THE TRING CENTENARIAN.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1064, 6 February 1883, Page 3

THE TRING CENTENARIAN.

Tha old woman Betsy Leatherland, aged 112, lately cut a small quantity of corn on the farm of Mr John Mead, near Tring. There was a great number of persons present to witness the old lady’s performance. She is said to have been born on the 24th of April, 1763. She formerly belonged to a tribe of gipsies, but has lately been living in Progmore street, Tring. Mr J. Piggott, of Leighton Bnzztrd, gives some particulars as to her life. The record of her birth is found in the parish register of baptisms for 1763 :—‘April 24th, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Horam, traveller.’ She was married at the Church of St James, at Doverto, Joseph Leatherland, a private in the Bucks militia, who died about 1816 at Carrick-on-Shannon. After her husband’s death, the widow returned to her birthplace and took up her residence with an aged relative. Years rolled on, and in their train brought bereavements and trouble to her. Her eldest son William was returning from a hop-picking excursion to Kent when at a short distance from Hadlow a bridge gave way beneath the weight of the ponderous vehicle in which he, his wife, and their young children were travelling, and before help arrived the whole party were drowned. It is now nearly 50 years since Betsy Leatherland’s aged form became a familiar B‘ght in the villages of Hertfordshire, as she plodded from place to place seeking to eke out a subsistance from the.sale i f nets and other such small industries of her own manufacture. Her youngest daughter—an old woman upwards «t 70— is now living at Chesham, and she herself, the veteran of five score and twelve, has for the last eleven years found a home beneath the roof of some kind friend at Tring. Though decrepit and feeble, the old lady retains In r faculties to a surprising degree ; sight, hearing and speech are but slightly impaired. She is still ble to employ herself in making nets, which are soU for her maintenance, and occasionally she will entertain her visitors with a snatch of song or Cutol of the olden > times.