Merrimack, New Hampshire Biographies



Gettysburg Compiler (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)
June 19 1822
From the New Hampshire Patriot
Transcribed by Nancy Piper

Longevity

Mr. Samuel Welch, now living at Bow, in this state, about 8 miles from this place, has advanced more than eight months in the one hundred and twelfth year of his age. He was born in Kingston, Sept 1, 1710. His father was from Ipswich, Mass. – was a soldier at the siege of Louisburg, and died immediately after his return to Kingston. His grandfather emigrated with the earliest settlers of Ipswich, from England. Mr. Welch has resided in Bow nearly 50 years. His life has been marked by en extraordinary vicissitude; he never was in battle, never in the army – he never was endangered by the Indians, who frequently visited Kingston, after his birth, and took captives; nor was he ever sick but once during his long life, and then of a slight fever. He was always temperate. Through life he has been a man of hard labor; and appears to have been of a retiring disposition, preferring the most obscure retreats to the noise and vexations and dangers of society.

We lately visited this old man, and found him sitting in his chair – his present wife, now 84 years of age, smoothing his white locks with her comb, and exhibiting the utmost interest in his welfoare. He is now unable to walk, except by holding upon chairs or the arms of his attendants, though his health does not appear rapidly to decline. When at the age of 105, he used to work about his little farm, cut his firewood, &c.; and until the last two years, he walked out of doors without assistance. He is a person rather above middle size, Grecian features, with dark penetrating eyes. His locks are of a clayed white, looking as if they had already mouldered in the grave. His frame is now feeble – the least movement causes his bones to grate at the joints; and we feel a momentary chill at the presence of a man whose appearance speaks such a lesson of decay and gradual dissolution.

His mental faculties appear to be a little impaired, his memory, however, as his wife informed us, begins to fail, and he cannot connect his ideas with much precision. He is still amiable and social, and were it not that his hearing is somewhat affected, he would be a most interesting person in conversation. We asked him many questions, to all which he made very sensible replies. His life, he said, was but a span, though he had lived more than half the time since the landing of our fathers at Plymouth rock. It had now become a burden to him, and he was willing to depart when it should please the Almighty. With the present generation of men he seems to have little acquaintance; our fathers and grandfathers were in contemporaries.

In the annals of longevity in this state, there are but three to be found who have reached the age of Mr. Welch. Those three are Mr. Lovewell, of Dunstable, who lived to be 120; William Perkins of New Market, 115, and Robert Macklin, of Wakefield, 115. The two first are supposed to have been born in England; the last was a native of Scotland. We cannot recall to recollection a single instance of any one born in the state of New Hampshire who has arrived at the age of Mr. Welch.

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