The Giants

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.