Annie Daredevil Woman

Image via Wikipedia

On her 63rd birthday Annie Edson Taylor went over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Not your average birthday celebration - particularly when you consider the fact that she was the first human 'person' to try it.

(As opposed to a cat 'person', which I will explain shortly.)

She was the original 7th decade girl daredevil.

She didn't start off in life as a daredevil though. 

Born on Oct. 24, 1838 in New York, she grew up  rich, pampered and much loved.

She studied to be a teacher and married young.

Unfortuantely, when she was 25 her husband was killed in the American Civil War, her only child died and the wheels fell off her comfortable life.

Annie spent the rest of her days trying to put them back on.

She wandered North America, from Mexico City to Chicago  to Sioux Ste Marie  teaching dance and music.

 Somewhere along the line she came up with the idea of earning fame and fortune by going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

 With this iidea in mind she accumulated a manager and a cat.

 She sent her cat over the Falls first to see if anything could survive such a trip.

 In light of what happened later she probably should have sent her manager over - in a cheaper barrel.

 Anyway the cat lived.

Two days later on Oct. 24, 1901, Annie was rowed out to the centre of the Niagara River, (see the picture above), helped into her sturdy oak barrel and set adrift.

Her manager, whose name was Frank Russell, made sure the stunt was well advertised and thousands came to watch as the barrel was tossed over the edge of the Falls and into the mist below.

 Annie survived her plunge over the Horseshoe Falls but it didn't bring her fame and fortune.

The scoundrel, Frank Russel, ran off with her barrel and most of her savings.

 Her final years were spent posing for photographs with her wonder cat  and selling souvenirs while she moonlighted as a clairvoyant, and unsuccessful novelist and filmmaker.

 And I have to tell you, that sounds like a lot more fun than the barrel over the Falls thing.

She died in Niagara County, New York on April 29, 1921 and is buried in the 'stunter's section' of Oakwood Cemetery, Niagara Falls, New York.


And, sorry, cat lovers, I don't know what happened to the fuzzy, fearless feline.

Next:  Ho for the Klondike

Related articles

• Daredevil bids to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope (telegraph.co.uk)

Addie Christiansen

Image via Wikipedia

Mrs. Addie Christiansen, age 22, died on August 22, 1898.

Mrs. Christiansen was a parachute performer.

That day, much to the delight of thousands who had gathered to watch, she had been performing on a trapeze that was attached to a hot air balloon above a resort at Jamaica Bay, near New York City.

Her husband was a balloonist but according to the news at the time, had tried to dissuade his young wife from such daredevil activities.

 Right.

 Anyway, it was reported that she constantly disobeyed him and had actually, over time, become his rival.

Families loved to come to the shore of Jamaica Bay and watch the aerial escapades of the pretty young woman in her colourful bodice and tights.

 Addie often threw kisses to the children in the crowd below before she ended her show by leaping into the air and parachuting to the ground.

But the last kiss was thrown on that fateful day in 1898 when the parachute became entangled in her costume and she fell 200 feet to her death.

I came across Addie Christiansen's story last week in an 1898 newspaper that was being catalogued at the St. Catharines Museum.

As we poured over the short report I think our main question was, "What was she thinking?"

 Someone said, "Maybe it was better than being in the kitchen with eight screaming kids."

We laughed but the truth is that we don't often think of the lives of women of that era as being much more than 'kinder küche kirche'.  (Home, children, church.)

However, the 'fin de cycle' was a time of great social change.

By 1893 women in New Zealand had won the right to vote and the movement was taking hold in other parts of the world.

It was also a time of economic struggle and the combination of hard times and liberation seems to have produced a number of unusual women.

A Niagara Falls story next time.