First of all, I wish to state the grounds of my belief as to this man's age, for it is here that the center of interest lies in this extraordinary case.
Aside from his own assertion and that of his family that he was born in the year 1827 in slavery in the state of Virginia, that he was not married until he was 40 and that his oldest son, if alive, would now be 70, I have made careful inquiries as to his supposed age from a number of reliable citizens in the town of Greenwich, Conn., where he became a resident after the Civil War.
A contractor for whom he worked on a building operation in 1900 or 1901 states that he was past 70 at that time. Another source of information is a remarkable old gentleman in his ninety-seventh year for whom the patient often worked and