Charles Stephens was born in 1862 and died on 11 July 1920.

He was the second man to attempt the stunt and the third person to do so. He was, however, the first person to die doing it.

Charles began performing stunts to support his wife Annie and their 11 children and decided that going over the Horseshoe Falls in a barrel weighted with an anvil was a “cool proposition.”

Disregarding the advice of fellow daredevils he didn’t test the barrel and it was a good chance that strapping his feet to the anvil was a huge contribution to his death. All that was found of his body was his right arm and he was identified by the tattoo that read “Forget Me Not Annie.”

In 1994 he was posthumously a Darwin Award.

His arm is buried in Drummonds Hill Cemetery, Niagara Falls.