Martin Van Buren Bates


Martin Bates, known as the "Kentucky Giant" was an American man famed for his great height. The Guinness Book of World Records and other reputable sources have him listed at being tall and weighing.

Youth and growth

He began a big growth spurt at some time around the age of six or seven, and was over 6 ft tall and weighed over by the time he was twelve years old.

Civil War

Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, Bates joined the 5th Kentucky Infantry Confederate States Army, as a private, in 1861. His ferocity in battle and imposing figure saw him quickly promoted to the rank of captain. Bates was severely wounded in a battle around the Cumberland Gap area and captured and imprisoned at Camp Chase in Ohio, although he later escaped.

Adulthood and marriage

He returned to Kentucky after the war. Before the war, his first occupation was as a schoolteacher. While the circus was on tour in Halifax, Canada, the tall Anna Haining Swan visited. She and Martin soon got to know each other, and were married in 1871. The highly publicized wedding, at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, England, drew thousands of people to try to attend, due to both the uncommonness of the spectacle and the disarming good nature of the pair. Queen Victoria herself gave them two extra-large diamond-studded gold watches as wedding presents.
Martin and Anna moved to Ohio in 1872, settling in Seville. In 19 May 1872, Anna gave birth to a daughter, who weighed and died at birth.
The couple built a large house to accommodate themselves comfortably. He explains the next few years in his autobiography:

Final years

Anna Bates 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, Annette LaVonne Weatherby and lived a mostly peaceful life until his death in 1919 of nephritis.