DEATH OF THE OLDEST MAN IN THE WORLD.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 3600, 14 April 1886, Page 3

DEATH OF THE OLDEST MAN IN THE WORLD.

"Dad" Freeman, a colored man. of Spanish-African descent, was buried at Detroit, Michigan, on January 31, 1886. He had documentary evidence to prove conclusively that he was fully 122 years old, aud probably the oldest man m the world. Well known citizens now living remember "Dad" Freeman— or Coleman Freeman, which was his name — when fifty years ago he kept a' cooper's shop on the riverfront, where the new Grand Trunk Depot stands. He was then a very old man, and those who remember him say he was known as "Granny" Freeman, and acted as an industrious colored man whose old age did not seem to weigh him down. A gentleman

L'- who knew "Dad" when ho waa cooperinj l 1 - says that the old man looked forty years ag< 1- almost as old as when ho died. Freeman' is funeral was attended principally by hi t- descendants. He was twice married, th " last time forty-live years ago. His younges 1. living child is 9ixty years old, and she kej> is house for him, and was his " baby "to th n last. She never married, but devoted he i- life to the old man. William Koyston, 0 )- Chicago, is one of "Dad's" great grand ■0 children, ami is twenty-two years old. Hi; y iiumerons children, grandchildren, am 11 great grandchildren number 138. Thi n children fclaim with a great show of prid< j, that " Dad " was not of full African blood [. They claim that he was of Spanish 0 African extraction, his father being i a Spaniard aud hia mother a nogreas. The} 3 claim that be was never a slave. Howevei ,(. that may be, he came to Detroit forty yean