Anna Haining Bates
Anna Haining Bates, born Anna Haining Swan , was a
Canadian from Mill Brook, New Annan, , Colchester County,
Nova Scotia famed for her great height. She reportedly weighed 18 pounds when she was born and was twenty-seven inches long. Her parents were of average height and were
Scottish immigrants.
Anna was the 3rd 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 tall and at the age of six she was 5 foot 2 inches tall, an inch or two shorter than her mother.
Encyclopedia
Anna Haining Bates, born
Anna Haining Swan , was a
Canadian from Mill Brook, New Annan, , Colchester County,
Nova Scotia famed for her great height. She reportedly weighed 18 pounds when she was born and was twenty-seven inches long. Her parents were of average height and were
Scottish immigrants.
Anna was the 3rd 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 tall and at the age of six she was 5 foot 2 inches tall, an inch or two shorter than her mother. On her 10th birthday she stood over six feet tall and on her 15th birthday Anna Swan stood seven feet tall. She was discovered in late 1863 by
P.T. Barnum, by which time she had reached her full height of
7 feet 5 and a half inches tall.
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 like nine-pins. Employees of the museum found a loft 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 .
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's-in-the-fields in
London, they married. Rev. Rupert Cochrane, a six foot three inch native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was conducting the ceremony and was totally dwarfed by Anna Swan. Cochrane was a friend of Anna's family and who happened to be preaching in London at the time.
They had two children, one born on 19 May 1872 and the other in January 1879. The first was a girl and reportedly the same size as her mother at her birth. She was still-born. The other was a boy. He survived only a day, after a difficult birth . To help take their minds off their baby's death, they rejoined touring with W.W. Cole in the summer of 1879, and again in the spring of 1880 for their final tour.
Anna died suddenly on 5 August 1888 in
Seville,
Ohio, just one day before her 42nd birthday. She had succumbed to heart failure after years of struggling with a thyroid goitre.
After his wife's
death, Captain Bates wired
Cleveland, Ohio, for a coffin. A standard size coffin was sent as it was believed the wire was mistake. Furious about this, Bates wired them again telling them it wasn't a mistake and that his first wire was correct. Due to this, the
funeral had to be delayed as it took the coffin three days to arrive. Anna was buried on 13 August not far from her son and sister Maggie, who died from
Tubercolosis in the spring of 1875 aged 22.
Bates took no chances with his funeral, and kept his coffin in a barn for when he died in January 1919. Both Anna and Martin are buried in Mound Hill Cemetery,
Seville, Ohio.
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