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Charlie Smith was a centenarian noted for claiming to be the oldest person in the United States, although his claim has since been debunked. Smith stated that he had been born in Liberia in 1842 and kidnapped to the United States at age 12 and sold into slavery in Louisiana to a Texas rancher. Later research indicated that he had been born circa 1874 or even later. In particular, his marriage certificate, issued January 8, 1910, listed him as being 35 years old at the time. He died in Bartow, Florida in 1979, at the age of 105 (according to researchers) or 137 (according to his own claim). Later subsequent research showed Mr. Smith listed in the 1900 census as 21, suggesting he could have been only 100 years old. It is possible that he was given the birth name Mitchell Watkins and adopted at an early age in the years right after the Civil War with his "memories" embellishments from stories told by older ex-slaves; but evidence of this is spotty and it is unlikely that such an adoption would be verifiable, with records quite unreliable right after the Civil War.
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1979 (aged )
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