An October 1869 photograph showing the Cardiff Giant being exhumed.

The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous hoaxes in American history, was a 10-foot-tall (3 m) "petrified man" uncovered on October 16, 1869 by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell in Cardiff, New York. Both it and an unauthorized copy made by P.T. Barnum are still on display. Image File history File links An October 1869 photograph showing the Cardiff Giant being exhumed. ... Image File history File links An October 1869 photograph showing the Cardiff Giant being exhumed. ... A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. ... In geology, petrifaction or petrification is the process by which organic material is converted into stone or a similar substance. ... October 16 is the 289th day of the year (290th in leap years). ... 1869 (MDCCCLXIX) is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ... Cardiff, New York is a small hamlet located south of Syracuse, New York. ... Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891), American showman who is best remembered for his entertaining hoaxes and for founding the circus that eventually became Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. ...

Giant's creation

The Giant was the creation of a New York tobacconist named George Hull. Hull, an atheist, decided to create the giant after an argument with a fundamentalist minister Mr. Turk about a passage in Genesis that stated that there were giants who once lived on earth.^[1] Atheism, in its broadest sense, is the absence of belief in the existence of deities. ... Genesis (Greek: Γένεσις, having the meanings of birth, creation, cause, beginning, source and origin) is the first book of the Torah, the first book of the Tanakh and also the first book of the Christian Old Testament. ...

The idea of the petrified man did not originate with Hull, however. In 1858 the newspaper Alta California had published a bogus letter that claimed that a prospector had been petrified when he had drunk a liquid within a geode. Some other newspapers had also published stories of supposedly petrified people. Geode, halved and polished Geode, halved and polished Geodes (Greek geoides, earthlike) are geological rock formations which occur in sedimentary and certain volcanic rocks. ...

Hull hired men to carve out a 11-foot-long (3.3 m) block of gypsum in Fort Dodge, Iowa, telling them it was intended for a monument of Abraham Lincoln in New York. He shipped the block to Chicago, where he hired a German stonecutter to carve it into likeness of man and swore him to secrecy. Various stains and acids were used to make the giant appear to be old and weather beaten, and the giant's surface was beaten with steel knitting needles embedded in a board to simulate pores. Then Hull transported the giant by rail to the farm of William Newell, his cousin, in November 1868. He had by then spent $2,600 on the hoax. Gypsum is a very soft mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. // [edit] Chemical structure Heating gypsum to between 100°C and 150°C (302°F) partially dehydrates the mineral by driving off exactly 75% of the water contained in its chemical structure. ... Flag Seal Motto: Location Location in the State of Iowa Coordinates: Government Country State County United States Iowa Webster County Incorporated 1869 Mayor Terry Lutz Geographical characteristics Area 38. ... Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), sometimes called Abe Lincoln and nicknamed Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter, and the Great Emancipator, was an American politician who served as the 16th President of the United States (1861 to 1865), and the first president from the Republican Party. ...

When the giant had been buried for a year, Newell hired two men, Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols, ostensibly to dig a well. When they found the Giant, one of them has been attributed to saying "I declare, some old Indian has been buried here!".

Giant exhibited

Newell set up a tent over the giant and charged 25 cents for people who wanted to see it. Two days later he increased the price to 50 cents.

Archaeological scholars pronounced the giant as a fake, and some geologists even noticed that there was no good reason to try to dig a well in the exact spot the giant had been found. Some Christian fundamentalists and preachers, however, defended its legitimacy [1].

Eventually Hull sold his part-interest for $37,500 to a syndicate of five men headed by David Hannum. They moved it to Syracuse, New York for exhibition. Clinton Square in Syracuse. ...

The giant drew such crowds that showman P.T. Barnum offered $60,000 for a three-month lease of it (in his memoirs he said he wanted to buy it). When the syndicate turned him down he hired a man to covertly model the giant's shape in wax and create a plaster replica. He put his giant on display in New York, claiming that his was the real giant and the Cardiff Giant was a fake. Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891) Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891) by Mathew Brady 1856 newspaper advertisement for Barnums American Museum Parody of Jenny Linds first American tour for P.T. Barnum, New York City, October 1850 Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891), American showman who...

As the newspapers reported Barnum's version of the story, David Hannum was quoted as saying, "There's a sucker born every minute" in reference to the suckers paying to see Barnum's giant. Over time, the quotation has been misattributed to P.T. Barnum himself. Theres a sucker born every minute is a phrase often credited to P.T. Barnum. ...

Hannum sued Barnum but the judge told him to get his giant to swear on his own genuineness in court if he wanted a favourable injunction.

Scholars also criticized the giant. Yale palaeontologist Othniel C. Marsh called it "a most decided humbug". On December 10, Hull confessed to the press. Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 - March 18, 1899) was one of the pre-eminent paleontologists of the 19th century, who discovered and named many fossils found in the American West. ...

On February 2, 1870 both giants were revealed as fakes in court. The judge ruled that Barnum could not be sued for calling a fake giant a fake. February 2 is the 33rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1870 (MDCCCLXX) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ...

Imitators

The Cardiff Giant inspired number of similar hoaxes.

• In 1876 The Solid Muldoon emerged in Beulah, Colorado and was exhibited at 50 cents a ticket. There was also a rumor that Barnum had offered to buy it for $20,000. One employer later revealed that this was also a creation of George Hull, aided by Willian Conant. The Solid Muldoon was made of clay, ground bones, meat, rock dust and plaster.
• In 1877, the owner of Taughannock House hotel on Lake Cayuga, New York, hired men to create a fake petrified man and place it where the workers that were expanding the hotel would dig it up. One of the men who had buried the giant later revealed the truth when drunk.
• In 1892 Jefferson "Soapy" Smith, de facto ruler of the town of Creede, Colorado, purchased a petrified man and exhibited it for 10 cents a peek.^[2] He named it McGinty. This was a real human body, intentionally injected with chemicals for preservation and petrification. Soapy displayed McGinty from 1892 to 1895. The main reason for displaying McGinty was the profits from Soapy's shell game operators set up to gamble with those waiting in line.
• In 1899 a petrified man found in Fort Benton, Montana was "identified" as US Civil War General Thomas Meagher. Meagher had drowned in the Missouri River two years previously. The petrified man was transported to New York for exhibition.

1876 (MDCCCLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... 1877 (MDCCCLXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Cayuga Lake is the longest of western New Yorks glacial Finger Lakes, and is the second largest in surface area (marginally smaller than Seneca Lake) and volume. ... 1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Soapy Smith (1860-1898) was a US con artist and gangster who had a hand in the underworld affairs of Denver, Colorado, Creede, Colorado, and Skagway, Alaska. ... Creede is a town located in Mineral County, Colorado. ... A shell game is performed with bottle caps on a cardboard box, on Fulton Street in New York City. ... 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Fort Benton is a city located in Chouteau County, Montana. ... Thomas Francis Meagher aka: OMeagher, or Meagher of the Sword (August 3, 1823 – July 1, 1867) was an Irish revolutionary, who also served in the United States Army as a Brigadier General during the U.S. Civil War. ... The Missouri River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the United States. ...

Current resting place

The Cardiff Giant appeared in the 1901 Pan-American Exposition but did not attract much attention. An Iowa publisher bought it later to adorn his basement rumpus room as a coffee table and conversation piece. In 1947 he sold it to Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown, New York, where it is still on display. Barnum's duplicate is on display at Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, a coin-operated game arcade/museum of oddities in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The Farmer's Museum booklet about its artifact used to tease the public by citing an authority who questioned the conclusion that it was a fraud. Cooperstown is a village in Otsego County, New York and is the County Seat. ... Farmington Hills is a city in Oakland County, Michigan, United States. ...

Popular culture

• In 1870, Mark Twain wrote "A Ghost Story" in which the ghost of the Cardiff Giant appears in the hotel room in Manhattan to demand that he be reburied. The Giant is so confused that he haunts Barnum's plaster copy of himself.
• George Auger, a Ringling Brothers circus giant, used the stage name "Cardiff Giant". He was to act in Harold Lloyd's 1923 comedy film Why Worry?, but died shortly after filming started, sparking a nationwide search for a replacement.
• American Goliath by Harvey Jacobs is a 1997 novel based on the Cardiff Giant.
• The film Made contains a fictional agency named Cardiff Giant.
• He is mentioned in "From a Buick 8", a novel by Stephen King.
• Cardiff Giant is also an alt. folk-rock band formed in Bloomington, Indiana, in 2002.
• On an episode of the Simpsons a supposed angel skeleton is exhumed, and after Homer claims it he charges the people of Springfield to view it at his house. It's later revealed to have been made and buried by a newly opened wholesale store in the area as an advertising stunt.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, satirist, novelist, writer, and lecturer. ... The Ringling Brothers Circus was a circus founded in the United States in 1884. ... Harold Clayton Lloyd (April 20, 1893–March 8, 1971) was an American actor and film maker, most famous for his hugely successful and influential silent film comedies. ... See also: 1922 in film 1923 1924 in film 1920s in film years in film film // Events April 15 - Lee De Forest demonstrates the Phonofilm sound-on-film system at the Rivoli Theater in New York with a series of short musical films featuring vaudeville performers. ... Movie poster for Why Worry? Why Worry? is a 1923 comedy silent film starring Harold Lloyd. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Made film poster Made is a 2001 movie written and directed by Jon Favreau. ... For other persons named Stephen King, see Stephen King (disambiguation). ...

Notes

1. ^ (Genesis 6:4)
2. ^ Soapy's profits did not come from displaying McGinty, but rather from distractions, like the shell game set up to entertain the crowds as they waited in line. He also made money by selling, and buying back, interests in the exhibition.

A shell game is performed with bottle caps on a cardboard box, on Fulton Street in New York City. ...

Sources

• Mark Rose - When Giants Roamed the Earth (Archaeology magazine, November/December 2005)
• Jeff Smith - on the true story of Soapy Smith's McGinty. Soapy Smith was Jeff's great grandfather.

External links

• P.T. Barnum Never Did Say...