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Angus MacAskill - 7'9" (236.2 cm)
Angus Mňr 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 (80 inches).
MacAskill was born on the Isle of Berneray in the Sound of Harris, Scotland. His father was Norman MacAskill who stood 5 feet 9 inches tall, and his mother was Christina Campbell and Angus had twelve siblings, several of whom died young. Apparently Angus was an ordinary-sized baby. After several years in Stornoway, Outer Hebrides, the family settled in the fishing community of Englishtown, Cape Breton Island around 1831.
As a child he was also 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 9 in (236 cm) within another year or two. His early adult weight was 425 pounds, but usually was over 500 pounds. His shoulders were 44 in. wide, and the palm of his hand 8 in. wide and 12 in. long; by 1863 he was wearing boots 17.5 in. long. He had deep-set blue eyes, a musical, if somewhat hollow voice and a mild and pleasant manner. Despite his size he was well proportioned.
He was known in his home community of St. Ann's as "Gille Mňr" (translated to "Big Boy"). He was also known to many as the "Cape Breton Giant" or simply "Giant MacAskill."
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. An altercation with a dancer led to MacAskill striking his tormentor's jaw with his fist . That gentleman landed in the middle of the floor and was unconscious for so long the other dancers thought he was dead. When the captain returned to his schooner he found MacAskill on his knees praying that he had not killed the man.
MacAskill was well known for 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. In 1853 he toured the West Indies and Cuba. 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.
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 single-handedly set a 40-foot mast into a schooner.
There are various accounts of an incident with an anchor that may have taken place in New York or New Orleans,. 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. However this was not the cause of his death as he lived for many years thereafter. His brother denies the story about the crippling as he stated that Angus was as straight as an arrow when he came home that day.
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.
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 new vessel on the Englishtown Ferry, a 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.
There is a lot of controversy about Angus' real height. If the big picture below is indeed Angus, as his predecessors believe, he was not even close to the 7'9" attributed to him (more like 6'10"). However, the stories about him come in such vast quantities than you have to believe that there is an element of truth in them. Also, a picture has emerged on e-bay with a picture of Angus as we all know him, but with a different desription on the back. The description mentiones a certain Captain Meredith Sullivan who fought in the Civil War. That story has now (almost) proven to be wrong, but other pictures, very similar to the one of Angus, have emerged stating that it was Jean Bihin, the Belgium giant, in the picture. you can read and join it all here: Angus MacAskill, General Sullivan A. Meredith or Jean Bihin .
So if it is not Angus MacAskill (what we believe), then there are pictures of Angus with other people apart from the one with General Tom Thumb and from that picture we can't determine his true height. For that reason, we go with the 7'9" for Big Angus.
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What's new?
12-03-2010:
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11-03-2010:
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10-03-2010:
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05-03-2010:
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Three new Books on Giants added (in .pdf format): Quelques Geants Americains (1909) by Blanchard, Giants and Giantism (1895) by Dana and Some famous giants (1897) by Smythies.
04-03-2010:
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03-03-2010:
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02-03-2010:
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10-02-2010:
New page(s) added for Leah May and Elizabeth Lyska.
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09-02-2010:
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04-02-2010:
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Newspaper clipping(s) about Sandy Allen, Francis Sheridan, Clifford Marshall Thompson, Henry Mullens, Bernard Coyne, Delores Pullard, Conrad Furrows, Angus MacAskill, Anna Haining Swan, Robert Wadlow, Baptiste Hugo and Zeng Jinlian added.
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Newspaper clipping(s) about Sandy Allen, Lars Tollefson Opsata and Christopher Greener added.
I have also moved one picture from Lock Martin's page to Max Palmer's page.
30-01-2010:
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Newspaper clipping(s) about Albert Brough, Charles Byrne, Patrick Cotter O'Brien, Christopher Greener and Jim Porter added.
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28-01-2010:
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26-01-2010:
New page(s) added for Jakob Nacken. New image(s) of Jack Earle added.
Two medical articles about Frederick Kempster added. Based on new medical and photographic evidence (and the usual pressure :-)) I have upgraded Frederick Kempster's height.
[....some older news snipped....]
17-06-2009: Installed discussion forum. You can join it here...
12-06-2009: Started building the website.
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