upon the legitimate 
 rewards and honours of their accumulated services. The 
 merchant has acquired riches ; the manufacturer has 
 given his name to a lasting house of business ; the pro- 
 prietor's improvements are visible in his lands and 
 houses ; the physician, the judge, the bishop, discharge 
 
16 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 the highest function of their respective professions ; the 
 fruits of the prescient statesman's wise measures ripened 
 under opposition are now gathered in by a grateful 
 people. Integrity and wisdom in counsel are sealed by 
 experience, and receive the recognition which envy can 
 no longer gainsay. The father, as well in humble as 
 in high life, who has wisely ruled his house, receives 
 the homage of his sons at the head of new families ; the 
 devoted mother is called by her children blessed : and 
 upon the sovereign who has trod the paths of duty, righ- 
 teousness, and greatness, among a free people, undying 
 glory rests. As a good life in old age becomes some- 
 thing almost divine, so a bad life is then transformed 
 into a "wrinkled eld" of almost supernatural malignity ; 
 of which the designations evil eye, wizard, witch, the 
 "old serpent, the devil," express the popular dread and 
 abhorrence ; 
 
 "And that which should accompany old age — 
 As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends : " 
 
 the tyrant and hoary plotter of evil 
 
 "Must not look to have ; but in their stead, 
 Curses, not loud, but deep.'* 
 
 If the vitality rapidly decreases in the fourth age, the 
 strength fails, the senses grow dull, the mind itself 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 decays, in the fifth vicenniad (80 — 100) : and then the 
 colours of the world fade away : the forms of men are 
 indistinctly seen in the dim twilight ; the voices of men 
 are heard, but like inarticulate murmurs of the sea ; the 
 sense of being, and the memories themselves of well 
 spent years, are at last obliterated. The lamp of life is 
 not broken, but is softly burnt out. 
 
 While little more confidence should be placed in the 
 relations of the ages of men extending to centuries than 
 in the hopes of the alchymists who sought elixirs, this 
 last period appears to be as much a necessary part of 
 the perfect life, according to the Divine plan, as the age 
 of childhood and youth. It is the period of repose, after 
 the labours, struggles, achievements, and glories of 
 manhood are over. The grand climactric age, — the 
 year of abdication, — difiers in every individual — as the 
 human structure varies infinitely ; but, by the nature 
 of things, it should precede by many years the hour of 
 dissolution ; for, if it is grateful to a nation to visit the 
 places in which its great men have lived — to gaze on 
 their monuments, and to follow their cars in pageants and 
 processions to the tomb, — it is still more grateful to know 
 that they are in the midst of us, and to view sometimes 
 
18 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 the lineaments that are still more intimately associated 
 with their immortality. 
 
 It has been observed by some writers on longevity, 
 that moderate sized and well proportioned persons, have 
 the greatest probability of attaining to extreme old age. 
 
 This view is fully borne out by facts ; yet this rule is 
 not without exceptions, as Mary Jones, who died at 
 Wem, in Shropshire, in 1773, at the age of one hundred 
 years, was very deformed and lame, and only two feet, 
 eight inches in height ; — while James Mac Donald, who 
 died near Cork, in Ireland, August 20th, 1760, at the 
 age of one hundred and seventeen, was seven feet six 
 inches in height. 
 
 Longevity is constitutional ; as no man can live to an 
 advanced age who brings the seeds of disease into the 
 world with him, and who has not, also, great vigour of 
 heart, lungs, stomach, and muscles. The principal 
 index of great longevity, is an ample development of the 
 vital apparatus, or a capacious chest ; and, of course, 
 large lungs, heart, stomach, and vital organs, with a 
 proportionally smaller head. A spare, wrinkled, muscu- 
 lar temperament, — which may be known by great 
 distinctness of the muscles, bones, furrows, and 
 projections ; prominence of nose, eye-brows, chin, dx., — 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 also foretokens tenacity of life. — Foster , on Hereditary 
 Descent. 
 
 Longevity is not unfrequently hereditary, as numerous 
 instances can be given of long lived persons in one 
 family. Besides those mentioned in the following pages, 
 we give a few cases in point. Thomas Parr lived to be 
 one hundred and fifty-two years old, and a son, one 
 hundred and nine, a grandson, one hundred and forty- 
 three, and Robert Parr, a great grandson, died September 
 21st, 1757, aged one hundred and twenty-four. 
 
 The ** Library of Health," for 1840, contains the 
 following : — '* We were personally acquainted with the 
 late Donald Mc Donald, of quarrelsome memory, who 
 was sent to the House of Correction, for a street brawl, 
 when about one hundred and five years old. When 
 one hundred and six, he enjoyed excellent health. His 
 father lived to be one hundred and thirty-seven, and no 
 one knows when he would have died, had he not been acci- 
 dentally killed. Mrs. Jane Simmons, died in London, 
 in 1792, aged one hundred and nineteen years. She 
 left two daughters, each one hundred years old. 
 
 Why should not longevity be hereditary as well as 
 consumption and premature death ? 
 
 One fact is certain, and significant to those whom it 
 
 c 2 
 
20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 concerns, no kings, nobles, poets, historians, philoso- 
 phers, deep thinkers, or able writers, have ever rounded 
 the century. Not many mariners, or sea-faring men at- 
 tain to extreme old age, though instances sparingly occur. 
 Lawyers appear to die before they become centenarians. 
 No great military commander appears (at least in modern 
 times) to have attained to remarkable old age, most of 
 them dying young, while numbers of common soldiers 
 have lived a century or more. The easily satisfied, un- 
 ambitious, unthinking, cheerful, contented being whom 
 no cares annoy, and no troubles reach, appears to be the 
 choice and favourite individual for long life. M. Grellier 
 says, ^'The cheerful and contented are certainly more 
 likely to enjoy good health and long life, than persons 
 of irritable and fretful dispositions ; therefore, whatever 
 tends to promote good humour and innocent hilarity, 
 must have a beneficial influence in this respect ; and 
 persons whose attention is much engaged on serious 
 subjects, should endeavour to preserve a relish for cheer- 
 ful recreations." Of the great mass of centenarians it 
 can only be said as of the man in the '^common lot," 
 
 " Once, in the flight of ages past, 
 
 There lived a man, and who was lie? 
 Mortal ! however thy lot be cast, 
 , That man resembled thee !" 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 " The annals of the human race, 
 Their niins, since the world began, 
 
 Of him afford no other trace, 
 
 Than this, — ' There lived a man !' " 
 
 Comparatively speaking, very few of them have per- 
 formed actions worthy of record ; others perform great 
 deeds in a short life ; they are distinguished for their 
 length of life, and for that alone ; men think about them, 
 talk about them, write about them, because they lived 
 long, — not that they lived well. And what wonder, since 
 life is a subject of great importance to all ; all kinds of 
 means are employed to preserve it, and even to lengthen 
 it ; in short, to live long appears to be the great aim and 
 object of all. Some have even gone so far as to attempt 
 a renewal of youth ; ancient fable relates that by the 
 magical arts of Medea, Mson was changed from an old 
 into a young man : the story is told in the seventh book 
 of Ovid's Metamorphoses. 
 
 " His feeble frame resumes a youthful air, 
 A glossy brown his hoary beard and hair. 
 The meagre paleness from his aspect fled, 
 And in its room sprang up a florid red ; 
 Through all his limbs a youthful vigour flies, 
 His emptied art'ries swell with fresh supplies : 
 Gazing spectators scarce believe their eyes. 
 But iEson is the most surpised to And, 
 A happy change in body and in mind ; 
 In sense and constitution, the same man, 
 As when his fortieth active year began." 
 
22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In the year 1510, Ponce de Leon, a Spanish captain, 
 having heard from the Indians of Cuba, of an island, 
 where, they asserted, was a spring whose waters had the 
 virtue of restoring youth to the aged, and vigour to the 
 decrepit : Ponce thought this fountain would be an in- 
 exhaustible source of revenue to him, as he could levy 
 a tax upon all who derived benefit from its influence. 
 He fitted out two ships and went in search of it through 
 the group of islands called the Lucayos. Wherever he 
 stopped, he drank of aU the running streams and stand- 
 ing pools, whether their waters were fresh or stagnant, 
 that he might not miss the famous spring. He enquired 
 of all the natives he met, where he could find the won- 
 drous Fountain of Youth. It is hardly necessary to say 
 that he did not find it ; he, however, discovered the 
 mainland of Florida, so that his voyage was not quite 
 in vain. 
 
 In the middle ages the alchymical philosophers sought 
 to find *'The Elixir of Life," which was to renew youth, 
 cure wounds and diseases of all kinds, and, in short, 
 render man immortal. The old romances are full of 
 stories of this kind, which are most unmercifully treated 
 by Cervantes in Don Quixote, where he makes that re- 
 doubted knight compound the ** balsam of Fierabras," 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 **And he that has it need not fear death, nor so much 
 as think of dying by any wound. And therefore, when 
 I shall have made it, and given it you, all you will have 
 to do is, when you see me in some battle cleft asunder 
 (as it frequently happens), to take up fair and softly 
 that part of my body which shall fall to the ground, 
 and, with the greatest nicety, before the blood is con- 
 gealed, place it upon the other half that shall remain in 
 the saddle, taking especial care to make them tally 
 exactly. Then must you immediately give me to drink 
 only two draughts of the balsam aforesaid, and then you 
 will see me become sounder than any apple." 
 
 In the ** Turkish Spy," Vol. I. pp. 266-7 is an 
 amusing account of old age and the elixir of life : we give 
 an extract. 
 
 ** To Bedredin, Superior of the Dervishes 
 
 OF COGNI, in NaTOLIA." 
 
 <« Thy great age does not astonish me, seeing thy 
 father, who is yet alive, is 107 years old, and thou art 
 not above 82, which makes me hope to see a great while 
 yet both one and the other, draw down, by their prayers, 
 and merit of their good actions, the blessing of Heaven 
 on the glorious empire of the Ottoman Court, to whom 
 all the empires and monarchies of the world ought to 
 
24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 submit." .... **The christians say, when God 
 gave them the commandments, he promised long life to 
 such only who perfectly honoured those, who, under 
 God, brought them into the light. If this be true, as 
 'tis very likely, 'tis not to be doubted, but that a long 
 life is the recompence which God gives those who live 
 well : and the Nazarenes, who are criticks, affirm, — 
 That sin alone is the cause that men do not live so long 
 as they did before the deluge, for then they remained 
 such a while in life, as would tempt one to think they 
 were to have been immortal. They say that after the 
 deluge, God changed the nature of man; and instead of 
 that great number of years, which made up the course 
 of so long a life, they cannot live, at farthest, above 
 120 years, and that there are few which arrive to 80, and 
 whatever is beyond this is misery and torment, or a kind 
 of senselessness, which makes men like beasts. 
 
 '* I know few people but what are agreed, one may 
 cure or mitigate the inconveniences which happen to us ; 
 but few are of opinion that life can be lengthened ; yet, 
 if this is possible, we may then believe a story, which is 
 believed here, and which happened the past year in Paris. 
 
 "An ancient man went to a Dervise of this great town, 
 and thus accosted him : * I am come. Reverend Father, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 to know of you, whether I may, in good conscience, de- 
 termine to live no longer, being quite weary of living. 
 I have, already, arrived to the 129th year of my age, by 
 means of a liquor, which chemistry has taught me, 
 whereby I did scarce perceive, from anything I felt, that 
 I was going down ; yet, however, this long life appears 
 at present, to me irksome and intolerable. My blood 
 is so purified in my veins, that I have remained vdthout 
 any of those passions whereunto mankind are so gene- 
 rally subject. My taste serves me no longer to discover 
 the delicacy of meats. My ears, although they be not 
 deaf, yet will not let me distinguish true harmony, from 
 what is only a confusion of sounds. Mine eyes are 
 open to see, but are not cheered with any object. My 
 faculty of smelling is struck with scents, yet they 
 make no impression on it. I touch, but I feel not what I 
 touch ; and I touch all things indifierently. Mine heart 
 is no longer sensible, nor affected with tenderness and 
 passion, for my friends. Bile, in me, has no longer its 
 usual heat. Joy and sorrow, anger, desire of having, 
 hope and hatred, are extinguished in me ; whereby I am 
 become insensible in conserving, if I may so say, all my 
 senses. I am resolved, therefore, to let myself die, 
 provided you can assure me I may do it without sin ; for, 
 
26 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 should I remain two days without taking this precious ! 
 elixir, I am certain I should soon expire, and so be delivered 
 from thevexation that overwhelms me.' 'Tis said that the 
 dervise answered this philosopher, — * That he might not 
 desire death ; but, on the contrary, preserve his life ; 
 and, supposing he made use of no secret of magick to 
 prolong his days, he should believe that the marvellous 
 potion, of which he had found the secret by his stady 
 and travel, was a present from heaven : that 'tis true he 
 would be rid of a troublesome life, but he could not pro- 
 cure the end of it without a crime ; and that he was 
 obliged to preserve it, to suffer with greater submission 
 the pains he complained of, which could not be com- 
 parable to the pleasures he had received, by enjoying 
 the gift which God had bestowed on him.' 
 
 '' Paris, 15th of the 1st Moon 
 of the year 1641." 
 
 As gold always bore the highest value amongst the 
 metals, the alchymists, from a ridiculous analogy, con- 
 cluded that it must surpass all other things in the 
 preservation of health, and the cure of diseases ; and 
 all their efforts were directed to the art of dissolving it, 
 so as to render it potable, and to prevent it from again 
 being converted into metal. The common people, in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 some countries, particularly Italy, Germany, and France, 
 oftentimes denied themselves the common necessaries of 
 life, to save as much as would purchase a few drops of 
 the tincture of gold, which was offered for sale by some 
 superstitious, or fraudulent, chemist : and so thoroughly 
 persuaded were they of the efficacy of this remedy, that 
 it afforded them, in every instance, the most confident,, 
 and only hope of recovery. These beneficial effects were^ 
 positively promised ; but were looked for in vain. All 
 subduing death would not submit to be bribed with gold, 
 and disease refused to hold any intercourse with that 
 powerful deity, who presides over the industry and com- 
 merce of all nations. — Thaumaturgia : or, Elucidations 
 of the Marvellous, p. 116. 
 
 The successors of these emperics still continue to live 
 on the love of life, so strongly implanted in the heart of 
 man, as is evident from the number of nostrums daily 
 thrust before the public, in the shape of Life Pills, and 
 all that genus of bold impositions. 
 
 The number of centenarians existing at one time in 
 the world is very small, compared with the mass of the 
 population, — not averaging more than thirteen or four- 
 teen in a million, or one in every seven hundred thou- 
 sand inhabitants ; varying much, however, according as 
 
28 INTBODUCTION. |^j 
 
 the locality is favourable to health, or otherwise ; a fact 
 of which our own county affords sufficient evidence. At I 
 the census of 1851, the population of all Yorkshire was 
 returned at one million seven hundred and eighty-nine 
 thousand and forty- seven : of whom twelve only were 
 said to be one hundred years of age ; and these were 
 distributed in the following unequal manner, relative to 
 the population amongst whom they dwelt, — 
 West Riding, population, 1,840,051, centenarians, 2, 
 East do. do. 254,352, do. 4. 
 
 North do. do. 194,644, do. 6. 
 
 These figures, more strongly than any language, point 
 out the localities most favourable to longevity, shewing 
 that the beautiful valleys and breezy downs of the north 
 are far more favourable to health and long life, than the 
 close, smoky, manufacturing towns of the west. Of 
 these twelve aged people, five were males, and seven 
 females : of the males, one had never been married, and 
 the others were widowers ; the seven females were all 
 widows : of seven of the twelve no occupation is speci- 
 fied ; of the others, two were paupers, one a farm ser- 
 vant, one a farmer, and one dependent on relatives : 
 none of them are returned as of independent means, or 
 belonging to the upper ranks of life. At the same time 
 
INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 the west-riding had its proportion of persons aged ninety- 
 five, and upwards, as below — 
 West Riding, males, 14, females, 29,=43'j 
 East do. do. 3, do. 7,=lol Total 75. 
 North do. do. 7, do. 15,=22J 
 Of ninety years and upwards, the numbers were 
 respectively — 
 
 West Riding, males, 88, females, 142^230^ 
 East do. do. 31, do. 52= 83 [ Total 438. 
 North do. do. 43, do. 82=125. 
 These numbers prove that there existed at that time in 
 Yorkshire five hundred and twenty-five persons more 
 than ninety years of age. 
 
 At the same time in all England and Wales there were two 
 hundred and fifteen, aged one hundred years and upwards, 
 of whom seventy-eight were males, and one hundred 
 and thirty-seven females (population, 20,959,477) ; 
 twenty- seven of these were located in London, which 
 appears a very great number to exist amidst the noxious 
 effluvia and dense fogs of that overgrown metropolis; 
 while, singular to relate, the rural part of Middlesex, the 
 counties of Herts, Bucks, Oxon, Northampton, Bedford, 
 and Cambridge, with their fine, mild climate, and agrestic 
 population, had only six Centenarians ; while Durham, 
 
30 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 bleak and moist, employing a great mass of its popula- 
 tion in coal mines, had nine, Northumberland fourteen, 
 Cumberland three, while the valleys, and mountains of 
 Westmoreland, did not }deld one single individual of 
 the age of one hundred. Scotland at that time had 
 one hundred and three persons aged a century or up- 
 wards, of whom thirty two were males and seventy-one 
 females. i 
 
 Of the occupations of those aged pilgrims on life's ; 
 weary road it is necessary to say a few words, as, it is 
 probable that their longevity is partly owing to their calling 
 or employment. Of the one hundred and thirty- seven 
 females in England and Wales exceeding one hundred 
 years, fourteen are annuitants, a class of persons pro- 
 verbial for long life, sixty-nine are widows, with no 
 specified occupation ; eleven are paupers, twenty-four 
 follow some business or calling ; and only one is said to 
 be of independent means. Of the seventy- eight males 
 oleven are agricultural labourers, seven farmers, six 
 soldiers or pensioners, nine paupers, seven labourers, 
 two annuitants, and two gentlemen; the others, with 
 the exception of one, a lunatic, follow some manual 
 calling, of whom three are shoemakers. From the above 
 authentic facts it is quite evident that a life of ease and 
 
INTEODUCTION. 31 
 
 plenty does not at all contribute to longevity. In every 
 work we have seen, where length of life forms any part 
 of the subject, rules for diet, and exercise are laid down 
 by which those who follow them may attain to almost 
 any age, whereas it is quite obvious that such rules can 
 only be useful to the idle, and the rich, who can eat, 
 drink, and amuse themselves at will, and who it is quite 
 certain will not follow a life of temperance, and rough 
 manual exercise for the sake of living to extreme old 
 age. On the contrary, the poor, who are compelled by 
 necessity to a life of hardship and toil, and generally 
 of temperance too, enjoy good health, and live to a 
 great age. 
 
 The desire of longevity appears to be inherent in all 
 animated nature, and particularly in the human race ; 
 it is intimately cherished by us, through the whole du- 
 ration of our existence, and is frequently supported and 
 strengthened, not only by justifiable means, but also by 
 various kinds of collusion. Living in an age when every 
 branch of human knowledge is reduced to popular 
 systems ; when the vigils of reason are hallowed at the 
 shrine of experiment and observation ; though we be- 
 hold in the immense variety of things, the utter useless- 
 
32 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ness of attempting to renovate a shattered constitution, 
 or of improving a sound one to last beyond a certain 
 period ; we nevertheless observe that in the inconceiv- 
 able waste of elementary particles there prevails the 
 strictest economy. Nothing is produced in vain, no- 
 thing consumed without a cause. We clearly perceive 
 that all nature is united by indissoluble ties, that every 
 individual thing exists for the sake of another, and that 
 no one can subsist without its concomitant. Hence we 
 conclude, that man himself is not an insulated being, 
 but a necessary link in the great chain which connects 
 the universe. Nature is our safest guide, and she will 
 be so with greater certainty, as we become better ac- 
 quainted with her operations ; especially with respect to 
 those particulars which more nearly concern our physical 
 existence. Thus a source of many, and very extensive 
 advantages will be opened; thus, we shall reach our 
 original destination — namely, that of living long, and 
 in the enjoyment of sound health, to which if purity of 
 morals be added, the best hopes may be entertained of 
 a happy state, in a future world, where its inhabitants 
 never die. 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 Addy, Mrs., of Tinsley Toll-bar, near Eotherham, 
 died in 1809, aged 101 years. She retained the com- 
 plete use of her faculties to the last, though somewhat 
 infirm in her limbs ; her sight continued so perfect that 
 she was able to read a small print bible without spec- 
 tacles. Her mother lived to the age of 103 years. 
 
 Allason, William, Governor of Scarborough Spaw, 
 died in 1775, at the age of 103, in possession of all his 
 faculties. His attainment to extreme old age, without 
 its usual attendant infirmities was the more singular as 
 he was far from living temperately. His portrait is in 
 possession of a friend in Scarborough, with this inscrip- 
 tion — ** The picture of William Allason, Governor of the 
 Spaw, taken in 1760, then 88 years of age." Whenever 
 he was questioned respecting his regimen, he usually 
 replied that he always lived well, and that the Spaw 
 water was his sovereign remedy, 
 
 D 
 
34 YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 Allison, Maby, of Thorlby, in the parisli of Skipton, 
 died in 1668, aged 108 years. She was able to work 
 at her spinning-wheel, until within two years of her 
 decease. 
 
 Allanby, Widow, of Thoralby, died February 8th, 
 1665, aged 111 years. 
 
 Atkinson, Alice, of the City of York, died in 1794, 
 aged 109. 
 
 AiRTON, Mary, of Horsforth, near Leeds, died in 1809, 
 aged 105. 
 
 Ambler, Peter, of Shelf, near Halifax, died 3rd 
 December, 1708, aged 108. 
 
 Andrews, Ann, of Sheffield, died in 1818, aged 100. j 
 
 Armstrong, Ann, of Aldbrough, near Kichmond, died 
 in April, 1766, aged 107, to which age she had lived in 
 a stat6 of celibacy. 
 
 AiCTON, Mrs., of Potternewton, near Leeds, died in 
 1805, aged 105. 
 
 AsKHAM, Mrs., of the City of York, died in 1791, 
 aged 101. 
 
 Atkins, Mrs. Jane, died April 17th, 1761, aged 
 100. She was buried in the church of Great Grivendale, 
 near Pockiington, where a monumental inscription attests 
 the fact of her uncommon age. 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 35 
 
 Atkinson, Alice, spinster, of Settle, died in 1808, 
 aged 97. She was a member of the Society of Friends, 
 and much distinguished among that body for her activity, 
 intelligence, and generally exemplary conduct. 
 
 AsKRiGG, a small town in Wensleydale, is noted for 
 the beauty of its scenery, and the salubrity of its air, as 
 well as the general longevity of its inhabitants, of which 
 a remarkable instance occured in the twelve months be- 
 tween August, 1858, and 1859; during which period 
 died, — Anthony Story, aged 88 years and 3 months ; 
 James Harker, 95 years and 5 months; Mrs. Jane 
 Metcalfe, 99 years and 4 months ; and William 
 Thompson, 89 years and 6 months, giving an average 
 of nearly 93 years each, or a total of 371 years. 
 
 Some seasons appear particularly fatal to long lived 
 persons, the above case may be cited as an instance ; 
 another, not less remarkable, happened in this coimls^ in 
 September, 1859, when, on Sunday, September 10th, 
 died at Arksey, near Doncaster, in her 99th year, 
 Sarah, wife of James Lillyman, Esq. On Monday, the 
 11th, in his 95th year, Mr. John Thackray, of Weardley, 
 near Harewood, who had been for upwards" of 60 years 
 a gardener at Harewood House. And, on the same day, 
 
 d2 
 
36 YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 
 at Eipon, aged 96, Elizabeth, widow of Edward Greaves, 
 farmer, Clotherholme, near that City. 
 
 AvisoN, Matthias, of Kirkby Misperton, near Malton, 
 died in 1822, aged 111. 
 
 Bartlemer, Margaret, of Kirkstall, near Leeds, died 
 in 1766, aged upwards of 102. She retained her facul- 
 ties to the last. 
 
 Barnard, Thomas, of Leeds, died in 1698, aged 103. 
 
 Barnard, Grace, of Leeds, died in 1804, aged 101. 
 
 Bailey, Michael, of Sherburn, died in June, 1808, 
 aged 107. He was the oiiginal of the celebrated paint- 
 ing called **The Woodman." He was abstemious and 
 regular in his habits, and worked as a day labourer un- 
 til he was more than 100 years of age. 
 
 Bambles, Mrs., of Whitby, died in 1812, aged 94 
 years. She lived in the same house with two sisters, 
 one older, the other younger *than herself, both of whom 
 
 ^^ ' As Yorkshire Longevity is our theme, we cannot omit the 
 following remarkable instance: Died, in April, 1835, "Old 
 Adam," a donkey, the property of Mr. Carr, of Keighley. It 
 was in the Carr's family above eighty years, and was fourteen 
 years old when they bought it ; so this venerable specimen of 
 assinine longevity departed this life upwards of ninety-five years 
 of age. 
 
YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 37 
 
 were alive at the time of her decease. The eldest was 
 an unmarried lady, who had great vivacity of spirits, 
 and frequently distinguished herself from her sisters, 
 both of whom were widows, by the epithet of the 
 *^young maid." 
 
 Bateman, Mrs., of Aldborough, near Hull, died in 
 1802, aged 100. 
 
 Bayne, John, of Limley, near Middlesmoor, died 
 November, 1802, aged 98. 
 
 Bean, John, of Middlethorpe, near York^ died in 
 1700, aged 107. 
 
 Beilby, Mary, of Malton, died in February, 1767, 
 aged 107. 
 
 Beachill, James, of Monk-Fryston, died in 1817, 
 aged 103. 
 
 BiNNS, Mrs., of Ripon, died in 17&6, aged 96. To 
 the end of her life she could see to read small print 
 without the aid of spectacles. 
 
 BiRKHEAD, William, of Brook-house, near Cleckhea- 
 ton, died in 1797, aged 100. 
 
 Blake, Jane, of Leeds, died in 1763, aged 114. 
 
 Bradbury, Mary, of Sheffield, died in 1739, aged 
 105. 
 
38 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 Brook, Roger, of Halifax, died October 11th. 1568, 
 aged 133. 
 
 Brignell, Thomas, of Whitby, died in 1796, aged 
 96. He was for many years an eminent whitesmith 
 and mechanician, and was well known in most of the 
 ports of England, especially in those trading to the Bal- 
 tic and Greenland seas, for the excellence of his screws 
 and harpoons. Along with Mr. Wilson, another me- 
 chanic of Whitby, he appears to have constructed the 
 first locomotive carriage, but on what principle we have 
 no information. The invention, however, came to noth- 
 ing, probably it was too much in advance of the age in 
 which it was produced. 
 
 BuTTERFiELD, RoBERT, of Halifax, died in December, 
 1781, aged 102, From very humble beginnings, by 40 
 years industry as a wool-stapler, he acquired a fortune 
 of £40,000, which he employed extensively in works 
 of charity and beneficence. 
 
 Bourn, Ralph, of West Tanfield, near Ripon, died 
 in 1728, aged 113. An inscription on a stone in the 
 south porch of the church perpetuates his memory. 
 
 BuLKELEY, — . On the 2nd of July, 1744, is re- 
 corded the birth of a son to Mr. Ai'thur Bulkeley. The 
 child's baptism is remarkable from these circumstances, 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 39 
 
 — the infant's godfathers by proxy, were Edward Downs, 
 Esq., of Worth, in Cheshire, his great great great great 
 uncle; Dr. Ashton, master of Jesus' College, Cambridge, 
 and his brother, Mr. Joseph Ashton, of Surrey street, 
 in the Strand, his great great great uncles. The god- 
 mothers by their proxies, were Mrs. Elizabeth Wood, 
 of Barnsley, Yorkshire, his great great great great aunt ; 
 Mrs. Jane Wainwright, of Middlewood Hall, Yorkshire, 
 his great great grandmother, and Mrs. Dorothy Green, 
 of the same place, his great gTandmother. It was observed 
 of Mrs. Wainwright, who was then 89 years of age, that 
 she could properly say, — Else daughter, go to thy daughter, 
 for thy daughter s daughter has a son! 
 
 o 
 
 Catton, Mrs. Ann, of Hungate, York, died in 1814, 
 aged 102. She was a poor, but very industrious woman, 
 and possessed to the last a remarkably retentive memory, 
 with so much bodily health and strength, as to be able 
 to walk about by herself till within a week of her 
 decease. 
 
 Carnall, Ann, of Sheffield, died in 1817, aged 100. 
 
 Cateby, Valentine, of Preston, near Hull, died in 
 1782, aged 116. He went to sea in his eighteenth year, 
 and continued a sailor thirty-six years ; he then commenced 
 
40 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 farming, which occupation he followed for thirty-six years 
 more, when he retired from business. His diet, for the 
 last twenty years of his life, was strictly confined to milk 
 and biscuit. His mental faculties were quite composed, 
 and perfect up to the close of his long life. 
 
 Catterson. Mrs., of Silsden Moor, near Skipton, in 
 Craven, relict of Sylvester Catterson, of Addingham, 
 died in April, 1858, aged 102. In her youth she was 
 a leader of fashion in her neighbourhood. She retained 
 the use of her faculties to the last. 
 
 Carter, Matthew, of Thornbrough, near Thirsk, 
 died in November, 1666, aged 112. He was married 
 at the age of 54. His widow survived him 6 years; 
 dying 64 years after her marriage. 
 
 Chapel, Sarah, of Whitley, died in 1766, 
 104. 
 
 Childers, Henry, of Bramham, died in 1809, aged 
 102. 
 
 Cocker, Ann, of Meanwood, near Leeds, died in 
 1820, aged 100. 
 
 CouLSON, Ralph, of Grimstone, died in 1771, aged 
 107. 
 
 Cousen, Mary, of Wakefield, died in 1791, aged 
 103. 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 41 
 
 Coulter, Mrs., of Hovingham, died in 1772, aged 
 103. 
 
 Cook, Robert, of Clifton, died April 28tli, 1776, aged 
 107. 
 
 Corner, Mrs. Ann, widow, of Aldbrough, died in 
 1817, aged 105. 
 
 CoNGREVE, William, of Sheffield, died in 1754, aged 
 111. 
 
 CoNSiTT, Francis, of Burythorpe, near Malton, died 
 in 1796, at the age of 150. He was maintained by the 
 parish above sixty years, and retained his senses to the 
 
 last. 
 
 " Drooping and burthen'd with a weight of years, 
 What venerable ruin man appears ! 
 How worthy pity, love, respect, and grief — 
 He claims protection — he compels relief. " 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 CowGiLL, John, of Ripley, died in 1825, aged 104. 
 
 He was descended from a family noted for longevity, his 
 
 father and grandfather both having attained to extreme 
 
 old age. He was a field labourer, hale and robust to the 
 
 last, enjoying excellent health, and scarcely had a day's 
 
 illness during the whole of his long life; even at the last 
 
 the wheels of life appeared to come to a stand gently, 
 
 and he passed away without any violent shock, like one 
 
 going to sleep when his work was done. His memory 
 
42 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 was perfect to the last, and he was possessed of a fund 
 of anecdote, and loved to narrate the doings of his youth. 
 His widow, who survived him, was upwards of 90 at the 
 time of her decease. i 
 
 Craven, Philip, of old Malton, a day labourer, died * 
 in 1844, aged 104. 
 
 Calvert, Michael, of Knaresbrough, died December 
 3rd, 1862, in the 92nd year of his age. He was for 
 many years a druggist in that town, and author of a 
 ^'History of Knaresbrough," and other works. 
 
 ID 
 
 Dawson, Mrs., widow, of Thwing, in the East Riding, 
 died in 1809, aged 107. She manifested no important 
 signs of declining faculties, until within one week of her 
 decease. 
 
 Dawson, Mrs., of Wakefield, died in 1798, aged 101. 
 
 Darnbrough, William, for 40 years sexton at Hart- 
 with Chapel, near Ripley, died October 17th, 1846, aged 
 100.* He used to boast, that in his youth, the fairies 
 were very numerous on the moors around Hartwith, 
 but most of them had disappeared before he died, which 
 
 * An upriglit headstone, near the middle of the burial ground 
 attached to Hartwith Chapel, bears the following inscription : "In 
 memory of William Dainbrough, who, for the last forty years of 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 4B 
 
 was matter of great regret to him. He used to take great 
 delight in describing their beautiful appearance, when 
 dancing on the moors, on moonlight nights. 
 
 *' Such airy beings awe the untutor'd swain." 
 
 Demaine, John, a small farmer, at West End, in the 
 parish of Fewston, near Otley, died in 1820, aged 110. 
 In his youth he was a tall, active man, and a remarkably 
 swift runner. The great amusement of his life was fol- 
 lowing the hounds, which he pursued on foot, with his 
 accustomed energy, till within the last five years of his 
 life. He was never known to change his dress after 
 those days of severe exercise, though frequently drenched 
 
 his life, was the Sexton of this Chapel. He died October 3rd, 
 
 1846, in the one hundredth year of his age. 
 
 ' Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace ; thou shalt be buried 
 
 in a good old age.' — Genesis, xx. 15. 
 
 " The graves around, for many a year, 
 Were dug by him who slumbers here, — 
 Till, worn with age, he dropped his spade, 
 And in this dust his bones were laid. 
 As he now, mouldering, shares the doom 
 Of those he buried in the tomb ; 
 So shall he, too, with them arise, 
 To share the judgment of the skies." 
 An examination of the Pateley Bridge Church Kegisters re- 
 vealed the fact that Dambrough was one hundred and two years 
 
 of age. 
 
 Another stone, in the same burial ground, commemorates 
 
 Francis Kobinson, of Hartwith, who died October 28th, 1852, 
 
 aged ninety-four. 
 
44 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 with rain ; nor did he ever experience a days confinement 
 from illness during the whole of his long life. At the age i 
 of ninety-seven, he could mow an acre of grass in one day — 
 a task sufficient for mostyoung men. After he had attained 
 his 100th year, he complained that he felt he was growing 
 old, as could not leap the walls, hedges and ditches, as he 
 used to do. After struggling against the growing infir- 
 mities of age, which impeded his favourite, and long in- 
 dulged amusement, at the age of 105, he entirely gave 
 up the sport, and acknowledged that he had become an 
 old man. He was quick of sight and hearing to the last. 
 
 " When his weak hand grew palsied, and his eye, 
 Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die." 
 
 Deane, Sarah, of Horsforth, near Leeds, died in 1809, 
 aged 102. 
 
 Deline, Peter, Esq., of Leeds, died in 1773, aged 
 104. 
 
 Dixon, Jane, widow, of Scrayingham, died in 1854, 
 aged 103. She retained full command of all her facul- 
 ties till within a few months of her decease ; her sight in 
 particular, was so perfect, that she could see to read type 
 of the ordinary size, without the aid of glasses, up to 
 the last hour of her life. 
 
YOBKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 45 
 
 DoBSON, Thomas, of Hatfield, died in 1766, aged 139. 
 He was eminent as an agriculturist. At the time of his 
 death he left a family of three sons and seven daughters, 
 all married, and living in that neighbourhood, who, to- 
 gether with their children and grandchildren, to the 
 number of ninety-one, attended his funeral. 
 
 DoDSWoRTH, Mary, of Kirkdale, died July 16th, 1797, 
 in the 102nd year of her age. There is an inscription 
 to her memory in the north aisle of the parish church, 
 of this place. 
 
 DoDswoRTH, Margaret, wife of Robert Dodsworth, 
 Esq., of Barton, in the North Riding. She lived in three 
 centuries, being born, in 1598, and dying in 1704, aged 
 105. After the death of her first husband, she married 
 Colonel Henry Chaytor, the loyal and gallant defender 
 of Bolton Castle, in Wensleydale, for the king, against 
 the forces of the Parliment, during the civil wars of the 
 the 17th century. She made her will a few months 
 before her death, stating that she was *' in health of body, 
 and of sound, good, and perfect memory;" and signs by 
 a mark of three strokes 1 1 1 . In the church at Barton, 
 is a monument to the memory of herself, her first hus- 
 band and son. 
 
4G YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 Buncombe, Thomas, of Beverley, lime burner, died 
 in 1814, aged 114. He had been married to five wives. 
 
 Elstoff, Mr., of Ledstone, died in 1756, aged 114. 
 
 EsH, Mrs., of Burton Agnes, died in 1763, aged 
 100. She appeared to have a presentiment that her 
 death was approaching, and spent the last few days of 
 her life in great tranquility, preparing every thing ne- 
 cessary for her funeral. 
 
 *' Faint as the rainbow melts to common air 
 
 In tints scarce visible, so fsdntly falls 
 
 On tlie mind's eye some image of tbe future." 
 
 Ellerton, Simeon, of Craike, near Easingwold, died 
 in 1799, aged 104. This man, in his day, was a noted 
 pedestrian, and, before theestablishment of regular j90sfs, 
 was frequently employed in walking commissions from^ 
 the northern counties to London, and other places, which 
 he executed with singular fidelity and despatch. He 
 lived in a neat stone cottage of his own erecting ; and, 
 what is remarkable, he literally carried his house upon 
 his head ; it being his constant practice to bring back 
 with him from every journey he undertook, some suitable 
 
YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 47 
 
 stone, or other material for his purpose; and which, not 
 unfrequently, he carried 40 or 50 miles on his head. 
 
 Ellis, Francis, mariner, of Whitby, died in 1771, 
 aged 95 ; within a few days, also, died Mary, his wife, 
 aged 93. 
 
 Singular instances sometimes occur of a man and his 
 wife dying almost at the same time, after having lived a 
 long time together: we give one or two by way of 
 variety. — Charles Cotterell, of Philadelphia, United 
 States, died in 1761, aged 120, and within four hours of 
 his decease, his wife also died, aged 115 ; they had lived 
 together in peace and unity for 98 years. — William 
 Hudson, and Dinah his wife, of Sand Hutton, near Thirsk, 
 died March 5th, 1839, one in the morning the other in 
 the evening, aged, respectively, 83 and 85 years. 
 
 IF 
 
 Fentham, William, of Eipon, farmer, died in 1799, 
 aged 100. 
 
 Fentiman, Mr., of Bolton Abbey, in Craven, died in 
 1801, aged 101. Throughout his long life he had en- 
 joyed an almost uninterrupted state of good health. 
 
 Frith, Mary, of Marsden, in the parish of Almond- 
 bury, died in 1784, aged 111. 
 
48 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 Frith, John, of Sowerby, near Halifax, died in 1757, 
 aged 107. He left seven sons and daughters living ; the 
 eldest of whom was 87, and the youngest 69 years of 
 age. 
 
 Finney, William, of Ripon, died February 13th, 
 1813, aged 103. An inscription, in the nave of Ripon 
 Minster records this instance of longevity.* 
 
 Foss, Widow, of Morley, died in 1721, aged 114. 
 
 Foster, Elizabeth, of Stainbum, near Otley, died 
 in 1830, aged 101. 
 
 Frank, Mr., of Pontefract, died in 1782, aged 100. 
 
 Furnish, William, for many years an innkeeper in 
 the City of York, died in 1811, aged 100. 
 
 G- 
 
 Garbutt, Jane, widow, of Welbury, near Northaller- 
 ton, died in 1856, aged 110. She had been twice mar- 
 ried, both her husbands being sailors during the old 
 war. For some years, during the latter part of her life, 
 she was maintained by the parish ; she, however, had a 
 cottage to herself, and the parish officers, with laudable 
 
 * In Ripon Minster, and the burial ground attached thereto, 
 are about 750 monumental inscriptions, of which only two record 
 the death of persons who attained to the age of 100. 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 49 
 
 humanity, engaged a female to attend to her wants. Her 
 frame had shrunk into a very small compass ; she was 
 comparatively free from pain, retaining all her faculties, 
 and enjoying a pipe of tobacco to the last. According to 
 her own statement, she **had burned the fragrant weed " 
 nearly one hundred years, which will go far to prove if 
 it be a poison, it is a slow one indeed. She always sat 
 upright on her chair, rarely resting against the back, 
 and, only the Saturday before her death, walked steadily 
 across the floor of her cottage. 
 
 Garforth, Dennis, of Keighley, died in 1625, aged 
 103. 
 
 Garraud, Mrs., widow, of Oulton, near Leeds, died 
 in 1805, aged 100. This venerable lady, with her hus- 
 band and family, resided at Lisbon, at the period of the 
 dreadful earthquake, which, in 1775, nearly depopulated 
 that cit}^ ; in which frightful catastrophe they lost the 
 greatest part of their property. She had full possession 
 of all her faculties to the last, and, by an easy transition, 
 she passed from life to death on the very day she had 
 completed her 100th year. 
 
 " Taught, half by reason, half by mere decay, 
 To welcome death — and calmly pass away." 
 
50 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 Glenton, Helen, of Tunstall, near Catterick, died 
 in 1808, aged 107. 
 
 Glenton, Dinah, of Richmond, died in 1811, aged 
 104. 
 
 Gibson, William, of Hutton Bushell, near Scar- 
 borough, died in 1796, aged 102. 
 
 Gomeesall, Mary, of Wakefield, died in March, 1763, 
 aged 107. She was mother to fourteen children, grand- 
 mother to thirty-three, great grandmother to eighty-four, 
 great great grandmother to twenty-five — in all, one 
 hundred and fifty- six descendants. This is a respect- 
 able number, but nothing to what is said to have been 
 the family of Dennis Coorobee, of Ballindangan, Ireland, 
 who died in 1805, aged 117 : who, during his lifetime, 
 had seven wives, forty-eight children, two hundred and 
 thirty- six grandchildren, nine hundred and forty-four 
 great grandchildren, and twenty-five great great grand- 
 children, in all, one thousand two hundred and fifty- 
 three. 
 
 Grave, Mary, an inmate of Rothwell workhouse, near 
 Leeds, died in 1797, aged 96. She could read, knit, and 
 sew, without glasses, and retained the use of her facul- 
 ties, little impaired, nearly to the end of her life. jl 
 
 Gray, Mrs., widow, Sheffield, died in 1843, aged 109. ^ 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 51 
 
 GrREEN, Ann, a pauper of the parish of Spro thorough, 
 but a native of Kirk-heaton, died March Gth, 1791, 
 aged 118. 
 
 Gray, Ann, of Shipton, near Market Weighton, died 
 in 1797, aged 100. She earned her own independent 
 Hving, by hard work, till within a very few years of her 
 decease. 
 
 Golden, Mrs, widow, of Hilton, in Cleveland, died in 
 1802, aged 112. She retained the complete command 
 of all her faculties, up to the latest period of her life, and, 
 even in extreme old age, she was possessed of uncommon 
 dexterity in carding wool, of which she used to boast 
 that she could card more in one day than any other 
 woman could spin. 
 
 GuNSTON, Sarah, of the parish of St. Giles, in the 
 suburbs of the City of York, died in 1792, aged 103. 
 She had been a widow, at the time of her decease, 
 more than half a century. 
 
 GuNBY, Mrs. Caroline, died at Double Bridges, 
 near Thorne, July 20th, 1829, in the 103rd year of her 
 age. 
 
 h: 
 
 Hall, Mary, sextoness, of Bishophill, in the City of 
 York, died in 1759, aged 105. She walked about, and 
 
 E 2 
 
52 YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 retained her senses, until within three clays of her 
 death. 
 
 Harpeb, John, of Askwith, near Otley, died in 1700, 
 •aged 100. 
 
 Harrison, Mrs., widow, of Bacup, died in 1819, 
 aged 108. 
 
 Harrison, Catherine, of Thirsk, died March 8th, | 
 1795, aged 100. 
 
 Harrison, Elizabeth, buried at Kirkby Moorside, 
 in 1719, aged 100. 
 
 Harwick, William, of Leeds, died in May, 1772, 
 aged 110. 
 
 Halmshaw, Mary, of Wakefield, died in 1791, aged 
 102. She had been a widow more than fifty years. 
 Such was her general good state of health, combined 
 with great activity, that, when in her seventy- seventh 
 year, she walked from Wakefield to London, a distance 
 of 180 miles, and returned,^ as she went, on foot. She 
 retained all her faculties almost unimpared to the last. 
 
 Hartop, Jonathan, of the village of Aldborougb, 
 near Boroughbridge, died in 1791, aged 138. His pa- 
 rents both perished by the plague, in their house in the 
 Minories, and he perfectly well remembered the great 
 fire of London, in 1666. He was short in stature, had 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. ' 53 
 
 been married five times, and left seven childien, twenty - 
 six grandchildren, seventy-four great grandchildren, and 
 one hundred and forty great great grandchildren. He 
 could see to the last to read without spectacles, and play 
 at cribbage, of which game he was passionately fond, 
 keeping his own account, with the most perfect recollec- 
 tion of numbers. On Christmas day, 1789, he walked 
 nine miles to dine with one of his great grandchildren. 
 He remembered the person of Charles II. ; and once 
 travelled from London, to York, with the facetious 
 Killigrew. He was always sparing in his diet, and his 
 his only beverage was milk. His disposition was cheer- 
 ful, and, under every circumstance, how^ever adverse, he 
 seemed to enjoy an uninterupted flow of good spirits. 
 The third wife of this extraordinary man was stated to 
 be an illegitimate daughter of the Lord Protecter Crom- 
 well, who gave her a marriage portion of about £500. 
 He possessed a fine portrait of Cromwell, by Cooper, for 
 which Mr. Holies oJffered him £300, which was refused. 
 Mr. Hartop, was personally intimate with the poet Milton, 
 and, shortly after the restoration, lent him £50, which 
 the bard returned him, though not without difficulty, as 
 his circumstances then were at a very low ebb. Mr. 
 Hartop would have declined receiving back the loan, 
 
54 . YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 but the independent spirit of the poet would not allow 
 him to accept the offer, and he sent the money accom- 
 panied with a somewhat indignant letter at the proposal, 
 which document was found among the papers of the 
 venerable patriarch after hi& decease. 
 
 Halton, Alice, of Thirsk, died in 1814, aged 105. 
 She was mother of twelve children, and lived to see the 
 fifth generation of her descendants. 
 
 Hanson, Hannah, of Castle Bolton, in Wensleydale,. 
 died January 14th, 1812, aged 105. A stone, in Redmire 
 chapel yard, commemorates this instance of longevity. 
 
 Hatfield, Ann, of Tinsley, near Sheffield, died in 
 1770, aged 105. 
 
 Hayton, Betty, now living (1864^) with her third 
 husband, in hospital yard Walmgate, York, in her 107th 
 year. She has a daughter living with her aged 80 years. 
 
 Hirst, William, a farm labourer, of Micklefield, near 
 Aberford, died in 1853, aged 107. He was born mthin 
 a few miles of Micklefield^ where he resided for eighty 
 years. He followed his employment, as a farm labourer, 
 regularly, until he was about ninety years old, and assis- 
 ted at harvest work at the age of one hundred. His 
 sight was so strong that he could see to read a news- 
 paper without the aid of glasses, to the end of his days; 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 55 
 
 his memory, also, continued unimpared, until within a few 
 weeks of his death. The allowance he received from the 
 parish — 3s. to 4s. a week, — he expended, principally, 
 in the purchase of rum, a spirit of which he had always 
 been extremely fond ; and which he considered as the 
 balm of his life. His last illness confined him to the 
 house nineteen weeks. He was married, and a family 
 of two sons survived him. 
 
 Hodgson, Elizabeth, of Scampston, near Pickering, 
 died November 13th, 1760, aged 110. 
 
 Horner, Jane, of Leeds, died in 1700, aged 109. 
 
 HoYLE, Elias, of Sowerby, near Halifax, died in 
 1805, aged 113. 
 * Houseman, John, a labouring man of Sessay, near 
 ' Thirsk, died in 1777, aged 111. 
 
 HoTHAM, Mrs., widow, of Tadcaster, died in 1811, 
 aged 99. 
 
 Holiday, John, of Milshay, near Leeds, died in 1812, 
 aged 100. More than a hundred of his descendents, 
 attended his funeral. 
 
 HopwooD, Ann, widow, of Hull, died in 1814, aged 
 \ 105. 
 
 Hume, Thomas, gentleman, of the City of York, died 
 in April, 1780, aged 115. 
 
56 YORKSHIBE LONGEVITY. 
 
 Hughes, William, of Tadcaster, died in September^ 
 1769, aged 127. 
 
 Hunt, Willl^m, of Sheffield, died in 1708, aged 102. 
 
 Humphries, Mrs., widow, of Elmsall, near Sheffield, 
 died in 1809, aged 103. 
 
 Holmes, Hannah, of Shipley, died in April, 1828^ 
 aged 104 years. 
 
 Hunter, Mrs., of Scarborough, died in April, 1786, 
 in the 106th year of her age. She retained her facul- 
 ties to the last. An hour before she expired, she gave 
 instructions that her maiden name (Noel,) might be put 
 upon her tombstone, — she being a descendant of thai 
 family, third cousin to the Earl of Rutland, and, also, 
 third cousin to the Earl of Gainsborough. 
 
 '* How loved, how honoured once, avails thee not. 
 
 To whom related, or, by whom begot ; 
 
 A heap of dust alone remains of thee, 
 
 'Tis all thou art ; and all the proud shaD be." 
 
 " The man of whom I speak is old — so old, 
 He seems to have outlived a world's decay ; 
 The hoary mountains, and the wrinkled ocean, 
 Seem younger still than he; his hair and beard 
 Are whiter than the tempest sifted snow\" 
 
 The oldest Yorkshireman of whom we have any re- 
 cord, is Henry Jenkins ; some say the oldest English- 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 57 
 
 man ; -t- others, the oldest man in the world since the 
 days of the Hebrew patriarchs. He was born at EUer- 
 ton-upon- Swale, a small village in the North Riding of 
 this County, one mile from Catterick, and six from 
 Richmond, in the year 1500, and the Parish Register, 
 of Bolton-on- Swale, records his death, December 9th, 
 1670 ; thus showing that he had completed his 169th 
 year. The proofs on which the great age of Jenkins 
 rest have been examined and sifted with the greatest 
 severity and care;jjn order, if possible, to detect the 
 slightest fallacy : but the fact appears to be established 
 beyond the reach of reasonable doabt. Belonging to 
 an humble station in society, but few events of his life 
 are recorded, beyond his extraordinary longevity. His 
 
 * Examples of longevity, even exceeding that of Jenkins, have 
 been given ; the most remarkable, in England, is that of Thomas 
 Cam, who is said to have died in Shoreditch, London, January 
 
 J 28th, 1588, aged 207 years ; that he was born in the reign of 
 Richard II., A. D., 1381, and lived in the reigns of twelve kings 
 
 I and Queens of England. The proofs of his age are not given, 
 and it is generally looked upon as apocryphal, 
 
 I "The Petersburg Journal," published in 1812, an account of a 
 
 ' man, in the diocese of Ekaterinoslaw, who attained to an age be- 
 
 ; tween 200, and 205. 
 
 j Peter Czartan, a native of Transylvania, died at Rofrosh, near 
 Temswar, January 5th, 1724, aged 185. 
 
 A mulatto man, name unknown, is said to have died at Fred- 
 erick Town, in North America, in the year 1797, at the age of 180. 
 A negress, named Louisa Truxo, was living in June, 1780, at 
 Cordova, in the Tecuman, South Ainerica, then 175 years old. 
 
58 YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 youth was passed in the laborious employments of agri- 
 culture ; afterwards, he became butler to the Lord Conyers, 
 of Hornby Castle ; in his old age, he used to earn a 
 livelihood by thatching houses, and fishing in the rivers. 
 The earliest, and most reliable account of Jenkins, is 
 given by Mrs. Anne Savile, daughter of John Savile, Esq., 
 of Methley, ancestor of the Earls of Mexborough, a lady 
 whose testimony may be considered as above suspicion, 
 in a letter to Dr. Tancred Eobinson, F.R.S.j-i^ published 
 in the transactions of the Eoyal Society : — This lady 
 says, ** When I first came to live at Bolton, it was told 
 me that there lived in that parish, a man near one hun- 
 dred and fifty years old ; that he had sworn as a witness 
 in a cause at York, to one hundred and twenty years, 
 which the judge reproving him for, he said, he was butler 
 at that time to Lord Conyers ; and they told me it was 
 reported his name was found in some old register of the 
 Lord Conyers, menial servants. Being one day in my 
 sister's kitchen, Henry Jenkins coming in to beg an 
 alms, I had a mind to examine him ; I told him he was an 
 
 * Dr. Tancred Eobinson was second son of Thomas Robinson, 
 Esq., and own brother to Sir William Robinson, Baronet, of 
 Newby-on- Swale. He was M.D., and F.R.S., and was Knighted 
 on his appointment as Physician to King George I. 
 
YORKSHIRE longe\t:ty. 59 
 
 old man, who must soon expect to give an account to 
 God of all he did or said ; and I desired him to tell me, 
 very truly, how old he was ; on which he paused a little, 
 and then said, to the best of his remembrance he was 
 about one hundred and sixty- two, or, one hundred and 
 sixty-three. I asked him what kings he remembered ? 
 He said, Henry VIII. I asked him, what public thing 
 he could longest remember ? He said, Flodden Field. 
 I asked him whether the King was there ? He said, 
 no ; he was in France, and the Earl of Surrey wa8< 
 General. I asked him how old he might be then ? He 
 said between ten and twelve; * for,' says he, ^Iwas^ 
 sent to Northallerton with a horse-load of arrows ; but 
 they sent a bigger boy from thence to the army witk 
 them.' I thought by these marks, I might find some- 
 thing in histories ; and looking into an old chronicle, I 
 found that Flodden Field, was about one hundred and 
 fifty-two years before, so that if he was ten or eleven 
 years old, he must be one hundred and sixty- two, or one 
 hundred and sixty-three, as he said, when I examined 
 him. I found that bows and arrows were then used, and 
 that the Earl he named was then General, and that King 
 Henry VIII. was then at Tournay : so that I don't 
 know what to answer to the consistencies of these things^ 
 
60 YORKSHIEE LONGEVITY. 
 
 for Henry Jenkins was a poor man, and could neither 
 write nor read. There were, also, fom- or five in the 
 same parish, that were reputed, all of them, to be one 
 hundred years old, or within two or three years of it, 
 and they all said he was an elderly man ever since they 
 knew him, for he was born in another parish, and before 
 any Register was in Chui'ches,-^ as it is said. He told 
 me then, too, that he was butler to the Lord Conyers, 
 and remembered the Abbot of Fountains' Abbey very 
 well, who used to drink a glass with his lord heartily ; 
 and that the dissolution of the Monasteries he well re- 
 membered. i 
 
 Ann Savile." f 
 
 The following remarks are' from the pen of Dr. : 
 Tancred Robinson, Physician to King George I. : — ^ 
 
 ''This Henry Jenkins, died December 8th, 1670, at 
 EUerton-on-Swale. The battle of Flodden Field was ] 
 fought on the 19th of September, 1513. Henry Jenkins \ 
 was twelve years old when Flodden Field was fought ; 
 so that he lived one hundred and sixty-nine years. Old 
 Parr lived one hundred and fifty-two years and nine I 
 months ; so that Henry Jenkins outlived him, by com- i| 
 
 * Parish Registers were first ordered to be kept in 1538. 9 
 
YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 61 
 
 putation, sixteen years, and was the oldest man born on 
 the ruins of the postdiluvian world. ^ 
 
 This Henry Jenkins, in the last century of his life, 
 was a fisherman, and used to wade in the streams. His 
 diet was coarse and sour ; but, towards the latter end of 
 his da^^s, he begged up and down. He was sworn in 
 Chancery, and other courts, to above one hundred and 
 forty years' memory, and was often at the Assizes at 
 York, whither he generally went afoot ; and, I have 
 heard some of the country gentlemen affirm that he 
 frequently swam in the rivers after he was past the age 
 of one hundred years." 
 
 Miss Savile having sent a copy of her statement re- 
 specting Jenkins, to Sir Eichard Graham, of Norton 
 Conyers, near Eipon ; which was inserted in the house- 
 
 * This high sounding, and not very definite, expression of the 
 learned Doctor's, requires some modification, though the accuracy 
 of the instances of old age given above, exceeding that of Jenkins 
 may be impugned, though not easily proved false ; yet the ages 
 of some of the patriarchs born after the flood, and. consequently 
 " on the ruins of the j^ostdiluvian world," exceeded that of Jen- 
 kins, as — Ai'phaxad, son of Shem, born two years after the flood, 
 lived 438 years ; Salah, 433 ; Eber, 464 ; Peleg, 239 ; Eeu, 239 ; 
 Serug, 230. — Genesis, xi. Abraham lived 175 years; "And the 
 days of Isaac, were an hundred and fourscore years. — Genesis, 
 xxxv. 28. 
 
 Grainger, in his Biographical History, says — "He was the 
 oldest man, of the postdilmians, of whom we have any credible 
 ' account.^'' 
 
i 
 
 62 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 hold book of that family ; a transcript of it was, after- 
 wards, given to Koger Gale, the celebrated antiquary, by 
 Sir Reginald Graham, accompanied with the following 
 note from himself: — 
 
 ^ ' Sir, — I have sent you an account of Henry Jenkins 
 as I find it in my grandfather's Household Book, — the 
 time of his death is mentioned, under the letter as I have 
 set it down ; it seems not to have been the same hand : 
 he must have lived sometime after Mrs. Savile, sent this 
 account to Sir Richard. I have heard Sir Richard was 
 Sheriff, when Jenkins gave evidence to six score years, 
 in a cause between Mr. How and Mrs. Wastell, of 
 EUerton. The Judge asked him, how he got his living ? 
 he said '* by thatching houses, and fishing." This letter 
 is without date, but appears to have been written, by 
 Mrs. Savile, in the year 1661, or 1662, by what she says 
 of the time when she examined the old man, compared 
 with that of Flodden Field,* and was eight or nine years 
 before he died, for I found his burial in the Register of 
 Bolton Church, thus — '^ December the 9th, 1670, Henry 
 Jenkins, a very old poor man." And was also shewed 
 
 his grave. 
 
 R. Graham." 
 '' Norton, 26th August, 1739-40." 
 
 j 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 63 
 
 From his extraordinary age, he was often summoned 
 as a witness, to give evidence on ancient rights and 
 . usages, where his evidence was frequently of the most 
 material importance. 
 
 ** A Commission out of the Court of Exchequer, dated 
 12 Feby. 19. Charles II. authorizing George Wright, 
 Joseph Chapman, John Burnett, and Richard Fawcett, 
 1 Gents., to examine witnesses, as well on the part of the 
 plaintiflf, as defendant, in a tythe cause between Charles 
 Anthony, vicar of Catterick, complainant, and Calvert 
 Smithson, owner and occupier of lands, in Kipling, in 
 the parish of Catterick : 
 
 Depositions taken in the house of John Stairman, at 
 Catterick, Co. Ebor : on the 15th April, 1667 : — 
 
 Henry Jenkins, of EUerton-upon- Swale, labourer, 
 aged one hundred and fifty-seven, or thereabouts, swore 
 and examined, says — ' That he has known the parties 
 seven years, and that the tithes of lambs, calves, wool, 
 colts, chickens, goslings, pigs, apples, pears, plums, 
 flax, hemp, fruit, and multure of mills were paid in 
 kind, by one Mr. Calvert,-^ the owner of the Lordship 
 or Manor of Kipling, to one Mr. Thriscroft,t above 
 
 * George Calvert, Esq., afterwards created Baron Baltimore. 
 + Henry Tliriscroft was Vicar of Catterick from 1594 till 
 1603 ; Eichard Fawcett, from 1603 till 1660. 
 
64 YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 threescore years since, the Vicar of Catterick ; and were 
 so paid in kind during the time of his the said Mr. 
 Thriscroft's continuance ; and, after, the tithes of Kip- [ 
 ling were paid in kind to one Richard Fawcett, deceased, \ 
 for many years together as vicar of Catterick; and that ^ 
 this deponent never knew of any customary tithes, paid 
 by any of the owners, or occupiers, of the Lordship or 
 manor of Kipling, or any other of the towns or hamlets 
 within the said parish of Catterick ; but all such particu- 
 lars named in the interrogatories were ever paid in kind 
 to the vicar there for the time being."^ 
 
 At the Assizes at York, in 1655, Jenkins appeared as 
 a witness, to prove a right of way over a man's ground; I 
 he swore to 120 years memory; for that time he remem- 
 bered a way over the ground in question. Being cau- 1 
 tioned, by the Judge, to beware what he said, as there ' 
 were two men in the court, above eighty years of age 
 each, who had sworn they remembered no such way, he 
 replied that those men were boys to him. Upon 
 which the Judge asked those men how old they took 
 Jenkins to be ? They answered that they knew him 
 very well, but not his age ; for he was a very old man 
 when they were boys. 
 
 * Clarkson's History of Richmond, p. 396. 
 
YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 65 
 
 In the cause mentioned in Sir Keginald Graham's let- 
 ter, between How and Wastell, of Ellerton, Jenkins again 
 gave evidence to one hundred and twenty years memory. 
 One of the Judges asked him what remarkable battle, or 
 event, had happened in his memory, to which he answered, 
 that, when the battle of Flodden Field was fought, where 
 the Scots were beat with the loss of their King, he was 
 turned of twelve years of age. Being asked how he lived, 
 he said, by thatching and salmon fishing ; that when he 
 was served with a subpoena, he was thatching a house, 
 and he would diib a hook with any man in Yorkshire. 
 He also stated that he had been butler to Lord Conyers, 
 of Hornby Castle, and that Marmaduke Brodelay, lord 
 abbot of Fountains, did frequently visit his lord, and 
 drank a hearty glass with him — that his lord often sent 
 him to enquire how the abbot did, who always sent for 
 him to his lodgings, and, after ceremonies (as he called 
 it) passed, ordered him, besides wassel, a quarter of a 
 yard of roast beef for his dinner, (for that monasteries 
 did deliver their guests meat by measure,) and a great 
 black jack of strong drink. Being further asked if he 
 remembered the dissolution of the religious houses, he 
 said, very well ; and that he was between thirty and forty 
 ,^ years of age, when the order came to dissolve those in 
 
66 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 Yorkshire ; and that great lamentation was made, and the 
 country all in a tumult, when the monks were turned out. 
 
 Another cause is also mentioned in which Jenkins ap- 
 peared as a witness at York, in 1667, between the Yicar 
 of Catterick, and "William and Peter Mawbank, in which 
 he deposed, that tithes of wool, lambs, &c., were the 
 Vicar's, and had been paid, to his knowledge one hun- 
 dred and twenty years and more. | 
 
 Of the family history and private life of the venerable '. 
 old man, we have very little information ; he was mar- J 
 ried, but what family he had we know not ; two sons 
 have been mentioned as living a few years before their 
 father's death, '^both of whom were much more infirm in 
 memory and in body than the patriarch himself." If 
 it were so, those sons had either not been born in the 
 parish of Bolton, or never baptised, as there are only 
 two of the name of Jenkins recorded in the parish re- 
 gister, that of the old man himself, and his wife, who paid 
 the debt of nature in 1668, two years before her vener- 
 able partner, who, as already mentioned, died December ] 
 9th, 1670. If the engraved portraits of him are to be 
 depended on, he was a tall, spare man, with a coarse, 
 strong, but not unpleasing countenance ; the beard is a 
 principal feature, and appears to have descended down 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 67 
 
 his breast with genuine patriarchial dignity ; his likeness 
 is not unfrequently seen on public house signs, in this 
 county. There is, however, said to have been a genuine 
 portrait of him, taken by Kobert Walker, painter to the 
 Lord Protector Cromwell, which was engraved in 1752, 
 by Worlidge. 
 
 ^ In the year 1743, a monument was erected, by sub- 
 scription, in Bolton church yard, to the memory of Jen- 
 kins ; it consists of a square base of freestone, four feet 
 four inches on each side, by four feet six inches in 
 height, surmounted by a pyramid eleven feet high. On 
 the east side is inscribed — 
 
 I THIS MONUMENT WAS 
 
 ERECTED BY CONTRIBUTION, 
 IN Y^ YEAR 1743, TO Y^ MEMORY 
 
 OF HENEY JENKINS. 
 
 I On the west side — 
 
 HENRY JENKINS, 
 Aged 169. 
 
 In the church, on a mural tablet of black marble, 
 is inscribed the following epitaph, composed by Dr. 
 Thomas Chapman, Master of Magdalen College, Cam- 
 It bridge : — 
 
 > f2 
 
68 YOEKSHIBE LONGEVITY. 
 
 BLUSH NOT, MAKBLE, 
 
 TO EESCUE FROM OBLIVION 
 
 THE MEMORY OF 
 
 HENRY JENKINS: 
 
 A PERSON OBSCURE IN BIRTH, 
 
 BUT OF A LIFE TRULY MEMORABLE; 
 
 FOR 
 
 HE WAS ENRICHED 
 
 WITH THE GOODS OF NATURE, 
 
 IF NOT OF FORTUNE, 
 
 AND HAPPY 
 
 IN THE DURATION, 
 
 IF NOT VARIETY, 
 
 OF HIS enjoyments: 
 
 AND, 
 
 THO' THE PARTIAL WORLD 
 
 DESPISED AND DISREGARDED 
 
 HIS LOW AND HUMBLE STATE, 
 
 THE EQUAL EYE OF PROVIDENCE 
 
 BEHELD, AND BLESSED IT 
 
 WITH A patriarch's HEALTH AND LENGTH OF DAYS : 
 
 TO TEACH MISTAKEN MAN, 
 
 THESE BLESSINGS WERE ENTAILED ON TEMPERANCE, 
 
 OR, A LIFE OF LABOUR, AND A MIND AT EASE. 
 
 HE LIVED TO THE AMAZING AGE OP 
 
 169; 
 
 WAS INTEBEED HEEE, DEC. 6, {Uge 9,) 
 
 1670, 
 
 AND HAD THIS JUSTICE DONE TO HIS MEMORY 
 
 1743. 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 69 
 
 This inscription is a proof that learned men, and masters 
 of colleges, are not always exempt from the infirmity of 
 writing nonsense. Passing over the modest request to 
 the hlach marble not to blush, because it may feel itself 
 degraded by bearing the name of the plebeian — Jenkins, 
 when it ought only to have been appropriated to kings 
 and nobles ; we find but questionable philosophy, in this 
 inappropriate composition. 
 
 The multitude of great events which took place during 
 he lifetime of this man, are truly wonderful, and aston- 
 ishing. He lived under the rule of nine sovereigns of 
 England— Henry VH. ; Henry YIII. ; Edward YI. ; 
 
 i' Mary ; Elizabeth ; James I. ; Charles I. ; Oliver Crom- 
 well ; and Charles II. ; he was born when the Eoman 
 Catholic religion, was established by law, he saw the 
 dissolution of the monasteries, and the faith of the nation 
 changed — Popery established a second time by Queen 
 Mary — Protestantism, restored by Elizabeth — the civil 
 wars, between Charles and the Parliament, begun and 
 ended — monarchy abolished — the young republic of 
 England, arbiter of the destinies of Europe, and the re- 
 storation of monarchy under the libertine Charles II. 
 During his time, England was invaded by the Scots ; a 
 
 ^ Scottish King was slain, and a Scottish Queen beheaded 
 
70 YOKKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 in England ; a King of Spain, and a King of Scotland, 
 were Kings in England ; three Queens and one King, 
 were beheaded in England in his days ; and fire and 
 plague alike desolated London. His lifetime appears 
 like that of a nation, more than an individual, so long 
 extended and crowded with such great events. 
 
 Jameson, Ann, of Aldbrough, near Eichmond, died 
 in April, 1766, aged 102. She was confined to her bed 
 during the last ten years of her life. 
 
 Jackson, Maey, of Cropton, near Pickering, died in 
 1790, aged 104. 
 
 Jackson, Betty, of [Holbeck, near Leeds, died De- 
 cember 22nd, 1828, aged 5IO6. Li her twenty-second 
 year she accompanied the pack horses with rations to 
 General Wade's army, then lying at Tadcaster, on its 
 route northward to oppose the rebels in 1745. 
 
 Jackson, Luke, of Gauxholme, died in 1802, aged 
 103. 
 
 Jarman, Betty, widow, an inmate of one of the alms- 
 houses, York, died in 1811, aged 100. 
 
 Johnson, Ann, of Aiskew, near Bedale, died in No- 
 vember, 1777, in her 105th year. She was mother to 
 six children, grandmother to thirty- six, and great grand- 
 mother to six. 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 71 
 
 Johnson, Bartholemew, an eminent musician of 
 Scarborougli, died in 1814, aged 105. In tlie year 1810, 
 a minor Jubilee was celebrated in the town, in conse- 
 quence of the aged worthy completing the first century of 
 his existence. Lord Mulgrave honoured the meeting with 
 his presence, and afterwards sent Mr. Jackson, the ar- 
 tist, to take the portrait of the venerable old man, which 
 his Lordship afterwards presented to the Corporation of 
 Scarborough. 
 
 " When age and virtue in one form are joioed, 
 'Tis sweet to honour them. " 
 
 Jones, Joan, of Guisborough, died in May, 1772, in 
 the 103rd year of her age. 
 
 Kj:ighley, Ann, widow, of Hunslet, near Leeds, died 
 September 21st, 1796, aged 100. She was mother, 
 grandmother, and great grandmother to 253 children, 
 and was carried to the grave by twelve of her great 
 grand children ; nearly one hundred of her descendants 
 attended her funeral. 
 
 KiRTON, George, Esq., of Oxnop Hall, near Reeth, 
 died July 15th, 1764, in his 125th year. He was re- 
 markable for his love of hunting ; after following the 
 chase on horseback till he was upwards of eighty, so 
 
72 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 great was his desire for the diversion, that till he was 
 100 years old, he regularly attended the ** breaking 
 cover " in his single horse chair. He was a reniarkable 
 instance that length of days are not always entailed on 
 a life of temperance and sobriety, for no man — even till 
 within a short time of his death — made more free with 
 his bottle. '5^ His estate — which was considerable, and 
 had been in the family for three centuries — descended 
 to his son, Thomas Kirton, Esq., an eminent physician. 
 
 KJERSHAw, Mary, widow, of Pontefract, died in 1788, 
 aged 103. 
 
 Kirk, John, died at Leeds, in 1850, aged 103.. 
 He was a brickmaker by trade, and a native of Derby- 
 shire. 
 
 King, Mary, died in April, 1817, at Stonehaven, in 
 Dent, aged 111. She was — ^for a number of years — 
 one of the blind annuitants of Christ's Hospital. 
 
 * Many men of intemperate habits have attained to extreme 
 old age ; even some who have been habitual drinkers — the most 
 remarkable of whom was, perhaps, Thomas Whittington, of Hel- 
 lingdon, Middlesex, who died in 1804, aged 104. He retained 
 the complete use of all his powers of mind to the very last hour 
 of his Hf e. He was in the habit of drinking, daily, for many 
 yeais, and till "within a fortnight of his death, from a pint, to a 
 pint and a half of London Gin, which, singular to relate, seemed 
 to have very little effect upon his system. On the other hand, 
 more centenarians have been temperate in their habits, and some 
 of them total abstainers from strong drinks. 
 
YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 73 
 
 KiTCHiNGMAN, JoHN, EsQ., of Chapel AUerton,-'^ near 
 Leeds, died in 1510, aged 115. 
 
 KiTCHiNGMAN, RoBERT, EsQ., of the Same place and 
 family, died May 7th, 1716, aged 100. He ordered his 
 body to be buried by torchlight, at Chapel AUerton, 
 where he was interred on the 16th of the same month, 
 when one hundred torches were carried in the funeral 
 procession. The room where the body was laid was 
 hung with black, and a velvet .pall, with escutcheons, 
 was borne by the chief gentry; the bearers had all 
 scarfs, biscuits, and sack, and the whole company 
 gloves. Fifty pounds was given amongst the poor in 
 • the chapel yard, on the day of his interment. 
 
 KiTCHiNGMAN, Mary, widow of the above, died July 
 
 * Allerton Hall was, upwards of four centuries, tlie property 
 and residence of tlie Kitchingman family. It was the largest and 
 most ancient mansion in Chapeltown, consisting of about sixty 
 rooms, with gardens and pleasure grounds. This family, for the 
 long period of their residence here, were carried from the haU by 
 torchhght, to be interred in the choir of St. Peter's church, in 
 Leeds. At the funeral of any oi the family, the great chandeher, 
 consisting of thirty-six branches, was Hghted. When Sir Thomas 
 Fairfax took the town of Leeds by assault, in 1643, Henry Ro- 
 binson, vicar of Leeds, and brother of Mary Kitchingm an, fled to 
 this house, after having narrowly escaped with his Hfe, in cross- 
 ing the Aire, below St. Peter's church. Tradition says that King 
 Charles II. was concealed at this house before he went to Leeds. 
 The Hall was sold, about the year 1755, to Josiah Gates, Esq., 
 merchant, of Leeds. Part of the old Hall is yet standing, al- 
 though the greatest part of it was taken down about the yeai* 1730, 
 
74 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 28th, 1716, aged 97. She was interred precisely in 
 the same manner as her husband. 
 
 Knowles, Isabella, died at Tenement, in the town- 
 ship of Fountains' Earth, Nidderdale, January 30th, 
 1846, at the age of 102. She resided at Pateley 
 Bridge, until within a few years of her death, and so 
 completely did she retain the use of her faculties, that 
 she could see to thread a needle, and sew without spec- 
 tacles, when upwards of one hundred years old. Her 
 memory was perfect to the last. She was married and 
 had a family. 
 
 Xj 
 
 Law, Matthew, of Sand Hutton, near Thirsk, died 
 November 4th, 1814, aged 100. The Kegister of this 
 Chapelry, between the years 1813, and 1844, contains 
 the names of six persons buried there, each of them 
 more than 90 years of age., 
 
 Lambert, Phineas, of Thornhill, died in 1833, aged 
 94. He was a member of the Calvinistic persuasion 
 sixty years. He enjoyed good health to the last, and saw 
 four generations of his descendants, to the number of 
 152, most of whom followed him to the grave. 
 
 Lawranoe, Robert, of Guisborough, died in March 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 75 
 
 1762, aged 100. He had four wives, and was married 
 to Jane Enderson, his last, when ninety years of age. 
 
 Lazenby, Hannah, was living in the year 1823, at 
 Well, near Bedale, aged 103. We have no information 
 as to the time of her death. 
 
 Lepton, Agnes, of Kepwick, near Thirsk, died May 
 8rd, 1603, aged 103. 
 
 ' Lane, Esther, of Eggleston Abbey, died in 1804, 
 aged 105. 
 
 Legro, Daniel, of Leeds, died in 1773, aged 103. 
 
 Levi, Lazarus, of Leeds, died in 1797, aged 105. 
 He was of the Jewish persuasion, and, until he was up- 
 wards of 100, he was in the habit of traversing the 
 streets of Leeds, and adjacent townships as a vendor of 
 fine hardware and trinkets. 
 
 Lister, Sir Matthew, Knight, a native of Craven, 
 died in 1657, aged 92. He was physician to Anne of 
 Denmark, Queen of King James I., and one of the phy- 
 sicians in ordinary to King Charles I., President of the 
 College of Medicine in London, and one of the most 
 • eminent of his profession in the Kingdom. 
 
 Littleton, James, of Eishworth, near Halifax, died 
 in 1700, aged 100. 
 
 Lowther, Mr., of Guisborough, died in June, 1767, 
 ased 100. 
 
76 YOKKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 Logan, John, of Halifax, died in 1830, aged 104. 
 He was 50 years a soldier, and after his discharge received 
 a pension of fourteen shillings a week. He was twice 
 married ; by his first wife, he had 8 girls ; and by his 
 second, 12 girls and 12 boys. 
 
 LovELL, Mrs., of Burlington, died in 1800, aged 100. 
 
 LowTHER, Hannah, died at Thornton, near Pickering, 
 September 10th, 1861, aged 104. She retained all her 
 faculties to the last, and could read ordinary print, a 
 short time before her death, without spectacles. 
 
 Lister, Sarah, of Grassington, died at Skipton, 
 January 28th, 1862, aged 100 years. 
 
 Martin, Thomas, an inhabitant of Helmsley, was born 
 in the year 1674, and died in November 1804, aged 130. 
 
 Mann, Kichard, of Middleton, died in 1713, aged 
 105. 
 
 Mawhood, Mrs., widow, of Pontefract, died in 1792, 
 aged 100. | 
 
 Macknay, Barbara, of Middleton Tyas, died in 1808 ' . 
 aged 102. Her whole life had been a course of unin- 
 terrupted good health. 
 
 Metcalfe, Jane, widow of Henry Metcalfe, Esq., of 
 
YOEKSHIEE LONGEVITY. 77 
 
 Nappa Scar, near Askrigg, died April 3rd, 1859, in the 
 lOOti year of her age.t^ 
 
 Metcalfe, John, commonly called ^* Blind Jack, of 
 Knaresborongh," died at Spofforth, about four miles from 
 that town, April 26th, 1810, in the ninety-third year of his 
 age. His descendants at that time were four children, 
 
 * The Metcalfes of Wensleydale, of wliicli the house of Nappa 
 was the head, were, at one time, the most numerous family in 
 England. They were alike ancient and honourable; and many 
 of them were highly distinguished in different capacities. 
 James Metcalfe, of Nappa, was a captain in the battle of Agin- 
 court. " Thomas, son of James Metcalf, as Leland tells us, 
 bought Nappa, of Lord Scrope ; there was only a httle cottage on 
 it, and he built the house, which, in that historian's time, was 
 commony called — No Castle. He was steward receiver of the 
 lands of Kichmond, and grew very rich. When Leland wi'ote, 
 there were in the vicinity ' 300 men yn very knowen consanguin- 
 itie to them.' In 1556, Sir Christopher Metcalfe, being high 
 Sheriff of Yorkshire, met the Judges of assize, attended by 300 
 horsemen, all of his own family and name, mounted on white horses, 
 and clad in uniform habits. The last heir male of the senior 
 line, was Thomas Metcalfe, Esq., of Nappa HaU, who died un- 
 married, April 25th, 1756, aged 69." — Barker's three days in 
 Wensleydale, page 222. 
 
 The popular derivation of the name of Metcalfe is amusing. 
 On a time when the country abounded with wild animals, two 
 men being in the woods together, at evenfall, seeing a red four- 
 footed beast coming towards them, could not imagine in the dusk 
 what it was. One said, " Have you heard of lions being in these 
 woods ?" The other answered he had, but had never seen any 
 such thing. So they conjectured that what they saw was one. 
 The creature advanced a few paces towards them. One ran 
 away, the other determined to meet it. The animal happened to 
 be a red calf, — so he who met it got the name of Metcalfe , and 
 he who ran away, that of Lightfoot. 
 
1 
 
 78 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 twenty grandchildren, and ninety great and great great 
 grandchildren. He is, perhaps, one of the most remarkable 
 instances on record, of the difficulties of blindness and want 
 of education being overcome by perseverance and industry. 
 During his long life he was engaged in the most active' 
 and diverse employments. He was born at Knares- 
 borough, August 15th, 1717; at the age of six years, he 
 was completely deprived of sight by the small pox ; sixl 
 months after his recovery, he was able to go from his fa- 
 thers house to the end of the street, and return without ■ 
 a guide. "When about nine years of age, he began to as- * 
 sociate with other boys, rambling about with them to 
 seek bird nests, and used to climb the trees for his share 
 of the spoils. At the age of thirteen he was taught 
 music, and soon became an able performer; he also 
 learned to ride and swim, and was passionately fond of 
 field sports. He began to practise, as a musician, at 
 Harrogate, when twenty-five years of age, and not un- 
 frequently was a guide during the darkness of night over 
 the moors and wilds, then abundant in the neighbour- 
 hood of Knaresborough. He was also addicted to horse 
 racing, on which occasions he often rode his own horses 
 He so tutored his horses, that whenever he called them 
 by their respective names, they would answer by neigh- 
 
YORESHIEE LONGEVITY. 79 
 
 ing, and he could readily find his own, among any num- 
 ber, without any difficulty or assistance. When he 
 attained the age of manhood, his mind was possessed of 
 a self-dependence, rarely enjoyed by those who have the 
 perfect use of all their faculties; his body was well pro- 
 portioned to his mind, for, when twenty-one years of age, 
 he was six feet one and a half inches in height, strong, 
 and robust in proportion. Once, being desirous of ob- 
 taining some fish, he, unaided, drew a net in the deepest 
 part of the river Wharfe, for three hours together ; at 
 one time he held the lines in his mouth, being obliged 
 to swim. 
 
 The marriage of this extraordinary individual was a 
 romance in real life, something like that which Sir Walter 
 Scott has described in his ballad of Lochinvar. Miss 
 Benson, between whom, and our hero, a reciprocal affec- 
 tion had for some time subsisted, was to be married 
 next day, to one Mr. Dickinson, a husband of her pa- 
 rents choice ; the damsel not relishing the match, deter- 
 mined to elope with Metcalfe, blind and poor as he was ; 
 they were accordingly married next day, much to the 
 chagrin and disappointment of her parents and their in- 
 tended son in law, and the surprise of all who knew and 
 I heard of it, for she was as handsome a woman as any in 
 
80 YORKSHIEE LONGEVITY. 
 
 the country. When afterwards questioned, by a lady, 
 concerning this extraordinary step, and why she had re- 
 fused so many good offers for ** Blind Jack ; she answer- 
 ed, '* Because I could not be happy without him. " And 
 being more particularly questioned, she replied — *'His 
 actions are so singular, and his spirit so manly and en- 
 terprising, that I could not help liking him.'* 
 
 He continued to play at Harrogate in the season, and 
 set up a four wheel chaise, and a one horse chair, for 
 public accomodation ; there having been nothing of the 
 kind there before. He kept these vehicles two summers, 
 when the innkeepers beginning to run chaises, he gave 
 them up, as he also did racing and hunting; but still, 
 wanting employment, he bought horses and went to the 
 coast for fish, which he took to Leeds and Manchester; 
 and so indefatigable was he, that he would frequently 
 walk for two nights and a day, with little or no rest; for, 
 as a family was coming on, he was as eager for business 
 as he had been for diversion, still keeping up his spirits, 
 as Providence blessed him with good health. 
 
 More extraordinary still, when the rebellion of 1745, 
 broke out in Scotland, ** Blind Jack " joined a regiment 
 of volunteers, raised by Colonel Thomas Thornton, a 
 patriotic gentleman, for the defence of the house o 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 81 
 
 Hanover, shared with them all the dangers of the cam- 
 paign, defeated at Falkirk, victorious at Culloden. Jack 
 ^' afterwards carried on a small contraband trade, between 
 the ports on the east coast and the interior ; as well as 
 in galloways from Scotland, in which he met with many 
 adventures. In the year 1754, he set up a stage wag- 
 gon between York and Knaresborough, being the first 
 on that road, and conducted it constantly himself twice 
 a- week in the summer season, and once in the winter, 
 which occupation he continued until he began to contract 
 for making roads, which suited him better. The first 
 contract of the kind which he had, was three miles be- 
 f tween Minskip and Ferrensby, on the Boroughbridge 
 I and Knaresborough road.^ He afterwards made hun- 
 dreds of miles of road in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, 
 and Derbyshire ; he also built bridges and houses. He 
 was a dealer in timber and hay, which he used to mea- 
 sure, and then calculate the solid contents, by a peculiar 
 method of his own. The hay he always measured with 
 his arms, and, having learnt the height, he could soon 
 
 * Dr. Hunter, in his treatise on the Harrogate Waters, has a 
 little bit of dull wit on blind Jack's road making — " They em- 
 ployed a blind man to lay out the roads in the neighbourhood, 
 upon the ingenious principle, probably, that where such an in- 
 dividual could travel, another with two eyes might surely follow." 
 
82 YORKSHIKE LONGEVITY. 
 
 tell the number of square yards in any stack. When- 
 ever he went out, he always carried with him a stout staff, 
 some inches taller than himself, which was of great use 
 to him, both in his travels and measurements. He is 
 thus mentioned in a paper published in the *' Memoirs 
 of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 
 vol. 1. — His present occupation is that of a projector 
 and surveyor of highways, in difficult and mountainous^ 
 parts. "With the assistance only of a long staff, I havei? 
 several times met this man traversing the roads, ascend- 
 ing precipices, exploring valleys, and investigating their 
 several extents, forms, and situations, so as to answer 
 his designs in the best manner. The plans which he 
 designs, and the estimates he makes, are done in a 
 method peculiar to himself, and which he cannot well 
 convey the meaning of to others. His abilities, in this 
 respect, are, nevertheless, so great, that he finds constant 
 employment. Most of the. roads over the Peak in Der- 
 byshire have been altered by his directions, particularly 
 those in the vicinity of Buxton ; and he is, at this time, 
 constructing a new one between Wilmslow and Congleton, 
 with a view to open a communication with the great 
 London road, without being obliged to pass over the 
 mountains." After leaving Lancashire, in 1792, he 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 88 
 
 settled at Spofforth, and lived, with his daughter, on a 
 
 small farm there, till his death. The following inscrip- 
 ' tion, copied from the headstone, erected to his memory 
 
 in Spofforth churchyard, at the cost of Lord Dundas, 
 i will be interesting, as it contains a summary of his life 
 
 and character : — 
 
 1 " Here Kes John Metcalf, one whose infant sight, 
 
 Felt the dark pressure of an endless night ; 
 ' Yet such the fervour of his dauntless mind, 
 
 His limhs full strung, his spirits unconlined, 
 j That, long ere yet life's bolder years began, 
 
 I The sightless efforts marked th' aspiring man ; 
 
 Nor marked in vain — high deeds his manhood dared, 
 
 And commerce, travel, both his ardour shared ; 
 
 'Twas his a guide's unerring aid to lend, — 
 
 O'er trackless wastes to bid new roads extend; 
 
 And, when rebellion reared her giant size, 
 
 ' Twas his to bum with partriot enterprise ; 
 ! For parting wife and babes, a pang to feel, 
 
 Then welcome danger for his country's weal. 
 . Eeader ! Hke him exert thy utmost talent given ! 
 
 Reader, like him adore the bounteous hand of heaven !" 
 
 HE DIED ON THE 26tH OF APEIL, 1801, 
 IN THE 93rd year OF HIS AGE. 
 
 ' MiDDLEHAM, Mrs., widow, of Holbcck, near Leeds, 
 died in 1794, aged 101. 
 
 MiLBOURNE, Mary, of Sessay, near Thirsk, died in 
 November, 1784, aged 101. She was a widow and a 
 pauper many years. 
 
 Miller, Sarah, of Hardcastle, in Nidderdale, was 
 
 buried at Pateley Bridge, October 19th, 1820, aged 108. 
 
 g2 
 
84 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 She was married and had a family. For a great number 
 of years she was employed as a hand metal washer — that 
 is, a washer of lead ore — at the Cockhill lead mine,J 
 Greenhow-hill. (About half a century ago, this worki 
 was commonly done by women, with hand selves, now* 
 it is done by machinery.) She followed this hard worb 
 until she was upwards of one hundred years of age ; and, 
 such was her thrift and economy of time, that she was 
 always engaged in knitting when walking to and from; 
 her work ; and even on her longer journeys, to Pateley 
 Bridge, and other places, she was nearly always to be 
 seen industriously plying her knitting needles. On the 
 hundredth anniversary of her birthday, she made a feast 
 at her house, to which she invited several of the master 
 miners ; one of the principal dishes on this memorable 
 occasion was a goose pie (a grand and glorious dish, 
 was the standing goose pie at Christmas, in days not 
 long since past). She possessed the use of her faculties, 
 and her memory, which was singularly retentive nearly 
 to the last. 
 
 Montgomery, Robert, died at Skipton, in Craven, 
 January 26th, 1671, aged 127. He was a native of 
 Scotland ; but the oldest inhabitant of Skipton never 
 knew him but as an aged man. During many years 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 85 
 
 of the latter part of his life he obtained a livelihood by 
 sohciting alms from door to door, and in the public 
 places of the town, which he did till within a year of 
 his death. 
 
 Morgan, Walter, of Rotherham, died in 1813, aged 
 
 100. He had been a soldier in early life, and seen 
 much hard service. 
 
 Morris, Martha, of Leeds, died in 1812, aged 104. 
 
 Moore, Mrs., of York, died in 1769, aged 107. 
 
 Morrison, James, of Harrogate, died in 1734, aged'' 
 102. He was a musician at that watering place more 
 than seventy years, and followed his favourite pursuit 
 till his death. 
 
 Mallinson, Mary, died at Harrogate, in 1820, aged 
 
 101. She was buried in the ground attached to St, 
 John's Chapel, where Christ's Church now stands. 
 
 Myers, Mary, of Northwoods, near Pateley Bridge, 
 died September 20th, 1743, aged 120 years. There is 
 a stone to her memory in the burial ground attached to 
 the old church at Pateley Bridge. 
 
 Mawer, Mary, died at Shaw Mills, near Ripley, May, 
 1861, aged 100 years. 
 
 Myers, Ann, of Birstwith, near Ripley, died in 
 1 February, 1823, aged 102 years. 
 
86 YORKSHIEE LONGEVITY. 
 
 IsT 
 
 Naylor, John, of East Ardsley, near Wakefield, died 
 May 24tli, 1862, aged 99 years. He was the last lineal 
 descendant of the notorious James Naylor of the same 
 place, better known in his time as ** the mad Quaker of 
 Ardslaw, " who suffered such cruel treatment from the 
 second parliament of Cromwell, which said parliament 
 did so little else, that De Foe dubs it, ^* James Naylor's 
 Parliament.'* 
 
 Newman, Thomas. In the churchyard, at Bridling- 
 ton, is a tombstone, thus inscribed — *' To the memory 
 of Thomas Newman, who died in 1542, aged 153. This 
 stone was re-faced in 1771, to preserve the recollection 
 of this remarkable prolongation of human life." Next 
 to Henry Jenkins, he is the oldest Yorkshireman of 
 whom we have any record. 
 
 NoRRis, Widow, died at Leeds, in 1705, aged 
 106. 
 
 North, John, died at Holme, in 1811, aged 101. 
 
 Northallerton. The registers of this parish, from 
 1721 to 1857, inclusive, record the names of sixty-three 
 persons each upwards of 90 years of age — two of them 
 exceeded 100, two 99, three 98, one 97, six 96, seven 
 95, four 94, five 93, six 92, nine 91, and eighteen 90. 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 87 
 
 O 
 
 Ogden, Mary, of Holbeck, near Leeds, died in 1795, 
 aged 106. 
 
 Ogilby, Egbert, a noted old tinker, died at Leeds, 
 in December, 1768, after having completed his 114th 
 year. It appears from the register that he was born at 
 Kipon, November 16th, 1654 ; in corroboration of which, 
 his own account of himself .was, that he was put ap- 
 prentice in 1668, to one Sellars, a brazier, in York, 
 when he was 14 years old, served him seven years in 
 that capacity, and two years more as a journeyman ; he 
 then began business for himself, at Eipon, where he 
 failed ; after which, he went to Hull, where he worked 
 four years ; he then entered into the army of King 
 James, and was sent with the regiment to which he be- 
 longed, into Ireland, where, like many more, at that 
 time, he changed his master, and was amongst the 
 number of those who fought under King William, at the 
 battle of the Boyne, in 1690, where he saw the duke of 
 Schonberg fall. He served about twenty- three years 
 longer in the army, in different places, and was dis- 
 charged after the peace of Utrecht ; but, having neither 
 wounds, infirmities, or friends to plead for him, he got 
 no pension ; so he returned to his old trade, or rather 
 
88 YOBKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 took up the new one of travelling brazier, which he fol- 
 lowed till within about four years of his death. At the i 
 age of one hundred, he would carry his budget twenty 
 miles in one day with as much alacrity as most men at 
 fifty. Soon afterwards he grew infirm and was obliged 
 to give up the itinerant trade, and take to begging. In 
 appearance he was upright, tall, and thin. He is a re- 
 markable instance of prolongation of life through toil, 
 privation, and danger. -:< He was married to his wife 
 
 * Many instances miglit be cited of soldiers arriving at ex- 
 treme old age, the following may suffice : — 
 
 Josliua Crewman, a pensioner of Chelsea Hospital, died in 
 1794, aged 123. He served in the armies of George the first and 
 second, and was discharged in the 74th year of his age. 
 
 Williftm Billings, a soldier, died at Fairfield Head, in Stafford- 
 shire, in 1793, aged 114. He was the last surviving private soldier 
 in England who served under the great duke of Marlborough. 
 Singular to relate, he was born under a hedge, in 1679, not a 
 hundred yards from the cottage where he died. 
 
 WiUiam Gillispie, an old Chelsea Pensioner, died at RuthweU, 
 near Dumfries, Scotland, June 15th, 1818, aged 108. 
 
 Andrew Gammels, a dragoon, in the British Service, during 
 Queen Anne's wars, died at Roxburgh, in March, 1794, aged 105. 
 He begged his bread for the last fifty years of his life. 
 
 Samuel Mogg, one of the las£ survivors of the army which 
 fought under General Wolfe, died in 1812, aged 102. 
 
 James Hatfield, died in 1770, aged 105. He was the soldier, 
 who, whilst on duty one night at Windsor, counted St. Paul's 
 clock at midnight strike thirteen, instead of twelve ; he was 
 found asleep on duty, after the hour when he ought to have been 
 relieved ; was tried by a court martial, but pleaded that he was 
 awake, and on duty, during his proper guard time, by saying he 
 heard the clock strike thirteen, which fact, being confirmed by 
 the city watchman, he was acquitted. 
 
 William Marshall, a travelling tinker, of Kirkcudbright, died in 
 1792, aged 120. He followed his occupation up to the year 
 before he died. 
 
YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 89 
 
 •seventy-three years, by whom he had twenty-five child- 
 ren, twelve boys, and thirteen girls. His wife lived to 
 the age of 106. 
 
 OwTHORPE, Mary, died at Hessay, in 1809, aged 106. 
 IP 
 
 Paycock, James, of Nunnington, died February 10th, 
 1610, aged 100. 
 
 Pavorth, William, of Hutton, near York, died in 
 December, 1776, aged 99. 
 
 Philips, John, of Thorner, died in 1742, aged 117. 
 He lived under eight crowned heads, beside the protec- 
 torate of Cromwell. His teeth were good, and his 
 hearing and sight, comparatively, but little impaired, 
 and he was able to walk, till within a few days of his 
 death. When he was about twenty-eight years of age, 
 being the constable of his parish, he committed two of 
 Cromwell's soldiers to the town's stocks, for some ir- 
 regularities of conduct, of which they had been publicly 
 guilty. t^ On complaint being made to the general, of 
 this audacious behaviour on the part of the parish offi- 
 cial, he dismissed the complaint at once, with a commen- 
 
 * The constable, by common law, may confine offenders in the 
 stocks, by way of security, but not by way of Punishment. — 
 Burn's Justice. 
 
90 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 dation of the constable, and a wish expressed that all 
 his men possessed the courage and moral virtue of this 
 humble rustic. 
 
 Preston, Martha, widow, of Barnsley, died in 1769, 
 aged 125. She outlived five husbands, by whom she 
 had twenty- seven children. 
 
 Procter, John, of Leathley, near Otley, died in 
 1710, aged 104. 
 
 Prest, William, of Galphay, near Eipon, died in 
 April, 1789, in his 109th year. He was a labourer, 
 employed on the Studley Park estate, till within ten 
 years of his death. He left a widow, and eight children ; 
 the eldest, 88, and the youngest, 16 years of age. 
 
 Potter. There were living, near Pontefract, in May, 
 1765, a labourer, named Potter, and his wife, whose 
 ages, together, made 213 ; the man, 108, and the wo- 
 man, 105. 
 
 Penrose, Thomas, of Knaresborough, died February 
 7th, 1855, aged 98. He was father of thirteen child- 
 ren, of whom, seven arrived at maturity. He lived to see 
 three generations of his descendants. 
 
 Pearson, Mary, of Ery holme, a poor widow, died in 
 1802, aged 109. 
 
 Pearson, Matthew, of Pannal Ash, near Harrogate, 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 91 
 
 died in 1848, aged 112. He was a working man du- 
 ring the whole of his life, and was for a long time a 
 common carrier, between Leeds, Harrogate, and Knares- 
 borough, and their respective neighbourhoods. He was 
 only once confined to his room, by sickness, in his life, 
 and that was about forty years before his death, when 
 he was so dangerously ill, that the doctor gave him up 
 as incurable, and told him to prepare for the worst : he 
 had, however, a different opinion himself, and on the re- 
 turn of his wife, to his bedside, he asked her for a glass 
 of rum ; she complied with his request, thinking if it 
 did no good, it could not do much harm to a dying man. 
 He had no sooner swallowed it, than he said, ** Now I 
 shall mend." And what will ye say to the fact, ye ad- 
 vocates of the curative powers of cold water ? he did 
 mend, and never had another days sickness till the close 
 of his long life. He had the use of his faculties (unim- 
 paired by time and severe usage) to the last, and was able 
 to walk about till within a few days of his death ; which 
 seemed to come to him without pain, and he died be- 
 cause the lamp of life was completely burnt out. He 
 was of middle stature, strong and active in his younger 
 years ; and although once restored to health by a dose 
 of rum, he was not a man of intemperate habits. 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 PivETT, Christopher, of the City of York, died in 
 1796, aged 93. He was a carver and gilder by trade ; 
 but during the early part of his life served in the 
 army ; he was present at the battles of Fontenoy, and 
 Dettingen, as well as the siege of Carlisle, and the battle 
 of CuUoden, in the Scottish rebellion. After he settled 
 at York, his house was accidently burnt down ; when he 
 formed the singular resolution, of never again sleeping 
 on a bed, lest he should be burnt to death whilst asleep, 
 or not have sufficient time to remove his property, should 
 an accident occur again ; and this resolution he strictly 
 kept during the remaining forty years of his life. His 
 practice was to repose upon the floor, or on two chairs, 
 or, sitting in a chair, but always with his clothes on. 
 During the whole of this period he lived entirely alone, 
 cooked his own victuals, and seldom admitted any one 
 into his habitation : nor would he disclose to any, the 
 place of his birth, or to whom he was related. He had 
 many singularities, but possessed, politically, as well as 
 socially, a laudable spirit of independence, which he 
 boldly manifested on several trying occasions. Among 
 other uncommon articles, which composed the furniture 
 of his dwelling, was a human scull, which he strictly 
 ordered should be buried with him. 
 
YORKSHIEE LONGEVITY. 93 
 
 Patefield, Elias, of Northowram, died in 1754, 
 aged 100 ; and his wife aged 99, died nearly at the 
 same time. They had been married sixty years. 
 
 He, first departed — she, for one hour, tried 
 To live without him, liked it not, and died. 
 
 Paul, Ann, widow, of Skipton, died in 1825, aged 100. 
 
 Paudames, Samuel, of Teddington, near Malton, 
 died in 1798, aged 105. 
 
 Peakson, Maey, a maiden lady, of ShelEeld, died in 
 1837, aged 97. 
 
 Pickles, Joseph, of Wilsden, died May 14th, 1828, 
 in the 96th year of his age. He left a surviving pro- 
 geny of seven children, seventy-three grand children, 
 one hundred and seventy-nine great grand children, and 
 fifty great great grand children, in all three hundred and 
 nine, exclusive of one hundred and one deceased. 
 
 Pakker, Ann, of Skelding, near Eipon, died Novem- 
 ber 30th, 1863, aged 102. 
 
 Randall, Eve, of Leeds, died September 29th, 1830, 
 aged 100. 
 
 Reynolds, Ann, of Tunstall, near Catterick, died in 
 1808, aged 103. 
 
 Rheam, Mrs., widow, of Copmanthorpe, near York, 
 died in 1791, aged 101. 
 
94 YOEKSHIKE LONGEVITY. 
 
 KicHAEDsoN, EsTHEB, of Langton-on-the-Wolds, near 
 Malton, died in 1786, aged 109. 
 
 Egberts, John, of Hipperholme, in the parish of 
 Halifax, died November 10th, 1721, aged 114. 
 
 RoDGERS, Aaron, of Sheffield, died in 1795, aged 101. 
 
 RoBSHAw, SusHANNAH, of East-MooT, near Leeds, 
 died in 1807, aged 103. 
 
 RoLLiNSON, Thomas, died at Halton, near Leeds, May 
 16th, 1831. He was 100 years of age, the 27th of Jan- 
 uary, previous to his death. "With the exception of the 
 loss of his eyesight, a short time previous to his decease, he 
 enjoyed uninterrupted good health. He had a perfect 
 recollection of visiting the encampment on Clifford Moor, 
 in 1745 ; and many other events of that period, were fre- 
 quent subjects of his aged narration. He lived to see 
 four generations of his own descendants, who all attended 
 him to the grave. Though humble in life, he adorned 
 his station by integrity, sobriety, and industry. He 
 was married sixty-nine and a-half years ; and was never 
 known to sing, whistle, or swear, and was never, but 
 once, intoxicated with liquor during his long life. 
 
 Russell, Mary, widow, of Upper Hallam, near 
 Sheffield, died in 1837, aged 96. She left nearly ono 
 hundred descendants living. 
 
YORKSHIBB LONGEVITY. 95 
 
 Rymer, Baetholemew, of Ripon, died in 1791, aged 
 100. He was a man of great activity, and uniformly 
 enjoyed good health. He was gamekeeper to Sir Bel- 
 lingham Graham, Bart., of Norton Conyers, and shot 
 game flying in his 99th year. 
 
 RusHwoRTH, Ann, of Birstwith, near Ripley, died in 
 January, 1829, aged 101 years. 
 
 Ratcliffe. October 25th, 1503, William Ratclifie, 
 100 years of age; Nicholas Whitfield, of 98; and John 
 Thorn, of 80 years of age ; gave evidence, *' for verrey 
 trawthe," of the affiance or marriage of Elizabeth 
 Clifford and Robert Plumpton, in the *'chapell within 
 the castell of Skypton." 
 
 s 
 
 Sagae, James, died at Leeds, in 1701, aged 112. 
 
 ScARR, John, of Hawes, in Wensleydale, died in April, 
 1788, aged 105. He could thread a needle without 
 spectacles, and crack nuts with his teeth, i^ the last 
 year of his life, as well as most young people. 
 . Sedgfield, Henry, mariner, of Scarborough, died at 
 Edinburgh, in 1787, aged 107. 
 
 Shepherd, John, of Tadcaster, died in 1757, aged 
 109. 
 
 I 
 
yt) YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 Sharp, Stephen, of Bramhope, near Leeds, died in 
 1805, aged 107. 
 
 Shepherd, John, of Soyland, near Halifax, died in 
 1830, aged 100. 
 
 Sherwood, Mr., of Stokesley, died in 1794, aged 105. j 
 He practised much temperance, in all his modes of living, f 
 and accustomed himself to constant exercise in the open 
 air. 
 
 Sharp, Elizabeth, of the parish of Brompton-on- 
 Swale, completed her hundredth year in August, 1858. 
 She is now chargeable to the parish for her maintenance ; 
 has the full use of all her faculties little impaired by 
 time, and during her life has invariably enjoyed good 
 health. 
 
 Simpson, John, of Knaresborough, died in April, 
 1766, aged 112. He could read print without spectacles, 
 and never had any illness till within three months of 
 his death. 
 
 Simpson, Joshua, Esq., of Hunslet, near Leeds, died 
 in 1780, aged 104. 
 
 Simpson, Mrs., died at Leeds, in 1698, aged 103. 
 
 Simmons, Edward, of Leeds, died in 1840, aged 104. 
 He served twenty-two years in the 25th regiment of 
 
YOKKSHIKE LONGEVITY. 97 
 
 foot, and was an out- door pensioner of Chelsea, since 
 1792. 
 
 SowDEN, John, of Brighouse, near Halifax, died 
 March 21st, 1829, in the 92nd year of his age. He 
 j was born in the house where he died, and never lived 
 one month in any other. He brought up to maturity in 
 I the same house, ten children, six of whom were living 
 at the time of his death. He had forty-five grand- 
 children, and fifty-three great grandchildren; twenty- 
 three of whom were married. 
 
 SoMERSGiLL, CATHERINE, of Chapcl Allerton, near 
 Leeds, died in 1794, aged 100. 
 
 Speed, Mary, of Worsall, near Yarm, died in 1781, 
 
 aged 103. This poor, but industrious woman, was 
 
 early left a widow, with several children to support, 
 
 almost entirely by her own labour. Finding ordinary 
 
 female employments insufficient to procure a mainten- 
 
 j ance for herself and family, she engaged herself as a 
 
 ' bricklayer's assistant, or in the performance of any 
 
 , other heavy drudgery, by which she might be enabled 
 
 to earn more : which practice she continued till all her 
 
 children were so far grown up as to be able to provide 
 
 for themselves. She afterwards employed herself in 
 
 spinning, which occupation she followed till the time of 
 
»8 
 
 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 her death, which took place without any previous in- 
 disposition. 
 
 She passed at once from life to death, 
 And ceased at once to work and live. 
 
 Spencer, Eichard, of Scarborough, died in 1785, | 
 aged 100. '- 
 
 Smith, Thomas, of Knaresborough, was buried March 
 11th, 1850, just one hundred years after the day he 
 was born. He was a linen manufacturer in his youth, 
 and, later in life, keeper of St. Robert's Chapel. In 
 personal appearance he was tall and thin. He left 
 eighteen children by his wife, only five of whom were 
 married at the time of his death. He had, nevertheless, 
 thirty-five grandchildren, fifty great grandchildren, and 
 two great great grandchildren. He had a perfect re- 
 collection of seeing the body of Eugene Aram on the 
 gibbet at Thistle Hill, when he was nine or ten years 
 old ; and, as Aram was hung upon *Hhat tree of shame,'* 
 in August, 1759, he would be about that age at that 
 time. 
 
 The same family, and the same place, is remarkable 
 for having produced other two persons who each lived 
 more t han a century : the father and grandfather of | 
 Thomas Smith, The father died in 1798, aged 103 ; 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 99 
 
 while the grandfather attained the age of 108. The 
 three were born, lived, and died in the same house, — 
 a small cottage, situated close to the cliffs, near to St. 
 Robert's Chapel and the river Nidd. It belongs to the 
 family of Slingsby, of Scriven, and was occupied by the 
 family of Smith more than three hundred years. They 
 entirely made the garden in front of the Chapel, by 
 placing soil, brought from a distance, upon the bare 
 rock. When the grandfather occupied the place the 
 rent was one shilling per annum ; when the late Sir 
 Thomas Slingsby came into possession it was raised to 
 five shillings ; when the present Baronet became owner 
 it was advanced to forty-nine shillings. After the death 
 of their father, the two unmarried daughters were not 
 allowed to occupy it any longer, and the humble cot, 
 which had produced so many specimens of longevity, 
 passed into another family. 
 
 Smith, Sarah. The Annual Register, for the year 
 
 1760, contains the following instance of longevity :— 
 
 1 " There is now living one brother and four sisters, born 
 
 j in the parish of Hemingbrough, in the County of York, 
 
 I who reside in that and the adjacent parishes, whose 
 
 I ages put together amount to four hundred and sixty-five 
 
 years, all hearty and well. The mother of the above 
 
 L.ofC. h2 
 
100 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 persons, whose name was Sarah Smith, died but a few 
 years ago, agerd 103 years : she never knew a day's 
 sickness, and retained her senses to the last, — the 
 happy effects of a life of innocence and temperance." 
 
 Steel, John, of Bishop Thornton, near Eipon, died 
 in 1833, aged 100. He retained his faculties in vigour 
 to the last, and distinctly remembered, when a boy, 
 going to see the King's troops encamped on Kirby Hill 
 Moor, during the rebellion of 1745 ; also many other 
 events of the early part of the reign of George II. 
 
 Storey, Neriah, of Leeds, died in 1764, aged 100. 
 
 Stephenson, George, of Komaldkirk, died in July, 
 1855, aged 105. He had passed most of his life as an 
 agricultural labourer, and had been invariably an early 
 riser, even till within a few months of his death. During 
 the latter part of his life, he resided with his daughter 
 at Eomaldkirk, to which place he walked from Darling- 
 ton, in one day, a distance of twenty-two miles, when 
 in his hundredth year. He used frequently to reprove 
 his daughter and her husband, both upwards of 70 years 
 of age, for indulging in bed so long in the mornings, 
 —-though they generally rose before six, — telling them, 
 if they would not work when young, vrhat would they 
 do when old. He possessed his mental faculties to the 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 101 
 
 last, and, having a most retentive memory, one of his 
 greatest pleasures was to recount the events of his 
 youthful days. 
 
 Stringer, Ann, of Northallerton, died in September, 
 1721, aged 108. 
 
 Stirk, Clara, widow, of Skipton, died in 1812, 
 aged 100. 
 
 Sturton, William, of Patrington, in Holderness, 
 was buried May 18th, 1685, aged 97. He had child- 
 ren — by his first wife, twenty-eight ; by his second 
 wife, seventeen — being own father to forty-five, grand- 
 father to eighty-six, great grandfather to ninety-seven, 
 and great great grandfather to twenty-three, — in all two 
 hundred and fifty-one. The above particulars are en- 
 graven on his tombstone in the churchyard of Hedon, 
 near Hull. 
 
 Sturdy, William, of Eomanby, near Northallerton, 
 died in March, 1835, aged 100. 
 
 Stott, James, farmer, of Brompton- on- Swale, near 
 Eichmond, died September 11th, 1851, aged 104. He 
 had full possession of all his faculties up to the time of 
 his decease. He was a slight made man, about four 
 feet four inches in height ; was born in that parish, and 
 never lived out of it. 
 
102 YORKSHIKE LONGEVITY. 
 
 Storzaker, John, of Hutton Oonyers, near Kipon, 
 died in 1704, aged 100. 
 
 SuTCLiFFE, John, a farmer in the township of Bier- 
 cliffe, near Colne, in the ninety-third year of his age, 
 attended, on the 18th of October, 1838, the rent-day 
 of Mr. Foulds, after walking three miles and a half, to , 
 to pay his rent the one hundred and sixtieth time, hav- 
 ing come regularly twice a-year, for the previous eighty 
 years, without a single interruption. This family has 
 resided on the estate for upwards of two centuries, 
 during which time they have always — at the season — 
 brought a live goose as a boon, and the present Mr. 
 Sutcliflfe says that he has heard his grandfather assert 
 that, in the earlier part of his time when they had oc- 
 casion to buy it, the price paid for the goose was four- 
 pence. 
 
 Sykes, John, of Snowgatehead, in Fulstone, parish 
 
 of Kirkburton, near Huddersfield, died in 1800, aged 
 
 101 years. 
 
 T 
 
 Tate, Mrs., widow, of Malton, died in 1772, aged 
 106. 
 
 Tarran, Christopher, of Sutton, near Richmond, 
 died in 1827, aged 93. He was a man of very eccen- 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 103 
 
 trie habits, and much given to seclution, which he at 
 length carried so far, as to shut himself up entirely from 
 the world, and live alone in his chamber, from which he 
 never stirred during the last twenty years of his life, nor 
 ever, but on two occasions, admitted any one within its 
 precints. 
 
 Taylor, Mary, died February 4th, 1860, in the Union 
 Workhouse, Doncaster, aged 103. 
 
 Thompson, Joseph, farmer, of Walmgate bar, York, 
 died in 1781, aged 103. He left a son nearly eighty 
 years of age. 
 
 Thompson, Francis, of Binsoe, near Bedale, died in 
 1746, aged 112. He was buried in the church yard of 
 West Tanfield, where a tombstone records the above 
 facts. 
 
 Thompson, Joseph, of Lyth, near Whitby, died in 
 1817, aged 102. 
 
 Thornton, James, of Pudsey, died in 1699, aged 104. 
 
 Todd, Mary, of Eichmond, died in September, 1790, 
 aged 105. Her life was an almost uninterrupted course 
 of good health, and her sight was so perfect to the end 
 of her days that she had no need of spectacles. 
 
 Trueman, Isaac, of Kettlewell, near Skipton, died in 
 1770, aged 117. Till within a year of his death he had 
 
104 YOEKSHIEE LONGEVITY. 
 
 the enjoyment of his sight, and all other faculties, in as 
 great perfection as he had at thirty. He had served in 
 the army, was sergeant in the first year of Queen Ann, 
 and was engaged in many battles and sieges, during her 
 reign, upon the continent. After leaving the regiment, 
 nearly the whole of his time was devoted to fishing. 
 
 TuKNER, Mrs., of Everthorpe, near Cave, died in 
 1806, aged 104. 
 
 Watkinson, Phcebe, of Gleadless, near Sheffield, 
 died in 1819, aged 107. 
 
 Wainwright, George, of Dore, near Sheffield, died 
 in 1821, aged 107. 
 
 Wainwright, John, of Cherry Tree Hill, Sheffield, 
 died in 1809, aged 96. 
 
 Wade, Thomas, of Addingham, died in 1810, aged 
 101. 
 
 Walkington, William, of Kirkby Misperton, near 
 Malton, died 1820, aged 111. 
 
 Westmorland, William, Esq., of Harrogate, died in 
 1798, aged 99. He enjoyed such an uninterrupted 
 state of good health as to attend constantly at the 
 '* Spa " till within a fortnight of his decease. 
 
 Wells, Henry, of Whitby, died in 1794, aged 109. 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 105 
 
 His health was uniformly sound and good till a short 
 time before his death. He was, however, almost blind, 
 and was led through the streets by a poor woman, carry- 
 ing on his shoulders a few mats, for sale, of his own 
 manufacture. 
 
 Webster, Mary, widow, of Hull, died in 1816, aged 
 104. 
 
 Whitehead, Joshua, of Addlecroft, near Huddersfield, 
 died in 1828, aged 105. 
 
 Whitehead, John, of Clectheaton, died in 1814, 
 aged 97. He left one hundred and ninety-nine descend- 
 ants. 
 
 Wheatley, Mr., clothier, of Leeds, died in 1780, 
 aged 106. 
 
 Wharton, George, of Laverton, near Eipon, died 
 January 23rd, 1844, aged 112. He enjoyed an almost 
 uninterrupted flow of health and spirits till within a few 
 weeks of his death ; was of a cheerful, lively, disposi- 
 tion, and enjoyed a jest and temperate glass as much as 
 any man. In personal appearance he was particularly 
 neat and clean, his dress in the fashion which prevailed 
 about fifty years before his death. He always wore 
 very large buckles on his shoes ; was low in stature, 
 slender, smart, erect, and nearly always in^motion during 
 
106 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 the day; retired to rest early, and rose early in the 
 morning. His sight was so perfect that he could read 
 the smallest type of a newspaper, without spectacles, 
 till within a year of his death. He was born in London, 
 and could remember the news arriving in England, of 
 the capture of Quebec, and the death of General Wolfe 
 in 1759 — was full of anecdote of the Middlesex elections, 
 and ^* Jack "Wilkes," whom he used to describe as ** an 
 ugly squinting fellow." In his early manhood he was 
 impressed and served aboard a man of war in the East 
 Indian seas, and elsewhere. 
 
 Whitehead, Levi, of Bramham, died in December, 
 1787, in the 100th year of his age. He was noted for 
 swiftness in running ; having won the buck's head for 
 several years, at Castle Howard. He also won the five 
 Queen Ann's guineas, given by William Aislabie, of 
 Studley, near Eipon; beating the then noted Indian, 
 and nine others, selected to *start against him. In his 
 twenty- second year, he ran four miles over Bramham 
 moor, in nineteen minutes ; and, what is more remark- 
 able, in his ninety-fifth and ninety-sixth years he fi:e- 
 quently walked from Bramham to Tadcaster, a distance 
 of four miles, in an hour. He retained his faculties to 
 the last. 
 
TORKSHIKE LONGEVITY. 107 
 
 White, Sarah, of Bramley, near Leeds, died in No- 
 vember, 1760, aged 106. 
 
 Wharton, Mrs. Margaret, died at Thirsk, in 1791, 
 aged 103. Slie was of the family of the Whartons of 
 Skelton Castle, in Cleveland ; was never married, im- 
 mensely rich, and extremely eccentric, setting the con- 
 ventional usages of high life at defiance, or treating 
 them as frivolous. In person she was short, and rather 
 stoutly built. She was possessed of a fortune of twa 
 hundred thousand pounds ; of which, with rare liberality, 
 she made her nephew a present of one hundred thousand 
 pounds. Her charities were liberal, but always private: 
 nothing hurt her so much as to have them divulged. 
 She withdrew her benevolence from those who spoke of 
 receiving her gifts. It gave her great pleasure to know 
 that she was deemed rich. 
 
 For some time she resided at York, and visited Scar- 
 borough in the season; where, from her frequently 
 sending for a pennyworth of Strawberries, and a penny- 
 worth of cream, she obtained the name of " Peg Penny- 
 worth," which never forsook her. An incident occurred 
 in which she displayed her aversion to public charity — ^ 
 some gentlemen soliciting her charity, whom she could 
 scarcely deny, about the year 1774, when light guineas 
 
108 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 were in disgrace, she pulled a number out of her purse, 
 and, turning them over, selected one of the lightest ; this^ 
 produced a few winks and smiles: but the matter was 
 not to rest here ; the celebrated Foote laid hold of the 
 incident, and drew her character in a farce, under the 
 name of *^Peg Pennyworth." When informed of this 
 circumstance, she exclaimed, with a smile — **I will see 
 it acted, as I live." She did, and declared with joy, 
 that they had done her justice. 
 
 She frequently chose to be her own caterer, making her 
 own purchases, and taking them home in her carriage. 
 Once, having purchased some eels, she put them in her 
 pocket, entered her coach, and called upon a lady, ta 
 take her an airing. The warmth of her body soon 
 revived the seemingly dead eels, and one of them 
 crept out to enjoy a little fresh air. The lady friend saw 
 it, and screamed out in horror, — '* Madam ! you have an 
 adder creeping about you ! Coachman, stop ! let me out ! 
 let me out!" To this tragic exclamation Margaret 
 coolly replied, — ** you need not be frightened, madam, 
 I protest one of my eels is alive." In one of her visits 
 to Scarborough, she, with her usual economy, had a 
 family pie made for dinner ; she directed the footman 
 to take it to the bakehouse, who rather declined, as not 
 
YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 109 
 
 being his place, or his dignity might suffer a Uttle in 
 consequence of performing so ungentlemanly an action — 
 she next moved the question to the coachman, but found 
 a stronger objection still — so, to save the dignity of 
 both, she resolved to take the pie herself; and ordered 
 one to harness and bring out the carriage, the other to 
 mount behind ; and, entering the coach herself, took the 
 pie, thus honourably dignified, to the bakehouse. When 
 baked, coachee was ordered to put to his horses a se- 
 cond time, and the footman again to mount, and the pie 
 was brought back in the same honourable state in which 
 it went. ^*Now," says she to the coachman, "you 
 have kept your place, which is to drive" — ** and yours," 
 to the footman, '* which is to wait." 
 
 A clergyman's wife having kept up a visiting connex- 
 ion in York, the clergyman dying, and leaving the lady 
 in affluence, she retired to Thirsk, with four daughters, 
 and sdicited Mrs. Wharton to pay her a visit. She 
 consented, took her carriage and servants. After some 
 time, the lady began to think the visit rather protracted, 
 particularly as she had a family of her own to provide 
 for ; but Mrs. Wharton thought that treating the young 
 ladies with a frequent airing in her carriage was an am- 
 ple recompense. A growing discontent cannot be 
 
110 TORKSHIBE LONGEVITY. 
 
 smothered. The lady could neither find a remedy nor 
 complain. At length she ventured to hint to Mr. Whar- 
 ton — **that the pressure was great.'* '*Be silent, 
 madam," said he ; ** let my aunt have her way, I will pay 
 you two hundred a year during the life of my aunt, and 
 one hundred during your own, should you survive her." 
 
 Mrs. "Wharton ended her days with this lady, and the 
 hundred a year was regularly paid to the day of her 
 death. 
 
 Wilkinson, Mary, of Eomaldkirk, died in 1783, aged 
 109. 
 
 Wilson, William, of Whitkirk, near Leeds, died in 
 1830, aged 101. 
 
 Wilkinson, Francis, of Bishopton, near Eipon, died 
 in 1830, aged 105. 
 
 WiGGiN, Thomas, of Carlton, in Craven, died in 1670, 
 aged 108. He enjoyed a remarkable good state of health, 
 and was able to walk about till within a few days of his 
 death. 
 
 WiLKiNS, Major, died in 1756, aged 100. He was 
 imprisoned for debt in York Castle, during the long 
 period of fifty years. 
 
 Wilson, William, of East Eow, near Whitby, died 
 in 1795, aged 100. 
 
YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. Ill 
 
 Wilson, Nathaniel, of Cottingham, near Hull, died 
 in 1804, aged 96. His faculties were so sound, and 
 his general health so good, as to enable him to maintain 
 himself by the labour of his hands, till within about two 
 years of his death. He buried his wife when he was 
 about sixty-two years of age ; after which, for the long 
 space of thirty-two years, he lived in the same cottage 
 alone. He was very abstemious in his diet, living chiefly 
 on bread, cheese, and milk. 
 
 Wilson, Thomas, of Minskip, near Boroughbridge, 
 died in March, 1859, aged 96. He was able to walk 
 about till within a few days of his death ; of a kind, easy, 
 cheerful, disposition, and a remarkably early riser. 
 
 Williamson, Elizabeth, of Scarborough, died in 
 1856, aged 102. 
 
 WiDDOP, Adam, of Keighley, died in 1656, aged 100, 
 
 Wilkinson, Elizabeth, of Butterworth's yard. Kirk- 
 gate, Leeds, died January 8th, 1833, aged 93. 
 
 Woodward, Frances, of Carlton, in Craven, died in 
 1662, aged 102. 
 
 Wood, Susannah, of Newton-upon-Ouse, near York 
 died in 1780, aged 104. 
 
 Woodhouse, Mr., of Hallam, near Sheffield, died in 
 1821, aged 95. He left one hundred and fifty-five 
 
112 YOEKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 descendants. The faculties of his mind continued sound 
 and clear to the end of his days, and he frequently adverted 
 to the circumstance of being employed, when a young 
 man, to convey straw for the use of the troops encamped 
 on Doncaster moor, during the rebellion of 1745. 
 
 Wood, Nathan, of Soyland, near Halifax, died 
 December, 25th, 1704, aged 108. 
 
 Wright, Mrs. Mary, a highly esteemed minister of 
 the Society of Friends, died in Camp Lane Court, 
 Leeds, March 14th, 1858, in her 104th year. 
 
 Wright, Henry, of Keighley, died in 1598, aged 100. 
 
 Walker, Old Molly, a character well-known in 
 Craven, died at the *^Club Houses," Skipton, January 
 21st, 1862, aged 103 years. 
 
A.3Dr)Ei>rDA.. 
 
 BboTH, Ellen, of Scholes, Kirkburton, was bnried 
 in July, 1708, aged 100. 
 
 Olaycon, Elizabeth, widoipf , Kirkburton, was buried 
 Febuary 20th, 1655, in the ll*8th year of her age. 
 
 Ellis, Robert, of Burnside, Hepworth, was buried 
 December 25th, 1749, aged 106 years. 
 
 Green, Elizabeth, of Holme, in the parish of 
 Almondbury, was buried April 8th, 1596, ag^d 100 
 years. 
 
 Grime, Nicholas, of Brockholes, Almondbury, was 
 buried March 9th, 1695, aged 96 years. 
 
 Kay, Dinah, of Castle Hill, Almondbury, widow, was 
 buried March 10th, 1695, aged 105 years. 
 
 Earnshaw, Maria, of Honley, widow, was buried 
 March 10th, 1695, aged 90 years ; and 
 
 Dyson, Alice, widow of Daniel Dyson, of Crossland, 
 was buried March 10th, 1695, aged 63 years. 
 
 The above four individuals, — whose united ages 
 amounted to three hundred and fifty-four years, — ^were 
 
114 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY. 
 
 all buried at the Parish Church of Almondbury, within 
 the space of forty-eight hours ; affording another proof 
 that there are times more than ordinarily fatal to the 
 aged. 
 
 HiNCHLiFFE, James, of Millshaw, in Hepworth, 
 clothier, was buried in May, 1812, aged 102 years. 
 
 Lee, — , widow, of Broom Bank Steele, was buried 
 March 2nd, 1670, aged 105 years. 
 
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 Just Published crown, 8vo., paper boards, 2s. 6d., cloth, lettered, 
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 NIDDERDALE: 
 
 OR, 
 
 AN HISTORICAL, TOPOGRAPHICAL, AND DESCRIPTIVE 
 
 SKETCH OF THE VALLEY OF THE NIDD. 
 
 BY WILLIAM GEAINGE. 
 
 ** The opening out of the beautiful and highly romantic valley 
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 The book before us is exactly what the district required to make 
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 we would place in the hands of the tourist settkig out to explore 
 the wonders of Nidderdale." — Harrogate Herald, 
 
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 YORKSHIRE LONGEVITY: 
 
 OR, 
 
 RECORDS AND BIOGRAPHICAL ANECDOTES OF PERSONS 
 
 WHO HAVE ATTAINED TO EXTREME OLD AGE WITHIN 
 
 THAT COUNTY, 
 
 BY WILLIAM GRAINGE. 
 
 PATELEY BRIDGE : T. THORPE, PUBLISHER AND PRINTER, 
 
 LONDON: T. T. LEMARE, PATERNOSTER ROW; 
 
 AND THROUGH ANY BOOKSELLER. 
 
WORKS PUBLISHED BY THOMAS THORPE. — CONTINUED. 
 Also Ready, crown 8vo., in a neat cover, 
 
 A GUIDE TO BRIMHAM ROCKS: 
 
 Descriptive and Historical. 
 
 BY WILLIAM GRAINGE. 
 
 In preparation, and shortly will be published, crown 8vo., in a 
 neat wrapper, 
 
 A Guide to Stump Cross Caverns, 
 
 Trowler's Gill, Ravensgill, 
 
 and Guy's-Cliffe, 
 
 WITH 
 
 A LIST OF FERNS & MOSSES. 
 
 BY WILLIAM GRAINGE. 
 
 Price One Penny, 
 
 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY: 
 
 A LECTURE. 
 
 BY G. GEJEY WATSON, F.H.S. 
 
 Published Annually, price One Penny, 
 
 THE NIDDERDALE ALMANACK, 
 
 AND YEAR BOOK OF USEFUL INFORMATION. 
 
 PATELEY BRIDGE: 
 
 THOMAS THORPE, PRINTER AND PUBLISHER. 
 
 LONDON : T. T. LEMARE, PATERNOSTER ROW ; 
 
 AND THROUGH ANY BOOKSELLER. 
 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 019 805 039 8 
 
 A^XA