Later Life
Competition from canals eventually cut into his profits and he retired in 1792 to live with a daughter and her husband at Spofforth in Yorkshire. Throughout his career he built 180 miles (290 km) of road. At 77 he walked to York, where he related a detailed account of his life to a publisher.
Blind Jack of Knaresborough died in his 93rd year on 26 April 1810, at his home in Spofforth. He is buried in Spofforth churchyard.
Read more about this topic: John Metcalf (civil Engineer)
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“It is, in both cases, that a spiritual life has been imparted to nature; that the solid seeming block of matter has been pervaded and dissolved by a thought; that this feeble human being has penetrated the vast masses of nature with an informing soul, and recognised itself in their harmony, that is, seized their law. In physics, when this is attained, the memory disburthens itself of its cumbrous catalogues of particulars, and carries centuries of observation in a single formula.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is only room in the lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)