Program

Legends & Lore®

Subject

Folklore

Location

8583 U.S. 9, Lewis, NY 12950, USA

Lat/Long

44.2772, -73.564622

Grant Recipient

Town of Lewis

Joe Call was a nineteenth century strongman and wrestler from New York’s Champlain Valley. He came from a long lineage of large and powerful men and women, and he and his siblings were endowed with the family’s exceptional physical gifts. He stood 6 feet 3 inches tall, thickly muscled and broad shouldered with the purported strength of three men, though with a notable playfulness and jovial sense of humor. Call is often referred to as the Lewis Giant, because he lived for a part of his life in Lewis, New York, but he also earned the more whimsical nicknames of the Modern Hercules and the Paul Bunyan of the East.

Unlike Paul Bunyan, Joe Call was very much a real person; but like Paul Bunyan, a folk tradition has grown around his legendary feats of spectacular strength.

One legend from his early days tells of the schoolmaster beckoning Call to the front of the class to answer for a petty schoolboy infraction. Call walked straight to the front, but instead of submitting to his punishment, he picked up his teacher and, to the delight of his classmates, threw him out the open schoolhouse window. He later played the same trick on a steamboat captain who scolded him from spitting tobacco on his ship. As he grew older, Call maintained his sense of humor and his stunning strength. At one social event, Call lifted a barrel of cider to his lips, drank deep, and then solemnly offered the barrel to the others in attendance.

As a wrestler, Call found much renown in his local community, and legend of his prowess soon spread nationally and even internationally. Call was willing to match his strength with anyone who claimed skill of their own. One tale tells of a man, aware of the reputation of Joe Call but unaware of his appearance, drunkenly bragging to a tavern that he himself had bested Call in a wrestling match. Call, who happened to be seated in the tavern that day, told the man that he too was the equal of the Lewis Giant and challenged him to a few rounds. Call effortlessly lifted the stranger off his feet and introduced himself as “Joe Call at your service.”

Another tall tale tells of a foreign champion wrestler who made the long trip to New York specifically to wrestle Call. When the stranger found a formidable man plowing his fields, he asked to be pointed in the direction of Call’s residence. Call lifted the plow with one hand, or in some versions the ox itself, and pointed wordlessly with it to the nearest farmhouse. The challenger sized up the man in the field, made an educated guess as to who he must be, and promptly departed. In a more tragic legend cycle, Call killed several challengers, though never intentionally.

Call’s legendary strength made him a popular workman. He could serve as a human tow, pulling wagons out of the mud single handedly. At barn raisings, he could sling foundation stones and toss timbers without assistance. And on militia training days, he could easily lift and carry the cannons by himself.

Joe Call, the Paul Bunyan of the East, was a colorful, real-to-life figure surrounded by a lively legendary folk tradition that lives on in the New York North Country to this day.