That danc'd our infancy upon their knee, And told our marvelling boyhood legends store, THERE is something grateful and perhaps sublime in contemplating instances of prolonged life,—to see persons escaped the numerous ills of life unscath'd. They stand like venerable oaks, steadfast among the minor trees, e'en wondered at because they fell no sooner. We instinctively regard them as a privileged order, especially when they bear their years with vigour, "like a lusty winter," they being alone able to preserve unbroken the link which binds us to the remotest past. While they remain, they serve to strangely diminish our conceptions of time past, which never seems fully gone while any of its proper generation remains among us. These thoughts will be illustrated and sustained by introducing to the consideration names and persons who have been the familiars of the present generation, and yet saw and conversed with Penn the founder, and his primitive cotemporaries! How such conceptions stride over time! All the long, long years of our nation seem diminished to a narrower span!-For instance: I lately saw Samuel R. Fisher, still a merchant attending to his business in the city, in his 84th year, who tells me he well remembers to have seen at Ken dall meeting, James Wilson, a public Friend, who said he perfectly remembered seeing both George Fox, the founder of Friends, and William Penn, the founder of our city! Often, too, I have seen and conversed with the late venerable Charles Thomson, the secretary of the first congress, who often spoke of his being curious to find out, and to converse with the primitive settlers, which still remained in his youth. Every person who has been familiar with Dr. Franklin, who died in 1790, and saw Philadelphia from the year 1723, had the chance of hearing him tell of seeing and conversing with numerous first settlers. Still better was their chance who knew old Hutton, who died in 1793, at the prolonged age of 108 years, and had seen Penn in his second visit to Philadelphia in 1700; and better still was the means of those now alive, who knew old Drinker, who died as late as the year 1782, at the age of 102 years, and had seen Philadelphia, where he was born, in 1680, even at the time of the primitive landing and settlement in caves! Nor were they alone in this rare opportunity, for there was also the still rarer instance of old black Alice, who died as late as the year 1802, and might have been readily seen by me, she then being 116 years of age, with a sound memory to the last, distinctly remembered William Penn, whose pipe she often lighted, (to use her own words,) and Thomas Story, James Logan, and several other personages of fame in our annals. It may amuse and interest to extend the list a little further, to wit: The late aged Sarah Shoemaker, who died in 1825, aged ninety-five years, told me she often had conversed with aged persons in her young days, who had seen and talked with Penn and his companions. In May, 1824, I conversed with Israel Reynolds, Esq. of Nottingham, Maryland, then in his 66th year, a hale and newly married man, who told me he often saw and conversed with his grandfather, Henry Reynolds, a public Friend, who lived to be ninety-four years of age, and had been familiar with Penn, both in Philadelphia and in England; he had also cultivated corn in the city near the Dock creek, and caught fish there.. Mrs. Hannah Speakman, still alive, in her 75th year, has told me she has often talked with aged persons who saw or conversed with Penn, but that being then in giddy youth, she made no advantage of her means to have enquired. Her grandfather Townsend, whom she had seen, had come out with Penn the founder. But now all those who still remain, who have seen or talked with black Alice, with Drinker, with Hutton, with John Key, the first-born, are fast receding from the things that be. What they can relate of their communications must be told quickly, or it is gone! "Gone! glimmering through the dream of things that were." We shall now pursue the more direct object of this article, in giving the names and personal notices of those instances of grandevity, which have occasionally occurred among us,-of those with whom, "Like a clock worn out with eating time The wheels of weary life at last stood still!" 1727. This year dies Grace Townsend, aged ninety-, eight years, well known among the first settlers, and who lived many years on the property nigh the Chesnut street bridge over Dock creek, at the Broad Axe Inn. 1730. January 5, died at Philadelphia, Mary Broadway, aged one hundred years, a noted midwife; her constitution wore well to the last, and she could read without spectacles. 1731. May 19, John Evet, aged one hundred, was interred in Christ church ground. He had seen King Charles the First's head held up by the executioner, being then about sixteen years old. 1739. May 30, Richard Buffington, of the parish of Chester, a patriarch indeed, had assembled in his own house one hundred and fifteen persons of his own descendants, consisting of children and grand and great grandchildren, he being then in his eighty-fifth year, in good health, and doubtless in fine spirits among so many of his own race. His eldest son, then present at sixty years of age, was said to have been the first Englishman born in Pennsylvania region, and appears to have been three or four years older than the first-born of Philadelphia, or of Emanuel Grubb, the first-born of the province. Speaking of this great collection of children in one house, reminds one of a more extended race, in the same year, being the case of Mrs. Maria Hazard, of South Kingston, New England, and mother of the governor; she died in 1739, at the age of one hundred years, and could count up five hundred children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren; two hundred and five of them were then alive. A granddaughter of hers had already been a grand mother fifteen years! Probably this instance of Rhode Island fruitfulness may match against the world. 1761. Died, Nicholas Meers, in his 111th year; he was buried in Friends' ground at Wilmington. He was born in the year 1650, under the government of Cromwell, and about the time of the rise of the Society of which he became a member. He lived through eventful periods, had been the subject of ten successive sovereigns, including the two Cromwells. He saw Pennsylvania and Delaware one great forest,-a range for the deer, buffalo, and panther; and there he lived to see a fruitful field. If those who were conversant with him in his last days had conversed with him on his recollections of the primitive days of our country, what a treasure of facts might have been set down from his lips! So we often find occasion to lament the loss of opportunities with very aged persons, of whom we hear but little until after their death. "First in the race, they won, and pass'd away!" 1763. Miss Mary Eldrington, of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, died at the age of one hundred and nine years. "She still looked for a husband, and did not like to be thought old." 1767. Mrs. Lydia Warder died this year, aged eighty-seven years; she was born in 1680, came out with Penn's colony, had lived in a cave, and had a lively memory of all the incidents of the primitive settlement. This same year, 1767, was fruitful in passing off the primitive remains from among us; thus showing, that in the deaths of those named in this year of the first |