THE TALLEST MAN IN TENNESSEE
Nashville Daily American, February 2, 1876
Somerville Falcon
There is now living in Perry county, Tennessee, a wonderful curiosity in the person of James Horner, the Tennessee Giant. He is one of a family of eight children, none of the rest of whom have exhibited any unusual traits. At eighteen years he was a well grown man, six feet high, and weighed one hundred and eighty pounds. At twenty-one he was six inches taller, and weighed two hundred and ten pounds. Any growth after that was not noticed until he was twenty-four years old, and then only by the smallness of his clothes, and he then measured in his stockings six feet nine inches. Since then — he is now thirty-one years of age — he has attained the height of seven feet nine inches, and is still growing, this being an increase of about two inches annually. Some years he grows more and some less, but this is his average. While he ought to weigh at least 300 pounds, he only weighs 233. He is excessively lank and gawky, and only possesses one quality in a large degree, and that is his ability to walk. He thinks nothing of walking from home to Linden, the county seat, twelve miles distant, and back to dinner.