22: 1855 Walk Across South America

On May 10, 2019, America will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, that was recognized with a “Golden Spike” ceremony at Promontory Point, Utah. For more than 150 years adventurers desired to travel across the American continent by various means: horse, wagon, train, automobile, and eventually on foot in one go. With this celebration coming up, it seemed appropriate to recognize some historic accomplishments walking or running across the American continent.

The most notable early walk across America was accomplished by the famous Pedestrian Edward Payson Weston in 1909. Weston accomplished the transcontinental walk at the age of 70. That was just six years after the first two men drove an automobile across America from San Francisco to New York in 63 day. By the time Weston began his famed walk, the fastest known time driving across the continent had been lowered to 15 days, 2 hours, 10 minutes. A train had accomplished it in 71 hours 27 minutes. Weston would capture the attention of the country and the world when he accomplished it on foot in 1909. That story will be covered in Part 2.

However, Weston first got the idea in 1869 when a best-seller book was being read about a young man, who years before had walked across South America. Weston very likely got the idea to walk across North America from the adventure that took place in 1855. Few have heard this story. It needs to have a place in ultrarunning history because it inspired the Pedestrian world and planted in the minds of many to do cross continent walks and runs in the future.

Not only would runners run across America (3,100+ miles), but they would go across Australia (2,890), New Zealand (1,350 miles), Europe (1,729 miles), Canada (4,179 miles), Asia (5534 miles), the Soviet Union (7,321 miles), the length of Great Britain (840 miles), Ireland (375 miles), and South America (8,500 miles).

But it seemed to all start with a young seventeen-year-old American adventurer in 1855. Here is his story.