America’s Tallest Man Buried in Concrete
on one’s own terms: to do something in the way you decide, even when other people want it done differently
John Rogan was the tallest African American man to ever live. He was born in Tennessee in 1867, the son of former slaves. He was an ordinary-sized boy until he turned thirteen. Then his joints began to ache and he spent close to two years in bed. All that time his body kept growing, and it never stopped. He reached 267 cm before he died in 1905 at the age of thirty eight. Only one person in recorded history has ever been taller, a man named Robert Wadlow born in 1918 who was 272 cm.
Rogan suffered from gigantism. He also had a second condition that hardened his joints and locked them in place. By the time he was 15 he could no longer walk, so he took his bed apart and built a cart from it. Then he trained a team of goats to pull him around town. He fitted his cart with a small luggage rack and drove down to the train station in his hometown. There he carried passengers’ bags to the hotels nearby, and he sold drawings and photographs of himself.
People were curious about him, but Rogan refused to be put on display. During his time, traveling shows where audiences paid to see people who looked different were hugely popular in America. Rogan was the tallest man alive and he received many job offers. The money would have been very good, but he said no to every one of them. He was willing to be seen, but on his own terms.
Nobody today knows where Rogan is buried. People say his family sealed him under thick concrete. The reason was to stop any doctor or grave robber from digging him up and studying his body. When Robert Wadlow died in 1940, his family did the same thing.
Sample sentences
She left the company on her own terms, after finishing the project she cared about most.
He agreed to help, but on his own terms, two days a week and no weekends.
My mother wanted to grow old on her own terms, in her own house, with her own routine.
Read More
John Rogan: The Tallest Man Nobody Talks About
John William “Willie” “Bud” Rogan: A history of the world’s tallest people
