Elizabeth Grant
Quite a number of the members of the First Presbyterian Church gathered Friday afternoon at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Grant, who resides with her daughter, Mrs. R.R. Smith, on East Fourth Street, it being the eighty-seventh birthday anniversary of Mrs. Grant. The following letter, received and read by the Rev. Dr. Meese on that occasion, expresses the universal respect and esteem cherished for Mrs. Grant by all who know her:
MANSFIELD, JAN. 24, '96
DEAR OLD LADY: We want to remember your birthday. We would like to call and have a talk with you, but we are engaged this afternoon and so we will send you this note with our best wishes, that your days on earth may be long continued and that your health may be as good as possible for one of your years.
You are almost the last of the early people living in Mansfield when it was a little village.
You have seen the growth, you have participated in all the past of Mansfield, and your old friends will not forget you.
Once a year at least the undersigned will remember you with a little token, not much in value, yet it will be a reminder of the interest we take in you and of the regard we have for you, and of the love in which we hold you and of the friendship in which our mothers and fathers held you in all the years now past and gone.
Find a little gift inclosed from your old friends.
Signed,
Hiram R. Smith
James H. Cook
N.S. Reed
Henry C. Hedges
Richmond Smith
Mrs. Grant was born in Belmont County, Ohio, Jan. 24, 1809. She came with her parents to Mansfield in 1815, was married Sept. 26, 1834. She united with the church at the age of 19 and was a faithful support in all the work of the church until prevented by advancing years.
When her family arrived here, she says, they lodged the first night in a log house, on the site of the Wiler House, kept by a family named Murphy. On the corner of Fourth and Diamond her parents resided and near that spot she has dwelt 81 years. She is still a genial, interesting companion and friend, able to give a history of the past in this city, that the antiquarian can appreciate and the historian might well secure while the opportunity exists. Mrs. Grant is the oldest living member of the Presbyterian Church of Mansfield.
From The Richland Shied & Banner, February 1, 1896, Vol. LXXVII, No. 38