20. A Giant Gilded Age Hoax
The Gilded Age was full of cons and hoaxes. A literally giant hoax began on October 16th, 1869, as workers dug a well behind the barn of William C. “Stub” Newell, in Cardiff, New York, and struck stone about three feet down. When they cleared the soil around the obstruction, they discovered a huge foot. Excitedly, the workers continued digging, and were astonished when they finally unearthed the petrified remains of a ten-foot-tall man. As news of the find spread, hundreds of archaeologists and scientists, and thousands of the curious, flocked to Newell’s farm. There, he charged visitors 50 cents for a look. Newell made no claims about the giant’s authenticity, but invited visitors to draw their own conclusions. It seemed to many observant people to be a crude statue. Many more, however, saw it as proof of the Bible’s assertions that giants had once walked the earth.
The Cardiff giant was actually a statue, created by an atheist named George Hull. He got the idea after a heated debate at a revival meeting about Genesis 6:4, which claimed that the earth had once been inhabited by giants. Hull bought a ten-foot block of gypsum in Iowa, and shipped it to Chicago. There, he swore a stonecutter to secrecy, then commissioned him to shape the gypsum into the likeness of a man. Chemicals were applied to give the carving an aged look, and needles were used to puncture and pit its surface and make it look more weathered. Hull then shipped it to the farm of his cousin, William Newell, who buried it behind his barn in 1868. A year later, Newell hired workers to dig a well behind the barn, where they came across the buried hoax.
