“Familiar all his life with a timbered country”

What caught my eye on the marker at the grave of Enoch George (d. 1893) was his age when he died: He lived to be nearly 95 years old.

That’s a long life, no matter when you were born.

ENOCH GEORGE
BORN
JAN. 1, 1799
DIED
AUG. 27, 1893
AGED
94 Y. 7M. 26D.
The 1880 Federal Census for Harmony Township, Morrow County, Ohio, includes a household headed by 81-year-old Enoch George, a Welsh-born farmer. Though he is marked as Married, the only other person listed in the household is 84-year-old Daniel Burns.

The 1860 Federal Census and the 1870 Federal Census suggest that Enoch’s wife was named Jane. In fact, FamilySearch.org revealed the image of an 1825 marriage record for Enoch George and Jane Evans.

History of Morrow County and Ohio, published in Chicago by O.L. Baskin & Co. in 1880, alludes to Enoch George’s good health into his eighties:

In 1837, Enoch George, who had gone back to Chester after selling his farm in the southeast corner of the township, to Mr. Salisbury, returned and bought eighty acres near Burns’ Corners. Here he stayed but a short time, when he sold out, and, leaving his family there, he went to Iowa to work for a home. Familiar all his life with a timbered country, the rough fashion of the prairie winds discouraged his idea of emigration, and he bought 100 acres where he now lives, able at the age of eighty-one to build fence and do all but the hardest work about the farm.

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Chester Baptist Cemetery, Morrow County, Ohio