Mathew Beard
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Mathew Beard was the World's oldest living person between 1983 and 1985 and the World's oldest living man between 1980 and 1985. Beard claimed to be born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1870. He allegedly moved to Missouri in 1873 and was already working at a sawmill at age 12 in 1882. In 1887 he temporarily moved to Florida to work on railroads. He fought in the Spanish-American War in 1898. He returned to Florida and permanently moved there in 1907. He was working as a mason in 1913. In 1919, he met his wife and got married shortly afterwards. They had 12 children together. In 1960, at the alleged age of 89/90, he was arrested for drunk driving. By 1977, he had outlived his wife and four of his 12 children. Beard claimed to have built his house at age 103 with the help of a grandson. Also, a reporter interviewing him at the alleged age of 107 claimed that Beard looked younger than 107.
At the time of his death at the alleged age of 114 years, 222 days, Beard was the oldest verified person ever. Even today, he remains the oldest verified black man ever and the oldest verified American man ever. However, doubts have surfaced about whether the Mathew Beard who died in 1985 was the same Mathew Beard who was born in 1870. His claims of working at age 103 and moving around a lot have both raised doubts about his claim and made his claim very hard to either conclusively prove or completely debunk. The oldest verified undisputed black man ever is Johnson Parks (1884-1998), who lived to age 113 years, 275 days. The oldest verified undisputed American man ever is Walter Breuning (1896-2011) who lived to age 114 years, 205 days (just 17 days less than what Beard allegedly lived).