100 Years Ago: “The Human Fly” Astonishes Amesbury Onlookers

George Polley climbing an unidentified bank building at some point in his career as a “human fly.” (Photo courtesy of The Gardner [Mass.] News, thegardnernews.com.)

There he was, on an October Saturday in 1922, slowly making his way up the outside of the Fuller Building at the corner of Main and Friend streets – in street clothes and without ropes or other equipment, using only his bare hands. A crowd of Amesbury townsfolk watched and gasped as George Polley, known as “The Human Fly,” ascended. Many of those watching from Main Street “were seen to close their eyes rather than look at the climber at his dizzy height hanging by his finger ends,” reported the October 16 Amesbury Daily News. But reaching the roof wasn’t the end of his amazing display. Polley then jumped on a borrowed bicycle and rode it around the edge of the building top.

The news article doesn’t tell us who paid Polley for his stunt, but some sources say he charged $200 (about $3,500 in today’s dollars) for such ascents and was usually hired by companies or organizations seeking publicity. No matter who might have hired Polley for the publicity, the stunt must have been a success. Polley returned to Amesbury the following summer, this time climbing the Wilman Block on Main Street and again riding a bicycle around the perimeter of the roof. The Amesbury Daily News reported that Polley had also performed in Amesbury in 1917 or 1918.

The Fuller building today at the corner of Main and Friend streets. “Human Fly” George Polley climbed to the top with his bare hands and in street clothes in 1922, riding a bicycle around the edge of the roof to finish off his act.

Daredevil acts were popular in those years, and other “human flies” visited Amesbury and other towns in the region quite frequently to thrill entertainment-starved citizens. A June, 1923, advertisement by the Strand Theater in the Amesbury Daily News promised another, unnamed, human fly performance. “The man in white will scale the Wilman block and ‘stunt’ for the public on the uppermost point.”

Then in July of 1925, a human fly named Henry Roland climbed the same building, according to the Amesbury Daily News. The announcement in the News said Roland would perform “the world’s highest table and chair act on top of the block, [and] also a daring trapeze act.” Roland returned to Amesbury in August, again climbing the Wilman block, then “balancing on the edge of the roof with a foot on each chair, hanging over the cornice with one hand.”

Roland’s climb that day was witnessed by a huge crowd, “packing both sidewalks and many standing in the street.” The stunt, a “truly hair raising spectacle,” was described in detail in the news report:

He [Roland] announced that he would endeavor to go up the center of the building which is harder than going up at the corner. When he reached the top of the arch of the second story where the high windows extend toward the roof he seemed baffled. The window ledge over his head was slanting and was about three inches too high for him to reach. Finally he got set and springing up grasped the ledge hanging momentarily in mid air. He then swung his leg over an abutting ornament and gradually worked his way to a short rope ladder hanging down and on which his companion had been performing stunts a short time before. It was a great performance as one slip would have sent him to the pavement far below him.