The last of an era? A few “endlings” of bygone centuries

People like tracking ends of eras or major events; Titanic survivors, the fascination with the last survivors of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake or who would be the last person remaining from the 1800s come to mind. There is definitely something to this. These people were the last to have experienced a bygone era. When recognizing that people who at one point were our own age also grow old and die we can understand our own mortality since there is still no miracle drug that can keep us alive forever, even if some entrepreneurs might hint at having the secret.

Life continues and the young replace the old and one day a person born at the same time as us will the last living person left who can say that. And then they will be gone, perhaps having left some semblance of legacy before it too eventually fades. While we may believe that the memory of us will last forever this is hardly ever the case. How many of your great-great-grandparents do you even know the names of? We are all bound to sooner or later be forgotten, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t honor their legacy, which is kind of what we do when recognizing the last survivors from a time long gone. We do it with animals too. An endling is the last of their kind and you can kind of, if you squint your eyes a fair bit, see the resemblance with the last person from an era. Thankfully, we humans are not at the brink of extinction, yet.

Enough with the gloom.. Here are three people, one of them a supercentenarian and two of them advanced centenarians, who were (or may have been) the last living person from their century. A century is technically the period from xx01 – xx00 since there was no year zero, but here I am a bit loose with the definition.

Last person born in the 1600s? – Ebenezer Cobb (22 Mar 1694? – 8 Dec 1801)

The 1600s was a period of upheaval, marked by wars of religion, political revolutions, and the rise of absolute monarchies in Europe. It also witnessed several scientific advancements and the early stages of global exploration and colonialism. Age validation of people born in the 1600s is tricky since there were no standardized methods of recording births in most places. Still, the first thorougly validated centenarian, Eilif Philipsen was born in the 1600s, although research indicates that were several centenarians that pre-dated him. Anyway, Philipsen was not the last person from this century.

One potential candidate for being the last is American man Ebenezer Cobb who has some documentation supporting a birth in 1694, but this documentation is far from original, instead dating from after his death. Hence we should be very cautious with considering him to be a validated centenarian. Not much is known about his life. He was born and died in Massachusetts, had several younger siblings, was married three times and was the father of eleven children. He planted an orchard at age 70.

Last person born in the 18th century? – Salome Sellers (19 Oct 1800 – 9 Jan 1909)

There are several candidates for being the last person from the 1700s, but the people that we know of were very likely not the last. We had one supercentenarian born in 1792 that survived until 1903, Margaret Ann Neve, but she was far from the last as, for example, Marie Perchicot (1799-1906) died later. But that is a “young” age so instead, we focus on the last known person from the 18th century. The 18th century was characterized by the enlightenment, civil reformation, and the start of the industrial revolution. Born at the tail-end of the century was a woman from Deer Isle, Maine: Salome Sellers. Sellers descended from people who were on board the Mayflower, the ship associated with the pilgrims. She led an uneventful life, married at age 30 and had six children. She was noted to have enjoyed spinning yarn and maintained this interest until she was a centenarian. When she was a child, Sellers only attended school for a few weeks each term and the first schoolhouse in her area wasn’t built until she was twelve.

Last person from the 1800s – Emma Morano (29 Nov 1899 – 15 Apr 2017)

The 1800s was a period of innovation, industry was booming, we invented audio recording, the telephone, the camera, and the car (among others). I long wished to meet someone from the 1800s but when I joined the supercentenarian research community in 2014, there were only six people left. Emma Morano was one of them. She was born in Civasco, Italy on 29 November 1899, the eldest of eight children and would move with her family to Verbania as a child. She married in 1926 and would have one child that died in infancy. Her marriage was unhappy and Morano drove her husband out of the house. She worked in a jute factory until 1954 and thereafter in a school kithchen until retiring at age 75. I got to meet Morano in late 2015, accomplishing my dream to meet someone from the 1800s. Emma Morano died at age 117 on 15 April 2017. The last validated living person from the 19th century was Nabi Tajima, who died in 2018.

 

The featured image was created with the help of generative AI.