Letter from Cornelius W. Shedd to Shedd Family Association, 1913

The Shedd Family held a reunion in 1913, which Cornelius W. Shedd could not attend. Apparently they asked those who couldn't attend to send letters. In Cornelius' letter, he spoke mainly about an illness in his later years.

Aug. 25, 1913

Dear Sir:

I have seen a call for a reunion of the Shedd Family on the 30th inst. How I would like to be but I cannot and can only send you my picture instead. The picture shows a very old man, but if a man is only as old as he feels I am just forty. In order to realize that I am old I have to look at the picture or in the mirror. I had some correspondence with you ten years or more ago on records for the family genealogy. I was then face to face with the "bone-yard," with no visible way of dodging it. I spent two years in agony, one of which was in hospitals; was cut open three times; seven physicians did their best on me but gave no permanent relief to anything but my bank account. My home and the savings of a lifetime were swallowed in the vortex of doctor's bills and expenses. As I drew near to the apparent end of my life I applied my remaining mental force to the problem of the ills of old age and then natural remedy, and "Eureka!" in a short time I was a well and the money cost was the enormous sum of two cents. Of course, after my recovery I was very enthusiastic about it and preached about it in season and out. I was then a member of a class of seven old men in the Presbyterian Sunday School, whose ages ranged around seventy years. I tried to make them see the merits of my method but failed. I was no doctor and they thought no one but a doctor could give advice on hygiene. But I have the best of the argument, for they have all been dead for years and I am still hale, hearty, happy and eighty. I have put in nine years of the best health that ever a mortal was blest with.

In my span of days I have never seen a man of my age who could do the work I cheerfully do to earn my daily bread. Watch the papers in 1953 A.D. and you may see my obituary, for the Bible (see Gen. 6:3) allows a man to live to the age of one hundred and twenty years, and there has been no time since that utterance that has not seen some person of the age of one hundred and twenty years. We could all live to that age if we only knew how. Still I do not believe any man ought to outlive his usefulness.

As a young man I worked at the machinist's trade in Boston from 1851 to 1855 and at that time I do not think there were any buildings over four stories high, except such structures as were on Beacon and Bunker Hills. At that time Mr. Otis was perfecting his "vertical railway," which invention made sky-scrapers practicable.

I hope you will have a grand time at the Reunion.

Yours truly

Source: Register of The Shedd Family Association, Vol. 3, p. 39-40.⁷⁴⁹³