GUILFORD COUNTY, NC - OBITUARIES - Levinius "Levi" Houston - 1862
====================================================================
     USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing
         free information on the Internet, data may be used by
         non-commercial entities, as long as this message
         remains on all copied material. These electronic
         pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit
         or for presentation by other persons or organizations.

         Persons or organizations desiring to use this material
         for purposes other than stated above must obtain the
         written consent of the file contributor.
		
	 The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives
	 to store the file permanently for free access.

         This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb
         Archives by: Jennifer Worth	jennworth@hotmail.com
====================================================================
Contributor's Note:  The obituary was written in the September 16, 1862 issue 
of the Greensborough Patriot. Levi was born in Mecklenburg Co and died in 
Guilford Co. He lived in both.

		The Late Levi Houston

Died at the residence of his son, Col. Joe Houston, in this county, August 19,
1862. Levi Houston at a very advanced age and in the assured hope of
immortality and eternal life. But we feel that when called upon to announce
the decease of one who had attained to such an uncommon age, and whose life
had so finely illustrated the great maxim of the wise man, that the path of
the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect
day, something more than a bare notice of hid death is due to his memory, to
his friends and to the community. He was born and raised in Mecklenburg
county; but on attaining his maturity, or soon after, he removed to Guilford,
where he became a permanent citizen and, in three or four years, married Miss
Anne Boyed with whom he lived in great harmony to the to the close of life and
by whom he had seven children, five sons and two daughters, who lived to be
grown, and three of whom, the two daughters and one son, have survived him.
At the time of his death, he was in his 92nd year, and had been for sixty
years a member of the Presbyterian church.

He was a man of good natural mind; and though without any advantages of
education in early life except what the common ”old field schools” such as
they were at that day, afforded, he acquired a great deal of general
intelligence3 and of sound practical knowledge. It was his practice to buy as
many valuable works of different subjects as he had means to purchase and time
to read, and he was not a careless or superficial reader; for he read slowly
and reflected much; so that when he had read a book through no matter how
logical or stored with facts, he was master of its contents. Besides, he was
never ashamed to confess his ignorance and to ask for information, but took
every opportunity to ask a man of more education and maturity of knowledge,
their opinion on the books which he had read and on subjects on which he had
not read.

Like most young men of that day, he inherited little or no patrimony and had
to depend on his own effort for the support of himself and family; but as he
never aspired after wealth or fame, he acquired by honest industry and
economy, a sufficiency to make him comfortable in his old age and to place his
children above the fear of want.

If “an honest man is the noblest work of God," few men have had a better claim
to nobility; for he was in the full and proper sense of that term, an honest
man; and we believe, after an acquaintance of forty years, he was never liable
to the charge of having deceived a man or defrauded him, intentionally, of a
cent.

He took great pains and was, at considerable expense in the religious training
and education of his children; nor did they disappoint his expectations; for
nearly all of them became, early in life, members of the church and have been
all that a parent could desire in their circumstances.

But a distinguished poet has said that “Christian is the highest style of
man,” Mr. Houston was a decided and Bible Christian. At an early stage of the
great revival, which began in the summer of 1801, and during the first camp
meeting held at Buffalo church, which, we believe was in October of that year,
he was savingly converted to God and, at the next Spring Communion, was
received into full membership in the Alamance church. His manifest sincerity,
sound sense and ardent piety soon pointed him out as a suitable man for Ruling
Elder, and having accepted the appointment, though with much humility and
distrust of him himself, he continued to discharge the duties of that office
with credit to himself and greatly to the satisfaction of the church until he
removed to the vicinity of Greensborough, where for the sake of convenience,
he changed his membership from Alamance to Buffalo; but being now advanced in
life, he declined acting any longer in his official character. Still those who
were united with him in Christian fellowship, or who know him well must
remember while they live, his kindness of heart, his liberality in the general
cause of Christian benevolence, his readiness to relieve the wants and
sufferings of others, his ardent piety, his fervent prayers, his soundness in
the faith, his patience under protracted sufferings, and his tranquil and
happy death.