Edna, The Only Human Being Who Walks in the Air
By William Pack | Magician, Historian, and Educator, https://libraryprogramming.com/
William B. Wood
B. August 2, 1862 – D. February 19, 1908)
Little is known about the early life of William Wood or how he became a magician. Born in Shamokin at the western edge of the Anthracite Coal Region in central Pennsylvania's Susquehanna River Valley, Wood's father was a watchmaker who died in the Civil War. His mother, Martha Louise, then married Sewell Chapman, another watchmaker.
The next thing we know, Wood is 22 years old and meets his future wife, Edna Sarah Kirker. They had one child, Bertha, born in 1885.
To date, the earliest mention we have found of Wood's professional career as a magician is from late 1887, when Edna and Will Wood were one of seven turns appearing at Drew's Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. Dime Museums were a big step down from Vaudeville. The working conditions were poor, and the audiences coarse and unsympathetic. Like Vaudeville, the museums had a multi-act bill. It would be a continuous show, one act following the next. As soon as the last act was finished, the cycle would repeat. Often, an act would perform ten to twenty times a day. This repetition honed beginning performers into seasoned professionals very quickly.
An advertisement in the New York Clipper on December 29, 1888, asserted Wood had previously worked for P T Barnum and Adam Forepaugh and had applied to the US Patent Office. This covered two patents, one a device to support actors in mid-air and the other for a metal corset for theatrical purposes. (nos. 415,084 and 415,085)
Often, an act would perform
ten to twenty times a day.
This repetition honed beginning performers
into seasoned professionals very quickly.
Wood was playing dime museums in Pittsburgh early in 1888 with his soon-to-be-famous Edna illusion. The illusion was described in advertisements as "The original and only human being who walks with feet up and head down, floats, sails, and turns somersaults in the air with the greatest of ease." Named for and performed by his wife, it featured her walking freely through the air, mounting and descending an invisible staircase, and somersaulting in mid-air with no visible means of support.
Benjamin Keyes, an illusion builder and machinist who had seen Wood's Edna illusion, was intrigued. In collaboration with Boston magic dealer Milton Chase, Keyes created plans for a similar illusion but then ran into problems. He showed his ideas to William Robinson, at that time an assistant of Harry Kellar, who was able to solve the difficulties. They renamed the levitation "Astarte."
The pilfered illusion was added to Kellar's show, and William Robinson's wife Dot filled the role of Edna. It received tremendous applause and excellent reviews. "Astarte" didn't last long. Will and Dot Robinson left the Kellar show in the autumn of 1889 to join Kellar's archrival, Alexander Herrmann, taking the Astarte illusion with them. It was renamed "Florine, Child of the Air" and later "The Maid in the Moon."
Kellar was left in a quandary. He overcame this by hiring the Edna illusion from Will Wood, but the ample Mrs. Kellar was unable to fit into the corset needed to affect the illusion. Consequently, the daughter of Charles and Martha Steen, the mind-reading couple currently touring in Kellar's show, became the new Edna. When the Steens left the show, Will and Edna Wood joined, and thus Edna became the new "Edna."
In 1890, the Woods started a five-year world tour performing in South America and Europe.
In September 1896, after his return from Europe, Wood turned his mechanical skills to early cinema. He constructed a projector based on the Lumière Cinematographe. He had several showings but generated little interest as theatrical entrepreneurs chose the Edison system. After this setback, Wood set out on his next Latin American tour in the Spring of 1897. He realized there was a lot of money to be made in South America. He and his company spent most of their time touring through the first half of the 1900s.
This tour went from Mexico City down to Southern Chile, up into Bolivia, across a thousand miles of barren plateau on mule-back with oxcarts, camping out in the open at times, down the Rio de la Plata, up the coast of Brazil, up the Amazon to Manaus. They returned to the US to then cross the Atlantic, along the Mediterranean to Port Said, and then back to New York. An article in the New York Times on June 17, 1906, reported this trip took such a toll on Wood's wife Edna that by the time of her return home, her health had deteriorated to the extent she was forced into retirement.
During the winter of 1907-08, Wood and his entourage toured Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, and the West Indian Islands. During this time, he caught a fever that prevented him from performing for several weeks and compelled him to disband the company.
In February 1908, Hastings Clawson, Wood's manager, proceeded to Progreso, Yucatan, with a newly assembled company of performers to await the arrival of Will and his daughter Bertha, who was replacing her mother in the show.
They started out from Frontera, but as no steamer was available, they took a tugboat, the Canuta Bulnes, which was towing a schooner. On the night of February 20, a severe tropical storm arose. The tugboat began to leak badly, and the tow line to the schooner was cut—the vessel foundered around midnight. The captain and all the crew survived. Will and Bertha did not. Their bodies were never found.
The captain and all the crew survived.
Will and Bertha did not.
Their bodies were never found.
Will Wood's brother Eugene and Will's manager Hastings Clawson made representations to the State Department regarding the suspicion of murder. Will Wood had about $14,000 in cash and $5000 in diamonds with him, none of which was found. The captain and crew of the Canuto Bulnes all denied there had been any robbery.
According to the Captain, Wood begged him at least to save Miss Wood. By this time, most of the crew were swimming about or clinging to pieces of wreckage. He advised Wood and his daughter to swim to the tug boat, which was floating nearby, almost full of water.
He declared that every effort was made to help the passengers accomplish this feat, but the crew finally found that each must look out for himself. Most of them made it to the boat and clung to it. Wood and his daughter were last seen clinging to a piece of wreckage. The night was very cold, and the seas were running high. It is supposed that they finally succumbed to exposure.
The search for Will and Bertha's bodies was unsuccessful. The captain and crew of the tugboat believed they were eaten by sharks, which are numerous in this vicinity.
Their luggage, some fifty trunks, was aboard the schooner and was subsequently recovered.
On February 19, 1919, Harry Kellar wrote Harry Houdini: "Yes. poor Woodie worked for me one entire season doing the 'Air Walking Act.' It was a sad, cruel ending for a brilliant artist, genius, and inventor. Will Wood had many clever and original ideas and was a natural mechanic, being able to work out theories and make them practicable. He once built his own moving picture machine out of parts of a sewing machine and old spools. In his death, magic lost one of its most promising disciples."
Edna Wood died on August 13, 1956. She was 89.
