canals of Venice and crossed the straits of Gibraltar; returned to the U.S. and floated from Oil City, Pa. to the Gulf of Mexico-2,342 miles in 80 days. His longest voyage was in 1881 when he started at Glendive, Mont. and ended at St. Louis, Mo., 1,675 miles. In 1885, Boyton was involved in the fatal leap from Brooklyn Bridge of Robert Emmet Odlum, brother of women's rights activist Charlotte Odlum Smith. Catherine Odlum, mother of Robert and Charlotte, blamed Boyton for her son's death. Boyton wrote Mrs. Odlum a letter disclaiming responsibility, which he also published in The New York Times and other periodicals. Mrs. Odlum subsequently traveled to New York City to see Boyton. According to her account, Boyton sent two men to see her who claimed to be a lawyer and a judge, and who warned her not to say anything against Boyton to avoid prosecution for slander. Catherine Odlum claimed in the biography she wrote of her son that Boyton hid or destroyed letters and telegrams from himself to Robert Odlum urging him to travel to New York and make the Brooklyn Bridge jump. After the incident, Boyton left New York City and formed an aquatic circus, touring as the main act in Barnum's circus during 1887. He settled in Chicago in 1888 and noted the success of the attractions Midway at Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1892. Building on this, in 1894, he opened the first "permanent" amusement park (Paul Boyton's Water Chutes) in Chicago, which was also the first park of any type to charge an admission. The following year, he bought of land and opened the Sea Lion Park on Coney Island in 1895. He fenced the property and charged admission, an innovation at the time. It would later become Coney Island Amusement Park. Boyton and his sea lions also performed in silent films including Feeding Sea Lions. In 1902, Boyton sold Sea Lion Park to Frederic Thompson and Elmer "Skip" Dundy, who redesigned the park and renamed it Luna Park, the first of many of that name to come. Paul Boyton's Water Chutes was permanently closed in 1908, a casualty of increased competition from White City amusement parks, Electric Parks, and Luna Parks that arose in the dozen-plus years after the World's Columbian Exposition. Boyton's rubber suit was featured by Jules Verne in Tribulations of a Chinaman in China as a life saver