Death of an old citizen.
The venerable
Archibald Pleasants, for many years a member of the old and highly respectable firm of
Ralston &
Pleasants, and one of the oldest inhabitants of the city, died suddenly yesterday morning.
He was in the eighty-fifth year of his age, and had previously given no indications of ill health.
He was just opposite the Exchange Bank of
Virginia, on his way to the
Merchants' Insurance office, at the corner of Main and Twelfth streets, when he fell down and soon expired.
He was a man remarkable for his habits of temperance, and appears to have died entirely through the exhaustion of nature consequent upon his great age.
Mr. Pleasants came to this city about the year 1795, and with the exception of a short sojourn in
Jamaica, when he was a very young man, he has resided in it ever since.
He became a partner of the late
Gabriel Ralston early in the present century, and the firm continued to do business in the city for upwards of forty years. During that time it acquired a reputation for punctuality and integrity which we have never known to be surpassed.
Probably no two men were ever associated in business whose characters in both respects stood higher.
The firm was dissolved many years ago. About five years ago,
Mr. Ralston died, at a very advanced, and now he is followed by his partner, likewise in extreme old age.
Mr. Pleasants was a man of uncommonly strong understanding, which he preserved unimpaired to the last day of his life.
His life had been remarkably free from disease, and it was probably owing to this circumstance that he preserved his activity, in an uncommon degree,
to the last.
To the last, he walked the streets with the quick and lively step of a young man. His temper was remarkably cheerful, and enabled him to support the trials of adversity, of which he had his full share, with admirable fortitude.
One of the greatest befell him a short time since, when his eye-sight became so dim that he could no longer read — an enjoyment to which he was passionately devoted.
In a word, without attempting to analyse the good qualities of the deceased, we will merely say what all the community will bear us out in saying, that he was one of the most exemplary characters that has ever lived among us.
