Working on Wednesday: Delno Fritz (1871 - 1925) Master Sword Swallower

Oh, how I wish this man was one of my relatives!* Mine are so boring by comparison.

Born William Sherman Fritz near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, he ran away to the circus at the age of eleven and performed all over the United States and Europe under the name Delno Fritz.

[7 Dec 1924, Page 33 - The Los Angeles Times at Newspapers.com]

The paragraph below (originally printed in the British medical journal The Lancet while Delno was appearing in the U.K with Barnum & Bailey and quoted in Gaillard's Medical Journal) gives a doctor's view of how he was able to perform these crowd-pleasing feats.

[Gaillard's Medical Journal,Volumes 68-69; 1898. Source: Google Books.]

His 1925 obituary provides us with a good overview of Delno's career.

[15 July 1925, Page 5 - The Wilkes-Barre Record at Newspapers.com]

Next week I'll post about his niece Edna Price who followed in his footsteps.


*I learned about this man from an acquaintance who is a great nephew of his.

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