2 Mr. Worcester on Longevity. 
The information contained or made use of in this essay, has 
been collected from a great variety of sources. The greater part of 
that which relates to New Hampshire, has been derived from the 
‘¢New Hampshire Historical Collections,” by Messrs. Farmer and 
Moore, from their valuable Gazetteer of that State, and from the 
communications of Mr. Farmer to the Massachusetts Historical 
Society. From these has been taken, with some corrections and 
additions, the list of persons in New Hampshire, who have lived 
to their 100th year or upwards. 
For considerable information with respect to persons in the 
United States, who have reached the age of 110 years or upwards, 
the writer has been indebted to the politeness of the Honourable 
William Plumer, late governor of New Hampshire ; a gentleman 
who has paid much attention to inquiries of this sort. 
It is not to be supposed that the names of all the persons, who 
have lived in New Hampshire to the age of 100 years, or in the 
United States to 110, are here collected, or that any means 
exist of collecting all of them. It is not improbable that the 
ages of some of the persons in the following lists are incorrectly 
stated. A considerable portion of those who live to extreme 
old age, are persons in the humblest walks of life, destitute of 
education, and in some instances ignorant of the time of their 
birth. There is also, in cases of this kind, a tendency in most 
persons to exaggerate from a love of the marvellous, as well 
as a readiness to believe on slender evidence.  ‘ Instances 
of long life,” says Dr. Johnson, ‘‘are often related, which 
those who hear them are more willing to credit than exa- 
mine., To be told that a man has attained a hundred years, 
gives hope and comfort to him who stands trembling on his own 
climacteric.”’ 
