Serves 55 Years As Convict

1920

So What's a Mere Sixty Days to Man With That Record?

Frank Hood, 78 years old, heard Judge Hugh R. Stewart of Chicago sentence him to sixty days in the house of correction and grinned.

"It's easy for me to take," he told the court. "I've done time in every big prison in the country. My total time behind the bars is fifty-five years. Sixty days is a cinch."

He was found guilty of stealing a suit of clothing.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 2.

Our Day On Earth

1916

Augusta registered its first Chinese voter this. year, Chin Bong, who runs a laundry there. He was born in Seattle 28 years ago and is married, his wife being at present in China. Previous to coming to Augusta he lived for sometime in Boston and was a voter there.

A. Leon Esty, who was in the automobile with James W. Rafter in the smash-up at the Gardiner railroad crossing of Nov. 2, 1913, has brought suit in the United States District Court of Vermont in the sum of $10,000 against the Maine Central Railroad. It will be remembered that Mr. Rafter won in his suit for damages and was awarded $15,464.99. It was claimed at the time that the gates were not properly operated at the approach of the train.

A grand record for faithful performance of duties was rounded out last Wednesday by Edward G. Wyman of Bangor, when he retired from active service at the First National Bank of that city, after 52 years of continuous service, of which 38 was as cashier. He was given an assistant and granted a long vacation, on salary. Few men anywhere has a longer or more honorable career to his credit.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 1.

Jesse Pomeroy Ends 40th Year in Prison

1916

Notorious Prisoner Longer in "Solitary" Than Any Other "Lifer" in Country.

BOSTON, Massachusetts — Jesse Pomeroy, serving a life sentence for murder, has just completed his fortieth year in solitary confinement at the state prison in Charlestown. Pomeroy is said to have served in solitary longer than any other prisoner in this country, and, unless the commitment order is changed, he will have to be kept in that manner until he dies.

He began his sentence at the age of 16, after having been convicted of diabolical attacks on several small children. In recent years numerous efforts have been made to secure for him the privileges of a "trusty," but all of these have been unavailing.

Numerous attempts at escape have been made by the notorious prisoner, and these, together with his known predilection for taking human life, have influenced the authorities in strictly adhering to the conditions of the original sentence which prescribed solitary imprisonment.

While "solitary imprisonment" is the name given to the punishment Pomeroy is undergoing, it does not mean that he never leaves his cell. He goes out in the yard every day in charge of a guard and spends an hour there. But that is while the other prisoners are at work in the shops. During the forty years that he has been confined Pomeroy has seldom seen the face of a human being other than those of his keepers and of his aged mother, who died several years ago.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 5.

Race Horse Driver Seventy-Two Years

1916

HUNTING BARNES OF IOWA IS OLDEST MAN IN SPORT.

Started as a Jockey When a Boy in Wisconsin — He's Still Spry at Age of 89.

WEST UNION, Iowa, Sept. 14. — Hunting Barnes of West Union is the oldest racing man now actively engaged in the sport both in age and number of years in the service. He is 89 years old, and is now racing for his seventy-second consecutive year.

Barnes was born in New York State, Oct. 12, 1827. He went to Wisconsin with his parents when a boy and started work at selling fruit on the streets of Milwaukee. Later he began riding horses.

At that time there were few established tracks, the racing being done on the public road, a straightaway course, with the running races generally only a quarter of a mile in length. In 1845 Barnes went across Wisconsin to Madison, Wis., and Prairie du Chien with a party of race horse men. They pitted their mounts against those of the French and Indian half breeds on these impromptu half mile tracks. In 1849 Barnes began driving harness horses.

In 1853 Barnes joined the rush to California, going around Cape Horn, but speedily got enough of it there, returning via Panama, where he rode a mule across the isthmus. However, he later returned to California and after the trip there rejoined his parents, who had moved in 1853 to Fayette County, Iowa.

He hired to two families from Fayette to take them across the Great American desert to the Pacific Coast, and getting other young men to go along they took a bunch of trotters and runners. He remained on the coast, riding and driving until 1865. One of his runners, a mare named Seed Wheat, was run by him there for three years without losing a race.

Barnes has lived in Fayette County since 1865, and in West Union for forty years. He was one of the men who about forty-five years ago, as members of a driving association, surveyed and had graded the first circular track in Fayette County, the one now on the Fayette County fair grounds in West Union.

Barnes recalls an incident of his early driving days that amuses him considerably. He had charge about 1850 or 1851 of a trotter, Badger Boy, that could make a mile in three minutes on a good track on days when he was in good trim. Barnes took this horse to the State Fair at Madison, Wis., and beat everything in sight. The next year he returned, and was barred out of the races, but the officials softened the blow to him by giving him a blanket inscribed "The fastest trotting horse in Wisconsin," and letting him drive around the track with the horse wearing the blanket.

Barnes had his horse hitched to a sulky weighing about 300 pounds, or ten times the weight of the average racing sulky of today. As he passed the stand the [la___*] said to him, "Mr. Barnes, you are [____ and*] spry, but you'll get killed riding in so light a cart as that."

He has raced every season since that time.

—The Saturday Blade, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 8.

*Missing a couple bits here. Possibly "you are young and spry" and "the lady there said to him," but I don't know that "the lady" makes much sense.

Blowing Bubbles

1920

People who sing "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" and who lament the quickness with which "they fade and die" may be interested to know that a way has been discovered of making bubbles that will endure for months.

A Dr. Dewar made the discovery, according to the Boston Post. He succeeded in keeping one bubble intact for more than a year. It was blown from a mixture of 50 per cent glycerin, 5 per cent soap and the rest pure water.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6.

And They Didn't Exercise

1910

William M. Evarts, who lived until he was nearly ninety, said he kept his health by never taking exercise. The celebrated Dr. William George Mead, who lived to the surprising age of 148 years, spent nearly all of his time in the open air and played a little golf. Dr. Mead used to drink two or three quarts of water every day, and perhaps there is a suggestion in that. Old Dubois, who lived in Canada for the better part of 119 years on the north shore of Lake Erie, never worked and never took exercise. He spent seventy-five years of his life fishing with hook and line and ate nothing but baked apples and milk and brown bread and unsalted butter. Perhaps you can live that long if you do nothing but fish and eat what old Dubois did. But take notice that these long livers never exercised. — New York Telegraph.

Oregon's Vigorous Old Men

1902

A well-known citizen of 77 years who had been out in the country, and had a large paper sack of mushrooms in his hand, which he had gathered himself, was standing at the corner of Fifth and Morrison streets, Saturday afternoon, waiting for a car. Another old-time citizen, who will be 80 in a few months, came to the same corner to wait for the same car. The man with the mushrooms exhibited them proudly, and said that they were to be put up in glass, adding that he had bought about 100 pounds in the market, which was already put up, but it was difficult to find really fresh ones. He then asked his friend of 79½: "Where have you been lately? I haven't seen you for a week or so." "I have been busy for a week," was the answer. "I had 12 cords of wood to put in, and it was so hard to find anyone to do it, I concluded to put it in myself." "Did you wheel it in in a wheelbarrow?" asked 77. "No, indeed; I had to carry it up a flight of 11 steps, two or three sticks at a time. I got in six cords in three days and finished the other six this afternoon, and so had the afternoon to come down town." As they boarded the car which came up a stranger, who had overheard their conversation, remarked: "By Jingo! they raise pretty husky old men here in Oregon."

Freaks Entitled to Fame

1919

European Families That Had More Than Ordinary Claims to World's Attention

There is living at Bilbao, Spain, a family of seven who between them possess no fewer than 164 fingers. One of them has 23 fingers, another 21, while of the remaining five each can boast a couple of hands with 12 fingers apiece.

At Koshilivo, Russia, a very similar phenomenon exists in the fifty or more descendants of a peasant with extra fingers on his hands, who married at the beginning of the last century, all of whom are dowered with from one to five fingers in excess of the normal number.

The last surviving member of what was perhaps the record family with regard to weight was, in the person of Charles Atkins, a few years back interred at Harrow, England. He weighed 476 pounds, his brothers, who predeceased him, being no less than 504 and 560 pounds.

The family record for longevity has not been beaten since Robert Parr, the great-grandson of the celebrated Thomas Parr, died in 1737 at the age of one hundred and twenty-four. His father lived to celebrate his one hundred and ninth birthday, his grandfather reached one hundred and thirteen, while his great-grandfather was 152 at the time of his death.

There is mentioned in the Harleian Miscellany a Scotch weaver and his wife who were the proud parents of 62 children, 50 of whom reached their majority.

Large as this family was, its fame pales before that of a Russian, one Ivan Wassilig, who was the proud father of 87. By his first wife he had 69 children in the following order: Four times quadruplets at a birth, seven times triplets and 16 times twins. By his second spouse he had twice triplets and six times twins.

Undoubtedly the record for misfortune belongs to a Belgian family named Adnet. The father, Jean Adnet, was drowned; his wife committed suicide, while of his two sisters one was killed by the kick of a horse and the other by a blow received from a falling scaffold.

Jean Adnet had six children, four sons and two daughters. Of these the latter perished through the overturning of a pleasure boat. One of the sons was stabbed in a drunken brawl, another was crushed to death by a heavy wagon, while the remaining two, who emigrated to America, were slain in 1891 while fighting for Balmaceda against congressists. — Stray Stories.


Don't Sneeze; You May Die

Scientists say that we are never nearer death than when we sneeze, the act causing a momentary convulsion of the brain.

Lives In Same Caboose 35 Years

1920

Old "O370" Is "Home" to Freight Conductor

PERRY, Iowa — Railroad men and other humans with a love for their homes will appreciate this story, a tale of how Conductor L. C. Newell of the middle division of the Milwaukee Railroad has for thirty-five years made his home while on the road in one caboose, the O370.

That one caboose could withstand the knocking about it gets for so long a period is something worth remembering. And to have the same conductor all these years is another story.

Sometimes, for short periods, it has happened that Conductor Newell would be compelled to get along with some other "tail cracker" to his trains and when it did happen he was always lost and unhappy. Just recently the O370 has been in the shops for some minor repairs and Conductor Newell's delight when it was returned was plainly apparent.

Conductor Newell has had this caboose since 1885, so long, in fact, that he looks upon it with an air of proprietorship that is understandable and permissible. It was in January, 1885, thirty-five years ago, that Conductor Newell was transferred from the Eastern to the Middle division and he was permitted to take the caboose with him. As he has been on a regular way freight and has worked steadily, he has made many thousands of miles journey in that caboose.

The O370 has been his home practically all these years, for it is fitted with bunks and it has always been customary for the crew to occupy it nights when away from home, and the walls have undergone at times a certain fanciful decoration that makes it home-like and inviting to railroad men.

Once the caboose, after leaving the shops, was sent to another division, but as soon as Superintendent of Transportation Whipple, who is a personal friend of Mr. Newell, heard of it, he promptly had the old O370 returned to Conductor Newell and his crew.

Luck In the Clover

1903

Any one who carries about a four leaved clover will be lucky and will have the power of discovering ghosts or evil spirits. With it under the pillow the lover may insure dreams of the beloved one. A fragment in the shoe of a traveler insures a safe journey. Of the five leaved clover it is declared that if it be worn on the left side of a maiden's dress or fastened behind the hall door the Christian name of the first man who enters will be the same as that of the future husband.

The power of the four leaved shamrock for good is familiar to all, from Lover's once popular and pretty song, the speaker in which pictures what she would do should she find the magic plant:

"I would play the enchanter's part and scatter bliss around,
And not a tear or aching heart should in the world be found."


Centenarian Chances

Taking a million as a basis of calculation, statistics show that at the end of seventy years there will still survive 212,000 out of 1,000,000 persons. At the expiration of eighty years there will be 107,000 survivors of the original million. When it comes to ninety years of existence only 8,841 out of the 1,000,000, or one in 115, will be living. Of the original 1,000,000 only fifty-four will live to see ninety-nine years, or about one person out of 18,500. The century mark will be reached by only twenty-three out of the 1,000,000.

Their Long Span of Life -- "Same Razor Everyday, 53 Years"

1922

London — Setting forth a compilation of the longevity of many of the common-place things in life — things which though soon every day are scarcely given thought — the London Mail points out that the length of useful life possessed by articles of man's handiwork forms an interesting speculation, and one which is full of surprises.

"For instance, an artificial leg had been worn by its owner for sixty years and was still serviceable at the end of that time.

"The average life of a locomotive engine is about twenty years, but there are many cases on record of this term being greatly exceeded. One built in 1846 worked for a period of over fifty years, first as a passenger, then freight, and finally as a shifting engine. Another completed over two million miles, equal to one hundred year's service, on the ordinary basis of twenty thousand miles a year.

"In the year 1913 a town in Wales was using a fire engine which had been in active service for seventy years on end. But this record pales when compared with that of an engine which was still in use at the beginning of the present century by a firm of metal rollers in Birmingham. This, a beam engine, was erected in the year 1767, and worked continuously for one hundred and thirty-six years before it was last pulled down and replaced.

"There is a case on record of a man using the same razor every morning for fifty-three years."

—Appleton Post-Crescent, Appleton, Wisconsin, Jan. 23, 1922, p. 4.


1899

A Long Service

In remote parts of Scotland the old Covenanters' love for long services on the bare hillside still lingers. At Dingwall a recent communion service in the open air lasted from 10 a. m. until 4 p. m. without exhausting the staying power of the congregation.