Paul Boyton, The Fearless Frogman
Paul Boyton was born in County Kildare in 1848 and shortly afterwards was taken by his family to the States. He grew into a strong swimmer with a sense of adventure, spending his youth in the navy and then establishing the United States Life-Saving Service, the forerunner of their Coastguards. A meeting with Clark S Merriman, who had recently invented an inflatable, rubber life-preserving suit, presented him with a challenge that combined his interest in lifesaving, his natural showmanship and love of derring-do; to put the suit through its paces.
Unable to resist the lure of the English Channel, he decided that crossing it would prove his mettle as a long-distance swimmer as well as demonstrating the seaworthiness of the suit. Dubbed the Fearless Frogman, his penchant for publicity ensured that he attracted press attention, The Times noting that his India rubber suit could be inflated by some tubes, allowing the wearer to float and propel themselves with the aid of a paddle. It was also airtight and waterproof.
On April 10, 1875, onlookers at Dover harbour were treated to the strange sight of Boyton wearing his suit over blue serge undergarments and woollen stockings. On each foot was a socket into which a small mast was placed which allowed for a sail, the size of a large handkerchief, to be hoisted and controlled, using lanyards attached to the suit. A foghorn around his neck, a brandy flask in a waistcoat pocket, a large knife, a double-bladed oar for propulsion, and a packet of letters safely secreted inside, “the Boyton mail for the Continent”, completed his ensemble.
Followed by a steam tug, Rambler, full of reporters, Boyton set out, lying on his back and using his oar “skilfully” for propulsion, consuming a bizarre diet of beaten eggs, cherry brandy and smoking a cigar along the way. The Channel, though, was not easily beaten. After fifteen hours in the sea and covering 50 miles, the weather worsened to such an extent that the French pilot feared for the swimmer’s safety, threatening to leave them when night fell, if Boyton did not abandon the attempt.
Boyton reluctantly concurred but went to extraordinary lengths to prove it was not his decision, requiring the reporters present to sign a declaration to that effect and, when onshore, obtaining a certificate from a doctor stating that he was medically fit to have continued. The Fearless Frogman may have demonstrated the seaworthiness of Merriman’s suit, but he was not finished with the Channel.
At 3am on June 28, 1875, Boyton set out from Cap Gris Nez, again dressed in his inflatable bathing suit. There was important addition, a small screw propeller was fixed with hoops to his torso and thighs which enabled him, while lying prone, to propel himself. It might just have been one of those ideas that sounded good on paper but just proved impractical, as there is no reference to it in reports of his progress. He also changed his diet, fortified along the way with three meals consisting of green tea and beef sandwiches.
The weather was kind to him, the only alarum being an encounter with a porpoise four miles off Dover. At 2am the following morning he walked ashore at Faro Bay in Kent and was taken by steamer to Folkestone, where he was “enthusiastically received”, having completed his crossing almost two months before Webb. Jules Verne featured his suit in Tribulations of a Chinaman in China (1879).
After a career of endurance swimming Boyton settled down and opened Chicago’s first fixed amusement park in 1894 and the Sea Lion Park on Coney Island the following year, and, unlike Webb, enjoyed a long life before dying in 1924.
For a swim to be sanctioned by the Channel Swimming Association, the swimmer must be unaided and wear only one swimming garment. Clearly, Captain Webb met the modern criteria and was the first to swim the channel unaided, but, undeniably, Paul Boyton got there first, with a little help from Merriman’s suit, an oar and, possibly, a propeller.
