The thread below about President Tyler brought to mind the various times in my own life when I have asked other people about very old people they have known. I remember my grandfather, who was born in 1881, quite well. He grew up in an area with hundreds of Civil War veterans and their wives and families. From both sides. In 1907, he left Missouri with a group of friends to homestead lands in No Man's Land, which is commonly known today as the Oklahoma Panhandle. Prior to that time, the area had mainly been used for livestock grazing by anyone tough enough to run off anyone else wanting to do the same thing. There weren't any established towns for many miles, railroads were years away from being a reality and medical services and law enforcement were non-existent for all practical matters. He constructed a tiny shack that was mainly a dugout in which to subsist alone.
My mother's father was born in 1876 when the US was celebrating its centennial. Now the US has been around for 236 years.
I knew one fellow who was born in 1872. He died in 1972. He told wonderful stories of his own father's experiences with the growing pains of the West as his father was born about 1815. The fellow I knew could remember people who were born in the 1790's and had been told stories about those much older by his parents and other older relatives.
I corresponded with a man who told me stories learned from his grandfather, who was born in 1830. His grandfather was a first cousin to my great great grandfather. They were both part of a family migration from (now West) Virginia, arriving in Iowa the year after their new land was surveyed by the GLO. I just wish there had been more stories.
