When you say the word “daredevil,” what image springs to mind? After you picture the Marvel guy in the red suit, we mean. It’s probably a man, maybe in his 30s, dressed in a dazzling, sparkly leather outfit, wearing a crash test helmet on his head and flashing a pair of gleaming, crazy eyes, howling like a madman as he charges into a death-defying stunt at a hundred miles per hour.
That’s a fair assessment, we would say. After all, a daredevil is a showman looking to garner as much attention as possible, because more eyeballs on his antics means more money and fame. But what if we told you that the daredevil we have in mind for today was none of those things? In fact, she was a quiet, matronly widow in her 60s named Annie Edson Taylor.
She might not have looked the part, but make no mistake about it. Taylor’s daredevil credentials are as solid as it gets, and many others have risked (and sacrificed) life and limb in order to replicate her infamous feat – going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
Early Years
Annie Edson Taylor was born on October 24 near Auburn, New York. The actual year of her birth is a bit of a controversy. Every source on the matter says it was 1838…except for Taylor’s own account which she published following her leap into the falls, where she claims that her birth year was 1855. Normally, you’d think that the firsthand source should be the most reliable, but we know from her entry in the 1900 federal census that she was born in 1838. We assume that her version was a small display of vanity as Taylor attempted to de-age herself by 17 years.
Anyway, Annie was the fourth of seven children of Merrick Edson, a successful flour mill owner, and Lucretia Waring, a woman who, according to Annie again, had ties to some of the oldest families in Albany. Both parents died when Annie was still a young girl. We’re not sure about the mother, but Merrick Edson passed away when Annie was around 12 years old. A few years later, she was sent to a seminary school where she befriended her roommate, Jennie Taylor, and then Jennie’s brother, S. David Taylor. The friendship blossomed into a romance and Annie and David got married when she was 18.
Truth be told, the marriage is another aspect of Annie’s life that’s a bit…iffy. She claimed that it lasted less than two years before her husband died and that the couple had a child who also passed away a few days after it was born. Taylor also said that her husband was killed in the Civil War, or, at least, that he was a veteran. However, if she was born in 1855 as she claimed, that means she must have married him when she was about six years old, which doesn’t really track, does it? But even using her real birth year, it still doesn’t make sense because if Annie was born in 1838 and she met David Taylor at school and married him when she was 18, that means they got hitched in 1856 or thereabouts. And if the marriage lasted only two years, that means that David Taylor was dead years before the Civil War even started.
Basically, what we’re saying is that we can’t take Annie Taylor at her word. There is no solid proof that the two ever got married, or that David Taylor even existed, for that matter. So, in truth, the first 60 years of her life are a big question mark, but we’re not interested in that part, anyway. As best we can gather, for two-thirds of her life, Annie traveled from city to city all over the country, looking for stability but failing to find it. In some places, she tried to get various businesses off the ground, while in others, she worked as a music and dance teacher. She could afford to do this thanks to a generous inheritance from her parents. By 1901, though, Annie Edson Taylor was in Bay City, Michigan, and her funds had dwindled. She was looking for a way to secure her financial future, but how? Well, the answer was obvious, wasn’t it? Get in a barrel and go over Niagara Falls.
The Plan
The way Annie tells it, Niagara Falls was a very popular tourist destination at the time, thanks in part to the Pan-American Exposition, which was the world’s fair held in nearby Buffalo, New York. And if you’re the kind of person who likes random historical facts, here’s one for you – that was the place where US President William McKinley was assassinated on September 6, 1901.
“The idea came to [her] like a flash of light,” she said. “Go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. No one has ever accomplished this feat.’” And Taylor made no bones about it – she did it strictly for the money. If she made it, she thought that she would be set for life by earning an income from doing lecture tours, making appearances at fairs and expositions, and selling her little souvenir memoir, which we’ve been using liberally for the video. If she didn’t make it…well, at least she wouldn’t have to worry about money, anymore.
Taylor was right that going over in a barrel was a novel idea, but the falls had already proven to be a popular spot for daredevils. Sam Patch aka the “Yankee Leaper” was probably the best-known example. Back in 1829, he jumped 175 feet into the river at the base of Niagara Falls from a platform. Then there were others who braved the Whirlpool Rapids inside a barrel, but up until Annie Taylor, nobody thought (or should we say “dared”) to take the plunge over the falls. And for good reason. Attempting any kind of stunt at Niagara was incredibly dangerous and many lives were lost both before and after Annie’s experience. In 1883, Captain Matthew Webb drowned trying to swim the Niagara Gorge, and he had been the first person to swim the English Channel without assistance. Baseball Hall of Famer Ed Delahanty drowned in 1903 after falling in the Niagara River while drunk. And other daredevils such as Charles Stephens and William “Red” Hill Jr. perished trying to recreate Annie Taylor’s feat. And that’s not taking into account the numerous people who committed suicide by jumping into the waters of Niagara. Since 1850, authorities have recovered over 5,000 bodies at the base of the falls, and since 1951, it has been illegal to attempt any kind of stunt at the falls.
If she were to have any hope of surviving, Taylor was going to need a sturdy barrel. Not just to protect her, but also because she wanted it intact to use as a showpiece for her post-plunge career. Annie designed it herself, shaping it out of paper and sewing it with twine. She then hired the Bocenchia Cooperage Company in West Bay City, Michigan, to construct the actual barrel. It was four-and-a-half-foot high, made out of white oak, and weighed 160 lbs. Inside, there were two metal handholds, a leather strap to keep her in place, and as much padding as possible while still leaving room for Taylor to fit inside. Besides the woman, there was also space for a 200-lb anvil to be attached to the bottom of the barrel, so that it would right itself should it roll over.
The barrel seemed strong enough, but there was only one way to find out for sure – chuck it over the falls. On October 19, 1901, a few days before Taylor took the plunge herself, the barrel was sent on a test dive. This time, the passenger was a cat named Iagara. A bit cruel perhaps, but the men who recovered the barrel said that the animal was frisky and unharmed when the barrel was opened and that it scurried into the bushes. There is a photograph (that we’ve probably used ourselves) that purportedly depicts Annie Taylor posing with her barrel and her feline companion, but it’s unclear if that is the cat or just a cat. The point is that the test was a success, so now it was time for Taylor to make the jump.
The Jump
It was 2:00 o’clock on October 23, 1901, and Annie and her barrel were on the dock at Niagara, surrounded by the media. Wisely, she previously realized that showmanship wasn’t exactly her strong suit, so she hired a local promoter named Frank M. Russell to drum up as much attention to her stunt as possible. He did his job well and thousands of people lined up on both sides of Horseshoe Falls to see Taylor go on her fateful voyage.
You might think that Annie’s ordeal was dangerous, nerve-wracking, and painful, but at least it was short. But you would be wrong because Taylor was stuck inside that barrel for almost an hour since she was put in the water a mile away from the falls. At 3:50 pm, a boat started towing her and fifteen minutes later, she was left at the mercy of the violent currents. Barring a few moments when the barrel got lost in the waves, it stayed in sight of the on-lookers for the entire duration. It went over the falls at 4:23 pm on the Canadian side, falling bottom-side down. The barrel appeared at the base of Horseshoe Falls a minute later and, by 4:40, a team of men had managed to retrieve it. They were about to open the hatch but the question was – would they be rescuing a person or recovering a body?
Annie Taylor was…well, we’re not going to say “fine” because she was a little worse for wear – she was bleeding from a cut on her head, her shoulders hurt, and she was in a state of shock. However, given that she had just gone over Niagara Falls, she was in tip-top shape.
Annie Taylor’s stunt had succeeded but what about her goal? Did the plunge set her up for life financially? Well, not really. She did alright at first. Newspapers proclaimed her the “Queen of the Mist,” lauded her bravery, and even reported that she had received an offer of marriage. Annie made some money selling her memoir, giving speeches, and posing for photo ops, but these only lasted as long as people were still interested. What she did was a quirky novelty, but the appeal eventually waned and the public moved on to the next thing.
To further add to her woes, when the money started to dry up, her manager deserted her and took the barrel with him. Taylor used some of the cash she saved up to hire private investigators to recover the barrel but with no luck. Ultimately, she had a replica made and spent her days on the streets of Niagara Falls, posing for pictures and selling postcards. But this was not enough to earn a good income, and Annie Edson Taylor died in the poorhouse, mostly forgotten, on April 29, 1921. Some friends of hers raised enough funds to give her a burial near the falls where she had her brief moment of glory.
In her later years, Annie expressed regret for her stunt. She said she would “rather face a cannon than go over the falls again.”
