List of American supercentenarians

American supercentenarians are citizens or residents of the United States who have attained or surpassed 110 years of age. As of January 2015, the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) had validated the longevity claims of 782 American supercentenarians. As of December 28, 2024, it lists the oldest living American as Naomi Whitehead (born in Georgia on September 26, 1910, and now residing in Greenville, Pennsyvania), aged 114 years, 93 days. The longest-lived person ever from the United States is Sarah Knauss, of Hollywood, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, who died on December 30, 1999, aged 119 years and 97 days.

100 oldest known Americans

Below is a list of the 100 longest lived American supercentenarians according to the GRG and reliable sourcing.

  Deceased   Living

Rank	Name	Sex	Birth date	Death date	Age	Birthplace	Place of death or residence
01	Sarah Knauss	F	September 24, 1880	December 30, 1999	119 years, 97 days	Pennsylvania	Pennsylvania
02	Maria Branyas	F	March 4, 1907	August 19, 2024	117 years, 168 days	California	Spain
03	Delphia Welford	F	September 9, 1875	November 14, 1992	117 years, 66 days	Mississippi	Tennessee
04	Susannah Mushatt Jones	F	July 6, 1899	May 12, 2016	116 years, 311 days	Alabama	New York
05	Gertrude Weaver	F	July 4, 1898	April 6, 2015	116 years, 276 days	Arkansas	Arkansas
06	Elizabeth Bolden	F	August 15, 1890	December 11, 2006	116 years, 118 days	Tennessee	Tennessee
07	Besse Cooper	F	August 26, 1896	December 4, 2012	116 years, 100 days	Tennessee	Georgia
08	Easter Wiggins	F	June 1, 1874	July 7, 1990	116 years, 36 days	Mississippi	Mississippi
09	Jeralean Talley	F	May 23, 1899	June 17, 2015	116 years, 25 days	Georgia	Michigan
10	Edith Ceccarelli	F	February 5, 1908	February 22, 2024	116 years, 17 days	California	California
11	Ella Miller	F	December 6, 1884	November 21, 2000	115 years, 351 days	Tennessee	Virginia
12	Maggie Barnes	F	March 6, 1882	January 19, 1998	115 years, 319 days	North Carolina	North Carolina
13	Dina Manfredini	F	April 4, 1897	December 17, 2012	115 years, 257 days	Italy	Iowa
14	Christian Mortensen	M	August 16, 1882	April 25, 1998	115 years, 252 days	Denmark	California
15	Hester Ford	F	August 15, 1905	April 17, 2021	115 years, 245 days	South Carolina	North Carolina
16	Edna Parker	F	April 20, 1893	November 26, 2008	115 years, 220 days	Indiana	Indiana
17	Margaret Skeete	F	October 27, 1878	May 7, 1994	115 years, 192 days	Texas	Virginia
18	Bernice Madigan	F	July 24, 1899	January 3, 2015	115 years, 163 days	Massachusetts	Massachusetts
19	Gertrude Baines	F	April 6, 1894	September 11, 2009	115 years, 158 days	Georgia	California
20	Bettie Wilson	F	September 13, 1890	February 13, 2006	115 years, 153 days	Mississippi	Mississippi
21	Iris Westman	F	August 28, 1905	January 3, 2021	115 years, 128 days	North Dakota	North Dakota
22	Marie-Josephine Gaudette	F	March 25, 1902	July 13, 2017	115 years, 110 days	New Hampshire	Italy
23	Susie Gibson	F	October 31, 1890	February 16, 2006	115 years, 108 days	Mississippi	Alabama
	Thelma Sutcliffe	F	October 1, 1906	January 17, 2022		Nebraska	Nebraska
25	Edna Kern	F	October 14, 1900	January 20, 2016	115 years, 98 days	California	Nevada
26	Elizabeth Francis	F	July 25, 1909	October 22, 2024	115 years, 89 days	Louisiana	Texas
27	Augusta Holtz	F	August 3, 1871	October 21, 1986	115 years, 79 days	Prussia	Missouri
28	Bessie Hendricks	F	November 7, 1907	January 3, 2023	115 years, 57 days	Iowa	Iowa
29	Maud Farris-Luse	F	February 21, 1887	March 18, 2002	115 years, 25 days	Michigan	Michigan
30	Antonia Gerena Rivera	F	May 19, 1900	June 2, 2015	115 years, 14 days	Puerto Rico	Florida
31	Mary Bidwell	F	May 9, 1881	April 25, 1996	114 years, 352 days	Connecticut	Connecticut
32	Hazel Plummer	F	June 19, 1908	May 25, 2023	114 years, 340 days	Massachusetts	Massachusetts
33	Ophelia Burks	F	October 25, 1903	September 27, 2018	114 years, 337 days	Louisiana	Louisiana
34	Mary Josephine Ray	F	May 17, 1895	March 7, 2010	114 years, 294 days	Canada	New Hampshire
35	Goldie Steinberg	F	October 30, 1900	August 16, 2015	114 years, 290 days	Moldova	New York
36	Delphine Gibson	F	August 17, 1903	May 9, 2018	114 years, 265 days	South Carolina	Pennsylvania
37	Mary Royster	F	April 15, 1875	December 28, 1989	114 years, 257 days	Virginia	North Carolina
38	Neva Morris	F	August 3, 1895	April 6, 2010	114 years, 246 days	Iowa	Iowa
39	Blanche Cobb	F	September 8, 1900	May 1, 2015	114 years, 235 days	Georgia	Florida
40	Mila Mangold	F	November 14, 1907	July 2, 2022	114 years, 230 days	Nebraska	California
41	Myrtle Dorsey	F	November 20, 1885	June 25, 2000	114 years, 218 days	Ohio	Ohio
42	Carrie Lazenby	F	February 9, 1882	September 4, 1996	114 years, 208 days	Georgia	Illinois
43	Walter Breuning	M	September 21, 1896	April 14, 2011	114 years, 205 days	Minnesota	Montana
44	Eunice Sanborn	F	July 20, 1896	January 31, 2011	114 years, 195 days	Louisiana	Texas
45	Grace Clawson	F	November 15, 1887	May 28, 2002	114 years, 194 days	United Kingdom	New York
46	Wilhelmina Kott	F	March 7, 1880	September 6, 1994	114 years, 183 days	Illinois	Illinois
	Adelina Domingues	F	February 19, 1888	August 21, 2002		Cape Verde	California
48	Lucy Mirigian	F	August 15, 1906	February 12, 2021	114 years, 181 days	Armenia	California
49	Charlotte Benkner	F	November 16, 1889	May 14, 2004	114 years, 180 days	Germany	Ohio
50	Ettie Mae Greene	F	September 19, 1877	February 26, 1992	114 years, 160 days	West Virginia	West Virginia
51	Dominga Velasco	F	May 12, 1901	October 11, 2015	114 years, 152 days	Mexico	California
52	Irene Frank	F	October 1, 1881	February 28, 1996	114 years, 150 days	Texas	Missouri
53	Georgia Ella Jordan	F	September 18, 1880	February 9, 1995	114 years, 144 days	Georgia	Virginia
54	Olivia Patricia Thomas	F	June 29, 1895	November 16, 2009	114 years, 140 days	Iowa	New York
	Alelia Murphy	F	July 6, 1905	November 23, 2019		North Carolina	New York
56	Irene Dunham	F	December 16, 1907	May 1, 2022	114 years, 136 days	Michigan	Michigan
57	Nina Willis	F	January 14, 1909	May 17, 2023	114 years, 123 days	Georgia	Georgia
	Pearl Berg	F	October 1, 1909	February 1, 2024		Indiana	California
59	Anna Henderson	F	March 5, 1900	July 1, 2014	114 years, 118 days	Georgia	Pennsylvania
60	Emma Verona Johnston	F	August 6, 1890	December 1, 2004	114 years, 117 days	Iowa	Ohio
	Mamie Rearden	F	September 7, 1898	January 2, 2013		South Carolina	Georgia
	Erna Zahn	F	April 14, 1908	August 9, 2022		Wisconsin	Minnesota
63	Bettie Chatmon	F	April 30, 1884	August 16, 1998	114 years, 108 days	Louisiana	Texas
	Lessie Brown	F	September 22, 1904	January 8, 2019		Georgia	Ohio
65	Odie Matthews	F	December 28, 1878	April 14, 1993	114 years, 107 days	Texas	Arizona
66	Florence Knapp	F	October 10, 1873	January 11, 1988	114 years, 93 days	Pennsylvania	Pennsylvania
	Elena Slough	F	July 4, 1889	October 5, 2003		Pennsylvania	New Jersey
	Naomi Whitehead	F	September 26, 1910	Living	114 years, 93 days	Georgia	Pennsylvania
69	Mary Anna Boone	F	February 10, 1887	May 13, 2001	114 years, 92 days	Kentucky	Kentucky
70	Minnie Whicker	F	July 24, 1906	October 22, 2020	114 years, 90 days	Arkansas	California
71	Delma Kollar	F	October 31, 1897	January 24, 2012	114 years, 85 days	Kansas	Oregon
72	Ila Jones	F	August 21, 1903	November 10, 2017	114 years, 81 days	Georgia	Georgia
73	Maggie Renfro	F	November 14, 1895	January 22, 2010	114 years, 69 days	Louisiana	Louisiana
74	Emma Tillman	F	November 22, 1892	January 28, 2007	114 years, 67 days	North Carolina	Connecticut
	Anna Stoehr	F	October 15, 1900	December 21, 2014		Iowa	Minnesota
76	Leila Denmark	F	February 1, 1898	April 1, 2012	114 years, 60 days	Georgia	Georgia
77	Adele Dunlap	F	December 12, 1902	February 5, 2017	114 years, 55 days	New Jersey	New Jersey
78	Naomi Conner	F	August 30, 1899	October 18, 2013	114 years, 49 days	Texas	Texas
	Ora Holland	F	December 24, 1900	February 11, 2015		Missouri	Oklahoma
80	Katie Hatton	F	December 18, 1877	January 24, 1992	114 years, 37 days	Texas	Texas
81	Ellen Goodwill	F	February 2, 1907	March 2, 2021	114 years, 28 days	Kentucky	Michigan
82	Grace Thaxton	F	June 18, 1891	July 6, 2005	114 years, 18 days	New York	Kentucky
83	Soledad Mexia	F	August 13, 1899	August 30, 2013	114 years, 17 days	Mexico	California
84	Minnie Ward	F	November 19, 1885	December 2, 1999	114 years, 13 days	Tennessee	Massachusetts
85	Arbella Ewing	F	March 13, 1894	March 22, 2008	114 years, 9 days	Texas	Texas
86	Catherine Hagel	F	November 28, 1894	December 6, 2008	114 years, 8 days	Minnesota	Minnesota
87	Emma Otis	F	October 22, 1901	October 25, 2015	114 years, 3 days	Washington	Washington
88	Ellen Jurick	F	July 15, 1895	July 13, 2009	113 years, 363 days	Pennsylvania	Michigan
89	Fred Harold Hale	M	December 1, 1890	November 19, 2004	113 years, 354 days	Maine	New York
90	Miriam Carpelan	F	July 8, 1882	June 22, 1996	113 years, 350 days	United Kingdom	California
	Elsie Thompson	F	April 5, 1899	March 21, 2013		Pennsylvania	Florida
92	Bertha Fry	F	December 1, 1893	November 14, 2007	113 years, 348 days	Indiana	Indiana
93	Mae Harrington	F	January 20, 1889	December 29, 2002	113 years, 343 days	New York	New York
94	Ellen Thomas	F	December 25, 1877	December 2, 1991	113 years, 342 days	Tennessee	Michigan
	Daisey Bailey	F	March 30, 1896	March 7, 2010		Tennessee	Michigan
96	Secundina Camarena	F	July 16, 1891	June 20, 2005	113 years, 339 days	Mexico	California
97	Agatha Mitchell	F	March 26, 1887	February 25, 2001	113 years, 336 days	Virginia	Virginia
98	Goldie Michelson	F	August 8, 1902	July 8, 2016	113 years, 335 days	Ukraine	Massachusetts
99	Merle Barwis	F	December 23, 1900	November 22, 2014	113 years, 334 days	Iowa	Canada
100	Louvenia Posey	F	April 6, 1900	March 1, 2014	113 years, 329 days	Texas	Texas

Biographies

Mary Bidwell

Mary Electa Bidwell (May 9, 1881 – April 25, 1996) was an American supercentenarian. She died aged 114 years and 352 days and is the oldest person on record ever to die in Connecticut.

Her parents were Charles Woodruff Bidwell and Alice Beach Nobel. She was a descendant of John Bidwell, one of the founders of Hartford, Connecticut. Bidwell worked as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse for six years. She married Charles Hubbell Bidwell, a distant cousin, in 1906. Bidwell lived on her own in North Haven, Connecticut, until she was 110. Bidwell died at the Arden House, a nursing home in Hamden, Connecticut.

Maggie Barnes

Maggie Pauline Barnes (née Hinnant; March 6, 1882 – January 19, 1998) was an American supercentenarian. She was born to a former slave and married a tenant farmer. Barnes died on January 19, 1998, in Johnston County, North Carolina, of gangrene.

Her exact year of birth has been disputed. Though the year 1882 is written in her family bible, the 1900 US Census records her birth year as 1881 and her marriage license claims that she was born in 1880. Authenticating to what was put on the family Bible, Barnes lived for 115 years and 319 days.

Adelina Domingues

Adelina Domingues (February 19, 1888 – August 21, 2002) was a Cape Verdean American supercentenarian who was the world's oldest person from the death of 114-year-old British-American woman Grace Clawson on May 28, 2002, to her own death less than three months later. Domingues was born in Cape Verde. Domingues's Italian father was a harbor pilot by profession, and her mother was Portuguese by ethnicity. She married a ship captain in 1907, and moved to the United States that year. Her husband died from cancer in 1950. Domingues was a missionary from the Church of the Nazarene in Cape Verde and other parts of Africa, and also a religious preacher when she lived in Massachusetts, as well as an expert seamstress.

Domingues was a firm believer in the American Dream, was deeply religious, had conservative political views and was a pen pal of former President of the United States Ronald Reagan. She had four children, but only one of them (a son, Frank) reached adulthood. Frank died in 1998 at the age of 71, with Adelina outliving him by four years. Domingues died at a nursing home in the San Diego, California, area on August 21, 2002, at age 114 years and 183 days. She had claimed she was actually one year older, or 115 years old, but her family and Cape Verdean diplomats did some research and discovered her baptismal information, from which they concluded that Domingues was 114 years old when she died.

Charlotte Benkner

Charlotte Benkner (née Enterlein; November 16, 1889 – May 14, 2004) was an American supercentenarian and considered the world's oldest person from 2003 to 2004. Subsequent recognition of other supercentenarians ranked Benkner as the third oldest at the time of her death.

Benkner was born in Leipzig, Germany, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1896. She grew up in Peekskill, New York, where her family ran the Albert Hotel, and as a young woman once met then U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. After her 1908 marriage to Karl Benkner, she moved west, living in Pennsylvania and Ohio, before retiring to Arizona. Already a supercentenarian and the oldest person in Arizona, Benkner returned to Ohio to live in North Lima with her sister Tillie O'Hare, her youngest sibling. Tillie died in January 2004, just three weeks shy of becoming a centenarian. Benkner survived her sister by only four months, and died at age 114 years and 180 days, after a brief hospital stay in Youngstown, Ohio.

Emma Verona Johnston

Emma Verona Johnston (née Calhoun; August 6, 1890 – December 1, 2004) was an American supercentenarian who was born in Indianola, Iowa, to a large family. She graduated from Drake University in the Class of 1912 and went on to work as a Latin teacher before she married ophthalmologist Harry Johnston; at the time of her death, she was the university's oldest living graduate.

At age 98, Johnston moved from Iowa to Ohio in order to live with her daughter and son-in-law. Even after turning 110, she continued to be in good health, alert and engaging in conversations, and was still able to walk up steps. She became the oldest known living American in May 2004. Three months later, on the occasion of her 114th birthday, she was presented with a proclamation signed by then Drake University President David Maxwell. The university's Vice President for Institutional Advancement, John Willey, nominated her for an honorary degree. Johnston died in Worthington, Ohio, on December 1, 2004, at age 114 years and 117 days.

Bettie Wilson

Bettie Antry Wilson (née Rutherford; September 13, 1890 – February 13, 2006) was thought to be the oldest living person in the United States from December 2004 until the subsequent verification of Elizabeth Bolden. Both were born in the rural South, where they lived less than 100 miles apart. Wilson was the daughter of freed slaves, Solomon and Delia Rutherford.

In April 2005, Wilson moved into a new home funded by donations, in New Albany. She celebrated her 115th birthday in September 2005, and died on February 13, 2006, aged 115 years, 153 days.

Fred Harold Hale

Frederick Harold Hale, Sr. (December 1, 1890 – November 19, 2004) was born in New Sharon, Maine. He married Flora Mooers (d. 1979) in 1910, and had five children, three of which he outlived. Throughout his life, he worked as a railroad worker and a beekeeper, before retiring to pursue gardening and canning produce. At the age of 95, he surfed for the first time in Hawaii, while on his way back to the U.S. from visiting his grandson in Japan. He was recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest driver in the world at the age of 104, and he continued driving until age 108. At 109, he moved to the Syracuse area in New York State. A lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox, he was alive to see both their 1918 and 2004 World Series victories.

On March 5, 2004, upon the death of 114-year-old Joan Riudavets of Spain, Hale became the world's oldest living man. He died on November 19, 12 days before his 114th birthday, and was succeeded as the world's oldest man by Emiliano Mercado del Toro.

George Francis

George Rene Francis (June 6, 1896 – December 27, 2008) was an American supercentenarian and the joint second-oldest living man in the world, together with Englishman Henry Allingham, also born on June 6, 1896, until Francis's death aged 112 years and 204 days. He was also the oldest living man in the United States, following the death of then 111-year-old Antonio Pierro on February 8, 2007. Francis was from New Orleans, Louisiana, but after 1949 lived in Sacramento, California, where a local newspaper published a poem that Francis enjoyed reciting to friends and the public throughout his life. He credited his longevity to nature, and enjoyed a rich diet of pork, eggs, milk and lard. He gave up smoking cigars at the age of 75.

Francis attempted to join the army in World War I, but was rejected for service in 1918 as being too short and small (he weighed only about 100 pounds [45 kg]). Despite this, he later was a boxer before becoming a barber and then a chauffeur.

Bernice Madigan

Bernice Madigan (née Emerson; July 24, 1899 – January 3, 2015) was born in West Springfield, Massachusetts, and moved to Cheshire when she was six. In 1918, after graduating from Adams High School, she responded to government drives to recruit women into employment during WWI, and moved to Washington, D.C. After the war, she worked as a secretary for the Department of the Treasury and the Veterans Administration. She married Paul Madigan (d. 1976) in 1925; they lived in the Washington, D.C., area and then in Silver Spring, Maryland. She retired in 1942, after which she volunteered with the church and at nursing homes, playing piano for residents. She returned to live with family in Massachusetts in 2007. She participated in Boston University School of Medicine's New England Centenarian Study, and was interviewed and filmed by the Center for Aging at the University of Chicago and the ABC World News. She is one of 100 centenarians in The Archon Genomics XPRIZE. She joined social media, with profiles on Facebook and Twitter. Madigan died in her sleep at the age of 115 years and 163 days at 2 a.m. on January 3, 2015. At the time of her death, she was the oldest living resident of Massachusetts, the fourth-oldest living person in the United States and the world's fifth-oldest living person.

Evelyn Kozak

Eva Chavka Rivka "Evelyn" Kozak (née Jacobson) (August 14, 1899 – June 11, 2013) was an American Jewish supercentenarian, born in New York City to Isaac and Kate Jacobson, who fled from the Russian Empire, and the oldest verified Jewish person in history from November 6, 2012, 12 weeks after turning 113, when she broke fellow German-born American Adelheid Kirschbaum's record of 113 years and 83 days though until August 27, 2014, when fellow Russian-born American Goldie Steinberg (born October 30, 1900), who was the oldest living Jewish person after her death, broke her record.

Kozak died of a heart attack at a hospital in Brooklyn, New York City, early in the morning of Tuesday June 11, 2013 - barely around a quarter of a day before the oldest living person, 116-year-old Japaneseman Jiroemon Kimura (who died 2:08 a.m. the night of June 12 = 1:08 p.m. the afternoon of June 11 EDT).

Delphia Welford

Delphia S. Welford (September 9, 1875 – November 14, 1992) was an American supercentenarian claimed to have been born on September 9, 1881; however, research conducted by the Gerontology Research Group between 2016 and 2023 determined that she was actually born in 1875, and that she was born in Okolona, Mississippi.

Welford's parents were Richard and Heddie Welford. The family moved to Humboldt, Tennessee, when she was still a child. She had one son, Leo Mathis, in the late 1890s. Welford never married and spent the rest of her life in Humboldt. She was a homemaker and a member of the Lane Chapel C.M.E Church.

Welford died at Parkview Manor Health Care Center in Humboldt, on November 14, 1992, at the age of 117 years, 66 days. She had been the oldest person ever from the United States after surpassing the age of Easter Wiggins on October 16, 1991. Welford would continue to hold this distinction until November 30, 1997, when Sarah Knauss lived past her final age. Remarkably, despite living past 117 years, Welford was never the world's oldest living person as Jeanne Calment was older and still alive when Welford died. In fact, Welford is the oldest person never to have been the world's oldest living person.