Alexandria Gazette
7 July 1836
DIED, At his residence, Occoquan, Va., on Friday evening the 1st inst., Michael Cleary, Esq., in the 69th year of his age, after an illness of only 23 hours, leaving an affectionate consort and six children to mourn their irreparable loss. As a husband, a father, and as a friend, Mr. Cleary had few equals and none superior. He was a native of the County of Tipperary, Ireland, and for the last forty years a most respectable and valuable citizen of this his adopted country. In his long tried public and private intercourse with the community in which he moved, he established and sustained a character pre-eminently designed by all those virtues which are calculated to distinguish the noblest work of God.
The community which so long witnessed his virtues and enjoyed his society, will long mourn the vacuum occasioned by his demise, a vacuum which years and tens of years will not be able to fill up. Let the poor speak, and let the distressed call aloud, but in vain, for the benevolent hand of Michael Cleary -- that hand that seemed by nature destined for acts of benevolence, charity and relief -- yes,
"His pity gave 'ere charity began."
To his truly afflicted family he as left the cheering consolation that the hand of Death, though sudden, found him not unprepared. They saw that his exist was as calm, placid and serene, as his life had been pious, useful and virtuous - resigning, without struggle, his pure spirit to the God who gave it, in the bright and promising prospect of being enrolled in the catalogue of those who constitute the church triumphant. The writer of this faint and glimmering outline of his character feels, sensibly feels, his own inadequacy, when attempting to bestow upon the memory of such a man any thing like a tribute proportionate to his worth. Let him be allowed, at least,, to say, that the man died as he had lived -- loved, honored and respected by all who knew him. W.
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