The Last Known Survivors

The last known survivor of any historic event probably has better things to do than stalk prey in the night. If they're smart they'll go on the interview circuit or write a book. Here are some final witnesses to famous events. (And they're watching us all with the eyeeee... of the tiger.)

Leonidas at Thermopylae, Jacques-Louis David, 1814

Aristodemus of Sparta was the last of the 300 Spartans, that is, the last Spartan survivor of the Battle of Thermopylae. The battle occurred in August or September 480 BC. Aristodemus (henceforth called Ari) died the next year, in 479 BC, at the approximate age of 49. He survived the battle because he and his buddy Eurytus both got sick with an eye infection and were stricken blind. Because King Leonidas had no time for such nonsense, he ordered both men home. Eurytus, however, turned back and joined the battle, despite his blindness. He was, not surprisingly, killed. Ari, because he didn't turn back to fight, was shamed by his countrymen after that. Herodotus says they called him Aristodemus the Coward after that. But Ari got a chance to redeem himself at the Battle of Plataea the next year. He apparently went totally berserk, breaking out of the phalanx formation and kicking some Persian ass before being killed. They stopped calling him a coward after that, but he didn't win any posthumous awards because he was so reckless. Incidentally, the only other survivor of the 300 was a man name Pantites. Ordered to Thessaly on a diplomatic mission, he didn't make it to Thermopylae in time to fight. He was so ostracized and shamed upon his return to Sparta, he hanged himself. Ari is the basis of the character Dilios in the graphic novel 300. 

John the Apostle dictating, c 1100

It was neither easy nor fun being a Christian back in the days when Jesus was still viewed as a cult leader. Of the twelve apostles, ten were martyred, one committed suicide, and then there was John. He wrote four or five books of the New Testament: John, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and (possibly) Revelation. John and his brother James were Jesus's cousins (their mother and Mary were sisters, according to tradition and a couple of potential scripture references). They were first disciples of John the Baptist (their second cousin), and Jesus called them "Sons of Thunder," because of the way their tempers tended to flare up. James was the first apostle to be martyred, and John outlived him by fifty years. John was present for a lot of important events: the resurrection of Jairus's daughter, the Transfiguration, and the Agony in Gethsemane. The apostle 'whom Jesus loved' sat next to Jesus at the Last Supper, went with him into the palace of the high priest Caiaphas, was the only apostle to remain at the foot of the cross, looked after Mary once Jesus died, and traveled extensively. He was born in Galilee in c 6 AD. He was 27 when he witnessed the crucifixion (AD 33). He died c 100 AD, in Ephesus (Turkey), at the age of 94.

Conquistadors praying before battle

Don Mancio Serra de Leguisamo was the last of the original conquistadors who conquered Peru between 1528 and 1532. Mancio was born in 1512, making him somewhere between the ages of 16 and 20 during the conquest (1528-32). He died in 1589, at the age of 77. This is the first paragraph of his will (translated, of course): 

We found these kingdoms in such good order, and the said Incas governed them in such wise [manner] that throughout them there was not a thief, nor a vicious man, nor an adulteress, nor was a bad woman admitted among them, nor were there immoral people. The men had honest and useful occupations. The lands, forests, mines, pastures, houses and all kinds of products were regulated and distributed in such sort that each one knew his property without any other person seizing it or occupying it, nor were there law suits respecting it… the motive which obliges me to make this statement is the discharge of my conscience, as I find myself guilty. For we have destroyed by our evil example, the people who had such a government as was enjoyed by these natives. They were so free from the committal of crimes or excesses, as well men as women, that the Indian who had 100,000 pesos worth of gold or silver in his house, left it open merely placing a small stick against the door, as a sign that its master was out. With that, according to their custom, no one could enter or take anything that was there. When they saw that we put locks and keys on our doors, they supposed that it was from fear of them, that they might not kill us, but not because they believed that anyone would steal the property of another. So that when they found that we had thieves among us, and men who sought to make their daughters commit sin, they despised us.

Image: Mulher-Jornalagora

Maria Do Carmo Geronimo was allegedly the last Brazilian slave. If her account is accurate, she was born 05 Mar 1871. Brazil didn't abolish slavery until 1888, when she was seventeen. However, in 1871, a law was passed granting freedom to children of slaves born in or after 1872. She apparently had whip marks on her back. She died 15 Jun 2000, at the age of 129. Is it true? I don't know, but stranger things have happened.

Monument to Mary Allerton

Mary Allerton was the last surviving passenger of the Mayflower. Born in June 1616, in Holland, she was four when she made the journey to the New World. At age 20 she married Thomas Cushman, a man eight years her senior who had arrived in Plymouth in 1621. Considering that half the settlers died during the winter of 1620-21, Mary and Thomas had incredible fortune. They had eight children, seven of whom lived to adulthood, and over fifty grandchildren. Thomas died in 1691, at the age of 85. Mary lived in Plymouth until her death in November 1699, at the age of 83. 

Image: Find A Grave

John Alden was the last living signer of the Mayflower Compact (11 Nov 1620). He was born in 1599, and was 21 when he signed the Compact. He was likely also the first person to set foot on Plymouth Rock. Though not a Separatist (he was hired on as a ship's carpenter), John decided he liked the Pilgrims, and stayed with them. He married fellow passenger Priscilla Mullins, and died in 1687, at the age of 88.

Image: Genealogy Trails

Frederick Fraske was the last surviving veteran of the American Indian Wars, which lasted on and off from 1622 to 1923. He was born in Prussia in 1872 and moved to the US in 1877. He joined the Army in 1894, when he was 22, and was honorably discharged in 1897, at age 25. Though technically a veteran of the so-called 'Indian Wars,' Fraske never fired a shot against them, and as a foreigner, he empathized with them. When he retired, he returned to Chicago and worked as a building painter for forty years, until he was no longer legally allowed to climb scaffolding. He then worked as a security guard for twenty-three years, retiring at age 88. He died in 1973, at the age of 101.

This portrait is said to be of Bellingham, but its subject and artist are both unknown.

Richard Bellingham was the last surviving signer of the Massachusetts Bay Charter. Born in c 1592, he was 37 when he signed the Charter in 1629. He represented Boston (a district in England) as an MP in 1628-29. Bellingham was a wealthy lawyer and investor in Lincolnshire before moving to the New World in 1634. He was on the committee that would today be called a Board of Selectmen, he helped divide up land and establish Boston Common, he bought the major ferry service in the area and most of the area now known as Chelsea. The house he built in Chelsea in 1659 still stands. He served on the Council of Assistants, as treasurer, and as deputy governor. He presided over the trial of popular religious leader Anne Hutchinson in 1637 and voted for her banishment. He was apparently quite abrasive, and he and John 'City Upon A Hill' Winthrop were not even remotely friends. He was on the board of Harvard College and worked on the colony's legal code in his spare time. He was elected governor in 1641, though charges of impropriety concerning his marriage to his second wife (who'd been dead for almost a decade by this point) brought his term to a rather awkward end the next year. The charges were kind of funny: he got in trouble for performing the ceremony himself. He was elected governor again in 1650 and 1665. He was actually quite liberal for a Puritan, and was for the expansion of suffrage (to whom, I'm not sure). However, he was not a fan of Quakers or Baptists, and imposed increasingly harsh penalties on any presumptuous enough to be living there. Four Quakers were executed during his tenure, and the colony's treatment of (Protestant) religious minorities, as well as several other acts of blatant defiance, angered King Charles II. So much so, in fact, that in 1666 he hauled Bellingham's ass back to England to yell at him in person. Richard managed to placate the king by sucking up and sending him lots of valuable timber, but the colony's behavior under Bellingham was one factor that led to the revocation of the Charter in 1684. Bellingham died in 1672 at the age of 80. His estate (on both sides of the Atlantic) remained embroiled in legal battles for over a century before the courts finally gave up and said 'Screw it.' He is depicted in The Scarlet Letter, and in Longfellow's The New England Tragedies.

Keep on surviving,
Callie R.