Angus MacAskill
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Angus Mòr MacAskill, frequently referred to as Giant MacAskill (1825-August 8, 1863), was known as the world's largest "true" giant (normal proportions, no growth abnormalities). The 1981 Guinness Book of World Records lists Angus as the tallest natural giant who ever lived, the strongest man who ever lived, and the man having the largest chest measurements of any non-obese man (80inches).
MacAskill was born on the Isle of Berneray in the Sound of Harris, Scotland, and emigrated to Nova Scotia at a young age. After several years in Stornoway, Outer Hebrides with his family, they finally settled in the fishing community of Englishtown, Cape Breton Island somewhere between 1830 and 1835.
As a child he was said to be of "normal" stature, but in entering his adolescence he began to grow rapidly and by his 20th year had attained 7 ft 4 in (223 cm), eventually reaching 7 ft 10 in (236 cm) within another year or two. His adult weight was 580 pounds, his shoulders 44 in. wide, and the palm of his hand 8 in. wide and 12 in. long. In 1863 he was wearing boots 19 in. long. He had deep-set blue eyes and a musical, if somewhat hollow voice. Despite his huge size he was reportedly perfectly proportioned.
He was known in his home community of St. Ann's "Gille Mòr" (translated to "Big Boy"). He was also known to many as the "Cape Breton Giant" or simply "Giant MacAskill."
MacAskill was well known for incredible feats of strength such as lifting a ship's anchor weighing 2800 lb. to chest height, and an ability to carry barrels weighing over 300 lb. apiece under each arm or reputedly able to lift a hundredweight (50kg) with two fingers and hold it at arms length for ten minutes. People also claimed to see Angus lift a full-grown horse over a four-foot fence, without breaking a sweat.
In 1849 he entered show business and went to work for P.T. Barnum's circus, appearing next to General Tom Thumb. Queen Victoria heard stories about MacAskill's great strength and invited him to appear before her to give a demonstration at Windsor Castle, after which she proclaimed him to be "the tallest, stoutest and strongest man to ever enter the palace", and presented him with two gold rings in appreciation.[1]
He would sometimes jog down the street with a 300-pound barrel of pork under each arm to the admiring whistles of bystanders.[2] To win a bet with some French sailors he lifted an anchor weighing 2700 pounds to his shoulder and walked down the wharf with it. [3]
Another time when MacAskill was approximately 14 years old he travelled on a fishing schooner from St. Ann's to North Sydney and the crew took him along to a dance. MacAskill reportedly went ashore without shoes and in old clothes and was sitting near the door watching because dancing was frowned upon by the strict Presbyterian elders of St. Ann's. One of the dancers was a young man from North Sydney who danced over with his dance partner and in the process stepped on one of MacAskill's bare toes. Red-faced, MacAskill reportedly quickly pulled his feet out of the way but bystanders laughed. MacAskill became absorbed in the dancing and unconsciously put his feet out again. The same dancer reportedly stepped on MacAskill's toe again. For a moment it looked as if there would be a fight between MacAskill and the dancer from North Sydeny (as well as the fishermen who had brought Angus along to the dance). Instead, MacAskill reportedly turned red and clenched his fists but maintained his composure and remained seated while the bully laughed. For a third time the dancer's heel came down on MacAskill's toe, whereby MacAskill jumped up and his fist struck his tormentor's jaw. That gentleman landed in the middle of the floor and was unconscious for so long the other dancers thought he was dead.[4] When the captain returned to his schooner he found MacAskill on his knees praying that he had not killed the man.
The fishermen of St. Ann's envied MacAskill's strength. While they laboriously bailed their boats, MacAskill set his weight under his half ton boat, tipped it on its beam ends and reportedly emptied the bilge water. He also reportedly singlehandedly set a 40-foot mast into a schooner as easily as a farmer set a fence post in a hole.
John A. Morrison of South Gut St. Ann's, told James Gillis that one evening at twilight upon his return from minding his nets, MacAskill had called to the fishermen on the shore to help him pull his heavy boat up the steep slipway. The men thought they would play a trick on the MacAskill and carry it right up over the hill into a pool. At the high water mark MacAskill reportedly said: "That will do, thank you," but the crowd of "assistants" pretended not to hear and kept on. MacAskill apparently tried to hold back the boat but in the process it was pulled to pieces.
A visitor to the neighbourhood, a captain who had come on one of the American fishing vessels which came to St. Ann's to buy bait, challenged MacAskill to a wrestling match. The giant refused, however when the three-hundred pound visitor taunted him, MacAskill reportedly lost his temper and grabbed the American and threw him over a woodpile ten feet high and twelve feet wide. Another time he shook hands with a tormentor until the man's fingers started to bleed.
There are contradictory accounts of the anchor incident which may have taken place in New York or New Orleans, which is natural as many anecdotes about McAskill were collected by James Gillis more than forty years after the giant's death. French sailors apparently taunted MacAskill to lift an anchor lying on the wharf, which was estimated to weigh 2200-2700 pounds. MacAskill easily did so and walked down the wharf with it, but one of the anchor's flukes caught in one of his shoulders, crippling him. Almon, who talked with the Giant's younger brother John, said that Angus admitted lifting "that Anchor" but would not talk about it and that when Angus came home he was "as straight as an arrow". Mr. Almon believed that MacAskill must have lifted "that Anchor" in a "Press Lift" being braced between a solid and a moveable object but wonders how the fluke caught in his shoulder. However this did not kill him nor was it the cause of his death as he died many years later.
After a show business career demonstrating his size and strength in Europe and North America, he returned to his home community of Englishtown and purchased a gristmill and several other real estate holdings as well as a general store. One story is that a customer wanting to buy tea would be asked by the giant, "will you take a pound or a fistful?". Since tea was expensive in those times, most would ask for a fistful, not realizing that MacAskill's fist would easily hold more than a single pound of tea.
In the summer of 1863 MacAskill undertook a trip to the colonial capital at Halifax where he had been planning to sell produce and purchase stock for his store from the city's wholesalers which he would need for the winter season. During the trip he suddenly became seriously ill and was returned to St. Ann's where his family moved him back to his parents' home. His original childhood bed was hastily lengthened and put up in their living room to provide for his care. The doctor's diagnosis was brain fever. After a week's illness, MacAskill died peacefully in his sleep on August 8, 1863, the Rev. Abraham McIntosh, the Presbyterian minister, being in attendance and many neighbours in the house.
The Halifax Acadian Recorder of August 15, 1863 reported that "the well-known giant ... was by far the tallest man in Nova Scotia, perhaps in British America" and that "his mild and gentle manner endeared him to all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance". The whole county mourned and he was buried in the Englishtown Cemetery, alongside his parents, who were of normal proportions; the size of MacAskill's burial mound dwarfs those of his mother and father.[5]
MacAskill's presence lived on in Englishtown for many years where his timber-frame house sat on the edge of Kelly's Mountain, overlooking St. Ann's Harbour. The structure, with its massive door frames still stood, albeit in ruins, as late as the 1950s and the foundation was visible into the 1980s.
Around 1900 the Government of Nova Scotia replaced the family's original grave marker with a new one after the original had fallen into disrepair. Some of MacAskill's original personal effects from his house, including a bed frame, clothes and chair were removed for preservation and displayed for many years during the mid-20th century at the nearby Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts. These artifacts were moved back to Englishtown after the "Giant MacAskill Museum" was established in the late 1980s on a road-front portion of MacAskill's former property by the "Giant MacAskill Heirs Association". In addition to the collection from the Gaelic College, the museum in Englishtown also houses a more expanded collection of artifacts that had been previously maintained by family members.
The "Giant Angus MacAskill Museum" was also established in 1989 at Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye and is operated there by a community group; this museum having several replicated artifacts from the Englishtown museum.
In 1977, the provincial government's new cable ferry running across the 700 foot wide entrance to St. Ann's Harbour between Englishtown and Jersey Cove was christened as the Angus MacAskill. Despite the relatively short crossing, it became the busiest ferry service in Nova Scotia, carrying hundreds of thousands of vacationers and residents every year until its replacement in 2008 by the newly built vessel Torquil MacLean.
[edit] References
Retrieved *MacAskill.com
(This story is taken mainly from the book Two Remarkable Giants by Phyllis R. Blakeley, published in 1970, Lancelot Press, as well as many other known facts about Angus Mòr MacAskill)
