Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols are nowhere listed among the heroes of American archaeology, but the discovery they made on October 16, 1869, captured the nation's imagination. Digging a well on the farm of William "Stub" Newell in the hamlet of Cardiff, New York, they hit stone three feet down. Clearing the soil, they recognized the shape of a foot, and one of them uttered the immortal words, "I declare, some old Indian has been buried here!"
Soon they had unearthed a colossal stone figure more than 10 feet from head to toe. What Emmons and Nichols didn't know was the stone man was the creation of Binghamton cigar maker George Hull, who was Newell's cousin, and that Hull and Newell had planted it there nearly a year before. Hundreds of people flocked to see the marvel. Newell set up a tent over it and started charging 25c a head. Business was so brisk that he increased it to 50c two days later.
Andrew White, first president of Cornell University, later described his visit: "The roads were crowded with buggies, carriages, and even omnibuses from the city, and with lumber-wagons from the farms--all laden with passengers." The giant was an impressive sight. "Lying in its grave," wrote White, "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."
10 comments:
Sounds like your long lost relatives.
Haha. I love a good hoax!
And, all these years later, we're still seeing influences from this big fella.
For example, after a few twists and turns involving P.T. Barnum and his notorious hucksterism, a fake version of the fake Cardiff Giant was basically responsible for the well-known "There's a sucker born every minute" quote (and not originating from Barnum himself, as it turns out).
It was also a major influence on one of the true bright spots from season 9 of 'The Simpsons', episode 8 "Lisa the Skeptic".
Weird radiating effects from someone getting the bright idea to play a prank on people 150+ years ago...fun stuff!
Thanks for sharing that. I absolutely LOVE the idea that a hoax would ripple through time.
Man, to be a prop maker back then… cha-ching $
haha.
I must confess, i purchased another 12ft skeleton to go along with my other one. The campground setup will have alot of bones this year.
haha...nice!
We would do that to new archaeolgy students. We "salt" a small fake site for them to excavate before working on a real one. They were pretty pissed when we told them.
haha. That's hilarious.
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