Will County IL Archives Obituaries.....Page, Orasamus 1912
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Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com November 10, 2006, 10:18 pm

Unknown, 1912
Orasamus Page, World’s Oldest “Newsie” Dead

Orasamus Page, age 104 years, the “world’s oldest newsie”, died this morning 
at 1 o’clock in his home, North Eastern avenue.  Mr. Page would have been 105 
years old on February 11.

With him, when he died, were his bride of seventy years ago and his daughter, 
Mrs. William Bigelow, 628 Benton street.  Death was not unexpected as he had 
been ailing, for several weeks.  Telegrams announcing his death were sent to 
his four children who live away from Joliet and arrangements for the funeral 
will not be perfected until replies have been received.

The body is at Buck’s undertaking rooms in the Masonic Temple, Jefferson 
street, where the funeral services will be held Sunday unless the present plan 
is changed.

The old newspaper vendor, who had seen the birth and passing of more than a 
century of years, had been ailing for many weeks and had not been able to 
attend to his sales regularly at the new Union station.  He has sold papers 
about the Joliet depots since 1893 and thousands new the centenarian 
newspaper “boy”.

Unsold Papers Saved in Cottage.

Since 1909 he lived in a tiny rectangular cottage, its length divided into 
three rooms, at 305 North Eastern avenue.  The building is trim enough 
without, within it is cluttered with the miscellaneous accumulation of many 
lean years; broken backed chairs, boxes, a wax flower group under a glass 
dome, the only ornament, and everywhere unsold papers.  A little stand in one 
of the two front windows holds the papers which each day are left over from 
his depot sales.  Although he kept only the morning papers, kindly neighbors 
provide that his business continue during the whole day, so that it is not 
unusual for a boy to drop in after supper to get an issue for his father.  
Orasamus was always found sitting just inside the door while his wife, cheery 
and shrill voiced at 96, hustled about in the second room at some invisible 
task.

Was Early Riser

Every morning at four he was up and by 5 o’clock without fail, except during 
the few illnesses of his later years, he would be on hand to get his 40 or 50 
papers at the Alton station.  A few were sold at the early trains there but 
more left with customers along Jefferson street.  The wearisome journey home 
took him over half an hour.

After breakfast he used to go to the Eastern Avenue station, only a step from 
the cottage.  What papers were not sold there had no chance except at the 
house, for he could not make the trip downtown again.  In good weather he 
walked a little in the afternoon; otherwise the rest of the day was spent in 
his chair.  Always he was in bed by 9 o’clock in the evening.

Family Long Lived

Orasamus Page was born Feb. 11, 1808, near an Indian village, on his father’s 
farm in Cattaraugus county, New York.  In 1820 the family moved to Ohio; then 
scattered until now there are descendants in many states in the union.  
Orasamus came to Illinois with his wife and oldest daughter in 1847.  He was a 
general contractor and his first work in his new home was the grading of 50 
miles of the Great Western roadbed east of Decatur.  In 1861 he moved to 
Braidwood where he made his home until he came to Joliet in the World’s Fair 
year.  Financial losses combined with his old age and crippled condition – he 
lost a foot before he left Ohio – forced him into the occupation which he 
pursued to the time of his last illness.

Longevity was a tradition in his family.  Though his father only lived to be 
90, two of his grandparents lived to be more than 100.  One reached the 
advanced age of 106 years.  Orasamus’ oldest daughter, Mrs. Ada Fitzberg, of 
Bird City, Kansas, is already 70 years old.  His “baby” is 47.

The Page family had a record of patriotic service to which the old man pointed 
with pride.  His paternal grandfather was a general under Washington in the 
Revolutionary War.  His father and uncles served in the War of 1812.  A 
brother, Moses Page, went through the Civil War.  He himself enlisted for the 
Mexican War, but got no further than the border and did not see active 
service.  Before the Civil War began he was incapacitated for military duty by 
the accident which cost him his right foot.  But he “stumped” the state on his 
one good foot and peg leg (the pun pleased him) for Lincoln in 1860.

His most active years were devoted to teaming and moving and from the stories 
which he told must have had a comfortable living while residing at Braidwood.  
He liked to boast of the feats of strength or sheer endurance which he had 
performed.  His property was lost in some legal complication which did not 
seem to be very clear to him as he could not explain it.  Since coming to 
Joliet in the World’s Fair year he has subsisted entirely by the sale of his 
papers.  Already a man of 84 he attracts the attention of railroad men and 
travelers at once and as the years roll by and he still stumps up to the 
platform with his papers every morning, his fame spreads until there are 
people in every part of the land who at some time have noted him.

Page camped on the present site of Joliet before any man new living had been 
here and before there were any permanent settlers.  In 1827 when 19 years of 
age he with a band of others left Ohio on an errand which he had always 
shrouded in secrecy.  He admits only that it was partly concerned with the 
breaking up of a band of highwaymen and marauders known as the Prairie 
bandits.  They came as far west as Chicago and camped one night in Joliet.

Before leaving Ohio he witnessed the building of the first railroad in the 
country, a stretch of timber track from New York to Cumberland.  He himself 
shipped the first steam carried load of cattle into the country, he claimed, 
and in telling about it always added with disgust that he could have driven 
them to their destination about as rapidly.  In his time he drove cattle and 
hogs from Ohio to New York and Baltimore, walking beside them all the way.  
Once on a mountain he was snowed in with a herd and his helpers for six weeks.

After coming to Braidwood he taught school for a time, farmed, contracted, and 
served several terms as constable and justice of the peace.  For these two 
offices he had at the last a supreme contempt and regretted ever having held 
them.

Page and his wife were married in 1838.  If he had lived a year longer they 
could have celebrated their diamond wedding jubilee.  They have had five 
children, all of whom are believed to be living.  One, Mrs. Ada Fishbert of 
Bird City, Kansas, is 70 years old and has several grandchildren, Edward, a 
son lives somewhere in Oregon.  Mrs. Richard Holsworth, one of their 
daughters, is in Ohio.  Mrs. Violet Fernandez, another daughter, helps publish 
an Italian paper in Ontario, Texas, and the last, their baby, is Mrs. William 
Bigelow of Joliet.  Edward Taylor, a grandson, also lives in Joliet.

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