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In New England in the colonial era, there were quite a few families whose heads lived into their 70s and 80s. I see it in genealogy studies, too. In the southern colonies, it wasn’t as common. In New England it was also common for families to have 8, 9 or 10 kids, and all or almost all of them live to adulthood. It is why the 40,000 Pilgrims of the great migration (1620-1640) had become something like half a million at the time of the revolution.

The land was bountiful, and the people of hardy, hardworking and healthy stock. It is why the drive west was so relentless, each new generation needed 5 times the amount of land of the prior generation to maintain the same quality of life.

I don’t think the rest of the country was as prolific as New England, but they were all far superior to the mortality rates of the old world. At other times, in other places (frontier Kansas and Texas, for example) life was hard and often short. My point was that for most of human history, and even in the history of the US, people living well and in good health in their 70s and 80s were uncommon, and the mortality rate for all ages was far higher. I did not mean to imply it was impossible to live to be old. The standard even in biblical times remained the standard until modern times: 3 score and 10. Through modern medicine, we have raised that to 4 score and soon 4 score and 10.

I am reminded of the story of the old guy who defended his farm against the British on April 19, 1775. He was something like 75 years old. After killing several of them, they were able to subdue him. They shot him several times, bayoneted him, and left him for dead. The old man survived, recovered from his wounds, and lived another 15 years. A true patriot.

Thanks for that. My wife found some old-timers in her geneology research, yet lifespan, in general, was short in the U.S.

https://www.infoplease.com/us/health-statistics/life-expectancy-age-1850-2011

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2017/015.pdf