The Cardiff Giant - the Greatest Hoax of All Time

One lazy summer afternoon in upstate New York, my family visited the Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown. We strolled past the barn and into the museum itself. We saw an old loom where a woman demonstrated that skill of yesteryear; a butter churn and other features of past domestic arts. Then, wandering on, I heard my husband call me in an excited whisper - the kind of whisper elicited by awe, the whisper that seems louder than a shout, the one that say's, 'come quick!'

I rounded the wall to enter a dimly lit room. And there, my heart caught with the shock of spotting one of the famous celebrities of my youth - ridiculous, mysterious, and somehow beautiful. It was the Cardiff Giant!

In the 19th century, shortly after the end of the Civil War, an atheist named George Hull got into an argument with a Christian fundamentalist minister called Turk.

Turk believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible. He did not believe in metaphor, or allegory, or explanations based on partially unknown factors. He did not believe that Bible stories became confused over the years, or exaggerated, or that translations may not have been exact. He insisted that a race of giants once roamed the Earth.

Hull thought that the idea of giants (also reported in other ancient tales) was absurd. His disbelief led to a diabolical inspiration.

In 1868, George Hull hired some stone cutters to chop a hunk of gypsum into the rough shape of a very large man. He then moved the stone and hired a German sculptor to carve the human likeness of a giant. The stone man was artificially aged by the application of corrosive liquids, then beat with knitting needles.

Next, Hull transported his stone man to the farm of his cousin, William C. Newell. The stone statue was buried on Newell's property in Cardiff, New York and left to age in the ground for one year.

On October 16, 1869, men hired to dig a well in a specific location on Newell's land, discovered something very unusual. It was a petrified giant!

Despite the lack of sophisticated communication devices, word travelled fast. Before long, neighbors and local residents swarmed to the Newell place for a look at the remarkable discovery. Newell charged inquisitive visitors 10 cents a peek. It was a sensation! At the height of the Cardiff Giant craze, Newell hosted 500 people a day.

They came in carriages, and omnibuses from the city. They loaded themselves into lumber wagons. They coughed up 2 bits when Newell raised the price. Eventually, the gawkers who loved the Cardiff Giant earned the cousins $30,000.00. A lot of money in those days.

A syndicate form Syracuse led by David Hannom offered over $35,000.00 to purchase the Cardiff Giant. The offer was accepted.

Moved to Syracuse, a city with a more sophisticated populace, the Cardiff Giant became an object of doubt. Someone noticed chisel marks. A Yale paleontologist called the Cardiff Giant 'humbug.' And Newell and Hull admitted to the hoax.

But people still wanted to see the Giant, who had, after all, been a huge sensation. The famous showman, P.T. Barnum offered $60,000.00 for the Cardiff Giant but was rebuffed. Barnum then commissioned a plaster replica to display, and claimed that his was the real Cardiff Giant. Hannon was mad. The two hurled suits and counter-suits at one another until a wise judge decided that since they were both fake, any suit was irrelevant.

In a snit over the behavior and practices of P.T. Barnum, Hannom uttered the famous phrase 'there's a sucker born every minute,' which is so often attributed to Barnum.

• In 1870, Mark Twain penned 'A Ghost Story,' which featured the Cardiff Giant.

• Shortly after, L. Frank Baum wrote a poem called, 'The True Origin of the Cardiff Giant,' in which he tells the story of how the Cardiff Giant jumped ship against the advice of Noah.

• The Cardiff Giant also appeared in Stephen King's 'From a Buick 8.'

• The Cardiff Giant was passed around, sold and resold. He was a flop at the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
  

Eventually, the Cardiff Giant was purchased by the New York State Historical Association and in May of 1948, moved to the Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown where he can be seen today, and where he is still a sensation. At least for me.

Farmers' Museum

5775 State Highway 80

Cooperstown, New York 13326