![]() ![]() ![]() It is unknown what brought an end to his military service. The latter, he claimed to have demonstrated before Abraham Lincoln. During the war, he designed a rope bridge that could be easily put up and a pair of pontoon shoes designed to allow a person to walk on water. He later claimed to have served as a spy. American Civil War įarini joined the Union Army as a member of the Engineers Regiment. Farini toured the United States in the winter of 1860 and returned to Niagara Falls the next year, but the American Civil War had put an end to the crowds he had once drawn. On one occasion, Blondin performed before the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) during his visit to the falls, but the future monarch snubbed Farini's performance. During this time, he was often in competition with fellow tightrope walker Blondin. Farini's feats included crossing a high wire with a man on his back or with a sack over his entire body, turning somersaults while on the rope, hanging from it by his feet, and other seemingly impossible manoeuvres. ![]() The Great Farini made his most famous tightrope performances at Niagara Falls during 1860, commencing on August 15, trying to one-up Blondin, who had been the first to cross the Falls on a tightrope. In spring 1860, he returned to Ontario and made additional challenges to Blondin. He joined Dan Rice's Floating Circus and performed at various places on the Mississippi River as tightrope walker and strongman. Īfter his hometown debut, Farini began performing at several fairs in Ontario. He began issuing tightrope challenges to Charles Blondin, the preeminent tightrope walker. It was a resounding success, and he followed it up six days later with a show of strength in the town hall. On October 1, 1859, he undertook his first professional high wire performance, above the Ganaraska River in Port Hope during the Durham County Agricultural Fair, calling himself Signor Farini (after Luigi Carlo Farini). Hunt was apprenticed to a doctor as a young adult. He claimed that young William had disgraced the whole family and started whipping him, but this just increased Willie's determination. Just about when it was going to end, a bunch of angry parents came storming in, including Willie's father. It was quite successful, complete with music and various circus entertainment, and he found himself with $6 in his hat, but it ended in catastrophe. He decided to host his own circus in town. He began developing his muscles and acrobatic talent in secret and became very proficient. While in Bowmanville, Hunt sneaked into a circus that had come to town, and became infatuated with show business. In 1843, Hunt's family moved to Hope Township in Canada, now part of Port Hope, Ontario, and then to Bowmanville, Ontario. His mother soon forbade him to and sewed up the collars and sleeves of his clothes so that he could not strip for swimming, but that did not stop him he would just swim with his clothes on and run in the sun until he was dry or rip open his clothes and get some older girls to sew them up for him again. Of his frequent excursions, many of them would be to go swimming. His parents were strict disciplinarians, but their punishments had little effect on him as he later recalled, he "took pleasure in disobeying their commands." For example, he loved swimming and had an uncommon ability for it. ![]() Hunt, the second child of Thomas William Hunt and Hannah Soper, was born in Lockport, New York. He also published under the name Guillermo Antonio Farini. William Leonard Hunt (J– January 17, 1929), also known by the stage name The Great Farini, was a well-known nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Canadian funambulist, entertainment promoter and inventor, as well as the first known white man to cross the Kalahari Desert on foot and survive. ![]()
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