Prof. Adelard P. Demers Roller Skating Papers

Adelard Pierre Demers (1863-1933) was born in Stanbridge, Quebec, near Montreal to Pierre and Harriete Demers. By the 1870s, the family had moved to Lowell, Massachusetts (the 1880 federal census records the family names as "Dumais"), where he attended school and later worked in cotton mills. As a teenager, Demers also worked as an instructor at a roller skating rink. By 1883, he had adopted the stage name "Prof. Adelard P. Demers," and he began giving fancy and trick roller skating exhibitions around the region. His shows proved popular and lucrative, and he toured widely in the late nineteenth century giving performances and lecturing about roller skating. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1888, and his tours took him to Europe and South America. He offered standing challenges of $1,000 and then $5,000 for anybody who could match his exploits on skates. During these years, he also engaged in a partnership with the Winslow Roller Skate Company based in Worcester, Massachusetts.

In 1909, he managed a roller skating a rink in Aberdeen, Scotland. The following year, he opened the popular American Skating Rink in Paris, France, which featured an array of roller skating competitions, exhibitions, and shows. Demers married Helene Edmee Laverrenne in Paris in 1914, and the couple had one son, Roger. With the outbreak of World War One, Demers closed the American Skating Rink, and returned to Massachusetts with his family. After 1918, the family split time between France and Massachusetts. Demers continued to give skating shows, and he also rented out properties in Lowell. During his career, Demers claimed to have given more than 9,000 roller skating exhibitions around the world. He died in Massachusetts in 1933.

Demers' obituary in Billboard magazine provided a detailed description of his roller skating act:

"Prof. Demers, winner of many international championships since 1884, claimed the title of 'greatest exhibition skater' and backed up his claim with an offer to pay $5,000 to any skater who could follow him and equal the series of difficult and intricate steps and figures he would execute in his exhibition routine. He claimed precedence in trick and fancy skating. In 30 minutes he would go thru a routine of 400 steps and figures, including the locomotive hop, blindfold spin, Arabian twist, kangaroo jump, side-face skating and his paticycle act, which was skating on a rickety rolling table with a surface only 2 by 3 feet. During his performance he would deliver a lecture titled 'How the Classic Skate in France and England,' in which he would describe easy methods of plain, fancy and trick skating and then fully demonstrate them."

The obituary concluded simply: "In the death of Prof. Demers the roller skating fraternity loses one of its brightest satellites."

++++ Sources:

Billy Kurten, "Prof. A.P, Demers," Billboard, Feb. 4, 1933, page 29.

Frederick Coburn, "Adelard P. Demers." in A History of Lowell and Its People Vol. 2. (New York City: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1920), pages 143-44.