Cardiff Giant

The Cardiff Giant was one of the most celebrated hoaxes of the 19th-century United States. This famous scam surrounded the discovery of a large stone sculpture, purported to be either an ancient statue or the petrified remains of an antediluvian giant being.

The Cardiff Giant was a 10-foot, 4.5-inch-tall stone statue of a man that was found on October 16, 1869, as laborers were digging a well behind the barn belonging to William C. “Stub” Newell in Cardiff, New York. Word of the colossal find rapidly spread and people began visiting Newell's farm to view the marvel. Newell initially charged 25 cents and was soon charging a 50¢ fee to see the giant stone man.

Two major theories arose to explain what the Cardiff Giant might actually be. Some theorized that it was an ancient statue. Dr. John F. Boynton was a leading proponent of this view; he suggested that perhaps a Jesuit missionary had carved it during the 17th century to help attract converts to his faith among the indigenous Native American people of the region. A competing theory was that the Cardiff Giant was the petrified remains of a member of an ancient race of giants. This petrifactionist position was based on a biblical passage (Genesis 6:4) that referred to “giants in the Earth.” This view was particularly popular among Christian fundamentalists, who saw the find as substantiation of holy scripture.

However, it was all a clever ruse. An entrepreneur, George Hull, who was an atheist and failed tobacco farmer and cigar manufacturer from Binghamton, New York, devised the idea of burying a stone giant in the ground after having a heated discussion at Ackley, Iowa, with a Methodist revivalist, the Reverend Mr. Turk, who asserted that whatever the Bible said should be taken literally and at face value. This, of course, would include the reference to “giants in the Earth.” Hull, in collaboration with Newell, formulated an elaborate plan to create the giant figure.

Hull found a railroad construction site in Fort Dodge, Iowa, that had exposed a layer of gypsum, a soft, easily carved rock. He paid the grading crew a keg of beer for a block of gypsum measuring 12 by 4 by 2 feet. This three-ton block of stone was wrapped in canvas and moved 40 miles to the nearest active railroad line; on the way there, its weight broke two wagons and a bridge, so one ton was cut away. Hull found Edward Burkhardt, a Chicago stone cutter from Germany, who with two assistants carved out the figure, whose face happened to resemble that of Hull. The stone cutters created special hammers, made of darning needles set in a lead base, to simulate skin pores, and they rubbed the statue with water, sand, ink, and sulfuric acid to produce an antique look. The final Cardiff Giant statue weighed in at 2,990 pounds.

Newell, Hull's cousin, agreed to have the statue buried on his farm in exchange for a quarter share of interest in the scheme. The statue was carefully interred in November 1868. In October 1869, Newell hired two neighbors, Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols, to help him dig a well, indicating where they should dig. After the statue's surprising discovery, scholars and scientists came from colleges and museums to inspect it, and most declared it to be an ancient statue. Numerous other gawkers came to see the marvel. Newell fenced off the area around the find, hired a carnival barker, and continued charging a 50¢ admission fee.

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