Signor Lawanda

Hugh David Evans (August 7, 1849 – November 14, 1934), known as Signor Lawanda, was a nineteenth-century circus performer and strongman renowned for his strength.

Born Hugh David Evans in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, his mother died two weeks after his birth due to puerperal sepsis.

Coming from several generations of slate miners in Northern Wales on his father's side, his mother was a Pennsylvania German woman who was famed for her feats of strength in her Bethlehem neighborhood.

As part of his act in his trouping days, Evans would lift a barrel of water and let four men climb astride it, weighing approximately 1000 pounds.

(Detroit Free Press November 15, 1934) In June 1882 while performing in Boston, Massachusetts, at Forest Gardens, Evans became ensnared in a confrontation with John L. Sullivan, then the heavyweight champ.