Background
Daniel O'Leary was born on June 28, 1841, in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland, and emigrated to the United States in 1866.
Daniel O'Leary was born on June 28, 1841, in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland, and emigrated to the United States in 1866.
Daniel O'Leary was peddling books in Chicago in 1874, spending whole days on foot, when the feats of Edward P. Weston, then America's champion walker, stirred him to give an exhibition at the West Side Rink, Chicago, where he walked 100 miles in twenty-three hours and seventeen minutes. He did even better at this distance a month later, and then challenged Weston, but the latter refused to meet an "unknown. " O'Leary then proceeded to better Weston's time of forty hours for 200 miles by going that distance in thirty-seven hours. Six-day walking matches were becoming a popular form of entertainment, and O'Leary now proposed to walk 500 miles in that time, a feat hitherto unachieved. In April 1875 he astonished the athletic fraternity by walking the distance with three hours to spare.
Giving up book-selling, O'Leary began a successful career of pedestrianism, meeting and defeating the best long-distance walkers in America. On October 16, 1875, in a match with John Ennis at Chicago, he set unequaled records for every distance from sixty-two up to 100 miles inclusive. His time for 100 miles was eighteen hours, fifty-three minutes, forty seconds. A month later, November 15-20, he finally met Weston and won a decisive victory, walking 5011/2 miles in an hour less than six days, as against 4511/2 by Weston. In April 1876 at San Francisco he reduced the time for 500 miles to 139 hours, thirty-two minutes. In London, April 2-7, 1877, he again defeated Weston, who was backed by Sir John Astley, going 519 3/4 miles in 141 hours, six minutes, and making new records for most of the distance above 174 miles. On November 10, 1877, he set new records for all distances from fifty-two to sixty-one miles.
During the next two years Daniel O'Leary walked in so many long-distance matches that his health suffered, and in March 1879, in a five-hundred-mile contest at New York, he had to withdraw after going 215 miles. He spoke of himself despondently as an old man (he was in his thirties) who would never race again. He now established the O'Leary Belt as a trophy for the long-distance pedestrian championship of America. He recovered his strength after a rest and for long thereafter met the best walkers in America, Europe, and Australia for wagers, gate receipts, and prizes, supporting himself very comfortably thereby until his latter years, when he was reduced in fortune.
O'Leary won the Astley Belt, one of pedestrianism's greatest trophies, twice. In 1896 he met Weston in another match (2, 500 miles), and was beaten, the latter walking the distance in nine weeks, leaving O'Leary 200 miles behind.
In 1907, at Cincinnati, when he was in his sixties, O'Leary performed what was considered by many his greatest feat; he walked a mile at the beginning of each hour for 1, 000 hours, resting or taking naps between. Physicians doubted that his body could endure the strain, and several were present to observe the effect upon him; but he came through the test unharmed. A month later he defeated Schmehl, a noted German walker, in a six-day race by fifty-four miles. Even in his eighties, he made it a practice to walk 100 miles on each birthday. Shortly before his last illness he could walk a mile in nine minutes, and could average six miles an hour for two or three hours. He died in Los Angeles, California, of arteriosclerosis.
