Sophia Johnson Barnhill - Centenarian

Relationship:

Lieutenant John Johnson.................Brothers............................James Johnson
John Johnson..........................................................................Rachel Johnson
Sophia Johnson................2nd cousin 4X removed.....................Jane Rogers Bragg
............................................................................................. Charles Bragg
..............................................................................................John Thomas Bragg
..............................................................................................Russell Mackie Bragg
..............................................................................................Me

Sophia Johnson Barnhill - 1811-1912

Sophia Johnson Barnhill was an extraordinary woman who lived to be 100 years and 5 months old.

The following documents celebrate her 100th birthday, announce her death and provide some interesting historical background on her life.


"Mrs. John Barnhill today is smart as a cricket, and feels none of the worse of the tax on her strength in entertaining 150 or more of her fellow citizens, who called to congratulate her yesterday on the 100th anniversary of her birth.

She is very grateful to all for their kind words and sincere congratulations and delicate souvenirs that in many cases were left to remind her that she had reached the 100th mile stone in her life.

Among the many much- appreciated congratulations, Mrs. Barnhill greatly prizes the following thankful telegram from Ottawa from John Stanfield, M.P."[Truro Daily News, Aug. 2 1911]

Ottawa, Aug. 1, 1911


Mrs. John Barnhill, Willow street, Truro.


Hartiest congratulations on your having past the century mark; and during your wonderfully prolonged life you have seen your native country rise from being a tiny colony to a great Dominion of the greatest Empire of the World. May you live many years sustained by the pride and affection of your descendants.


JOHN STANFIELD


TRURO'S CENTENARIAN PASSES AWAY AFTER TWO WEEK'S ILLNESS.

Robie Street Cemetery
Truro, Nova Scotia

Mrs. John Barnhill, who celebrated her 100th birthday on August 1, last after an illness of two weeks died at the residence of her son, George, Willow Street, on the evening of Monday the 8th, at the wonderful age of 100 years, five months and seven days!

In the immediate family of this venerable lady are left two children, George in Truro, and Mrs. Childs in Boston.

A great link with the far-away past has indeed been served by the death of this most estimable woman, whose great age was unique in our town; and who, full of days granted to but few, has quietly slept away into eternal rest.


The funeral will take place from the home residence, Willow Street, on Thursday the 11th at two o'clock, p.m.


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

Our readers will pardon us if we reprint freely from our issue of July 31 what we then wrote and printed of this esteemed citizen, when she had attained her 100th birthday.

"Few of the present generation, outside of her immediate friends realize what a link with the past this old lady is. She is unique; and has a history which few can boast of.

Her grandfather, John Johnson, was born in the North of Ireland in the YEAR 1771, and came with his wife and family, his brother James, and family, and settled in Lower Village of Truro. They were both grantees of the township of Truro, and were both elders of the Presbyterian congregation of Truro, elected during the summer of 1770. John died in 1793, and 82 years, and his wife in 1796, aged 84. John, their eldest son, was born in Ireland in 1741. He inherited his father's property, and being a man of robust health, out lived all the other grantees and first settlers, dying in 1841, just ONE DAY SHORT of his hundredth birthday. His wife Margaret Davison, survived him until 1869, dying at the age of 94. They had three sons and four daughters, the youngest being Sophia, born August 1 1811, and who married John Barnhill, May 4 1835, and who lived to celebrate her 100th BIRTHDAY.

Mrs. Barnhill's father did not marry until the age of 54, being the youngest child, she was not born until the father was 70 years of age. There must be very few cases extant where a woman, living at 100, was born of a father 70 years of age!

In Mrs. Barnhill's family there are now living five generations in direct descent.

Her own father was born 18 years before Wolfe took Quebec, and British power became dominant in Canada. He was a man of 35 when the United States declared their Independence, and was four years old when the ward of "45" took place in Scotland, after the landing of Charles the Pretender. He was 30 years old when Sir Walter Scott was born, and before Keats, Shelley, Charles Lamb and Byron had seen the light of day.

The daughter of this centenarian, whose birthday will be CELEBRATED TOMORROW, is certainly one of our few living links with the past. She was born years before Waterloo humbled Napoleon's power, and Europe was preserved from French dominion.
Mrs. Barnhill has seen six Sovereigns on the British Throne -
George III.
George IV.
William IV.
Victoria
Edward VII.
George V.
Her memory is quite retentive, and she remembers the arrival of Halley's comet, 75 years before its last appearance.

Mrs. Barnhill has lived on Willow Street, Truro, since her marriage in 1835, so she has the distinction of being Truro's oldest resident, and is a type of vigorous old, showing what ancestry and heredity, combined with the hard work and healthy life of the farm can produce. Mrs. Barnhill's descendants are surely entitled to look forward to long life and good health, if heredity continues to play in the future, what it has in the past. This old lady's grandfather on the maternal side, was James Davison, a native of Edinburgh, who began life as a student for the ministry, but health failing he emigrated to Pictou in 1772, and while there organized the FIRST health SCHOOL in that County; there removed to Clifton, where he resided until his death.

John Barnhill died May 2, 1871, aged 80 years. They had six children, James, Nancy, Esther, Emmaline, George and Letitia, of whom only the two youngest are living, Letitia, now Mrs. Childs, in Boston, and George, our worthy citizen, with whom the mother has always lived; whose well cultivated farm is a credit to our County, and who's name is synonymous with integrity and uprightness.

We congratulate Mrs. Barnhill on this unique event in human life - a 100th birthday, - may she live in good health and strength in our midst for many years to come."

Our fond hope that Mrs. Barnhill might live "for many years to come" was not realized; she has past to the unseen land where her long pilgrimage of tens of thousands of days in this world will be but mere sands in the "hourglass" of the endless life she has now entered. [Truro Daily News - January 9 1912]