Was He 115 Years Old? - An Old Colored Man Dies and His Relatives Say He Was Beyond a Century - - Uncle Alfred Toliver died at his home in the west part of town last Thursday afternoon between 5 and 6 o'clock. Like most men of his race who once get old, he was very, very old. The old man contended that he made a hand in the harvested field during the war of 1812 and remembered General Jackson.
Those who figured on the statements of the old man say he is about 115 years old (born ~1795). When the writer first saw him over 80 years ago there was no suggestion of old age in Uncle Alfred Toliver and a man does not live to be over 80 years old as he would have been then under that reckoning without showing his age unless he was immune physically from the natural progress of senility.
The old man was born a slave in Kentucky and was held a slave in Daviess and Platte County, Missouri. Alex Toliver who was a son by his father's third wife says that his father had five wives that he knows of and there were 26 children at least born to them.
Uncle Alfred settled on the Smith farm northeast of town shortly after the war and his fourth wife died there. Sometime in the seventies (1870s) he settled on the lots in the west part of town where he died.
Several years ago, the old man went blind but even before then he was unable to work. Funeral services were held in the Congregational Church Saturday and the burial was in the cemetery near Summit.
Date(s) of Creation
2/10/1910
Other Names and Numbers
Other Names
Name Type
Enslaved
Other Name
Alfred
Name Type
Free Blacks
Other Name
Toliver, Alfred
Name Type
Enslaver
Other Name
Not named
Other Numbers
Number Type
Source Citation
Other Number
The Tonganoxie Mirror (Tonganoxie, KS, 1882-1945): 02/10/1910, p. 1
