Laelaps

Given the speed at which information travels these days it is not surprising how quickly we forget hoaxes and humbugs. Every year people get their 15 minutes of fame by claiming to have seen ghosts, aliens, or fanciful creatures, but these far-out tales quickly fade away. This past summer, for instance, Matt Whitton, Rick Dyer, and "professional Bigfoot hunter" Tom Biscardi claimed to have in their possession the corpse of a Sasquatch.

Media outlets, particularly FOX News, picked up the story and ran with it but it was quickly determined that it was all a hoax. The story held the public's attention for about a week and quickly faded away, but there have been more famous hoaxes that, while they are unfamiliar now, were widely known for decades after they were perpetrated.

In October of 1869, on a farm not far from Cardiff, New York, Gideon Emmons and Henry Nicols dug into the loose soil to begin making a well. They did not get far before they struck something large, but they had no clue what it was until the soil fell back to reveal a gigantic human foot. The owner of the farm, William Newell, was brought out to oversee the dig and soon the team uncovered a super-sized human form. News quickly spread of this 10-foot-tall curiosity.

Speculations ran wild and Newell was deluged with offers to purchase the thing, but he decided to wait until his prize could be properly appraised. in the meantime the farmer decided to charge visitors 50 cents apiece to see the giant and newspapers hailed the discovery as the Cardiff Giant. Even the president of Cornell University, A.D. White, went out to see it, and he described his visit as follows;

The roads were crowded with buggies, carriages, and even omnibuses from the city, and with lumber-wagons from the farms -- all laden with passengers. In about two ours we arrived at the Newell farm, and found a gathering which at first sight seemed like a county fair. In the midst was a tent, and a crowd was pressing for admission. Entering, we saw a large pit or grave, and, at the bottom of it, perhaps five feet below the surface, an enormous figure, apparently of Onondaga gray limestone. It was a stone giant, with massive features, the whole body nude, the limbs contracted as if in agony. It had a color as if it had lain long in the earth, and over its surface were minute punctures, like pores. An especial appearance of great age was given it by deep grooves and channels in its under side, apparently worn by the water which flowed in streams through the earth and along the rock on which the figure rested. Lying in its grave, with the subdued light from the roof of the tent falling upon it, and with the limbs contorted as if in a death struggle, it produced a most weird effect. An air of great solemnity pervaded the place. Visitors hardly spoke above a whisper.

What was this curious thing? The geologist John Boynton at first thought it was a statue carved by Jesuits 200-300 years ago, but later changed his opinion that it had not been buried more than a few years. Others asserted that this was a true petrified body of a giant. A correspondent to the Western Monthly cited the curious case of a trapper who had supposedly become petrified to death as an example of how the giant could have come to be. This person, "M.D." wrote;

The circumstances [of the "Oregon petrefaction"] were these: A trapper, wandering amid the mountains, oppressed by heat and fatigue, sat himself down by a bubbling fountain that gushed out from a hill-side. Again and again he drank of the sparkling waters; but alas! they were charged with the silicate of soda; and the result was that that form, late instinct with life, was converted into a rigid stony mass, with every lineament of his features perfectly preserved, and bearing the exact expression of his dying agony. Thus we see that Nature has the power of almost instantaneously transmuting the human frame into stone; and our correspondent may be right in claiming that the Cardiff Giant is a petrefaction.

Other stories of people and animals that became "fossilized to death" began to pop up, as well as gossip connecting the giant to Native Americans and ancient civilizations. Many geologists, by contrast, recognized the giant as being made of gypsum, but how could it be a statue if no blocks of gypsum that size were known from the state (and the nearest gypsum quarry was over 12 miles away)? Furthermore, what artisan could so accurately portray a natural body cringing in pain?

While geologists pondered the origin of this thing, be it a true fossil or a statue, a pamphlet heralding the "American Goliath" was produced. While it did not positively identify the thing as statue or petrified human (even though more references were given for the latter notion), readers were given all the salient details and directions to the site so they could see for themselves. (An advertisement at the end of the pamphlet advised visitors who passed through Syracuse to call at the Redington & Howe music store for the latest information on the sensation.)

The popularity of the Goliath was too great to keep it confined in the country, though, and it was decided that it should go on display in New York City. P.T. Barnum was among those who tried to purchase the attraction but it was already in possession of a local group who refused Barnum's offer. Ever the cunning showman, Barnum decided to beat his competitors at their own game by having a giant of his own manufactured, which the owners of the "true" giant unsuccessfully tried to bar from being exhibited. Both objects continued to draw crowds.

Yet some were skeptical of the giant, not necessarily for reasons of its manufacture, but for dealings among those associated with it. Soon after the giant was found George Hull appeared on the Newell farm and was given a substantial share of the profits taken in from visitors. Why? Some thought they recalled seeing Hull leading a four-horse team hauling a large box in the vicinity of Cardiff the year before. Could he have planted the giant? Geologists, too, began to revise their original opinions and finally O.C. Marsh, Yale's famous paleontologist, examined the giant and declared it "a most decided humbug."

If the public cared a wit about Marsh's conclusion they did not show it; people still thronged to see the giant. Among the crowds was a man from Iowa, Galusha Parsons, and when he saw it realization dawned. Just the year before a group of men had dug up a huge block of gypsum near Fort Dodge and sent it east. This was no mere coincidence. By tugging at this string the entire scheme was eventually unraveled by the work of various people who investigated the story. The fruit of their labors was a counter-pamphlet, "The Cardiff Giant Humbug", which the owners immediately bought up and burned. The next day, though, the printers were churned out more and news of the fraud spread.

In 1868 George Hull and H.B. Martin, a man from Iowa, checked into a hotel near Fort Dodge, Iowa. It was there that they tried to obtain a 12-foot-long block of gypsum but its owner refused to part with it. If they wanted such a huge slab they were going to have to get it the hard way, and to this end they hired a man named Foley to dig up a five-ton block for them. The only problem was that such a huge piece of gypsum was too heavy to transport and it had to be whittled down to three and a half tons before it was light enough to send to Chicago.

It was in the Windy City that the giant was born. A smaller version was made up as a model and the sculptors set to work about bringing Hull's vision to life. It had to believable as either a fossil or a statue, and the hoaxers were so meticulous as to have the artists to use a pin struck by a mallet to create the illusion of pores over the body. The giant also needed to look ancient, and according to one of the artists this was accomplished in the following way;

Several ways were tried to make the figure look old, and, at last, one was invented. Quite a number of needles were placed in lead, with their points, protruding, and the figure was pricked over with this. Two days were occupied in this work, as the chisel left marks on the stone which had to be effaced by this slow process of pricking. Some vitriol, sulphuric acid, and English ink were next procured and rubbed, which gave the antiquated look required. Hull thought, at first, it would be best to put on a clay covering, but concluded it had better not be done, as the clay where the statue was to be buried might be different. He was undecided where to bury it at first, and suggested Mexico, I told him I thought that would be a good place; but finally concluded not to take it there, as the distance was so great.

This attention to detail was important but work had to move quickly to avoid word of the project getting out. As one of the sculptors later wrote in a letter revealing his part in the hoax in the Chicago Tribune, "beer was supplied" so there was no reason for the German artists to leave their workshop. (Unfortunately they were never paid for their work!)

Once the giant was finished it was shipped under the label "finished marble" to New York, and that's when Hull and his four-horse team not-so-secretly transported it to its resting place. Every person who asked about what was in the box got a different answer, but it didn't matter at the time. Hull just needed to get it in the ground and let it age for another year before giving Newell (a relative) directions to release it from its tomb.

It was not only independent investigators that revealed all this information. Many details became available because Hull, knowing that he had been found out but enjoying every minute of his fame, made the minutiae of the giant's manufacture public. He even divulged his inspiration for the humbug. As Hull later recalled he was in Ohio to settle a business transaction involving 10,000 cigars he had sent to Ackley when the thought of a hoax first struck him;

At that time a Methodist revivalist ["the Rev. Mr. Turk"] was in Ackley, and prayed all over the settlement. The people were too poor to pay him anything, and he boarded around. One night he was at my sister's house, and after supper we had a long discussion and a hot one.

At midnight we went to bed, and I lay wide awake wondering why people would believe those remarkable stories in the Bible about giants, when suddenly I thought of making a stone giant and passing it off as a petrified man.

The whole facade was a jab at Bible-thumping Christians who demanded a narrow reading of Scripture. (I have found no reference to any reaction from Turk, but at least one clergyman took the bait.)

The fact that the giant had been outed as a hoax did not stop some from trying to divine ancient secrets from it, however. Alexander McWhorter, a Yale graduate student, was sure he found Phoenician letters inscribed upon the idol. European scholars were interested in it for similar reasons, and an 1874 article in the Journal of the American Oriental Society expressed incredulity that anyone could still think this object was an ancient statue or fossil human. One researcher, a Dr. Schlottman, thought the giant to be a representation of Adonis, and there were rumors that the giant would go on a European tour.

Despite the interest in the giant in Europe no tour of the region materialized. Instead the statue was moved to Fitchburg, Massachusetts, little more than a short stop before it moved to New Orleans where it again made headlines in 1877. In the case of Gott vs. Pulsifer it was revealed that the new owner of the statue (Gott) had an arrangement to sell it to a man named Palmer for about $30,000. That's when an article appeared in the Boston's Sunday Herald reminding everyone that the object had been justly outed as a fraud. Palmer, previously unaware of this, withdrew his offer and leaft the owner of the giant without a buyer.

Frustrated that his prize was now worthless Gott sued the newspaper, but ultimately the jury found for the defendant (the paper). The court concluded "Anything made subject of public exhibition is open to fair and reasonable comment, no matter how severe."

The giant disappeared again, only to resurface on display in Buffalo, New York in 1901. It was only exhibited a short time before being put back in storage but eventually it made its way back to Fort Dodge and continued to change hands. Indeed, the Cardiff Giant was a minor celebrity and every few years it would be rolled out to "officiate" at one public event or another. Not all of the statues at these events were the authentic Hull model, however. As it turns out several other giants, guaranteed by their makers as the "real" Cardiff giant, were made.

And what of the mastermind behind the hoax? Hull was none the worse for wear after his stunt (quite the contrary) and after the Cardiff sensation he dreamed up another hoax. Perhaps targeting evolutionists to balance out his resume, he mixed human and ape bones and baked them together in clay which he then had "discovered" in Colorado. As with the Cardiff Giant, however, O.C. Marsh inspected the weird thing soon after it was announced and proclaimed it to be a hoax, and as before Hull owned up to it (citing that P.T. Barnum was an accomplice this time.)

Given the number of times it has changed hands I thought that by now the original giant would have been ground into dust, but it actually still exists. The authentic Cardiff Giant now rests at the Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Perhaps a road trip is in order.