NICHOLAS STOUT died last Friday evening about
4 o'clock. He was 81 years old. When about 20 years old he married Catharine
Wagner with whom he lived a quiet and peaceful life to the day of his
death. To use his own words "We
have lived together sixty years and have never had any short words or hard
feelings." He had been a member of
the Baptist Church nearly 50 years. At
his own request his remains were interred on the old farm not far from his
dwelling. A large crowd of friends and
relatives assembled last Sunday morning to witness the last sad rites.
Nicholas' wife applied for a mother's pension for their son Jacob who died while serving in the Union Army during the Civil War. Dr. Abraham Crosswhite described Nicholas' health in an 1870 affadavit for this pension application:
The said Nicholas G Stout ... from
old age, and chronic rheumatism, has been wholly incapacitated to make a
subsistence by manual labor; that said disease, during said time, embracing a
period of ten years past, has affected his shoulders, arms, back, hips, knees,
legs, and feet; that the muscles and tendons of his feet, hands and knees have
been so contracted that he could with difficulty walk, or use his hands for any
useful purpose … he has also suffered
greatly from cramp in his legs which have assumed a very unnatural appearance.
It seems he suffered greatly during the last years of his life.
