Discover today on Wetall the incredible story of the world’s tallest couple of all time! The story will tell you who Martin Van Buren Bates and Anna Haining Bates were, where they came from, what they experienced in their lives and how tall they were.
The youth of Anna Haining Swan
Anna Haining Bates, born Anna Haining Swan (6 August 1846 – 5 August 1888), was a Canadian from Mill Brook, New Annan (near present-day Tatamagouche), in Colchester County, Nova Scotia, famous for her great height, which is said to have reached 2.41m at the peak of her stature. Her parents are of average height and are Scottish immigrants.
At birth, Anna weighed approximately 8 kilos. Anna is the third of 13 children, all of average height. From birth, she grew very quickly. On her fourth birthday, she measures 1.37m. On the day of her 6th birthday, she is measured again and measures 1.57m, which is 2.5cm less than her mother. On the day of her 10th birthday, she measured 1.85m. On her 15th birthday, Anna Swan measures just over 2.13m. She would reach her final height three years later, which is 2.41m
Anna excels in literature and music and is considered very intelligent. She also excels in her studies of theatre, piano and singing. She played the role of Lady Macbeth in a play.
She had to be rescued from a fire at the Barnum Museum in July 1865. The stairways were ablaze but she was too tall to escape through a window. In her panic, she knocked over the men sent to help her. Museum employees found a derrick nearby, broke down the wall around a third-storey window and lowered Anna using a pulley and tackle, 18 men holding the rope’s end. At the time, Anna weighed 179 kg. Usually, her weight was around 159 kg. Finding tall women’s clothing must not have been easy at that time.
As part of her performances, Anna has a metre placed around her waist, then a member of the audience places it around their waist. The ribbon goes three times around the waist of an average woman. In 1869, whilst she was touring in Great Britain, a journalist described Anna as being “”taller than all men when standing, and than most women when sitting. She has an oval face, speaks softly and has a gentle voice””.
The youth of Martin Van Buren Bates
Martin Van Buren Bates (9 November 1837 – 7 January 1919), nicknamed among others “”the giant of Kentucky””, was an American of the American Civil War era, famous for his incredibly great height.
Although born of average height in a normal-sized family from Letcher County, Kentucky, he is said to have one day measured 2.41m. According to other reputable sources, he measured 2.41m and weighed 213.64 kg, however, the Guinness Book of Records places him at a more realistic height of 2.36m.
The accounts of his remarkable growth vary, but all sources agree that he began to grow spectacularly around the age of six or seven, and that he measured more than 1.82m and weighed nearly 90 kg at age twelve. This incredible growth is said to have so amazed his parents that they forbade him from doing chores, fearing his body was too fragile.
He was first a schoolteacher, but when the American Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Confederate army as a common soldier in the Fifth Kentucky Infantry Regiment in September 1861, quickly reaching the rank of captain. His ferocity in combat, aided by his imposing frame, makes him legendary, Union soldiers telling stories of a “”Confederate giant who is as tall as five men and fights like fifty””. He is gravely wounded in a battle around the Cumberland Gap area and is also captured, although he later escapes.
He returns to Kentucky after the war, but finds it mired in violent disputes between those who had supported the Union and those who had supported the Confederacy, so he sells his belongings and leaves, explaining: “”I have seen enough blood spilled, I wanted no more of it””. He went to Cincinnati, and joined the circus there, exhibiting his enormous stature to the curious. It was then that he met his soulmate…
The meeting of the giants
When Anna visits a circus in Halifax with which Martin Van Buren Bates travels, Anna is spotted by the promoter and hired on the spot. The giant couple creates a sensation during tours and eventually falls in love. They marry on 17 June 1871 at St Martin-in-the-fields in London. Reverend Rupert Cochrane, a friend of Anna’s family who was preaching in London at the time, agreed to conduct the ceremony. Despite his stature of 1.91m, the reverend seemed small next to the giants that were the newlyweds.
The marriage, which takes place at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, receives great publicity and thousands of people, drawn both by the originality of the spectacle and the disarming good nature of the couple, try to attend. Queen Victoria herself presents them as a wedding gift two very large gold watches set with diamonds.
They had two children, the first being a stillborn daughter on 19 May 1872. The daughter was the same size as her mother at her own birth. The Bates family settles in Seville, Ohio, in June 1874, upon their return from the United Kingdom. They purchased 120 acres (0.49 km2) of land and had furniture made to their dimensions. Martin oversaw the construction of the house. The main part of the residence had ceilings 4.3m high, whilst the doors were very wide and measured 2.5m high. The rear part of the house was built to normal size for servants and guests.
During a summer trip in 1878, Anna discovers she is pregnant for the second time. She gives birth on 15 January 1879. She remained in the early stages of labour for 36 hours, then labour began. Dr Beach, their doctor, realised that the delivery was not progressing normally and tried to use forceps, but the baby’s head was too large. He calls another doctor who also tries to use forceps. They placed a strong bandage around the baby’s neck to facilitate delivery. The baby was born on 19 January, but survived only 11 hours. This is the largest newborn ever recorded, weighing 10.8 kg, and measuring 71 centimetres, each of his feet measuring 152 mm.
To forget the death of their baby, the Bates resumed touring with W.W. Cole in the summer of 1879, then in spring 1880, but this was their last tour and they retired afterwards.
Anna’s final years were spent peacefully on the farm she and her husband owned, mostly away from the spotlight. She had joined the local Baptist church in 1877 and attended services, with her husband, on Sundays. The bench on which they sat had to be enlarged and modified so they could sit comfortably. Anna sometimes taught Sunday school there.
Anna Bates died suddenly and unexpectedly in her sleep, at her home, on 5 August 1888, one day before her 42nd birthday. She succumbed to heart failure after struggling with a thyroid goitre for some time.
After his wife’s death, Captain Bates requested a coffin from Cleveland, Ohio. A standard-sized coffin was sent because they thought the cable was an error. Furious at this error, he contacted them again to tell them his original order was correct. Martin also ordered a statue from Europe for her grave, sold the oversized house and moved to town.
In 1897, he remarries, this time to a woman of normal height, and leads a peaceful and uneventful life until his death in 1919 from nephritis. Anna, Martin and their children are buried in Mound Hill Cemetery, in Seville, Ohio. Nearby lies Maggie, Anna’s sister, who died of tuberculosis in the spring of 1875 at age 22.