SARE, William
Source:
Topeka, Kansas Weekly Capital 20 Oct 1903 Tuesday p 4
William Sare,
the oldest white man in Kansas, passed peacefully away at his home, two miles
northwest of Erie, on Monday Oct 5, 1903, aged 99 years and 5 months. Death was
caused from extreme old age – his race was run. Mr. Sare was born in Boone
County, Kentucky May 11, 1804 and was married in Putnam County Indiana in 1825
to Mary Hadden, who died Oct 7, 1857. In March 1859 he was married to Elizabeth
Beard, who lives to mourn his death.
Seven children were born to this couple as follows: Agnes, John W, David
W, Mary J, Luther B, Reuben, Daniel and Sarah Hester. Until Mr. Sare had passed his 80th
year he was in active charge of all his business affairs. He was but one step from the century road and
lied to see the maturity of five generations. His mind was active and a perfect
storehouse of information. Mr. Sare’s
memory could relate the events of the past century which has been fruitful to
all parts of the country. In 1819, when he was 15 years of age, the first
steamboat passage across the Atlantic was made from New York to Liverpool. The
first railroad was completed in 1827 and 1828. The first locomotive engine on
an American road was on the Baltimore & Ohio in 1831. He lived to see the railroads intersect the
country from east to the west and from the north to the south. An overland trip
from the Atlantic to the Pacific was almost impossible in the boyhood days of
Mr. Sare. It would be impossible for us to mention all the improvements and
inventions our aged and worthy citizen had seen come to light during the life
in which he lived. And what made his life better and sweeter was that the moral
progress of the country had not been behind the intellectual growth. Churches,
missionaries and bible societies have done their work on a grand scale.
Institutions of all kinds are scattered throughout the length and breadth of
the land. William Sare lived to see the greatest, achievements in our national
life. His life was so rare in the present life of fast living that holding a
communion with him was better and more accurate than gathering information from
an old history, which pages had, perhaps, been worn and torn by diligent
search. The funeral services were
conducted at the Christian Church at 10 o’clock Tuesday morning by Rev. W.
Emerson of the ME Church. The remains were interred in the Erie Cemetery – Erie
Record.