MORE THAN A CENTENARIAN.____________
Death of Mrs. Isabella Simpson at the According to the common lot, five score and ten years is a long time to live, and an age that is seldom reached even by those to whom pies are unknown and dentistry a superfluous profession. But there is every reason to believe that Mrs. Isabella Simpson, a colored resident of Bridge street, between Myrtle avenue and Johnson street, who has just died, had reached that preposterous age. Members of the Wynkoop family, whose slave she was while slavery lasted in this State, know her to have been over one hundred years old, and data put together by her own children and others, make it almost certain that she was really 110. She was born at Old Paltz, Ulster County, N.Y., on the estate of one of the Wynkoop family, to whom her mother was sold by Mr. Clinton, who bought the latter shortly after her arrival in New York. Isabella's grandmother and seven children, brothers and sisters, including her mother, were stolen from the coast of Africa and shipped to New York. In the horrors of the "middle passage" the grandmother fell or was pitched overboard, and never was seen again. Isabella's mother was bought by a Mr. Clinton, and subsequently sold to the Wynkoops, on whose place she married, according to slave fashion, the deceased's father who was also a slave of the Wynkoops. She has often heard her mother describe the passage and landing at New York, which was effected at the foot of what is now Stone street, a region which has changed materially since those days, for the mother spoke of "bushes in the road, and a stone bridge (whence, probably, the name), over the brook." She also remembered seeing there "an old woman who sold oranges and sich." The bridge is gone, the bushes are gone, and the only semblance of the brook is the dirty stream that meanders through the gutter to the sewer. The particular old woman is also gone, but it would not be hard to find her representative disposing of "oranges and sich" in the neighborhood to day. Isabella's mother also lived till past 100 years of age, and saw the chains taken from herself and kindred, and, it is supposed, enjoyed and appreciated the blessings of the civilization which freedom now and here dispenses to all, white and black alike.
I would like to offer my especial thanks to Nancy Lutz, [email protected], who took time out of her very busy schedule to make a copy of Isabella's obituary and send it to me. I'd also like to thank Marilynn Wright, [email protected], who first brought Isabella's obituary to my notice. I can't tell you how pleased I am to be able to post Isabella's story here in the Wynkoop Family Research Library. Stories like hers are rare in the extreme and I feel privileged to be able to share it with a wider audience. Enjoy! Chris
Source: Unknown, "More Than a Centenarian", Brooklyn Standard Union, Brooklyn, New York, Saturday, 22 July 1876.
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Created January 3, 2002; Revised September 21, 2002
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