Before ultrarunning captured public attention, Victorian audiences gathered to watch pedestrianism: competitive long-distance walking. The sport grew from a wager made by Edward Payson Weston, a 21-year-old bookseller who promised to walk from Boston to Washington in under 10 days if Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election.
Lincoln was elected, and Weston set out on February 22. He arrived in Washington on March 4, missing his target by a few hours after taking a wrong turn. Weston attended Lincoln’s inauguration ball and later met the president, who was reportedly surprised by his endurance. Weston declined an offer to pay his fare home, saying he would walk back.
Weston had discovered his stamina while working as a copy boy in New York, where he hurried across Manhattan. His first major walk brought him public attention, and after the Civil War his celebrity helped pedestrianism become one of the 19th century’s most popular spectator sports. Long, punishing contests were staged at venues including Madison Square Garden in New York and the Oval in London.
The events combined athletic endurance with elaborate promotion. In 1876, Weston attempted to walk 505 miles in six days in a contest billed as “Weston against the world.” Newspaper reports tracked his progress mile by mile and timed his only stop to the second. During another walk, he covered 55 miles in 12 hours around Nottingham’s Trent Bridge cricket ground, walked backwards for half a mile and played his cornet alongside a band.
Weston’s methods and physical limits attracted attention as well as crowds. He reportedly used whiskey on his feet to ease pain and struck his legs with a riding whip to stay awake during a 112-mile, 24-hour attempt. Doctors later monitored his pulse, breathing and food and drink intake during a walk in Britain. A debate over stimulants followed reports that he had chewed coca leaves during a race, while some competitors experimented with substances including champagne. Weston, however, abstained from alcohol before and during races and became a figure for the temperance movement.
Pedestrianism had no governing body, leaving promoters and entrepreneurs to organize contests and settle their rules. The events could be lucrative: in 1878, British promoter Sir John Dugdale Astley established a six-day “world championship,” offering the winner the Astley Belt and £500. Weston’s rival Daniel O’Leary won the first contest after walking 520 miles around a track in north London.
The sport also attracted heavy betting and was vulnerable to manipulation. Spectators could wager on outcomes beyond the overall winner, including which walker would quit first. In one notorious 1864 event, British pedestrian Emma Sharp attempted to walk 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours. Reports said gamblers opposed to her success tried to disrupt the effort, including by throwing burning embers at her feet. Sharp was said to have fired warning shots with a pistol.
Pedestrianism faded in the 1890s as shorter, more watchable pursuits such as bicycling and baseball gained ground. Weston continued walking into old age. On his 70th birthday in 1909, he began a journey from New York to San Francisco, aiming to finish in 100 days. He covered 3,895 miles in 104 active days, or 122 days including rest periods, while newspaper dispatches and public crowds followed his progress.
Weston died in 1929, aged 90. After being struck by a taxi while walking to church in Manhattan in 1927, he was left unable to walk and eventually confined to bed.
Sources: The Guardian Sport.