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- [S27] Rootsweb - ancestry.com, http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wvwetzel/Communities/Hundred.htm.
The people of this little town in Wetzel County located on U.S. 250 in the West Virginia hills have the deepest respect for longevity. Our town was named after a couple of pioneer centenarians who settled here before 1800. Henry Church (known as "Old Hundred") was born in Suffolk England on November 30, 1750 and died September 14, 1860, being 109 Years 9 months and 14 days old at the time of his death. His wife, Hannah Keine, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1755 and died July 27, 1860 at the age of 106 years. They lived in blissful wedlock for 82 years.
Henry Church came to America as a soldier. After the Revolutionary War, he married a Quaker lady, Hannah Keine of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To this union were born eight children. The family cleared the land and built a log cabin where the Bank of Hundred was built in 1906. This was the most prominent corner then and still is today.
Henry and his wife gave the plot of ground known as the Hundred Cemetery to the community as a gift so they would be buried there. It is located behind the Hundred United Methodist Church. A new marker for their graves was purchased by Norval Throckmorton and Dr. J. S. Church in 1972 to be a lasting tribute to Henry Church and his wife, Hannah.
Henry Church came into the spotlight when the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was completed in 1852. The railway station that at one time was a busy place, no longer stands. In 1858 the company officials sent an observation train over the railroad to Wheeling. They wanted to take Henry Church and his wife to Wheeling but he said "No, I never did make a show of myself and I never will". From then on, the train conductors would point out the couple sometimes sitting on their porch and other times working in the fields, calling attention to their being the oldest couple in the State. Cassie Church Hixenbaugh tells when her great grandfather, Henry Church, was 100 years old, he jumped over a rail fence four feel high.
- [S51] wv-heritage.com, http://www.wv-heritage.com/p1527.htm.
The year of 1750 appears in a reprint of the 1901 book entitled History of Wetzel County, West Virginia authored by John C. McEldowney, Jr.: "Henry Church, better known as 'Old Hundred,' was born in Suffox [Suffolk] county, England, in 1750.1
A birth date of 30 November 1750 was given in a history of Hundred compiled by Courtney Dennis that appears on the Hundred Area PRIDE website.4 That date also appears in a different history of Hundred that is included in the WVGenWeb site for Wetzel County.6
Genealogies recorded by various researchers have shown a birth date of 13 December 1750. That date can be calculated by subtracting Henry's age at death per his new gravestone (109 years 9 months 1 day)7 from his reported date of death (14 September 1860).4 However, Henry's age at death is given by another source as 109 years 9 months 14 days - an additional 13 days6 which calculates backwards to the previously mentioned date of 30 November 1750. It's interesting that the history on the Hundred Area PRIDE website skirts the discrepancy by simply stating that Henry was born in late 1750.4
On the other hand, 1751 is the year of birth that appears on Henry's new gravestone purchased in 1972.8,6 That seems odd to me considering that Henry's age at death as it appears on the gravestone supports a birth date of 13 December 1750. However, the year of 1751 is supported by the 1850 federal census in which Henry's age was given as 99.2
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1750 - 1860 (109 years)
