Jesse McDowell

13 Jan 1905 , Burlington, Kansas

"One Hundred Years Old"

The friends of Jesse McDowell of this city gave him a surprise Friday night and presented the centenarian with an elegant Boston rocker. Refreshments were served and an enjoyable time was had.

Jesse McDowell was born in Philadelphia, Pa., January 6, 1805, and Friday was his one hundredth birthday. He is a veteran of the Seminole Indian war, the Mexican and the Civil war, and is the great grandson of ----- McDowell who landed at and founded Philadelphia in company with William Penn. He is a cousin of Major General Irvin McDowell of Civil war fame.

Mr. McDowell has had a checkered career. He has seen the beginning in the east and the development of the west. When a young man he walked from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, Pa., and all the way from the Susquehanna river was blazed by trees. In 1832 he traveled from Detroit to Fort Dearborn, now Chicago, by water. He bought 80 acres of land and afterward traded it for a pony and rode back to Detroit by blazed trees, and that 80 acres of land is now the site of the Chamber of Commerce building. He was 27 years old when the first railroad in the United States was built from Albany to Schenectady, N.Y., and has lived to see the railroad mileage of the United States grow from nothing to 217,000 miles, truly a long and eventful life.

Those present were: Mr. and Mrs.: U. Rich, Aleck Blair, J. I. Mather, George Steiner, W. H. Dinsmore, Wm. Hahn, S. Hartpence. Mr.: W. H. Hay, C. H. Post, G. M. Potter, David Arbuckle, Homer McKinley, H. E. Rapier, W. J. Briggs. Mrs.: -- Hollywood, S. B. Briggs