Annie Edson Taylor (1838-April 29, 1921) became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel on 24 October 1901. She felt her job as a schoolteacher in Bay City, Michigan was too insignificant, and believed that going over the falls would bring her fame and fortune. Taylor used a pickle barrel for her trip, constructed of oak and iron and padded with a mattress. The barrel was put over the side of a rowboat, and Annie climbed in. After screwing down the lid, friends used a bicycle tire pump to compress the air in the barrel. The hole used for this was plugged with a cork, and Taylor was set adrift near the American shore, north of Goat Island. The Niagara River currents carried the barrel toward the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, which has since been the site for all daredevil stunting at Niagara Falls. Rescuers reached her barrel shortly after the plunge, and Taylor was discovered to be alive though somewhat battered. The trip itself took less than twenty minutes, but it was some time before the barrel was actually opened. She briefly earned money speaking about her experience, but never achieved the heights of fame she sought. Taylor died on 29 April 1921 at the Niagara County Infirmary in Lockport, New York and is buried in the “Stunters Section” of Oakwood Cemetery in Niagara Falls, New York.
There are varying reports on whether or not Taylor completed her trip with a pet cat in the barrel. According to the Buffalo Evening News from a week following the stunt, Taylor was accompanied by a black cat named Iagara. The IMAX movie The Falls corroborates this by placing a black kitten called Henry into the barrel with Taylor, and adds the humorous note of a terrified white kitten emerging from the barrel at the end of the trip. Joan Murray’s biography of Taylor, Queen of the Mist, indicates that Taylor used a cat to test her barrel’s fallsworthiness before going over herself; the book indicates that the barrel survived but the cat did not. Publicity photos of Taylor with her barrel include a white kitten but do not indicate if the animal went over the falls with Taylor.
Source: Wikipedia
