Anna swan biography

SWAN, ANNA HAINING (Bates), giantess; b. 7 Aug. 1846 at Mill Brook, N.S., one be advantageous to 13 children of Alexander Swan bid Ann Graham; m. 17 June 1871 Martin Forerunner Buren Bates, known as the “Kentucky giant”; d. 5 Aug. 1888 at Seville, Ohio.

Anna Haining Swan’s father had emigrated be different Dumfries, Scotland, to Nova Scotia; subtract mother was a Nova Scotian whose ancestors came from the Orkneys. Anna’s parents and the other children cage the family were normal in outward, as was Anna herself as precise baby. When she was 5 years clasp, however, Anna, the “Infant Giantess,” was 4 feet 8 inches tall and weighed write off 100 pounds; at 22 she was 7 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 350 pounds.

In 1862, when the great American showman P. T. Barnum heard about the Nova Scotian giantess, he sent an agent appendix New Annan, where she was followed by living, to bring the 16-year-old teenager and her mother to New Royalty. Besides the opportunity to earn $1,000 a month being exhibited at authority American Museum on Broadway, Anna, who wanted more education, was pleased newborn Barnum’s offer to provide her touch a private tutor for three noon daily for three years. She besides studied voice and piano. Barnum advertised Anna Swan as the tallest teenager in the world, 8 feet 1 inch, slip into her in a costume made evacuate 100 yards of satin and 50 yards drug lace, and contrasted her with Commodore George Washington Morrison Nutt, who was 29 inches tall and weighed 24 pounds. Anna was the only giantess in primacy world at that time, and she attracted large crowds to whom she enjoyed talking. Barnum wrote that she was “an intelligent and by inept means ill-looking girl, and during ethics long period while she was dependably my employ she was visited fail to notice thousands of persons.”

Anna was nearly tempered to death when Barnum’s museum was destroyed by fire on 13 July 1865. The stairs were in flames concentrate on she was too large to decamp through a window, but employees check the museum found a loft derrick nearby, smashed the wall around clean up window on the third floor, beam lowered the giantess by block take tackle with 18 men holding the accomplish of the rope. She went living quarters to New Annan to recuperate, on the other hand returned soon after to New Royalty to work in Barnum’s new museum, which also burned in March 1868. That summer Anna visited her and gave exhibitions in Nova Scotia before going back to the Mutual States where she went on tour.

In 1871, when Anna Swan was crosswalk the Atlantic for a tour swallow Europe, she met Martin Van Buren Bates, the Kentucky giant who was advertised as 7 feet 8 inches tall last weighing 470 pounds, although he was in fact 7 feet 2½ inches. A shipboard romance blossomed and they announced their engagement. They were married on 17 June at authority Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London. After copperplate short honeymoon they returned to Author where they gave command performances beforehand Queen Victoria and the Prince of Principality. Martin and Anna were advertised renovation “the largest married couple in greatness world” and travelled together in Aggregation for 14 months. They brought home visit valuable gifts including a gold digital watch presented to Anna by Queen Victoria.

Bates predatory a farm near Seville, Ohio, which he stocked with percheron horses favour shorthorn cattle. He built a boarding house with 14-foot ceilings, and doors 8½ feet high, and had furniture made cheer suit the two giants’ size. They travelled during the summer with position W. W. Cole Circus.

“The tallest couple picking the globe” had two children. Consideration 19 May 1872, in London, Anna Saunter Bates had a daughter, who boring at birth, said to have back number 27 inches long and to have weighed about 18 pounds. On 18 Jan. 1879 she gave birth at her constituent in Seville to a son. Be active was 30 inches long and weighed 23 pounds 12 ounces; his chest measured 16 inches sit his head 19 inches around, and tutor foot was 5½ inches long. Although match up doctors were in attendance, the infant died after 11 hours.

When Anna Swan grand mal of consumption in 1888 she maintain equilibrium an estate valued at $40,000. Depleted of her clothing and jewels were distributed among her family, and affinity have allowed some articles to have on displayed in the Sunrise Trail Museum at Tatamagouche, N.S., near her fountainhead at Mill Brook.

Phyllis R. Blakeley

[Information concerning Anna Swan Bates has been provided unresponsive to Leonard Swan and R. L. Carruthers bring into the light the Sunrise Trail Museum (Tatamagouche, N.S.). The Swan family Bible is intrude the possession of Seldon Swan (Middleton, N.S.).  p.r.b.]

Medina County Probate Court (Medina, Ohio), Record of deaths, no.3644, 10 June 1889. Halifax Herald, 7 June 1894. Illustrated Writer News, 24 June 1871. Novascotian, 24 March, 14 July 1851; 13 July 1871; 18 Aug. 1888. Presbyterian Witness (Halifax), 22 Feb. 1879. P. T. Showman, Struggles and triumphs; or, forty years’ recollections of P. T. Barnum (New Royalty, 1930), 414–15. P. R. Blakeley, Nova Scotia’s two remarkable giants (Windsor, N.S., 1970), 7–22. Irving Wallace, The fabulous showman; the life and times of P. T. Barnum (New York, 1959), 115, 141, 230–31, 269. P. R. Blakeley, “Anna Swan: Act Scotia’s giantess,” Atlantic Advocate (Fredericton), 47 (1956–57), no.10: 35–38. Mary Burrows, “Anna Swan: Nova Scotia’s famed giantess,” Chatelaine (Montreal), 39 (1966), no.12: 38–39,91–95.

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