The Family of Hiram H. Reynolds and Amelia M. Pruden Reynolds

The Parents of Hiram H. Reynolds

Allen and Betsey Reynolds

The Parents of Amelia M. Pruden Reynolds

Unknown

Springwater Native Sings at 105 Years

From Unknown Newspaper, unknown date

Editor’s Note: The following press dispatch from San Diego, California, under date of March 11th, was given out under Associated Press Association heading:

...

More than 350 friends of Hiram Reynolds met to help celebrate his 105th birthday. At the close of the party he arose, saluted the flag, and sang “America.”

Proud of his claim to being the oldest Civil War veteran alive, Uncle Hi, as his friends call him, was no less proud of a letter from President Roosevelt. The President said he wanted to meet Uncle Hi when he comes to San Diego this summer.

Reynolds left his native town, Springwater, NY, to fight in the Civil War.

Uncle Hiram was a brother of Thomas Reynolds, better known as Uncle Tom, who lived in a log house near the head of Hemlock lake. Uncle Tom was also known as the singing evangelist.

Uncle Hiram was also uncle to the late Silas E. Reynolds, who formerly lived in Livonia, and John Reynolds of Arkport.

Aged 107, Springwater Native, Now Resident of California,

Is Active and in Good Health

The Livonia Gazette, 6 March 1936

1

Hiram Reynolds seated between his daughters: Mrs. Joe Graham (left), Mrs. Kathleen Furl (right), Mrs. Carrie Borchett (inset).

Editors note: Next Tuesday, Mar. 10, Hiram H. Reynolds of San Diego, Calif., will have the unusual distinction of celebrating his 107th birthday. The local interest in this event is that fact that Mr. Reynolds was born in Springwater, NY and is a cousin of the late John Hanna, well known in this section.

At the age of 32 Mr. Reynolds entered the Civil War, enlisting in the 148th New York Infantry. Soon after the close of the war he married and went to Kansas. Always a farmer he homesteaded, and needing more money for improvements he established a little business buying up eggs through Missouri and selling them at Leavonworth. Thirty-seven years ago he went to Arizona, and then on to San Diego, where he resides.

Correspondence with Mr. Reynolds’ niece, Mrs. Fred Pearce of San Diego, reveals the fact that “he is in very good health, is able to eat anything he likes, and entertains and is entertained a great deal.” Continuing, Mrs. Pearce says that “he talks over the radio once in a while and enjoys airplane travel, also auto rides. He is very much interested in the political situation and will again vote for Roosevelt if he is alive when the time comes.”

Mr. Reynolds has two daughters, Mrs. Joseph Graham of Big Bear Lake, Calif., and Mrs. Kathleen Furl of Los Angeles.

The following article by Mr. Reynolds, as told to Magner White and published in the San Diego Sun of Nov. 1, 1933, gives an insight into the interests and philosophy of this remarkable old gentleman, who was born in Livingston County of New York State and by the grace of God and the sunshine of southern California still lives.

Here is that article, from the San Diego, Calif. Sun of November 1, 1933, as told by Mr. Reynolds to Magner White.

...

I am older than almost anyone in the world. I was born March 10, 1829, at Springwater, NY. Andrew Jackson was president of the United States - and we had had only seven presidents. Lots of people remembered George Washington; he had died only thirty years before. Most of the United States was a wilderness. California belonged to Spain; Texas was thinking of separating from Mexico.

The world had forty-seven years to go before it would hear of the telephone. We had no anesthetics; we’d never heard of germs nor antiseptics. You know, of course, that there were no automobiles, moving pictures nor radios. But we didn’t even have ordinary phosphorus matches. Electric lights, typewriters, gasoline engines, trolley cars, tin cans for canned goods - all were yet to be invented.

I have seen five generations come and go. Some of my best friends died fifty years ago - of old age!

I am still here, aged 104!

You wonder what I have to live for? I was never happier. Of course I miss my friends, and my sight is failing and I can’t see all I’d like to see, and I am deathly afraid I’ll fall and cripple myself, so I can’t take my usual morning walk.

But I spend a lot of time now “thinking it over.” You know how you like to live over experiences you have had? I have more that a hundred years of experiences! And they come to me as clearly as if they happened yesterday - an exciting moment amid bullets in the Civil War; my first love affair seventy-five years ago; the big excitement when the reaper came in, and we laid down our scythes and sickles; the assassination of President Lincoln; funny stories I heard sixty years ago ... I can close my eyes and think of actually, a thousand interesting things!

Or I can listen to my radio and go through my morning daily dozen!

I expected to live to be a hundred - and I expect to live many years more. You can do it too. But you must live right. I lived out in the open, as a farmer. I never drank nor smoked, and I never over-ate. Best of all, I never worried - except when I was young. I found it a good policy never to owe any man, for debts worried me. I haven’t owed any one for eighty years, and haven’t had a worry in that time.

Religion has been my main source of strength and good cheer. I believe in an Almighty God and a Hereafter. If I didn’t believe in a Hereafter, what would I have to look forward to at my age!

Young folks talk a lot about the Future. Sometimes they ask me how it feels to have no future. Why, I have one! The greatest of all! I am about to open the door to what I believe will be Eternity! That - I humbly believe - is really our Future!

Then they ask me if I’m afraid to die! I don’t believe in Death. I believe in transition - further growth. Growth and development is the secret of the Universe! Nothing is ever lost.

My senses often grow dull. I have lapses. My mind is keen for only an hour or two a day, as it is this morning. Sometimes, when people bore me, I drop off to sleep on purpose. I can do that, at my age, without being accused of being impolite; they think I’m “just childish.” Funny, isn’t it?

But, what I was saying; My senses grow dull at times, and I feel perfectly at ease when they do. Sometimes I wonder if I have Passed Over! I think that’s the way it will be; I’ll just lapse out of this world, and step naturally into the next. I believe when you live naturally, you pass over naturally, without any pain - and with no regrets.

You have been reading these articles about the different ages. Each one thinks his or her age is the best. Every one of them is right! Every age has its rights, its joys and its privileges. I have enjoyed my whole life. Do you remember when the young folks used to say, talking slang, “Be your age?” Well, there is a lot of sense to that! We should be our ages - energetic, ambitious and planning when we are young; capitalizing on experience and building when we are older; and wise and serene and happy when we are very old.

But I do not want to live my life over. I am too eager to see what is just ahead. If it’s Nothing - well, I’ve had a good time. If it’s Something ... I believe it is Something.

But I’ve seen the Show. In fact, I’ve seen it three or four times! I know everything the Actors will say, and usually what they will do. I’ve been sitting through the performance 104 years!

And now ...

I want to Go Home!

All my friends are waiting for me there.

The Obituary of Hiram H. Reynolds

10 March 1829 - 29 January 1937

The Dansville Breeze, 22 March 1937

Hiram H. Reynolds, formerly of Springwater, a Civil War veteran and believed to be the oldest native of Livingston County, died in his home in Los Angeles, Calif., at the age of 107.

He was born in Springwater NY March 10, 1829 and except for the war period, lived in Springwater until 1887, when he removed to Southern California.

His grandmother lived to reach 107 and he had an uncle, who died at 103 so Hiram had reasons to believe he might live long past the century mark.

Mr. Reynolds was one of the oldest veterans of the Civil War at the time of his passing. He enlisted in the Union Army as a member of the New York 148th Infantry following President Lincoln’s call for volunteers in 1861.

In 1864 while in General Grant’s Army he lost an eye in an attack upon the army of Virginia and after receiving his disability discharge was placed in charge of a hospital near Washington.

Reynolds once said he and his family never ate meat, abstained from the use of alcohol and tobacco and have believed that the proverb “Early to Bed and Early to Rise,” was a wise one.

As far as can be ascertained, no Livingston County native ever surpassed Reynold’s age.

The Obituary of Amelia M. Pruden Reynolds

14 October 1838 - 13 March 1922

The Burial of Hiram H. Reynolds

Mt. Hope Cemetery in San Diego CA

The Burial of Amelia M. Ruby Pruden Reynolds

Mt. Hope Cemetery in San Diego CA