Anna Haining Swan And Martin Van Buren Bates: The Tallest Married Couple Ever
Public DomainAnna Haining Swan and Martin Van Buren Bates both stood nearly 8 feet tall.
After discussing some of the tallest people ever, we’ll next to turn to some of the tallest couples ever. The first is Anna Haining Swan and Martin Van Buren Bates, who both stood nearly 8 feet tall. Because of their impressive height, they’re considered the tallest married couple ever recorded.
Swan — who was taller — clocked in at 7 feet, 11 inches. She was born in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, in 1846. Her parents likely had an inkling that she would be bigger than normal: Swan was 16 pounds at birth.
By the time she was 11 years old, Swan was 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighed 200 pounds. By the age of 18, Swan reached her full height of 7 feet, 11 inches. By that point, she had caught the eye of P.T. Barnum. The famous showman invited Swan to perform in his New York Museum, which she did for several years (and narrowly escaped two fires that took place there). When Barnum set out on a tour in 1869, Swan agreed to go along.
And it was on that tour that Swan met Martin Van Buren Bates.
Born in Kentucky as a normal-sized infant, Bates started growing fast at the age of seven. By the time he was 12, he was 6 feet tall and 200 pounds. And when Bates enlisted in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, his height was recorded as 7 feet, 9 inches (Bates also weighed 500 pounds).
After the war, Bates joined Barnum’s tour of “curiosities” — which is where he met Swan. The two swiftly fell in love and got married in 1871.
The Wellcome CollectionA depiction of Anna Haining Swan and Martin Van Buren Bates’ wedding in 1871.
They welcomed two children — both of whom were unusually large — but their babies sadly did not survive past infancy.
Swan died in 1888 at age 41, and Bates marked her grave with a statue of a Greek goddess. He passed away at age 81 in 1919, and was buried by her side.
