History of Open-Water

Marathon Swimming

With excerpts and derivations from the book…

Presented by
Captain Timothy M. Johnson, PE
Assistant Professor
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
johnsont@wit.edu
What can one expect to learn
from a history book?
 Past history
– Confirmation of knowledge
– Insight on known events
– Learn a personal viewpoint
 Enlightenment
– New information
– New way to interpret events
– A different way to view the present
– A new perspective for the future
History consists of recollections
Sometimes our memories
are blank and they need
illumination.
Histories should answer basic
questions
 When was the first swim?
 What were the events that shaped
swimming?
 Who were the key individuals?
 What was their motivation?
 What’s changed over the years?
Let’s look at swimming lore
 Discovered in the last forty years is a drawing found
on the inside cover of an sarcophagus at Paestum,
Italy. The drawing dates from the 6th Century BC.
The drawing is known as The Divers Tomb.
Earliest swimming race
 From the London Times,
September 7, 1791, we find
mention of a swimming race
from the Westminster Bridge to
London Bridge in the Thames
River by three contestants.
Neither the time of the winner
nor any of the names were
included in the short article; so
new to newspapers was sports
reporting. In fact, the event
possibly would not have made
any news at all except that the
winner was carried on the
shoulder of the crowd to a public
house to celebrate where he
drank so much gin, he “expired”.
A social need for learning to
swim existed
 A family went on a picnic/vacation to a lake. When one member began
drowning, family members, one by one, tried to save the first family member.
Everyone in the family except the baby was drown.
 In 1875, a young man decided to learning to swim at the NYAC. He jumped
into the water right at the club dock in the Harlem River, in view of and next to
other NYAC members who knew how to swim. When he began struggling in
the water, no one stepped forth to save him. Maybe they thought it was a
practical joke. He drown. There was no lifeguard on duty, the people present
didn’t know how to rescue a drowning swimmer nor that a beginning swimmer
should start in shallow water.
 Three couples went boating on a lake. When the boat capsized accidentally,
one of the men managed to make it to shore with his wife but the other two
couples perished. Four children drown while bathing in Lake Michigan.
 A fisherman slipped off a rock into a creek. His cousin who could swim that
came to his rescue wound up in his drowning cousin’s grasp and both went
over the falls just below their position.
 These and other events were the reason the New York Times wrote opinion
pieces, editorials, and otherwise argued for people to learn to swim year after
year until 1930 when they announced that everyone knew how to swim.
The first great American
swimmer Capt. Paul Boyton
 A New Jersey lifeguard’s desire to
save more people from drowning
led him to introduce new
technology in the form of a full
body suit made of Indian rubber
that was inflatable. Dressed in his
lifesaving suit and using a paddle,
he crossed the English Channel
as a demonstration of its
usefulness on May 29, 1875. His
success launched a local hero,
Capt. Webb on his crossing sans
lifesaving suit on August 25, 1875.
Paul Boyton traveled the world
demonstrating the suit and
pioneering ocean and river swims
that are still duplicated today.
Swimming baths of the late 1800’s
 In this drawing from Harper’s Bazaar magazine we see a
French bath “on the Seine”, meaning the river’s water flow was
directed into the tank to fill it. Thus the origin of the term tank
for a swimming pool. Originally, pools were nothing but tubs
filled with water.
Swimming baths of New York
 Starting in the 1850’s you could visit the People’s Wash and Bath
House on Mott Street and go swimming using large swimming tubs.
The lure of the rivers around Manhattan served as the default
swimming hole. Diving off the piers and wharfs of NY, young men and
boys taught each other how to swim.
 The first documented swimming bath, New York Swimming Academy,
opened in 1867 at 6th Ave. and 33rd. It had a 25 yd heated pool,
changing rooms, ventilation, showers and a snack bar. This business
plan for the operation sounds strangely familiar.
 By 1870, NY City began opening portable swimming baths. Enclosed
tanks moored in slips and fed from the rivers. New York City recorded
3.4 million admissions over the summer season of 1881. Certain days
were women only.
 The NYAC built their indoor pool on the 3rd floor of their clubhouse on
Central Park South in 1885.
 Photo is of the first home to have an indoor swimming pool. Built in
1581 for the family of Johann Fugger a cloth merchant in Augsburg,
Austria.
NGOs to the rescue
 Non-governmental organizations (NGO) responded to this social need
to teach the populace to swim over time. The agency in charge of data
information for the US government doesn’t even have records of
drowning before 1900.
 The American Red Cross under the guidance of Clara Burton
expanded the role of the Red Cross to include disasters. Their first
official act to respond to this need was to hire Wilbert Longfellow in
1914 to promote water safety. They established standards and
procedures to certify proficiency in swimming, lifesaving and water
safety.
 The YMCA contribution was to provide the pools in which people would
learn to swim. The first Y pool was the Brooklyn Central YMCA in
1885. The first mass learn-to-swim effort was organized by George
Corsan in 1907 at the Detroit YMCA; his innovation was to first teach
the swim strokes on land. By 1909 the Y launched the first campaign
to teach every boy to swim in the US and Canada. Corsan introduced
awarding buttons for proficiency. In 1910, the Kansas City Y pool
installed a filtration system on their tank. William Ball, a Y National
Board member encouraged the Red Cross to include lifesaving in their
program.
Competitive Swimming
 Swimming contests were first organized as open-water events.
In August of 1872, the swimming school of Richard Allen located
at 54th street sponsored a contest in the East River. The women
swam ½ mile; boys, a mile; and men, 2 miles.
 The first Championship of American was held in August of 1874
between Alexander Trautz, the Champion of America, and J. B.
Johnson, the Champion of England at Long Branch, New Jersey
sponsored by The Ocean House. JB had defeated Frederick
Cavill in a race in the Thames for the Swimming Championship
of 1873. After 3 postponements due to inclimate weather on the
ocean side, the race was held in the sheltered water of Pleasure
Bay and Johnson easily defeated Trautz.
 These races were “stake” races. The winner picked up $2000
and a Tiffany Cup. Even when Gertrude Ederle swam the
channel in 1925, the odds were 7 to 1 that she would set a
record. These numbers were published in the NY Times.
More Competitive races
 The Harlem River became a popular swimming venue. The
NYAC began holding their club races there and a few
championships.
 In 1878, Dennis Butler of Brooklyn, age 22, won the first race he
ever entered, a mile swim against all comers. He went on to
have a minor career in swimming.
 One championship swimmer of 1882, Edward Cone, only had
one arm but was so skillful a swimmer that he had to give
everyone a head start ranging from 3 to 11 seconds for the 100
yd. For the ½ mile race, he give his opponent a 3½ minute head
start. He won both races.
 The first AAU swimming championship was held at the NYAC
Travers Island course in 1888. The winner was Herman Braun
of the Pastime Athletic Club over 100 yards in a time of 1:16.2.
Early long distance swims in the
United States
 Ten miles in the Delaware River was first swum in August of
1875 by JB Johnson in another Championship of America.
Johnson defeated Thomas Coyle upstream from Philadelphia
and picked up another easy $2000. The losing contestant
complained he had been poisoned so JB swam the race a
second time and watched his opponent get pulled from the
water after 7 miles.
 Two Germans immigrants swam from Yankee Stadium in the
Harlem River, down the East River, and on to Staten Island in
1878 for the Long Distance Championship of America. It was
won by Kunno Dimmers, age 31, a photographer in a time of
5:36
 In 1879, Capt. Webb swam 10 miles across the entrance to NY
harbor, from Sandy Hook, NJ, to Manhattan Beach along Coney
Island.
An unusual occurrence
 In 1864 in London, two American Indians,
Tobacco and Flying Gull, swam an exhibition
reportedly going 130 feet in 30 seconds
leaving their British hosts far behind. Their
stroke was a native American freestyle that
was considered too ungentlemanly because
of all the splashing. Their time was
equivalent to 34.5 second for a 50 yard
swim. Can you imagine the difference it
would have made if their stokes had been
adopted by swimmers?
Meet Odlum’s Fate or Share
Brodie’s Fame
 The Brooklyn bridge was open on May 24, 1883 to great fanfare. On May 19,
1885, Robert Odium, a owner of a failed swimming pool operation in
Washington, DC, needed some publicity to open another swimming
establishment in Coney Island. He decided to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. He
died from injuries sustain in the jump from the span. Capt. Boyton’s pulled his
body from the East River waters.
 Steve Brodie next tried the jump and was successful on July 23, 1886. He got
two columns on the front of the NY Times for his effort, a wrenching jail house
interview. He sounded like a sad and confused young man with a wife and
family who did the jump to pay off some gambling debts. He got a job at the
sideshow in Coney Island as a result. 5 jumpers followed Brodie in quick
succession and all were stopped, one provided the mantra copied by the
newspaper seen above.
 The next time we hear of Steve is in 1888, he is swimming down the Hudson
River in pursuit of Boyton’s record. He managed 6 days and 1 hour. This is
Brodie’s real contribution to swimming history, the first man to swim the Hudson
River.
 Recent historian give Steve a bad rap saying he couldn’t possibly have made the jump and
that he swam out to where a dummy was dropped. As as you can see, visibility precludes a
swim being unobserved nor could he stay in position due to the currents.
The rest of the story…
 The stint at Coney Island where he exhibited himself in a dime museum was a
first step in capitalizing on his fame. Steve next opened a saloon on the Bowery
and had a mural memorializing his leap hung behind the bar. He became an
actor portraying himself in “On the Bowery”. He became financially independent
and eventually moved to Buffalo, NY where he established another saloon.
 On September 7, 1889, Steve pushes off from shore at Niagara Falls wearing
Boyton’s lifesaving suit and becomes the first person to survive the encounter.
He was arrested, tried, and convicted in Canadian court for his actions.
Testimony under oath was heard from witnesses of his actions in the trial. He
left town in a hurry and was forgotten by all leaving the honor of the first to be
claimed by Annie Taylor in 1901.
 Steve died in 1901 of tuberculosis and this might be the reason that he never
protested the right to this “honor.” What didn’t help was a stunt in 1989 where
he hoaxed his own death and then reappeared in NY after the newspapers
published his obituary.
 Steve appeared as an actor, playing himself in the play “On the Bowery”. He
also hoaxed his death in 1898, appearing in NY after the obituaries ran.
 The saloon that he opened in Buffalo was next owned by the Marx Brothers who
changed it into an Edison Penny Arcade.
Swimming Stroke improvement

Year/Stroke Swimmer/location 100yd time

1865/Breast Boys school/Eton 1:25
1884/side Magee/Harlem River 1:21.5
1887/side H. Braun/Harlem 1:17.2
1888/side H. Braun/Travers 1:16.2*
1893/Trudgeon Arthur Kenny/Montreal 1:11.5
1895/Trudgeon J. H. Thayres of England 1:02.5
1900/Trudgeon Freddy Lane of England 1:00
1902/Australian Crawl Fred Cavill of Australia 58.4
1904/Australian Crawl Kiernan of Australia 58.0
1906/American Crawl Charlie Daniels of NYAC 56.0
1910/American Crawl Charlie Daniels of NYAC 54.8
A Great Swim—Forgotten
 Charles Durborow,from Philadelphia tried to swim from the Battery in lower
Manhattan to Sandy Hook, NJ, a distance of 22 miles in 1910. He wasn’t able to
complete the swim and after 3 tries he gave up. Commodore Alfred Brown of
the Life-Saving Service picked up the effort in 1913 and on his 2nd attempt on
August 28, 1913, successfully made it in a time of 13:38. Two week later,
Samuel Richards of Boston, managed a 8:13 on Sept. 14, 1913. Durborow was
insulted and challenged his successors to a race. The New York Tribune picked
up the idea and sponsored a race that occurred annual from 1914 until 1924
when the paper folded.
 In the first race in 1914, all the protagonists appeared with a relative youngster
winning, George Meehan, age 23, in a time of 7:18 swimming sidestroke. He
was followed by Samuel Richards (an hour later), then Walter Dunn also of
Boston and then in last place was Charles Durborow. Four finishers out of 31
starters. Charles in 1916 would pioneer another swim, the Chesapeake Bay
swim crossing the entrance from the Maryland’s eastern shore peninsula to
Cape Henry Virginia, a 13 mile swim in 8:43; a night swim.
 In 1925, Gertrude Ederle, swimming solo as a warm-up for her channel crossing
swam from the Battery to Sandy Hook and set a record time of 7:11. No one
has swam this course since. This is a Gertrude Ederle swimming record that
has stood for 81 years when Tammy van Wisse broke the record by over 2
hours on July 21, 2006 with a time of 5 hours, 6 minutes and 48 seconds..
The Manhattan Island marathon
swim
 The first swim around Manhattan was on September 5, 1915 by Robert Dowling,
age 18, a NYAC member. He started at the top of Manhattan at Spuyten Dyvil
and swam counterclockwise around the island in 13:45. All but one swim since
have taken the same direction around Manhattan.
 Individuals made solo swims around Manhattan sporadically until the late 1920s
when a professional swimming organization ran a race around Manhattan for 3
years. To promote this swim, Bryon Summers set a record around Manhattan of
8:57 in 1927 and established a new starting location: East 96th Street at Hells
Gate.
 Following this there were several swims: Diane Struble in 1959 who completed
the first swim from the Battery, Diana Nyiad in 1975 in a time of 7:57, and then
the odd marathon swimmer or two: Tom Hetzel, George Kauffmann, and Ben
Huggard.
 In July of 1982, Drury Gallagher made a memorial swim around Manhattan and
set a record, 7:14. He announced the formation of an organization to host an
annual swim in honor of his son which has made this swim the marathon swim
for nearly 25 years.
The Manhattan swim record
 The annual swim is designed so the average swimmer can
complete it in less than 9 hours and hundreds have taken
advantage of this current assisted circumswim.
 The record around Manhattan is swum on fast tides, sometimes
in the middle of the night. Here is the list:
Date Name Time Tide
8/8/1983 Paul Asmuth 6:48 2.3
9/7/1983 Drury Gallagher 6:41 2.5
10/15/1985 Shelley Taylor 6:12 2.6
8/29/1992 Kris Rutford 5:54 2.6
7/14/1995 Shelley Taylor 5:45 2.7
10/8/2006 The next swimmer’s tide 2.7
In Summary

 These swim and many, many more are

included in the book History of Open-Water
Marathon Swimming written with the point of
view that swimmers never swim alone. Their
coaches, family members, and the swim
organizations all contribute to the success of
a well planned and thought out swim.

 Looking back at swimmers and swims past.