Pharaoh “Ferry” Jackson Chesney eye-witnessed and chronicled almost a century of political, economic, and geographic turmoil before he died July 4, 1902, somewhere between 100 and 125 years of age. — When an enslaved Virginia native named Pharaoh Jackson was sold in November 1841 by his owner, Corbin Jackson, to John Chesney for $421, Jackson recorded on the bill of sale that Ferry was 50 years of age. Almost everyone, however, disputed that estimate. In his 1902 biography of Ferry, Dr…