Anna swan biography

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

Anna Haining Swan’s father abstruse emigrated from Dumfries, Scotland, drop a line to Nova Scotia; her mother was a Nova Scotian whose family came from the Orkneys.

Anna’s parents and the other race in the family were unusual in size, as was Anna herself as a baby. Considering that she was 5 years old, regardless, Anna, the “Infant Giantess,” was 4 feet 8 inches tall and weighed over 100 pounds; at 22 she was 7 feet 6 inches tall station weighed 350 pounds.

In 1862, when dignity great American showman P. T.

Promoter heard about the Nova Scotian giantess, he sent an detective to New Annan, where she was then living, to predict the 16-year-old girl and affiliate mother to New York. As well the opportunity to earn $1,000 a month being exhibited recoil the American Museum on Position, Anna, who wanted more cultivation, was pleased by Barnum’s put forward to provide her with unornamented private tutor for three high noon daily for three years.

She also studied voice and soft. Barnum advertised Anna Swan on account of the tallest girl in honesty world, 8 feet 1 inch, dressed have time out in a costume made shun 100 yards of satin and 50 yards of lace, and contrasted recede with Commodore George Washington Author Nutt, who was 29 inches high and weighed 24 pounds.

Anna was the only giantess in goodness world at that time, take up she attracted large crowds revivify whom she enjoyed talking. Promoter wrote that she was “an intelligent and by no whirl ill-looking girl, and during blue blood the gentry long period while she was in my employ she was visited by thousands of persons.”

Anna was nearly burned to demise when Barnum’s museum was debauched by fire on 13 July 1865.

The stairs were in fusillade and she was too substantial to escape through a opera-glasses, but employees of the museum found a loft derrick -away, smashed the wall around regular window on the third clout, and lowered the giantess moisten block and tackle with 18 men holding the end of description rope. She went home progress to New Annan to recuperate, nevertheless returned soon after to Unique York to work in Barnum’s new museum, which also burnt in March 1868.

That summertime Anna visited her family limit gave exhibitions in Nova Scotia before going back to decency United States where she went on tour.

In 1871, when Anna Swan was crossing the Ocean for a tour of Accumulation, she met Martin Van Buren Bates, the Kentucky giant who was advertised as 7 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 470 pounds, granted he was actually 7 feet 2½ inches.

A shipboard romance blossomed tolerate they announced their engagement. They were married on 17 June cherished the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Author. After a short honeymoon they returned to London where they gave command performances before Queen Victoria and the Prince of Princedom.

Martin and Anna were advertised as “the largest married amalgamate in the world” and traveled together in Europe for 14 months. They brought home many influential gifts including a gold examine presented to Anna by Queen Victoria.

Bates bought a farm near Seville, Ohio, which he stocked in opposition to percheron horses and shorthorn beef.

He built a house relieve 14-foot ceilings, and doors 8½ feet high, and had furniture easy to suit the two giants’ size. They travelled during righteousness summer with the W. W. Kale Circus.

“The tallest couple on magnanimity globe” had two children. Set free 19 May 1872, in London, Anna Swan Bates had a maid, who died at birth, supposed to have been 27 inches fritter and to have weighed not quite 18 pounds.

On 18 Jan. 1879 she gave birth at become known home in Seville to skilful son. He was 30 inches forwardthinking and weighed 23 pounds 12 ounces; consummate chest measured 16 inches and her highness head 19 inches around, and in receipt of foot was 5½ inches long. Notwithstanding two doctors were in existing, the baby died after 11 hours.

When Anna Swan died of uptake in 1888 she left put down estate valued at $40,000.

Sufficient of her clothing and valuables were distributed among her brotherhood, and descendants have allowed labored articles to be displayed wrapping the Sunrise Trail Museum tempt Tatamagouche, N.S., near her source at Mill Brook.

Phyllis R. Blakeley

[Information in the direction of Anna Swan Bates has bent provided by Leonard Swan perch R. L.

Carruthers of the Crack of dawn Trail Museum (Tatamagouche, N.S.). Birth Swan family Bible is family tree the possession of Seldon Prowl (Middleton, N.S.).  p.r.b.]

Medina County Probate Entourage (Medina, Ohio), Record of deaths, no.3644, 10 June 1889. Halifax Herald, 7 June 1894. Illustrated London News, 24 June 1871.

Novascotian, 24 March, 14 July 1851; 13 July 1871; 18 Aug. 1888. Presbyterian Witness (Halifax), 22 Feb. 1879. P. T. Barnum, Struggles and triumphs; or, forty years’ recollections last part P. T. Barnum (New York, 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 president times of P. T. Barnum (New York, 1959), 115, 141, 230–31, 269. P. R. Blakeley, “Anna Swan: Illustrious Scotia’s giantess,” Atlantic Advocate (Fredericton), 47 (1956–57), no.10: 35–38.

Line up Burrows, “Anna Swan: Nova Scotia’s famed giantess,” Chatelaine (Montreal), 39 (1966), no.12: 38–39,91–95.

General Bibliography

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