May, 1741, lifted three
hogsheads of water, said to weigh, with the connections, _eighteen hundred
and thirty-six pounds_. In the performance of this feat, Topham stood on a
raised platform, his hands grasping a fixture on either side, and a broad
strap over his shoulders communicating with the weight. An immense
concourse of persons was assembled on the occasion,--the performance
having been announced as "in honor of Admiral Vernon," or rather, "in
commemoration of his taking Porto Bello with six ships only." Being a
descendant myself from the Vernon family of Haddon Hall, Derbyshire,
England, I have reserved it for future genealogical inquiry to learn
whether the Admiral was connected with that branch of the Vernons. If so,
a somewhat remarkable coincidence is involved.

I now informed my father that I intended to go through a series of
experiments in lifting. He was afraid I should injure myself, and
expressly forbade any such practice on his premises. To gratify him, I
gave up testing the question for a whole year.

But the desire re-awoke, and I had frequent arguments with my father in
the endeavor to overcome his objections.

"Look at that man," he said to me one day,--pointing to a large, stout
individual in front of us,--"you might practise lifting all your life, and
never be able to lift as much as that big fellow."

"Let me construct a lifting-apparatus in the back-yard, and I will soon
prove to you that you are mistaken," I replied.

Finding that I was bent on the experiment, he at length gave a reluctant
consent.

It was now the August of 1855, and I was in my twenty-second year. My
first lifting-apparatus was constructed in the following manner. I first
sank into the ground a hogshead, and into the hogshead a flour-barrel.
Then I lowered to the bottom of the barrel a rope having at the end a
round stick transversely balanced, about four inches in diameter and
fifteen inches long. A quantity of gravel, nearly sufficient to bury the
stick, was then thrown into the barrel; some oblong stones were placed
across the stick and across and between one another, and the interstices
filled with smaller stones and gravel. When I had by this method about
two-thirds filled the barrel, taking care to keep the axis of the rope in
correspondence with the long axis of the barrel, I judged I had a
sufficient weight for a first trial. I now formed a loop in the end of the
rope over the top of the barrel, and put through