Fulton-Henry County GaArchives Marriages.....Mozley, Mrs. Mary - Lester, Herman November 11, 1891
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Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 February 25, 2005, 9:31 am

Jackson Argus – Week of February 7, 1896
Hiram Lester Dead
At the Ripe Old Age of One Hundred and Twenty-Eight Years

At the poor farm in Henry county early Friday morning, Hiram Lester, one of the
oldest men in the world, died, in his 129th year.  He was no pampered child of
fortune, and in his latter days at least was a comparative stranger to wealth. 
 But despite his poverty he was a noted being – a human curiosity.  Not for a
brilliant career spent in public service; not for matchless evidence in
legislative halls, but because by being regular and temperate in habit  and by a
simple observance of nature’s laws he has succeeded in prolonging his life
beyond the period of human expectancy.

Hiran Lester was born in North Carolina in the early part of 1768.

Since his heart first began to throb six billions of people have come into
existence, and after a battle against death, have passed into the unknown
beyond.  When the famous first continental congress convened in Philadelphia, in
1774, he was seven years old.

When England’s George IV ascended the throne of our mother country the snows of
more than fifty winters had fallen upon his head.

William E. Gladstone, the greatest of English statesmen, would, on the day of
his birth, have beheld in Uncle Hiram an energetic and stalwart man.

Seventy-five years of actual life had furr(?) wed his brow when the first
message was transmitted by telegraph.

The beginning of the civil war found him a man of ninety-three years.

At the opening of the Cotton States and International Exposition he was more
than 128; and death claimed him just before he would have passed the 129th
milestone on life’s road.

And thus he has witnessed events in the world’s history that marked the
beginning and ending of import epochs.

It is said that his life was an active and vigorous one.  By energy and
perseverance he won for himself in his earlier days a sufficiency of this
world’s goods on which to live in comfort.  But when he became too feeble to
work his accumulations disappeared and he became an inmate of the Henry county
poorhouse, where he lived until the fall of 1891.  At that time he went to the
Piedmont exposition with some friends, where he formed the great drawing card in
an exhibit at the exposition grounds.   During this exposition was celebrated
the greatest event in the life of Mr. Lester.

At the Edgewood Avenue theatre, in Atlanta, on the night of November 11, 1891,
he and Mrs. Mary Mozeley were united in the holy bonds of wedlock.  The happy
pair were perhaps the oldest couple to contract the marriage vow, the bride
being more than seventy and the groom one hundred and twenty-five years old.

This event attracted a great deal of interest and was witnessed by hundreds of
Atlanta’s citizens.  Mr. and Mrs. Lester lived happily together until about two
months ago, when financial reverses drove Mr. Lester to the poorhouse for the
second time, and his wife went to live with relatives.

For several weeks he had grown weaker, showing a gradual failing in his vitality.

On Friday morning he passed away, being at the time of his death the oldest man
in the world.

He has a son, his youngest, in the Henry county poorhouse, ninety-two years old.
 His only daughter lives in Heard county and is ninety-five years of age.

Jackson Argus – Week of February 7, 1896



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