Mrs. Catherine Butterworth-1837

BUTTERWORTH, MCDERMOTT

Posted By: Cheryl Moonen (email)
Date: 7/20/2021 at 21:43:20

Du Buque Visitor, Saturday, Aug 26, 1837, Dubuque, IA, Page:4

Mrs. Butterworth, the lady to whom I allude, is a resident of Du Buque for the last four years, during which time I have had frequent opportunities of witnessing with astonishment the extraordinary and acute powers of her sensitive faculties, both mental and physical. Often have I listened with delight with anecdotes of her youth, to tales and circumstances connected with the death of George the Second, the revolution in Scotland, the exile of the Pretender in Ireland, &c. &c? I have often seen her thread her needle, sew and knit, even without spectacles, with that neatness of which many of our tight-laced Belles would be proud. If you see her on a Sunday, she is at church or at home reading her prayer book, , frequently without spectacles; and I have been led to these remarks by hearing her on yesterday , read a tavern sign with the naked eye, at a distance of a hundred yards.

On the 3d of this month, her son, Mr. Alexander Butterworth, was married by the Rev Mr. Mazzuchelli, to Miss Mary McDermott of this place. There we enjoyed “the feast of reason and the flow of the soul” in reality, when “with gladdened eyes and hearts elate,” we beheld a lady of 106 dancing at her son’s wedding ball. Then who would not dance. And so we did
“Trip the light fantastic toe
In buoyant fairy fashion.”
Mrs. Butterworth’s age is thus accounted for: At the age of sixteen, her parents, who lived in the town of Kildare, Ireland withdrew from school in the city of Dublin on the very day the battle of Culloden, in Scotland, was fought, this we find was the blank ------------day of April, 1747, consequently she is her 107 year off her age. She came to the United Sates twenty-five years ago; since then she has lived 13 years in Baltimore. 8 years in the State of Missouri, and four in Du Buque