Robert Emmet Odlum (August 31, 1851 – May 19, 1885) was an American swimming instructor. Odlum was the first person to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, and was killed doing so.
Early life
Robert Emmet Odlum was born in Ogdensburg, New York, on August 31, 1851, the son of Catherine and Richard Odlum. He was named after the Irish nationalist Robert Emmet. Odlum was one of seven children, only four of whom survived childhood. Odlum's elder brother David served under the name "Charles Rogers" in the 8th Missouri Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army in the American Civil War, and disappeared after the Battle of Shiloh; it was never known whether he had been killed, captured or had deserted. He was the brother of women's rights activist Charlotte Odlum Smith.
Odlum was an expert swimmer as a child. After the death of Richard Odlum in the mid-1850s, the Odlums traveled to New Orleans, then to New York City, Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, and Montreal, Canada. They eventually settled in St. Louis. In 1860 they traveled to Cuba, returning to New Orleans from Havana on March 21, 1861, the same day Louisiana ratified the Confederate Constitution. In search of David Odlum, who had joined the Union Army, they traveled northward to Cairo, Illinois and Paducah, Kentucky, moving to Memphis, Tennessee in 1862. The Odlums, who had Southern sympathies but a family member in the Union Army, were trapped for much of the war in the hostile environment of Memphis, a staunchly Confederate city occupied by Union forces. On April 4, 1864, the Odlums' house in Memphis was torn down by Union troops to clear an artillery firing path. In 1865 the family moved to Mobile, Alabama.
Career
In 1869 and 1870 Odlum was a tea merchant in Philadelphia; he was also listed as a railroad conductor in the 1870 United States Census. He later moved to St. Louis, where he sometimes worked for his sister Charlotte Smith's Inland Monthly magazine. Odlum lived and worked in Chicago, Illinois in the 1870s. About 1878 he relocated to Washington, D.C., where he established a swimming school called the Natatorium. Odlum became known to Washingtonians by the title of "Professor". Among Odlum's pupils at the school were Fannie Hayes, the daughter of former President Rutherford B. Hayes, the sons of Presidents Hayes and James A. Garfield, the sons of James G. Blaine and General William Tecumseh Sherman, and one of Sherman's daughters. In 1880, on the Wednesday before the Potomac River rowing race between Ned Hanlan and Charles E. Courtney, Odlum swam the entire course.
Odlum improved the Natatorium in the winter of 1880-1881. The Natatorium's opening for the season in April 1881 was attended by Lucretia Rudolph Garfield, the wife of President Garfield, and other prominent Washingtonians. Odlum also added a gymnasium to the Natatorium.
Despite his success, in spring 1881 Odlum began to grow restless in his position. According to the biography later written by Odlum's mother, on July 13, 1881, he "challenged any man in the United States to swim him for from $250 to $500 a side", but no one would take up the bet. Odlum frequently exhibited his skill as a swimmer and diver for passengers on Potomac excursion steamers. On July 4, 1881, Odlum jumped from the wooden bridge at Occoquan Falls.
In June 1882, Odlum and aquatic adventurer Paul Boyton performed for an excursion party traveling from Washington to Marshall Hall, Maryland. At the Marshall Hall wharf, Odlum jumped from the top of a ladder on the deck of the steamer into the water. He was uninjured even though he entered the water at a slight angle.
Fort Monroe
After the Natatorium failed financially and was closed, Odlum was employed as professor of swimming and lifeguard at the Hygeia Hotel at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia. On August 10, 1882, Odlum swam from Old Point Comfort to Ocean View and back, swimming against the tide in Hampton Roads for the last half-hour. While employed at the Hygeia Hotel, Odlum saved the life of "Sky" Colfax, the sixteen-year-old son of former Vice President Schuyler Colfax, as well as two other swimmers. Odlum, who had previously contracted malaria at Lower Cedar Point, contracted it again while at the Hygeia Hotel.
Odlum was a friend of Matthew Webb, who died in 1883 in an attempt to swim through the Whirlpool Rapids below Niagara Falls.