I am excited to share my
latest adventure with you my dear readers. As many of you know, I am a
story teller. Love to talk to groups about some of our Kentucky
characters. Happy Chandler, James Still, Bad John Wright are a few along
with the Kentucky River Giant, Martin Van Buren Bates.
Bates was born in
Letcher County in 1837 and grew to probably 7'5" and was considered to be
the tallest man in the world at that time. He married the tallest woman
in the world--she still is--and together they were and still are the tallest
couple that ever lived. They led exciting challenging lives which is what
makes them interesting to me. She was from Nova Scotia and he was from
Kentucky but they settled in Saville, Ohio about 22 miles from Akron.
Their farm was 160 acres (1/4th of a square mile). They built a house and
barn to fit them--14 ' high ceilings, 8 1/2 high doors, a 10 ' long bed and
then stocked it with the largest animals they could find. Their horses
stood 18 hands high and their cows were giants as were the rest of their
animals.
So my adventure was to
visit Ohio last weekend to raise some funds for the Giants Museum there.
The people that operated the Museum and Historical Society treated us like
royalty. They took us through the museum and drove us out to the farm to
see the barn that still stands. They still raise the Budweiser sized
horses there and they gave me one of the horse shoes--it is big enough to fit
around a girl's basketball. They also treated us to a very nice lunch and
took us to the local cemetery where the giants are entombed.
Anna died first and
Martin had an 8' tall likeness of her sculpted in Italy. The
sandstone statue stands atop a 10' high marble base so together her monument
reaches 18 . into the sky.
After the tours I spoke
to a nice group of people at a nearby hall. We raised some money for
the museum and had a wonderful time visiting with the giants museum supporters
in Saville. Bonnie Aker went with me to take photographs. Together
we plan on developing a coffee table book to tell the love story of the two
giants.
Ernie Benko from ARC
Television in Norton, Virginia also met us there to film the events from
which they will produce a DVD of our time there. The museum will be
able to sell the DVD's to raise more funds for their museum. If you would
like to help their museum by buying a copy of my booklet called A Giant Love
Affair for $6 or to order a copy of the DVD when they are ready for
distribution just send me a note at Richard.crowe@ymail.com. The good news that we got when we
returned home was that the Letcher County group hoping to build a museum
for the giants here, had made their last payment on the land for the museum
site. Now just a building and a statue to go and they will become one of
three giants museums and his story will continue to be told.
