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Category: History
THE HISTORY OF LABOR DAY
The Last Men of The Revolution-Samuel Downing
The first in order visited was SAMUEL DOWNING, and the sketch of his life shall introduce the series.
Mr. Downing lives in the town of Edinburgh, Saratoga County; New York. His age is one hundred and two years. To reach his home, you proceed to Saratoga, and thence by stage some twenty miles to the village of Luzerne, on the upper Hudson. Here you are at once rewarded for your journey thus far. Few spots more beautiful are to be found. The river, flowing above it broad and free, at this point is compressed within a narrow gorge some twelve or fifteen feet in width, through which, after passing over a series of rapids known as Rockwell’s Falls, it rushes with great rapidity and force, the sound of its waters filling the air with music and your heart with freshness, as you listen to them, ceaseless, by day or by night. Continue reading
The Last Men Of The Revolution- Lemuel Cook
From the home of Mr. Waldo, the most distinguished, I passed to that of LEMUEL COOK, the oldest survivor of the Revolution. He lives in the town of Clarendon, (near Rochester,) Orleans county, New York. His age is one hundred and five years. 
Mr. Cook was born in Northbury, Litchfield county, Connecticut, September 10, 1759. He enlisted at Cheshire, in that state, when only sixteen years old. He was mustered in “at Northampton, in the Bay State, 2nd Regiment, Light Dragoons, Sheldon, Col.; Stanton, Capt.” He served through the war, and was discharged in Danbury, June 12, 1784. The circumstances of his enlistment and early service he relates as follows: Continue reading
The Last Men Of The Revolution- Adam Link
The following is part two of four excerpts from the book ” The Last Men of the Revolution” written in 1864 by the Reverend Elias Hillard
When Adam was hundred and two years old. He made the statement that “his part in the war was unimportant”
Adam Link was born in Washington County, Maryland on November 14, 1761 to parents Jacob and Anna Link.. His mother, a distant relative of Jacob’s, was from Switzerland and died when Adam was six years old. After Anna’s death, Jacob remarried and move to Wheeling Creek, near present day Wheeling West Virginia.
The Last Men Of The Revolution-Daniel Waldo
The following is part one of four excerpts from the book ” The Last Men of the Revolution” written in 1864 by the Reverend Elias Hillard
From Luzerne I proceeded to Syracuse, the home of the Rev. DANIEL WALDO, the most widely known of the surviving soldiers of the Revolution.
There were many circumstances which rendered the anticipation of a visit to him one of great pleasure and satisfaction. Known, as he was, to all his countrymen, all felt acquainted with him and interested in him; while his intelligence, his wide familiarity with men and events, and, until of late, the full possession and vigor of his faculties, with his eminently social disposition, the freshness of his feelings, and his undiminished interest both in the past and the present, combined to render an interview with him, in prospect, one of the rare privileges of a lifetime. Most painful, therefore, was my disappointment on reaching his house to find the realization of these anticipations forever forbidden; the communion of life, so pleasant and prolonged, forever terminated; its story, told so often and so willingly, to be told no more. The hour so long awaited at last had come. Death was dealing with the old man. Already he had done with earthly things; and, passed into the border realm between the seen world and the unseen, he was awaiting in passive unconsciousness the opening of those mansions in his Father’s house, where so long there had been prepared for him a home. Continue reading
