Endurance and Stature - Page 56
"Dirck Keyser, our Ancestor, died at the age of 79.
Tobias Govertsz was still a preacher at 80. Anneke
Keyser died in her 91st year. Molly Keyser celebrated her birthday in
her 86th year among her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
"John Keyser died at 91. Dirck Keyser at 73. John
Keyser (in 1813) aged 83. Michael Keyser died 1825, aged
80. Samuel Pennebaker died at 80. Hannah Keyser died
at 72. Jacob Keyser at 92. Dirck Keyser at 78.
Ann (Keyser) Baker at 75.
"Charles Keyser died at 82. Mary Heisler at
78. Peter Keyser at 86. William Keyser at 84. Peter
Keyser, "the preacher", died 1849 at 83. Enoch Keyser died
in his 90th year.
"His niece Hannah Nice survives him (1889), now 94 years of age.
"Samuel died 1868, aged 84. Margaret Keyser, 1864,
aged 84. Hannah K. Knorr d. 81. Hannah Knorr Lange 73.
"Mary Slingluff, daughter of Molly Keyser, is now (1889)
88 years old.
"Ann Hagy (Ann Weaver) died Feb., 1870, aged 86. Susannah
K. Weaver at 81. Mary Knorr, in the same generation, is now 80
years old.
"Silvester Keyser was (1889) over 82 years of age, without
indications of great length of years.
"Sarah Kirk d. at 77. Nathan L. Keyser at 74. Mary
Langstroth d,. at 77. Clementine Lynd sill living, 86. Elizabeth
Keyser d. 1878 at 80 years. Elizabeth Urner at 80 years.
Gideon d. (1888) at 82.
"In addition to length of years there were tall men
generally. Michael Keyser was 6 feet, Silvester 6 feet, Rev.
Peter Keyser 6 feet 3 inches and very erect, as most of the family were and
are. Joseph Keyser was 6 feet in height, a man of great strength
and vigor. His three sons were each 6 feet. Harry Keyser (E.W.
K.'s son) 6 feet 4 inches. George Keyser 6 feet 1 inch. Joseph,
son of Jacob Keyser, was 6 feet. Elhanan W. Keyser was 6
feet 2 in. in height and weighed 200 pounds. His sons were all 6 feet or
over. Peter Keyser was 6 feet 3 in. Enoch Keyser was 6
feet 2 in. Charles and Gustavus Engle at 6 feet. John R.
Savage's children are beyond the family average, and one son is 6 feet 4
inches high.
"Peter A. Keyser was 6 feet 3 in. in height and weighed 250
pounds at one period; later in life 285. His sons were 6 feet.
"Dirck Pennybacker, Anneke's grandson, weighed 300
pounds. Nathan L. Keyser was 6 feet 1 1/2 inches high, spare
build and of great endurance. His sons living are tall men. John
S. Keyser, 250 pounds, height 6 feet 2 inches. Sylvester Keyser is
probably the strongest man of the family now living.
"Daniel L. Keyser was a man of great strength as well as
activity. It was his good fortune through this to have rescued persons
from drowning.
"So there have been notably tall women -- as it was in Amsterdam , some
exceeding the stature of the men. Molly Keyser was 6 feet high, but
magnificently proportioned, a very graceful woman -- with very small hands and
feet. This peculiarity reappeared in the most remarkable woman in many
respects of the family - Keturah Keyser Benson - who was very tall --
weighed 240 pounds - intellectually as abnormal and with the same little hands
and feet which were in the family a century before.
"Jacob, brother of Gideon, was 6 feet high. Naaman
was a man of great stature; but without multiplying instances we may say that
generation after generation their height and endurance distinguish the men and
women as a family. In their strength they have been as
remarkable.
"I have given the story of Sylvester Keyser's endurance in the
war, let me add here this statement about the most notable men of the family in
strength; the first from my own remembrance.
"John S. Keyser was stronger than any other man in public life in
Philadelphia until the close of his marshalship, which was tested on two
occasions, one of these, the arrest of Greer and Sowers, two men who had long
defied the authorities of Spring Garden; both carried away by him at one time,
to which many now living will bear testimony.
"Another, Enoch Keyser, had a far greater strength in the earlier
part of his life, as I have upon the testimony of many, than anyone living about
Philadelphia. The millstone he lifted on a well-remembered occasion is
still in Germantown, and cannot well be lifted, it is said, by three ordinary
men. The stone (recently measured by Romaine Keyser), 5 feet 7 3/4 inches
diameter, at the centre 8 inches thick and at the circumference 7 inches thick,
was raised bodily by him. It weighs about 2000 pounds.
"Abraham Keyser, in his 91st year, walked from Main street, opposite
the Friends' Meeting House, Germantown, to Second and Market Street, and back
again, a distance of 12 miles. Jacob Keyser, who died at 93, would
customarily walk his three miles for exercise. Peter Keyser, the
preacher, memorized the whole New Testament and the greater part of the Old.
"As this is the most remarkable instance of mental toil long continued
in the family, I have taken pains to verify it. It rests among many others
on the testimony of Rev. Dr. Mayer, in the memoir of his life, to which I
here add another statement as unquestionable as it is exact:
"I was well acquainted with the Rev. Peter
Keyser. He told me some of his early life; that his father had been a
tanner, and that he was early put at the bark mill for grinding it.
Above it he made a shelf, on which he kept an open Bible, and as the grinding
went on he would read a passage in it, memorize it -- and so he would take up
verse after verse and chapter after chapter, until he had completely memorized
the whole of the New Testament -- of the Old Testament he memorized the whole
of the Psalms and the Prophets, and the five books of Moses; the whole of the
New and the greater part of the Old Testament.
Abrm. H. Cassel
Feb 5, 1889.
"Mr. Cassel adds also that he never failed to repeat any verse or
chapter from those portions of the Bible on any of the numerous occasions made
to test this extraordinary and wellnigh incredible labor of the brain.
"William H. Fry while in the Treasury Department in Washington in
1861 wrote his signature 4000 times daily for several months in succession.
"Another illustration of strength and endurance is Charles Keyser's
last work with a pen. It is without an error or evidence of age, and
consists of two volumes, together 1838 pages, 8 1/2 inches long by 6 1/2 inches
wide; these two volumes contain every reference to the New Testament taken from
Cruden's general Concordance. He commenced the first volume of this work
15 day 1st Mo., 1849, and the second volume on the 30 day 8th Mo., 1849 at 12
o'clock -- finished the whole work on the 23 day of the 6th Mo., 1850, and was
engaged upon it continuously - 1 y. 3 mo. 8 da. He was then 80 years of
age. He died 1st Mo., 1852, aged 82. The work is entitled a Complete
Concordance of the New Testament. It contains, by careful computation, two
million (2,000,000) letters and figures, each of which is as carefully and
completely formed as if by a graver's tool; the old remembrance and disposition
to continue to do this work which had been indurated into the brain and veins of
his long gone ancestor in some monastery where he worked, had transmitted
themselves to him, and for seventy-two years fastened down his hand to a pen
year after year -- until his two under fingers became crooked and immovable
under it, and so he taught on and wrote on until the day he died. No other
labor would he do, even his shoestrings his children or servants tied.
"In nothing is this family more remarkable than for these physical
qualities, traceable far back over three centuries ago, of mental and physical
endurance, and two centuries ago of length of years; a century and a half ago of
a remarkable height; in this last century , of great strength -- qualities, some
of which, height, longevity and endurance, are as remarkable in them to-day as
at any earlier period in the long years of the family's history.
TO:
Keyser Bicentennial Reunion Book (Beginning)
TO:
DIRCK KEYSER (Emigrant)
TO:
DIRCK KEYSER, Junior (Son/Emigrant)
TO:
PIETER DIRCK KEYSER, Junior (Son/Emigrant)
TO:
ENDURANCE AND STATURE OF KEYSERS
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