Tar Heel History'
By Billy Arthur
Living Large
Miles Darden, Louis Lewark and Decatur Gillikin are
perhaps the ‘biggest’ names in North Carolina history.
North Carolina has prod need
some big people, but at least
three have been big enough to
consult the record Ixxiks.
One Tar Heel weighed more than
1.000 pounds and made it into (luiness
Book of World Remits in 1077. Much more
is known about the second, who report¬
edly grew to 840 pounds and was long
identified with "lit" weather for water-
fowl hunting on the Outer Banks. And
what the third lacked in relative si/e. he
more titan made up for in strength.
Miles Darden, once reported to have
been the largest human on record, was
bom near Rich Square in Northampton
County in 1798 or 1799. He attained a
height of 7 feet 6 inches and an estimat¬
ed weight of 1,020 |X)unds at his death
on October 28. 1857. in Henderson
County. Tennessee, where he had moved
in his early 20s.
These huge people were weighed by
being placed on a wagon and taken to
scales. Then they were removed and the
wagon weighed.
Darden was twice married, very active
and put in a full day on the farm until
about age 45.
In 1889, his waist measured six feet,
and almost 14 yards of material was
required to make a coat for him. One
was buttoned around three 200-pound
men who walked the town square in it.
According to William S. Powell’s Thr
Dictionary of N.C. Biography, at death
Darden’s colfin was eight feet long. 35
inches deep, 32 inches across the chest.
18 inches at the head and 14 inches at
the feet. It called lot 156 square feet of
IuuiIkt. three pounds of nails, four boxes
of tacks, 1 7 yards of flannel lining. 44 feet
of trimining ribbon and 25 yards of black
velvet covering. A wall had to Ik- removed
to get it out of the- residence, and 17 men
were required to lower it into the grave.
Another huge individual was I-ouis
T’Mcrrow Ixrwark. lx>rn July 23. 1884.
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The fa t hoy of Pennys Hill, ' Louis Ixwark
and called the "fat boy of Pennys Hill."
Currituck County Heritage reports his
weight at birth "from 10 to 19 pounds."
After one year he had grown to 60
pounds and was too huge to Ik* nursed
on his mother’s lap. “Family lore says the
child cried incessantly following birth,
and the midwife, in despair, took the
inside crumb of three biscuits, soaked
them in milk and warm coffee, which she
fed to the newborn infant and he fell
asleep immediately.” Currituck County
Heritage says.
George Twiford. a second cousin of
I-ewark, was the longtime keeper and
major-domo of the Monkey Island
I hinting Club, owned by the tobacconist
Penn family. In a 1930 interview with Bob
Davis, a travel writer for the New York
Times, Twiford said that at age 10 Lewark
weighed 400 pounds. "Every year they
took Louis down to Elizabeth City in a
sailboat and put him on the scales,"
The Slalt/Novcmbcr 1995
14 _
Twiford said. “He took on flesh so fast
that at 19 he had reached 700 pounds.
By that time all the doors in the house
had been widened so he wouldn't have
to go through them sideways."
Once on a visit with sister Lillie
Hayman at Corolla. Lewark decided to
spend the night. I Ic slept on an iron bed¬
stead with wooden casters. As he put his
weight on the bed. all four casters were
shattered.
Despite the fat on his (r-foot-2
inch frame. I-ewark was remark¬
ably strong and active. Twiford said
that at age 10 lie could "hold his
parents out at arm’s length on the
palms of his hands." For him. split¬
ting wood was as easy “as pushing a
knife through hot butter for the
average person."
Currituck County Heritage adds
that he would throw the painter
over his shoulder and pull his boat
to higher ground or to the house
to keep his decoys and fishing gear
from being bothered. "No ordi¬
nary 10 men could pull it back to
the water." it continues.
He was a patient hunter and
fisherman. "Not a had shot either."
said Twiford, who said he had
known I xwark to sit thinly dressed
in a duck blind all day through a
steady rain.
At one sitting lewark reportedly
ate two 1 0-pound Canada geese
and a pair of canvasback ducks. His daily
water intake was about three gallons, and
his tobacco ration a half-pound of plug
cut. He never touched booze.
Most of his clothing was made by his
mother. A shirt required almost 10 yards
of material. “If he was not available for a
lining." die Heritage reports, “she would
use her waist measurement for his neck
si/e and her neck measurement for his
wrist."
At one time he weighed 840 pounds,
but about 1 00 less when he died at age 23
on August 3. 1906. A piano crate was
used for a coffin, and Twiford said “it
took 12 men to carry it to the grave" in
the family cemetery at Aydlett on the
western shore of Currituck Sound.
A comparably powerful man. though
not as massive, was Decatur Gillikin, who
has become a part of Carteret County
history. One day a bull hooked at him.
The mighty man stepped aside, balled
