Capt. Charles W. Oldrieve to-day accomplished the feat of walking on the water from Cincinnati to New Orleans, a distance of 1,600 miles, in forty days, lacking forty-five minutes, thereby winning a wager of $5,000.

Oldrieve met with an accident just before reaching the goal, at the head of Canal Street, that nearly cost him his life. His big wooden shoes suddenly slid outward and the water walker turned turtle. His wife, who accompanied him all the way in a rowboat, rescued the Captain.

Oldrieve left Cincinnati Jan. 1 at noon on a wager that he would walk to New Orleans in forty days. At the falls above Louisville he was delayed for twenty-four hours, and that time, it was agreed, should be allowed for. Oldrieve was in motion only during daylight, lying over every night at the various landings. He was equipped with shoes made of cedar 4 feet 5 inches long, 5 inches broad, and several inches deep. In a gasoline boat preceding the water walker were Capt. J.W. Weatherington of Dallas, Texas, who backed Oldrieve, and Arthur Jones, who represented Edward Williams of Boston, who laid the wager.

— New York Times, Feb. 11, 1907

In 1822, frontiersman Hugh Glass joined a corps of 100 “enterprising young men” to ascend the Missouri River on a fur-trapping expedition. At the Grand River he was attacked by a grizzly bear; he and his companions managed to kill it, but Glass was badly mauled. The expedition’s leader offered $40 for volunteers to remain with Glass until he died or could travel. The two men who accepted this charge, John Fitzgerald and Jim Bridger, waited a short interval and then simply took Glass’ belongings and rejoined the expedition, reporting that they’d buried the body.

Glass awoke mutilated, alone, and unprovisioned 200 miles from the nearest settlement. He crawled south for six weeks, foraging on berries, roots, and the carcasses of buffalo, before he reached the Cheyenne River, where he fashioned a raft and floated to Fort Kiowa on the Missouri. Then he set out to seek revenge.

He found Bridger on the Yellowstone near the mouth of the Bighorn River, and decided to spare him because of his youth (Bridger had been only 17 when he’d abandoned Glass). He found Fitzgerald at Fort Atkinson, where he was serving as a private in the Sixth Infantry. George Yount recounts the climax:

Glass found the recreant individual, who had so cruelly deserted him, when he lay helpless & torn so shockingly by the Grizzly Bear–He also there recovered his favorite Rifle–To the man he only addressed himself as he did to the boy– ‘Go false man & answer to your own conscience & to your God;–I have suffered enough in all reason by your perfidy–You was well paid to have remained with me until I should be able to walk–You promised to do so–or to wait my death & decently bury my remains–I heard the bargain–Your shameful perfidy & heartless cruelty–but enough–Again I say, settle the matter with your own conscience & your God.’

He told Fitzgerald’s commanding officer, “I reckon the skunk ain’t worth shooting after all.”

Sir.–I have recently, on a visit to Mr. Gee’s plantation three miles south of Quincy, Gadsden county, in this territory, observed a natural curiosity, the following description of which may be interesting to you and many of the readers of the American Journal of Arts and Science.

It is a yellow pine tree bearing another in a perfectly healthful and flourishing state, like itself and those in the woods around them. The trees, as represented in this sketch, are united about thirty five feet from the ground, where they entwine around each other. The one that is borne, (marked A,) extends down, to within about two feet of the ground, and is alive and healthful to its lowest extremity.

These trees have been, in the condition in which they now are, for a period longer back than the first settlement of the country by the present population. They were pointed out by the Indians as a curiosity to the first Americans who came to Florida. The stump of the tree which is borne, has long since disappeared, and the place which it occupied, is now grown up in small bushes and grass.

— Lt. George W. Long, Tallahassee, Fla., in American Journal of Science and Arts, July 1834

The pastoral farm of Dalgonar is situated near the source of the Skarr Water, in the parish of Penpont, Dumfriesshire. The ridge of hills on the farm as per Ordnance Survey is 1580 feet above sea-level. There are only five trees on the farm–two ash and three larch. An extraordinary occurrence presented itself to the eyes of Mr. Wright, my informant, at the end of October 1889, on this farm, which has been narrated to me in a letter received from him, as follows:–

‘I was struck by a strange appearance in the atmosphere, which I at first mistook for a flock of birds, but as I saw them falling to the earth my curiosity was quickened. Fixing my eyes on one of the larger of them, and running about 100 yards up the hill until directly underneath, I awaited its arrival, when I found it to be an oak leaf. Looking upwards the air was thick with them, and as they descended in an almost vertical direction, oscillating and glittering in the sunshine, the spectacle was as beautiful as rare. The wind was from the north, blowing a very gentle breeze, and there were occasional showers of rain.

‘On examination of the hills after the leaves had fallen, it was found that they covered a tract of about a mile wide and two miles long. The leaves were wholly those of the oak. No oak trees grow in clumps together nearer than eight miles. The aged shepherd, who has been on the farm since 1826, never witnessed a similar occurrence.’

— James Shaw, Tynron School, Dumfriesshire, in Nature, Oct. 30, 1890

In 1928, to capitalize on the nation’s enthusiasm for marathons, sports promoter C.C. Pyle proposed “the world’s greatest single athletic project”: a 3,400-mile footrace from Los Angeles to New York City.

Pyle stressed that the winner “must have guts and stamina,” and this proved to be an understatement. Of the 200 runners who showed up at the start on March 4, 77 had quit by the end of the first day, and only 91 remained by early April. “His left ankle was swollen to twice its normal size,” said the wife of Illinois’ Frank Johnson, who dropped out after 900 miles. “His lips were cracked so badly he bled when he tried to eat.”

But the race wore on, and on May 26, 55 exhausted runners stumbled into New York, where Oklahoma’s Andy Payne took first place with a time of 573 hours, 4 minutes, and 34 seconds. He’d won $25,000 and worn out five pairs of rubber-soled canvas shoes.

Payne paid off the mortgage on his family’s farm and went on to serve as clerk of the Oklahoma supreme court for 38 years. “One can’t be an athlete all his life, but he can use the same desire that made him,” he said. “For clean living, for love of God and country.”

Extract from the logbook of the ship Leonidas, sailing from New York toward Le Havre, May 1817, latitude 44°6′ north; cited in American Journal of Science, April 1820:

First part of the day light variable winds and cloudy; at two P.M. on the larboard quarter, at the distance of about half the ship’s length, saw a strange fish. Its lower parts were like a fish; its belly was all white; the top of the back brown, and there was the appearance of short hair as far as the top of its head. From the breast upwards, it had a near resemblance to a human being and looked upon the observers very earnestly; as it was but a short distance from the ship, all the afternoon, we had a good opportunity to observe its motions and shape. No one on board ever saw the like fish, before; all believe it to be a Mermaid.

The second mate Mr. Stevens, an intelligent young man, told me the face was nearly white, and exactly like that of a human person; that its arms were about half as long as his, with hands resembling his own; that it stood erect out of the water about two feet, looking at the ship and sails with great earnestness. It would remain in this attitude, close along side, ten or fifteen minutes at a time, and then dive and appear on the other side. It remained around them about six hours. Mr. Stevens also stated that its hair was black on the head and exactly resembled a man’s; that below the arms, it was a perfect fish in form, and that the whole length from the head to the tail about five feet.

“Communicated by Mr. Elisha Lewis of New-Haven, a respectable merchant.”

While discharging a fare of codfish from the schooner Vinnie M. Getchell, at Gloucester, Mass., on September 15, 1886, Capt. John Q. Getchell, master of the vessel, found imbedded in the thick flesh of a large cod a knife of curious workmanship represented by the accompanying illustration. …

The fish in which the knife was found was one of a fare caught in 75 fathoms of water on the northeast part of George’s Bank; it was apparently healthy, being thick and ‘well-fed,’ and according to Captain Getchell, would weigh about 40 pounds after being split, or say 60 pounds as it came from the water. The general excellent quality of the fare of fish attracted considerable attention from people who saw them, and led to the discovery of the knife. Some remarks having been made concerning the fish, Captain Getchell lifted several of them from a tub (where they had been thrown to wash after being weighed) and exhibited them to the by-standers, commenting on the size and thickness of the specimens. Holding one across the edge of the tub in a semi curved position, he ran his hand over the thicker portion of the fish to call attention to its fatness. In doing so, he felt something hard beneath his fingers, and further examination produced the knife. Of course much surprise was expressed by those present, who had never before seen such a strangely formed implement, and speculation was rife as to how it came there. When found, the knife-blade was closed, and the small or posterior end of the handle was the part first felt by Captain Getchell, and was nearest the tail of the fish.

The handle of the knife is of brass, curved and tapering posteriorly, with a longitudinal incision, on the concave side, to receive the edge of the blade. The handle is remarkable in form, and is suggestive of the handiwork of some savage tribe or the scrimshaw work of a sailor. … The blade is lanceolate in form, with the cutting edge curved outward, to fit into the handle, and the back nearly straight. … The total length, from point to point in a straight line, is 6 1/4 inches.

— Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Dec. 31, 1886

It’s one thing to shoot a bear, another to take its dignity. From a feature on “animal furniture” in Strand, August 1896:

“This obsequious-looking bear was shot in Russia by no less a personage than the Prince of Wales; and for years it has ‘waited’ meekly in the smoking-room at Marlborough House.”

Evidently this was the vogue in the 1860s. Further examples:

• A chair made from a baby giraffe shot in British East Africa
• A pet monkey converted into a candle holder (“Mr. Jamrach, the famous wild beast importer, was vexed with orders for dead monkeys”)
• A black swan table lamp, made to order for a wealthy Australian gentleman
• A “tiger chair” made for a gentleman in the Indian Civil Service (“Observe the ingenious way in which the tail is disposed, as though the tiger were coiled right round the chair”)
• A small elephant made into a hall porter’s chair

Gandhi would later write, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

Babies were featured in carnival sideshows in the early 20th century, as part of a campaign by German pediatrician Martin Couney to introduce incubators to the public. He had started at the World Exposition in Berlin in 1896, displaying premature babies borrowed from a local charity hospital, then moved to London the following year. The Lancet expressed some misgivings about associating babies with carnival showmen, but it supported Couney’s exhibit and the principle of incubation.

Couney moved to the United States in 1903 and displayed babies at Coney Island every summer for 40 years. Because he charged the parents nothing, the exhibition brought the expensive procedure within reach of needy families, saving hundreds of lives as it educated the public. “Dr. Couney’s Baby Farm” remained open until 1943, shortly after Cornell University opened the city’s first neonatal unit, and a number of adults who had been treated there met regularly in New York.