Oldest Citizen In Fayette County Passes Away Friday Mr. Robert Featherston is
Dead After Nearly a Century of Honorable and Exemplary Citizenship; to Be Buried
Here Yesterday afternoon, as the last rays of the sun rested on the ridge where
Mr. Robert Featherstone has lived for eighty-seven years, his spirit passed to
its Maker.
He died at the age of 96 years, barring a few days, the oldest citizen of
Fayette County and one of the oldest in the State. A week ago Wednesday he was
confined to his bed at his home on the Tate's Creek Pike, suffering with
pneumonia, contracted while riding about the farm, and from which he died. For
some days past he had not been at all times conscious, but in one of his moments
of lucidity he expressed himself as willing and ready to die. Around his death
bed were gathered but a few of the family and friends.
Up to the time of his illness he was hale and hearty, having been in Lexington
the last Court Day. During his whole life he has been a remarkably healthy man.
In losing Robert Featherstone the county and the State loses one of its most
honored and respected citizens. He' was a man of singularly pure and upright
mind, standing as an example of the Christian gentleman, whose
unwavering integrity and nobility of character were known to all men.
For more than eighty years he has been a member of the church and one of its
best, though retiring, members. He joined the Republican Church on the Clay's
Mill Road when a mere lad. There his membership remained for a long period,
after which it was placed at Providence church, a Christian Church on the
Nicholasville Pike about six miles from the city. He has been an officer in that
church since its establishment.
He came to Kentucky from Charlotte County, Va., with his parents at the age of
10. Within the first year of their removing here his father purchased the farm
on the Tate's Creek Pike about seven miles from this city, where he
is buried. He was twice married, his first being Miss Margaret Farra, by whom he
had one son, William, who lives in Richmond. His second wife', who died eight
years since, was a widow, Mrs. Mattie Higbee. By that union there were six sons
and two daughters.
The three sons now living are Mr. C.F. Featherstone, father of Mrs. Stanley
Milward and Mr. Ernest Featherstone, Milo G. and Oscar N. Featherstone. The
daughter surviving is Miss Susan N. Featherstone. The dead are Dr. John R.,
Warren, Frank and Mrs. John Rice.
When death comes in the midst of youth, taking the roselipped maid or the
bright-faced boy, or indeed in manhood's sterner years when the ear has grown
familiar with the mingled voices of the world, the bereft are left comfortless
and stumble on in the merciless darkness of their grief. But in the green of old
old age, at the end of a life devoted to the betterment of humanity, after an
example that has been a sign of better things to those about him, following
"days that were sinless and nights that were pure", death can have no string; it
is as a simple passing in the midst of the way to lie down to pleasant
cont.