The Fearless Frogman

Paul Boyton (1848-1924) was an Irish-born adventurer and athlete, whose nickname was "the Fearless Frogman." He was not only fearless, but incredibly inventive and energetic.

Boyton was born in 1848 in County Kildare, Ireland, but was in the US by 1863 at which time he joined the Union Army (at the age of fifteen). He also served in the Mexican Navy and in the French forces during the Franco-Prussian War.

Boyton popularized open-water swimming and an early form of rubber wetsuit. The wetsuit, invented by Iowan Clark S. Merriman in 1872, consisted of a rubber shirt and rubber pants, belted and used in conjunction with a paddle as one floated on one's back (one source likened it to a wearable kayak). Boyton actually crossed the English Channel in this fashion. He often demonstrated his kayaking prowess on US rivers, while lugging a boat full of supplies behind him - in the advertisement and picture above, you can see how this worked. He also founded the US Life-Saving Service, which was the ancestor of the present-day Coast Guard. And when he wasn't busy with that, he toured with a small aquatic circus.

In 1895, he was ready to settle down a little. In that year Boyton bought 16 acres of swampy land at Neptune Avenue and West Twelfth Street in Coney Island. This was right behind the Elephant Hotel, which we visited previously. There Boyton opened Sea Lion Park, the first permanent amusement park in America.

Sea Lion Park featured a manmade lagoon with 40 sea lions, the Shoot-the-Chutes ride (rather like a modern flume ride), and the Flip-Flap roller coaster. This last ride had to be closed as it was so dangerous, first dropping the riders 20 meters and then inverting them in a loop. There was also a ballroom and a small circus there. Boyton's Sea Lion Park was featured in an early silent film not surprisingly called "Feeding Sea Lions"; there is also silent film footage of the Shoot-the-Chutes ride.

By 1903 Sea Lion Park was less popular than newer Coney Island amusements such as Steeplechase Park. So Boyton leased the land to Frederick Thompson and Elmer Dundy, who transformed it into the better-known, though also short-lived, Luna Park (which we'll look at in a future post).

The images of Boyton are from NYPL Digital Gallery. The 1884 advertisement is from the New York Clipper.

SOURCES

Denison, Charles. Coney Island (Ten Speed Press, 2002), p. 26. Johnson's New Universal Cyclopedia (A.J. Johnson & Son, 1877), p. 11.

Paul Boyton at Wikipedia
Boyton's autobiography at Google Books
Boyton's 1900 patent for a water canal ride with panoramas
Boyton's 1895 Shoot-the-Chutes patent
Boyton's 1907 "Amusement Device" patent (looks similar to the Shoot-the-Chutes)

Clark S. Merriman's 1869 Improvement In Submarine Clothing
Merriman's 1872 Improvement in the same

Jeffrey Stanton's article on Boyton and Sea Lion Park at westland.net, link here [with wonderful photographs of Boyton and of the Flip-Flap roller coaster]