About 1821 there was issued an engraving of Miss Angelina Melius, nineteen years of age and 7 feet high, attended by her page, Senor Don Santiago de los Santos, from the Island of Manilla, thirty-live years old and 2 feet 2 inches high. "The Annual Register" records the death of Peter Tuchan at Posen on June 18, 1825, of dropsy of the chest. He was twenty-nine years old and 8feet 7 inches in height; he began to grow at the age of seven.
This monster had no beard; his voice was soft; he was a moderate eater. There was a giant exhibited in St. Petersburg, June, 1829, 8 feet 8 inches in height, who was very thin and emaciated.
Dr. Adam Clarke, who died in 1832, measured a man 8 feet 6 inches tall. Frank Buckland, in his "Curiosities of Natural History,"says that Brice, the French giant, was 7 feet 7 inches. Early in 1837 there was exhibited at Parma a young man formerly in the service of the King of the Netherlands who was 8 feet 10 inches high and weighed 401 pounds. Robert Hale, the "Norfolk Giant,"who died in Yarmouth in 1843 at the age of forty-three, was 7feet 6 inches high and weighed 452 pounds. The skeleton of Cornelius McGrath, now preserved in the Trinity College Museum, Dublin, is a striking example of gigantism. At sixteen years he measured 7 feet 10 inches.
O'Brien or Byrne, the Irish giant, was supposed to be 8 feet 4inches in height at the time of his death in 1783 at the age of twenty-two. The story of his connection with the illustrious John Hunter is quite interesting. Hunter had vowed that he would have the skeleton of O'Brien, and O'Brien was equally averse to being boiled in the distinguished scientist's kettle. The giant was tormented all his life by the constant assertions of Hunter and by his persistence in locating him. Finally, when, following the usual early decline of his class of anomalies, O'Brien came to his death-bed, he bribed some fishermen to take his body after his death to the middle of the Irish Channel and sink it with leaden weights. Hunter, it is alleged, was informed of this and overbribed the prospective undertakers and thus secured the body.
It has been estimated that it cost Hunter nearly 500 pounds sterling to gain possession of the skeleton of the "Irish Giant."The kettle in which the body was boiled, together with some interesting literature relative to the circumstances, are preserved in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, and were exhibited at the meeting of the British Medical Association in 1895 with other Hunterian relics. The skeleton, which is now one of the features of the Museum, is reported to measure 92 3/4 inches in height, and is mounted alongside that of Caroline Crachami, the Sicilian dwarf, who was exhibited as an Italian princess in London in 1824. She did not grow after birth and died at the age of nine.
Patrick Cotter, the successor of O'Brien, and who for awhile exhibited under this name, claiming that he was a lineal descendant of the famous Irish King, Brian Boru, who he declared was 9 feet in height, was born in 1761, and died in 1806 at the age of forty-five. His shoe was 17 inches long, and he was 8 feet 4 inches tall at his death.
In the Museum of Madame Tussaud in London there is a wax figure of Loushkin, said to be the tallest man of his time. It measures 8 feet 5 inches, and is dressed in the military uniform of a drum-major of the Imperial Preobrajensky Regiment of Guards. To magnify his height there is a figure of the celebrated dwarf, "General Tom Thumb," in the palm of his hand. Figure 158represents a well-known American giant, Ben Hicks who was called "the Denver Steeple."Buffon refers to a Swedish giantess who he affirms was 8 feet 6inches tall. Chang, the "Chinese Giant," whose smiling face is familiar to nearly all the modern world, was said to be 8 feet tall. In 1865, at the age of nineteen, he measured 7 feet 8inches. At Hawick, Scotland, in 1870, there was an Irishman 7feet 8 inches in height, 52 inches around the chest, and who weighed 22 stone. Figure 159 shows an American giantess known as "Leah, the Giantess." At the age of nineteen she was 7 feet 2inches tall and weighed 165 pounds.
On June 17, 1871, there were married at Saint-Martins-in-the-Field in London Captain Martin Van Buren Bates of Kentucky and Miss Anna Swann of Nova Scotia, two celebrated exhibitionists, both of whom were over 7 feet. Captain Bates, familiarly known as the "Kentucky Giant," years ago was a familiar figure in many Northern cities, where he exhibited himself in company with his wife, the combined height of the two being greater than that of any couple known to history. Captain Bates was born in Whitesburg, Letcher County, Ky., on November 9, 1845. He enlisted in the Southern army in 1861, and though only sixteen years old was admitted to the service because of his size. At the close of the war Captain Bates had attained his great height of 7 feet 2 1/2 inches. His body was well proportioned and his weight increased until it reached 450pounds. He traveled as a curiosity from 1866 to 1880, being connected with various amusement organizations. He visited nearly all the large cities and towns in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Russia. While in England in 1871 the Captain met Miss Anna H.
Swann, known as the "Nova Scotia Giantess," who was two years the junior of her giant lover. Miss Swann was justly proud of her height, 7 feet 5 1/2 inches. The two were married soon afterward.
Their combined height of 14 feet 8 inches marked them as the tallest married couple known to mankind.
Captain Bates' parents were of medium size. His father, a native of Virginia, was 5 feet 10 inches high and weighed 160 pounds.
His mother was 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed 125 pounds. The height of the father of Mrs. Anna Swann Bates was 6 feet and her mother was 5 feet and 2 inches high, weighing but 100 pounds.
