The Sunday Gazette
Vol: XXIX - No. 3. Washington, D.C. Sunday, July 3, 1887
An Article titled 'A Remarkable Quartette'
Some Facts About Four Members of the Alexander Family
"There are living today, four members of one family whose combined ages aggregate 310 years. William Alexander is 82 and lives in northern Indiana. James S. Alexander age 79 lives in Vaughnsville, Putnam County, Ohio. Louisa E. Alexander is 76 and lives in this city, and Joseph Alexander 73, lives in Delaware, Delaware County, Ohio. These are all the children of Wm. Alexander, Sr., who was born about 1770, and who voted in Baltimore for General Washington when he was a second time a Presidential candidate. This gentleman's father was in the Revolutionary Army under Washington and died of camp fever and died at Valley Forge.
The Alexander family settled in New Munster and Nottingham, Cecil County, Md., in 1683 and the city of Alexandria was named for one of it's members. Three members of the family left Maryland in 1747 and moved to North Carolina, where they settled and their names are found among the signers of the celebrated Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.
Jas. S. Alexander who is stated above to be 79 years of age, and who lives in Vaughnville, Putnam County, Ohio, is a remarkable man.
He is the father of twenty children, and he named his boys after the Whig and Republican Presidents and Presidential Candidates, beginning with General Washington. All have been promising children, though the family circle has been broken several times by death. The latest affliction of the aged father,was the loss of their son U.S. Grant Alexander, who died in May last, in the fifteenth year of his life. The young man was five feet ten inches in height, and remarkably proportioned. He was possessed of many noble qualities, and was greatly beloved by all who knew him. The youngest son R.B. Hayes Alexander, is now twelve years old and is noted throughout the entire section of Putnam County, Ohio, where his father lives, from the fact that he has hair that is three feet in length and very fine and thick. He wears it parted near the centre, and it falls in wavy masses down his back. He is a fine-looking boy and one of these days when he gets himself in the hands of a first-class barber he will be considered a chip of the old block."