Debunking a 1922 Claim: Was Rufus Avery Really 110? — A genealogy case study on longevity myths
I was recently researching through newspaper archives for a client when I came across an article that caught my eye. In 1922, a man from eastern Ontario living in a care home made headlines for allegedly turning 110 years old. While this is possible, I know that verifying historical age claims in genealogy often proves the subject was younger than they claimed to be. The article stated that the superintendent of the care home had conducted an investigation that supported the man’s claim. I didn’t believe it, so I had to investigate. Was this man really 110 years old?
The Original Newspaper Claims
All sources referenced in this article will be cited at the bottom of this post, in the order that they mentioned. Unnamed but consulted sources will follow.
The first article I found, titled “110 Years Young, Enjoys His Pipe: Rufus Avery Has Birthday Sunday—Started Smoking When Forty,” ran in Kingston’s The Daily British Whig on April 10, 1922. It claimed that Rufus Avery, an elderly farmer from Augusta, Ontario, had celebrated his 110th birthday the day before at the House of Industry in Athens, Ontario.
Despite his age, the article said his health was relatively good, though his hearing was poor. He was a daily smoker, having picked up the habit at 40, and saw no reason to give it up. He lived at the House of Industry with his second wife—a spry young woman of 80. Rufus was allegedly born on April 9, 1812, and had witnessed decades of transformation in his community. I didn’t doubt he was elderly, but was he really that old?
I’ve seen many examples of false age claims in family history research. People often exaggerated their age—sometimes to seem younger, sometimes to appear older—for various reasons. Was that the case with Rufus Avery, or was he simply mistaken? I needed to find out.
Research Process: What I Did
What The Newspapers Reported
I searched for more articles about Mr. Avery to see what other details were reported at the time. Papers across the country ran the 1922 story, though some details varied. One article named his father as Ebenezar, a United Empire Loyalist born in Vermont. It also noted Rufus had no children from either marriage, leaving him without family nearby to care for him.
Rufus had made headlines for his advanced age before. On June 22, 1916, the British Daily Whig reported he was 108 years old. A week later, on June 29, they issued a correction stating he was actually 105—an error in the original story.
For that 1916 feature, a reporter visited Rufus and his wife Martha on their farm, two years before they moved into the House of Industry. Rufus was still working the fields and, aside from hearing loss, was in good health. He told the reporter he was born April 9, 1812, on the farm on Concession 3 now owned by a Mr. Noons, about three miles east of Stone’s Corners. His father, he claimed, was from New Hampshire, and his mother was the daughter of Augusta Loyalist Roswell Everts. The couple had nine surviving children, with Rufus the eldest. He spent time living with an uncle, Mr. Haley, and attended school in Gosford.
Rufus married twice—first at age 38 to Almeda Baxter, daughter of Charles Baxter from nearby Metcalf’s Corners. Their 30-year marriage ended with Almeda’s death, after which Rufus married Martha Briggs, 30 years his junior. He had no children and only suspected he still had a brother in Michigan, though he hadn’t heard from him in years.
Already, contradictions poked out. Was his father from Vermont or New Hampshire? Could a man of 105 still be actively working a farm?
I kept searching and found more pieces of his story. Rufus died April 8, 1923, just one day before what would have been his 111th birthday. Reports said he died in his sleep after being up and about in the days before his death. Once again, the articles mentioned his fondness for his pipe and tobacco, which made me chuckle, but I learned no new facts.
Going further back in the archives, I found something intriguing. In 1895, advertisements for an herbal supplement called Burdock Blood Bitters featured a testimonial from Rufus Avery of North Augusta, Ontario. He claimed to take it every spring and fall, saying, “…it does great good, building up my system and making me feel like a new man.” He also credited it with helping his wife’s “nervous debility and weakness.” Was this his secret to longevity?
I also found an 1899 article reporting that Rufus, then said to be 75, had badly cut his leg while repairing a fence. This would place his birth year around 1824—twelve years later than he claimed in the 1916 and 1922 interviews. At this point, I was seriously doubting his story, so I turned to census records to see what I could confirm.
How Records Painted a Picture: Using Census Records to Verify Age Claims
The 1851 Census Colours Us In
With plenty of details from the newspaper articles, I began building a family tree for Rufus by checking the earliest available censuses. In 1851, I found Rufus and his family on a farm in Wolford, a small township in Grenville County, Ontario—part of the Augusta area.
His parents, Ebenezer (65) and Mary Ann (48), lived with four of Rufus’s younger siblings. Ebenezer was born in the USA, while the rest of the family was Ontario-born. The eldest child Rufus, age 27, lived in a separate farmhouse on the same lot with his sister Hannah. His brother Samuel also had his own farmhouse, shared with two of their sisters. These details—eldest child, father born in the States, nine children total—matched the 1916 and 1922 news accounts. But they also placed Rufus’s birth year around 1824.
Mary Ann’s age also ruled out the 1812 birth year. She was 48 when her eldest was 27 and her youngest just 4, meaning she bore children between about 21 and 44 years old. If Rufus had been born in 1812, she would have been only eight or nine, making a pregnancy at this time virtually impossible. Loyalist vital records confirmed that Mary Ann’s parents, Roswell Everts and Mary Dingman, married in March 1803, making it likely Mary Ann was born soon after.
By this point, I knew Rufus could not have been born in 1812. But where did his advanced age claim come from?
1861–1881 Census Records
The 1861 census showed Rufus, 37, living with 22-year-old wife Almeda, father Ebenezer, 79, and youngest brother Orvil, 14.
In 1871, Rufus (48), Almeda (32), and Orvil (22) still shared a household. This census pointed to a birth year around 1823. Small discrepancies of a few years are common for the era, so I typically allow a ±5-year range when reviewing these records. So far, everything lined up.
Then in 1881, things shifted. Rufus, Almeda, and Orvil were still together, but Rufus’s age jumped to 66—implying a birth year of 1815, about a decade older than previous records suggested.
Census records are some of the most accessible and easily understood genealogical records available to family historians. If you want to learn more about getting the most out of Canadian census records, check out my blog post How to Use Census Records to Trace Your Ancestors’ Migration Patterns (and Break Through Brick Walls!)
Marriage to Martha Briggs and the 1891 Census
Almeda died in 1888, and Rufus married Martha Briggs in February 1891. The marriage registration listed Rufus’s age as 55 (born ~1836), a full 12 years younger than the youngest age previously recorded. Martha’s age, 49, matched the 1916 and 1922 newspaper accounts.
Just a few months later, the 1891 census listed Rufus as 60 (born ~1831). Martha was still 49, and Orvil, still living with them, was 45.
1901–1921 Censuses
The 1901 census, which recorded actual dates of birth, gave Rufus’s birthday as April 9, 1822—matching the day and month in the newspaper reports but with yet another different year. Interestingly, it also listed the USA as his birthplace, though all other sources said Ontario. Minor birthplace errors like this are not uncommon, so I typically ignore them if all other sources line up.
By 1911, Rufus’s birth year shifted again, this time to April 1817, making him 94. Martha was 70.
On the final census of his lifetime in 1921, taken while residing at the House of Industry, Rufus was listed as 109, born in 1812; Martha was 79, born in 1842. By this point, his reputation for extreme old age had clearly taken root.
So let’s recap these jumps in age:
1851 census: 27 years old (b. ~1824)
1861 census: 37 years old (b. ~1824)
1871 census: 48 years old (b. ~1823)
1881 census: 66 years old (b. ~1815)
1891 marriage license: 55 years old (b. ~1836)
1891 census: 60 years old (b. ~1831)
1899 injury article: 75 years old (b. ~1824)
1901 census: 79 years old (b. Apr 9, 1822)
1911 census: 94 years old (b. ~1817)
1916 news article (corrected): 105 years old (b. Apr 9, 1812)
1921 census: 109 years (b. ~1812)
My Conclusions: An Old Man Indeed, But Not Quite That Old
At this point, I feel confident stating that it was impossible for Rufus Avery to be born in 1812. Given that earlier sources are consistent and his mother’s birth information does not support the 1812 birth year, I estimate that Rufus Avery was born sometime between 1822 and 1825, most likely on April 9th.
Consequently, I believe that Rufus was between the ages of 98 and 101 when he passed away. This is still an incredible feat, especially when you consider that he was still tending to his farm until 1918, when we would have been in his 90s for sure. But the age discrepancies still need explaining. Why did his age jump around so much in the final four decades of his life? What was going on then to necessitate lying about his age, when others like his wives and brother remained constant with their ages?
Possible Reasons Behind the Inflated Age
Minor discrepancies can often be explained by recording errors, like a census enumerator mishearing, or a relative providing wrong information. But the frequency of Rufus’s exaggerated ages made me doubt that this was the case.
Initially, I wondered if these claims were tied to government benefits. I reviewed government and union publications from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At that time, pension programs were typically limited to government, railroad, and bank employees, with benefits provided by the employer. As a lifelong farmer, Rufus wouldn’t have qualified.
In 1908, Canada introduced an annuity program allowing individuals to invest for future payouts in old age, but this really only benefitted people with disposable cash to invest. Rufus’s limited means would have prevented him from investing, and the program began nearly 30 years after his first exaggerated claim. The Old Age Pensions Act, the first legislation to introduce the modern pension system in Canada, came in 1927. Rufus had died three years before this. Receiving benefits, therefore, seems an unlikely motive.
Most reports described Rufus as being in excellent physical and mental health. I believe he was around 57 when he first exaggerated his age, making it unlikely that cognitive decline caused him to misremember. That said, memory loss could have emerged in later years, contributing to inaccuracies.
Skirting a military service age requirement seems like an equally poor explanation. There was no service age requirement until WWI, and prior to that, British soldiers could retire as young as 42 after completing the required years of service. The Army Act of 1881 extended the service term from 21 to 25 years, but I found no evidence Rufus had served, let alone that he was trying to retire early.
At this point, I’m a little bit stumped as to why. There’s no clear benefit or service he’s trying to receive (or avoid.) With other parts of Rufus’s story which don’t line up with the recorded facts, I’m left with more questions than answers.
The Other Falsities of Rufus Avery
Stated age wasn’t the only discrepancy I found while researching Rufus. A major feature in the articles about him was that his father was a Loyalist, although two different states of origin were reported. So what was true?
Despite my best efforts, I’ve found no evidence that Ebenezer Avery, Rufus’s father, was actually born in the USA or came to the Augusta area as a Loyalist. I searched through the Loyalist registers, including inserted names, and found nothing—no Loyalist land grants given to Ebenezer.
I switched my focus to ONLand, Ontario’s land registry database, to browse through land ownership records. The 1916 Whig-Standard feature on Rufus mentioned that he grew up on a farm about 3 miles east of Stone’s Corners, and using Google Maps I found the approximate area where the farm was. I looked through all of the registrations for lots 18-24 on Concessions 2 and 3 in Augusta and found no evidence of Ebenezer or other Avery family members besides Rufus owning any of the land later owned by the Noons/Newans family.
I did see that some of Rufus’s extended family members lived on these plots. Some had been owned by Roswell Everts and his brothers, Rufus’s in-laws. There were also a few men with the last name Haley listed as owners of some of these plots, so I do believe that Rufus grew up with an uncle nearby like the article stated. But nothing traced back to Ebenezer being a Loyalist.
I found the Avery family in several user trees on Ancestry, and most cited Gananoque, ON as Ebenezer’s place of birth despite what censuses recorded. I’ve looked through most of these trees, and I haven’t been able to find one tree that cites the source that provided this birth information. And these trees are full of errors, using sources that clearly pertain to different people (like two census entries from the same year, both for a man named Ebenezer Avery, but living in different provinces with entirely different families.) Just another example of why you can’t ever fully trust another user’s tree without verifying the stated facts.
We Know There Were Lies, But We May Never Know Why
It was pretty obvious to me that Rufus Avery wasn’t as old as he claimed to be, and I was able to verify my hunch quickly by using some of the most common genealogical sources. But this doesn’t give us the full picture. Why did Rufus lie? Why did he state that his father was a Loyalist? Was Rufus even the one who first claimed it?
There are many reasons why we see false age claims in genealogy. But none of the usual reasons seemed to fit with Rufus’s story. Could he have been a mistaken old man? Or was he trying to avoid or gain something?
I know there are more sources out there to consult in hopes of finding answers, but that will take some time. I already started to browse through the Parish Registers held on digitized microfilm by Library and Archives Canada, but those reels contain thousands of images from across the province. When time permits, I’ll be returning to them.
I’m still hopeful that I’ll find out more about Rufus Avery, the impressively old man who caught the attention of the nation for achieving an age that few of us reach. He wasn’t a man of privilege who could afford the best doctors or treatments. He was a hardworking farmer who lived a simple life in rural Ontario throughout much of the 19th century. He smoked for more decades than his first wife even lived. He had no children to financially provide for him in his elderly age, and he continued to work his farm into his 90s. Aside from perhaps the herbal blood bitters, it didn’t seem that Rufus did anything to prolong his life.
He just lived.
Conclusion: The Man Behind The Numbers
Records tell us Rufus Avery was likely closer to 90 than 110 when he passed, but numbers alone can’t define a life. The censuses, land records, and newspaper columns offer glimpses of a man who farmed the plains of Augusta Township, who smoked his pipe with quiet confidence, and who carried his own version of his story into his later years. Whether that inflated age was pride, misremembering, or the playful exaggeration of a storyteller, Rufus still earned a front-page headline and a spot in local memory. In the end, this isn’t just about proving a birth date. It’s about honoring the full complexity of a life lived, and recognizing that even our myths have roots in real people.
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Sources
Mentioned in Blog (in order of appearance):
The Daily British Whig. April 10, 1922. “110 Years Young, Enjoys His Pipe: Rufus Avery Has Birthday Sunday—Started Smoking When Forty.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/735127154/
The Kingston Daily Standard, April 10, 1922. “Pipe Gives Solace on 110 Birthday: Venerable Resident of Brockville First Used Weed When 40 — Enjoys Good Health.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/785944814/
The Daily British Whig. June 22, 1916. “Quite A Veteran: Works His Own Farm at 108.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/784514392/
The Daily British Whig. June 29, 1916. “Has Passed Century Mark; Works Daily On Farm.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/784514475/
The Daily British Whig. Oct 21, 1899. “Two Serious Accidents.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/783852071/
Library and Archives Canada. 1851 Census of Canada for Rufus Avery, Grenville District. https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=22482949&lang=eng&ecopy=e002351479
Copy of Loyalist Township Vital Records for Rachel Mary Dingman, posted to Ancestry https://www.ancestry.ca/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/205467656/person/222691785658/media/681d832a-01c0-478f-99ed-5d073f5accfd?galleryindex=1&sort=-created
Library and Archives Canada. 1861 Census of Canada for Rufus Avery, Grenville District. https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=45789816&lang=eng&ecopy=4391934_00099
Library and Archives Canada. 1871 Census of Canada for Rufus Avery, Grenville District. https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=39628772&lang=eng&ecopy=4396625_00594
Library and Archives Canada. 1881 Census of Canada for Rufus Avery, Grenville District. https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=18976944&lang=eng&ecopy=e008170303
Archives of Ontario (published to Ancestry.) Rufus Avery and Martha Briggs’s marriage registration, 1891. https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/7921/images/ONMS932_71-1276?pId=1936102
Library and Archives Canada. 1891 Census of Canada for Rufus Avery, Grenville District. https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=25407410&lang=eng&ecopy=30953_148139-00387
Library and Archives Canada. 1901 Census of Canada for Rufus Avery, Grenville District. https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=35042103&lang=eng&ecopy=z000063189
Library and Archives Canada. 1911 Census of Canada for Rufus Avery, Grenville District. https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=15173885&lang=eng&ecopy=e001987292
Library and Archives Canada. 1921 Census of Canada for Rufus Avery, Leeds District. https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=census&id=64465199&lang=eng&ecopy=e002939908
ONLand Abstract and Parcel Register. Grenville (15), Augusta, Concession 2; Lot 18 to 38. https://www.onland.ca/ui/15/books/48862
ONLand Abstract and Parcel Register. Grenville (15), Augusta, Concession 2; Lot 18 to 38. http://onland.ca/ui/15/books/48866
Unnamed Sources:
The Ottawa Evening Journal. April 9, 1923. “Eastern Ontario’s Oldest Resident: Rufus Avery Dies at Athens, Ont., Aged 111 Years.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/43336830/
The St. Catherine’s Daily Standard. November 27, 1895. “In Spring and Fall.” https://www.newspapers.com/image/1190540741/
Canada War Museum. “Our First Old Age Pension 1915-1927.” https://www.warmuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/pensions/1915-1927_e.pdf
National Union of Public and General Employees. “A Brief History of Pensions in Canada.” https://nupge.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-10-29-Module-2-final.pdf
British House of Commons. Debate concerning Army Organization—Retirement of Officers, June 24, 1881. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1881/jun/24/army-organization-retirement-of-officers
