Martin Van Buren Bates (November 9, 1837 – January 7, 1919), known as the "Kentucky Giant" among other nicknames, was a Civil War-era American famed for his incredibly large size.

Though born an infant of normal size into a family of normal-sized people in Letcher County, Kentucky, he is said to at one time have been 7 feet 11 inches (2.41 m) in height. The Guinness Book of World Records and other reputable sources have him listed at being 7 feet 9 inches tall and weighing 470 pounds (213.64 kg). TheTallestMan.com, however, lists him at a more realistic height of 7'3.5".

Accounts of his remarkable growth vary, but all sources agree that he began a tremendous growth spurt at some time around the age of six or seven, and was over six feet (1.82 m) tall and nearly 300 pounds (136 kg) by the time he was twelve or thirteen years old. This incredible growth reportedly so astonished his parents that they forbade him from doing chores around the house, fearing that his body would be too fragile.

His first occupation was as a schoolteacher, but upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Confederate Army as a private in the Fifth Kentucky Infantry in September 1861, rising to the rank of Captain within short order. His ferocity in battle, aided by his imposing figure, made him legendary, with Union soldiers telling tales of a "Confederate giant who's as big as five men and fights like fifty". He was severely wounded in a battle around the Cumberland Gap area and also captured, although he later escaped.

He returned to Kentucky after the war, but found it embroiled in violent feuding between those who had supported the Union and those who had supported the Confederacy, so he sold his property and left, explaining, "I've seen enough bloodshed; I didn't want any more." He travelled to Cincinnati, and there joined the circus, exhibiting his enormous stature to curious onlookers. While the circus was on tour in Halifax, Canada, 7 foot 5 and a half inches (2.27m) tall Anna Haining Swan happened to visit, and the promoter, envisioning the success a pair of giants would have, hired her immediately. She and Martin soon got to know each other, and were married during an 1871 tour of the circus in Europe. The wedding, at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, was abuzz with publicity, and thousands of people, drawn both by the uncommonness of the spectacle and the disarming good nature of the pair, tried to attend. Queen Victoria herself gave them two extra-large diamond-studded gold watches as wedding presents.

Martin and his wife returned to Ohio in 1872 and settled down in Seville. In May 1874, Anna gave birth to their eighteen-pound (8.2 kg) child, but it was born stillborn. To relieve their grief they took a trip to Europe again, this time not as part of the circus. They returned to Ohio shortly thereafter, and built a large house to accommodate themselves comfortably. He explains the next few years in his autobiography:

"While in Ohio, I purchased a farm in Seville, Medina County. It consisted of 130 acres [0.5 km²] of good land. I built a house upon it designed especially for our comfort. The ceilings have a height of fourteen feet [4.3 m], the doors are eight and one half feet [2.6 m] in height. The furniture was all built to order and to see our guests make use of it recalls most forcibly the good Dean Swift's traveler in the land of Brobdingnag.

Bates family grave, Seville, Ohio"I had determined to become a farmer, so I stocked my farm with the best breeds of cattle, most of them being full-blooded and short horns. My draught horses are of the Norman breed. Carriage horses eighteen hands [1.83 m] high with a couple of Clydesdale mares constitute my home outfit. I am thus specific because I am continually asked as to these matters.

"My rest was not to last long, for yielding to the soliciations of managers, I consented to again travel. The seasons of 1878, 1879 and 1880 found us leading attractions of the W.W. Cole circus. "While we have during these years been blessed with many things, affliction again visited us in the loss of a boy, born on the 19th day of January, 1879. He was 28 inches [711 mm] tall, weighed twenty-two pounds [10 kg] and was perfect in every respect. He looked at birth like an ordinary child of six months. With this exception our lot has been one of almost uninterrupted joy."

Anna Bates never fully regained her health, and she died on August 5, 1888. Martin ordered a statue of her from Europe for her grave, sold the oversized house, and moved into the town. In 1897 he remarried, this time to a woman of normal stature, and lived a mostly peaceful and uneventful life until his death in 1919 of nephritis. The Bateses and their son are buried in Mound Hill Cemetery in Seville, Ohio.

Source: The Tallest Man

Anna Haining Swan - 7 feet 5.5 inches (227.3 cm)

Anna Haining Bates, born Anna Haining Swan (August 6, 1846 – August 5, 1888), was a Canadian from Mill Brook, New Annan, (near present-day Tatamagouche), Colchester County, Nova Scotia, famed for her great height, believed to be 2.27 m (7' 5.5") at the peak of her stature. Her parents were of average height and were Scottish immigrants.

At birth Anna weighed approximately 18 pounds. Anna was the third of 13 children, all also of around average height. From birth she grew very fast. On her 4th birthday she was 4 feet 6 inches (137 cm) tall. On her 6th birthday she was measured again, and she stood 5 foot 2 inches (157 cm) tall, an inch or two (2.5–5 cm) shorter than her mother. On her 10th birthday she measured at 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) tall. By her 15th birthday Anna Swan was measured at just over seven feet (213 cm) tall. She would reach her full height two years later, which was 7 feet 5 and a half inches tall.

Anna excelled at literature and music and was considered to be very intelligent. She also excelled at her studies of acting, piano and voice. She played Lady Macbeth in one play.

She had to be rescued from a fire at Barnum's museum in July 1865. The stairs were in flames but she was too large to escape through a window. In her fear she bowled over the men sent to help her. Employees of the museum found a derrick nearby, smashed the wall around a window on the third floor, and lowered Anna by block and tackle with 18 men holding the end of the rope. At the time Anna weighed 394 pounds or 28 stone 2 pounds (179 kg). Usually however, her weight was around 25 stones or 350 pounds (159 kg).

As part of her shows, Anna had a tape measure put around her waist and then had a lady from the audience put it around her waist. The tape would go around the average woman's waist three times. In 1869, whilst on a tour of Britain, one newspaper reporter described Anna as "Towers above all men when stood up, and most women when sat down. She has an oval face, and is softly spoken, with a gentle voice".

When visiting a circus in Halifax with which Martin Van Buren Bates — another enormously tall person — was travelling, Anna was spotted by the promoter and hired on the spot. The giant couple became a touring sensation and eventually fell in love and, on 17 June 1871 in St Martin-in-the-fields in London, they married. Rev. Rupert Cochrane, a friend of Anna's family who happened to be preaching in London at the time, agreed to conduct the ceremony. Despite his 6-foot-3-inch (1.91 m) stature, the Reverend looked small when standing next to the giant bride and groom.

They had two children, the first being a girl who was stillborn on 19 May 1872. The girl was the same size as her mother had been at her own birth. The Bates family moved to Seville, Ohio, in June 1874 on their return from the United Kingdom. They purchased 120 acres (0.49 km2) of land and had furniture made to their specifications. Martin supervised the construction of the house. The main part of the house had 14-foot (4.3 m) high ceilings, while the doors were extra wide and were 8 and a 1/2 feet tall. The back part of the house was built an average size for servants and guests.

Whilst touring in the summer of 1878, Anna found that she was pregnant for the second time. Anna went into labour on January 15, 1879. Anna continued in the first stages of labour for 36 hours, at which time hard labour began. Dr. Beach, their physician, realized that the birth was not going in a normal direction and tried using forceps, but the baby's head was too large. He called another doctor who also tried using forceps. They put a strong bandage around the baby's neck to assist with the delivery. The baby was born on 19 January, but he survived only 11 hours. He was the largest newborn ever recorded, at 10.6 kg, or nearly 24 pounds and 30 inches (71 centimeters) tall and each of his feet was six inches (152 mm) long.

To help take their minds off their baby's death, the Bateses rejoined touring with W.W. Cole in the summer of 1879, and again in the spring of 1880, but that was to be their last ever tour and they retired after that.

The remaining years of Anna's life were spent quietly on the farm that she and her husband owned, mostly away from the limelight. She had joined the local Baptist Church in 1877 and attended services, with her husband on a Sunday. The pew in 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 just one day before her 42nd birthday. She succumbed to heart failure after struggling with a thyroid goitre for some time previously.

After his wife's death, Captain Bates wired Cleveland, Ohio, for a coffin. A standard size coffin was sent as they believed that the wire was a mistake. Furious about this, he contacted them again to say that his first wire was correct. The funeral had to be delayed as it took the coffin three further days to arrive. Anna was finally buried on Monday 13 August.

Anna, Martin and their children are buried in Mound Hill Cemetery, Seville, Ohio. Nearby is Anna's sister Maggie, who died from tuberculosis in the spring of 1875 aged 22

After Anna's Death

After Anna’s death, Captain Martin Bates lived in their Seville home until 1900 when he married Lavonne Weatherby, the daughter of a minister. Lavonne would not live in the giant house and they moved to a new house at 56 E. Main Street in Seville. Elouise Rohrer, a member of the First Baptist Church in Seville, was a child when she knew Captain Bates. She remembered Bates had a parrot that he taught to say “Hello, Elou-ise!”.

Whenever she walked by the house the parrot would call to her from its cage on the porch. He also taught the parrot to yell “Get off my property” at a neighbor that Bates wasn’t fond of when he cut across the lawn. In January 1919 Bates died at the age of seventy-four after having been ill for quite some time. After the trouble he had getting a proper size casket for Anna, he had his made ahead of time and kept it in his shed until it was needed.

It took twelve pallbearers to lift the casket and it was too long for the hearse, so the end was padded and the doors tied. Martin was buried in Mound Hill cemetery along side Anna. All of the giant’s personal belongings were divided up among his wife and friends. Anna’s diamonds were left to Lavonne and later sold. Lavonne died in 1940 and was buried in Pennsylvania.

Anna Haining Swan

Born at Mill Brook, Nova Scotia,in 1846, Anna Haining Swan joined P. T. Barnum's gallery of wonders in the early 1860s and became the best known giantess of her day. Barnum proclaimed that his four male giants stood above eight feet and advertised Miss Swan's height as seven feet eleven inches. However, according to Dr. A. P. Beach, her physician when she lived at Seville, she only measured seven feet nine inches. One of thirteen children born to Scottish immigrants Alexander and Ann Swan, Anna grew so rapidly that at age six she already stood as tall as her mother. By age sixteen she towered seven feet high and had many curious people following her through the streets. Barnum, in his autobiography, recounts that he "first heard of her through a Quaker who came into my office one day and told me of a wonderful girl, 17 years of age, who resided near him at Pictou, Nova Scotia, and who was probably the tallest girl in the world.

"I asked him to obtain her exact height. He did and sent it to me, and I at once sent an agent who in due time came back with Anna Swan. "She was an intelligent and by no means ill-looking girl, and during the long period she was in my employ she was visited by thousands of persons. "In February, 1864, Barnum took his American Museum to New York where crowds flocked to see the curiosities. But on July 13, 1865, fire broke out in the museum and spread so quickly that the giantess barely escaped. Rescuers found Miss Swan at the top of the stairway "in a swooning condition from the smoke." Because of her great size, it took eighteen men using a block and tackle to remove her from the burning building. The blaze reportedly cost her every-thing she owned except the clothes on her back. Her trunk, which the fire destroyed, contained $1,200 in gold plus a sizable amount of "greenbacks."

In 1870, Miss Swan met Captain Martin Van Buren Bates from Letcher County, Kentucky, when the two giants joined Judge H.P. Ingalls' company for a tour of Europe. The next year, following their presentation to Queen Victoria, they were married in London's historic St-Martin-in-the-Fields church. After a grand tour of England and Scotland, the couple returned to the States and bought a farm near Seville, Ohio. The giantess gave birth to two "abnormally large" children, but both soon died. In 1888, tuberculosis claimed her own life. In its obituary section, the Seville Times described Anna Swan as a learned woman who "at an early age developed an inquiring mind" and a thirst for knowledge." Even when independent of the resources of her native home," the newspaper added, "she continued her habits of study; she had thus acquired a breadth of information and a facility of expression which made her very interesting as a companion and conversationalist. Her knowledge was wide and varied.

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Source: The Courier Journal-Louisville, Kentucky
Monday Morning-March 30, 1981
Article written by Byron Crawford Courier-JournalColumnist
Article entitled: A TALL TALE:
A Letcher babe grew to be a mountain of a man