🎩 Charles Stephens: The Barber Who Braved Lions… and Lost to Niagara

🎩 Charles Stephens: The Demon Barber of Bedminster and Niagara’s First Barrel Fatality

In July 1920, Charles Stephens—known back home as the Demon Barber of Bedminster—left Bristol, England for Niagara Falls with one goal: to make history and support his family. A barber by trade and a daredevil by necessity, Stephens had a wife, Annie, and eleven children depending on him. He called his attempt a “cool commercial proposition,” believing the stunt would secure their future.

Stephens built an oak barrel reinforced with steel to carry him over the Horseshoe Falls. Against the advice of fellow daredevils Bobby Leach and William “Red” Hill Sr., he refused to test it first. Inside the barrel, he strapped himself in and tied his feet to an anvil for ballast—a fatal mistake.

When the barrel hit the raging water below, the anvil ripped through the bottom, dragging Stephens under. Downstream, rescuers found only one haunting remnant: his severed right arm, still strapped inside the shattered barrel. It was identified by the distinctive tattoo inked into his skin: “Forget me not, Annie.”

Stephens became the first person to die attempting to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and the third overall to make the attempt. Today, his right arm rests in Drummond Hill Cemetery in Niagara Falls, Ontario, a grim monument to the daredevil spirit that has always hovered in the mist. In 1994, decades later, he was posthumously awarded a Darwin Award for the tragic combination of bravery and miscalculation.

📍 When you tour with us, ask about Charles Stephens, Annie Edson Taylor, Bobby Leach, and the other Niagara daredevils. Their stories are stitched into the roar of the Falls itself.

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