Robert Emmet Odlum

Robert Emmet Odlum (August 31, 1851 – May 19, 1885) was an American swimming instructor. Odlum was the first person to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, and was killed doing so.

Early life

Robert Emmet Odlum was born in Ogdensburg, New York, on August 31, 1851, the son of Catherine and Richard Odlum. He was named after the Irish nationalist Robert Emmet. Odlum was one of seven children, only four of whom survived childhood. Odlum's elder brother David served under the name "Charles Rogers" in the 8th Missouri Infantry Regiment of the Union Army in the American Civil War, and disappeared after the Battle of Shiloh; it was never known whether he had been killed, captured or had deserted. He was the brother of women's rights activist Charlotte Smith.

Odlum was an expert swimmer as a child. After the death of Richard Odlum in the mid-1850s, the Odlums traveled to New Orleans, then to New York City, Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, and Montreal, Canada. They eventually settled in St. Louis. In 1860 they traveled to Cuba, returning to New Orleans from Havana on March 21, 1861, the same day Louisiana ratified the Confederate Constitution. In search of David Odlum, who had joined the Union Army, they traveled northward to Cairo, Illinois and Paducah, Kentucky, moving to Memphis, Tennessee in 1862. The Odlums, who had Southern sympathies but a family member in the Union Army, were trapped for much of the war in the hostile environment of Memphis, a staunchly Confederate city occupied by Union forces. On April 4, 1864, the Odlums' house in Memphis was torn down by Union troops to clear an artillery firing path. In 1865 the family moved to Mobile, Alabama.