ARTICLE: The (very long) Life of Mark Thrash

Today I want to introduce you to a man who, if he was telling the truth, lived for more than 120 years and was witness to generations of American history. If the date of birth he gave was accurate, Mark Thrash was already middle-aged when the American Civil War began. He witnessed it first hand in Georgia and did not die until the United States had entered the Second World War. Regardless of the accuracy of his birth, he warrants a bit of attention. I’ll let you decide for yourself whether he was full of it or not, but everything I’m about to share comes via a little book I found on the road in Georgia by one Stephen Addison. Full details at the bottom…

Thrash’s favourite photograph of himself. When it was taken, he was reported to be over 100 years of age. (Stephen O. Addison)

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When Addison met him at the age of fifteen, in 1931, Thrash claimed to be 111 years old. The writer did his best to substantiate the date of birth that Thrash continually provided: 25th December 1820. Apparently the date was confirmed in the Thrash family bible, but if you’re looking for something more concrete, at one point the Civil Service Commission investigated the matter and could not disprove it. They interviewed people, looked at records and quizzed him on key events. His government employer was satisfied, but in truth nobody really paid much attention to his age until he was already said to be approaching his hundredth birthday. By then the date had been a matter of record for decades without anyone definitely seeking to prove it. When scrutinised Thrash would say “I was there, I should know”. (Stick that, Ridley Scott) Either way, Thrash outlived his first four wives, with whom he’d apparently fathered 29 children, and married his fifth when he claimed to be 106, and still perfectly virile. At the time she was just 55. There’s a comedy anecdote that at one point, too ill to go and collect a pension cheque, he sent his son instead. Said son was in his nineties at the time.

Thrash was born a slave, which is why his exact origins are hard to pin down. Both of his parents were said to be born in Africa, though he never knew where. Their first stop in the new world having been enslaved was Jamaica, and so it was assumed that they were brought west by British traders. After a time, they were bought by a doctor named Christopher Thrash, given his name and taken to his large plantation near Richmond, Virginia. It was here that Mark and his twin, Anthony, were born a few months later. Not a lot was said about the doctor, beyond Thrash commenting that he liked him and his family.