Talk:Angus MacAskill

Article
Nice article, Cape Breton link goes to a disambiguation page, I don't know about this so I havn't fixed it. Alf 14:31, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Cause of Death
This article seems to leave out the cause of death. Based on various sources, MacAskill apparently was at the Halifax pier and was demonstrating his anchor lifting abilities when his grip slipped and he was injured by the almost 3000lbs anchor - some sources say pinned beneath. In any event, he died from his injuries not long afterward. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.107.50.100 (talk • contribs) 08:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Lifting the anchor never killed Angus Giant Macaskill. He died many years after lifting the anchor at his parents home in Englishtown. The doctor said cause of death was brain fever and he died in his sleep.Cashisclay 17:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

He did injure himself with the anchor, but Cashisclay isright about the real cause. As a direct decendant of Angus, I'm sure this is correct.

brain fever is pretty vague. probably more like acromegaly — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.50.25.34 (talk) 19:59, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Angus Macaskill "The Cape Breton Giant"
The 1981 Guinness Book of World Records lists Angus as the tallest natural giant who ever lived, the strongest man who ever lived, and the man having the largest chest measurements of any non-obese man.Cape Breton's Big Boy jogged down the street with a 300-pound barrel of pork under each arm to the admiring whistles of bystanders. To win a bet with some French sailors he lifted an anchor weighing 2700 pounds to his shoulder and walked down the wharf with it. When Big Angus was about fourteen he went on a fishing boat to North Sydney, and the crew took him along to a dance. The Big Boy had gone ashore without shoes and in old clothes and was sitting near the door watching because dancing was frowned upon by the strict Presbyterian elders of St. Ann's. One of the dancers was a young man from town who danced over with his pretty lassie and stepped on Angus' bare toe. The big, red-faced boy quickly pulled his feet out of the way but bystanders laughed. Angus became absorbed in the dancing and unconsciously put his feet out again. The dandy stepped on the boy's toe again. For a moment it looked as if there would be a fight for the fishermen who had brought Angus along would have joined in. Angus turned red and clenched his fists but remained seated while the bully laughed. The third time his heel came down, the Big Boy jumped up and his fist swept up to his tormentor's jaw. That gentleman landed in the middle of the floor- and was unconscious for so long they thought he was dead. When the captain returned to his schooner he found Angus on his knees praying that he had not killed the man. The fishermen of St. Ann's envied Big Angus' strength. While they laboriously bailed their boats, Gille Mor set his weight under his half ton boat, tipped it on its beam ends and out spilled the bilge water! Singlehanded, he set a forty-foot mast into a schooner as easily as a farmer set a fence post in a hole.

John A. Morrison of South Gut of St. Ann's, told James Gillis that one evening at twilight when he was returning from his nets Angus called to the fishermen on the shore to help him pull his heavy boat up the steep slipway. The men thought they would play a trick on the Giant and carry it right up over the hill into a pool. At high water mark Angus said: " That will do, thank you, " but the crowd pretended not to hear and kept on. Big Angus grabbed the boat - which was pulled to pieces.

A visitor to the neighbourhood, a captain who had come on one of the American fishing vessels which came to St. Ann's to buy bait, challenged Angus to a wrestling match. St. Ann's Big Boy refused. When the three hundred pound visitor taunted him, the Cape Bretoner lost his temper and grabbed the American and threw him over a woodpile ten feet high and twelve feet wide! Another time he shook hands with a tormentor until the man's fingers started to bleed.

There are contradictory accounts of the anchor incident which may have taken place in New York or New Orleans, which is natural as many anecdotes about McAskill were collected by James Gillis more than forty years after the Giant's death. French sailors taunted the Giant to lift an anchor lying on the wharf {the weight of which was estimated at 2200 to 2700 pounds). He did so, but one of the flukes caught in his shoulder, crippling him. Almon, who talked with the Giant's younger brother John, said that Angus admitted lifting "That Anchor" but would not talk about it and that when Angus came home he was "as straight as an arrow". Mr. Almon believed that the Giant must have lifted "That Anchor" in a "Press Lift" being braced between a solid and a moveable object-but wonders how the fluke caught in his shoulder. However this did not kill him nor was it the cause of his death he died years later.

Big Angus McAskill was planning to go to Halifax to sell the produce he had collected and to buy the stock he needed for the winter season from the wholesalers in the capital city. Suddenly he became seriously ill, and his family moved him back to his parents' home, where his old bed was hastily lengthened and put up in the living room. The doctor's diagnosis was brain fever. After a week's illness, the Cape Breton Giant died peacefully in his sleep on August 8, 1863, the Rev. Abraham McIntosh, the Presbyterian minister, being in attendance and many neighbours in the house. The Halifax Acadian Recorder of August 15, 1863 reported that "the well-known giant ... was by far the tallest man in Nova Scotia, perhaps in British America" and that "his mild and gentle manner endeared him to all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance". The whole county mourned.http://www.macaskill.com/GeneralTallTales/Angus/angus.htmlCashisclay 04:13, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That anchor did not weigh nearly as much as is stated here. No one, regardless of size and strength, is going to shoulder an anchor of such an enormous weight and walk with it. As David Willoughby stated at the bottom of page 39 of his authoritative book on strength athletes, "It is generally agreed the anchor weighed 600 pounds". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tpryan (talk • contribs) 06:19, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I very much beg to disagree. Furthermore I deplore your un-sourced cynicism. Have you actually been to the Angus MacAskill Museum at Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye? The famous anchor is by all contemporary sources said to have weighed at least 2700lbs, some sources say heavier. You patently obviously have no concept whatsoever of the sheer physical size of Angus MacAskill. We are not talking about someone who is just hugely tall. Angus MacAskill was physically massive, a true non-pathological giant and the only one ever recorded. A perfect greatly scaled-up human being, and an immensely strong one at that. His feats of strength far exceed that of even the greatest Olympic heavy-weight lifting champions. It was French whalers who bet he couldn't lift their ships anchor. When the fluke of the anchor pierced his back after he stumbled after carrying the anchor some distance it did not kill him but robbed him of his formidable former strength, and he did die not long afterwards. Angus MacAskill was a Gaelic speaker, and a native Gael and as such that really needs a mention. Please respect encyclopedic convention and quote PRIMARY SOURCE MATERIAL not subsequent hearsay and guesswork. If you seek information on Angus MacAskill then visit the Angus MacAkill Museum at Dunvegan, Isle of Skye, not only are they extremely helpful and enthusiastic they will provide you, free of charge, with copies of the life story of the great Angus MacAskill. I know that sounds like advertising but any scholarly information disseminated free of charge is surely exempt from the accusation of commercial advertising/exploitation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.37.80 (talk) 01:18, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Clean Up
This article is very interesting and whatnot, but it doesn't read like an encyclopedia article. Rather than giving brief descriptions of stories about Big Angus, it gives rather detailed ones. If the stories are cited there really isn't a need for so much detail, people can go to the links provided to learn more. But like I said, I find this article very entertaining, it's just not an encyclopedia article and it needs far more work than I am willing to put into it. --DavidFuzznut 14:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The bulk of the stories are taken word-for-word from macaskill.com. They should be summarized or restated; if direct quotations are used, that should be made clear. This article is outright plagiarism.Callumny (talk) 19:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

OK- Anything that is a verbatim quote should simply be removed as a copy violation. I am v. busy right now - and may not get to this for a little while so I encourage you to be bold. If you need help please post something at Wikipedia talk:Copyright violations. Ben  Mac  Dui  19:29, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Angus in the Antipodes
The statement that he went by fishing boat to North Sydney is very odd. It implies that North Sydney was the ultimate destination of a very long trip to the other side of the world. North Sydney is a suburb of Sydney, and previous to the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, not as populous as it is now. If included, the anecdote (not "antidote" as some silly has written) should be modified to say that he had gone to Sydney on a fishing boat and that in North Sydney etc etc. --Amandajm 13:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The article is reffering to North Sydney, Nova Scotia and Sydney Nova Scotia not Australia. Sydney is located in Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.13.80.150 (talk) 01:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Photograph is not of McCaskill
The giant depicted in the photograph that appears on this page is not Angus McCaskill. Rather it is Monsieur E. Bihin, known as the French or Belgian Giant, who appeared at Phineas Barnum's American Museum in New York City from the 1840s to the 1860s. General Tom Thumb was also displayed at Barnum's American Museum and it was commonplace for Barnum to show the midgets walking around and under the legs of the various giants in the museum there, as this photograph suggests. Visual corroboration that the giant is indeed Bihin is available on page 175 of the book "P.T. Barnum, America's Greatest Showman" by the Kunhardts, published by Knopf in 1995. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.121.72.176 (talk) 01:35, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I had a look at thetallestman.com and there is certainly some doubt. I will remove the photo and post a note at the image's talk page. Ben  Mac  Dui  09:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It's MacAskill, BTW. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.192.63.39 (talk) 20:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Source? — Llywelyn II


 * I'm just noting here that recently (24 December 2013) an IP removed the image with the following edit summary: There are doubts whether or not this is Angus, the back of the photo stated "General Sullivan A. Meredith, tallest General in the Civil War 6'7".--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 00:00, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Worthless without photos
Obviously we can't use unsourced ones and shots of completely unrelated people are no good either, but we do need to get a photo into the article. Anyone have something handy? — Llywelyn II   03:12, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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Infobox image
Still in June 2020 the photo is still up. Something that would not happen in a real encyclopedia. I merely removed the photo as it is not Angus MacAskill, i was threatened to be blocked by solarflare. So much for anyone can edit. This site is for everyone. Unless someone can explain why MacAskill is wearing civil war clothing in the photo, i don't see why it should be kept.
 * Actually, in a real encyclopedia, verification is necessary. What evidence can you provide to prove what you're saying? A google search of Angus MacAskill brings this exact photo up several times from a variety of different sites. You may be completely correct but you'll need to prove what you're saying. Edit warring is the wrong way to go about this. SolarFlashDiscussion 22:08, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * In one of your edit summaries you made the claim that the photo is actually "a photo of general Merideth, a 6 foot 7 confederate general". Solomon Meredith certainly appears to be someone else entirely, based on the photographic evidence. SolarFlashDiscussion 22:46, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, our anonymous IP editor seems to have lost interest in the discussion, but I've researched this and I can conclusively say now that this photo is indeed Angus MacAskill. The claim that this photo is actually a civil war general is preposterous and has been proven false. This exact photo of MacAskill is prominently featured on the website for the official Angus MacAskill Museum, which is owned and managed by the MacAskill family (simply scroll down a little bit to see it ), as well as on the sign in front of this same museum . The coup de grace, this exact photo is seen on Angus MacAskill's actual gravesite in Englishtown, NS. It seems pretty unlikely that MacAskill's family would place a photo of another man on his gravesite, so I'm going to go ahead and say that this dubious claim has been busted for once and for all. Should our anonymous friend try stirring it up again, please point him/her to this discussion and issue the necessary warnings if the edit warring persists. SolarFlashDiscussion  20:06, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The dubious claim is that being made by yourself and the MacAskill family website. They have no idea if it is him or not and have a commercial vested interest in presenting a photo. What in his life makes you think he ever went around dressed in military uniform he had no entitlement to like an exhibit in a circus?  Your reasoning is specious.  Many sources dispute that this is MacAskill and stating categorically that it is is indeed unencyclopaedic. Aredbeardeddwarf (talk) 09:22, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Place of Death
Article gives me the impression that he died in St. Anns, yet at the top of article it says he died in Halifax. 173.206.139.1 (talk) 16:42, 11 November 2021 (UTC)