He lived to be more than ninety years of age, dying in 1869, and for a good many years occupied a modest little home, just below Bordentown, New Jersey.

When eighty-eight years old he was as active as a man of half his years.

I came upon him one wintry day, when he was of that age, and found him in the barn, shoveling corn into a hopper, of which a sturdy Irishman was turning the crank.

The old admiral kept his hired man busy and enjoyed his own work.
He was of small figure, always wore an old-fashioned blue swallow-tail with brass buttons, took snuff, and would laugh and shake until his weatherbeaten face was purple over some of his reminiscences of the early days of the Republic.
Think of it! He remembered seeing Benedict Arnold burned in effigy in Philadelphia in 1781; he recalled Paul Jones, and had drunk wine and talked with Washington.
Stewart and Decatur were of about the same age, and attended the old Academy in Philadelphia.

They were bosom friends from boyhood.