American Goliath
The Story of the Cardiff Giant
Spectacle and the Age of Humbug
Author’s Note on the “Age of Humbug”
The phrase “Age of Humbug” refers to a period in 19th-century American history when public appetite for spectacle, novelty, and wonder collided with a rapidly changing cultural landscape. During this era, hoaxes, pseudoscience, sensational news, and elaborate public deceptions became both entertainment and a reflection of deeper societal tensions.
Far from simple frauds, these spectacles, like the Cardiff Giant, thrived in a time when science, religion, commerce, and mass media vied for authority in shaping how people understood the world. The term “humbug” captured the spirit of an age when belief and skepticism often walked hand in hand, and when even the exposure of a hoax could add to its popularity.
This article explores the Cardiff Giant as a case study in that phenomenon, using it to examine how America’s hunger for meaning, wonder, and spectacle shaped, and still shapes, the stories we choose to believe.
On an autumn morning in 1869, two hired hands began digging a well behind a farmhouse in Cardiff, New York, a hamlet just south of Syracuse, about 130 miles west of Albany. The work was routine until their shovels struck something solid a few feet down. Clearing away the damp earth, they uncovered the form of a human foot — massive, stone, and eerily lifelike. As they dug further, a full figure emerged: over ten feet long, a colossal man-shaped form lying in repose beneath the soil.
Within hours, word of the discovery streaked across Onondaga County. Neighbors poured in, abandoning chores and dragging children along to see what came to be called the Cardiff Giant. For many, the sight suggested ancient secrets: perhaps a long-dead Native chieftain or a remnant of the biblical giants mentioned in Genesis. The Syracuse Journal marveled at the sudden pilgrimage to William “Stub” Newell’s farm. Carriages jammed rural roads, and curiosity became frenzy.
The Cardiff Giant didn’t merely fool the public. It captured the imagination of a nation wrestling with seismic cultural shifts.
In post–Civil War America, industrial expansion, scientific upheaval, religious revivalism, and a swelling appetite for spectacle collided in a cultural moment primed for grand deception. The Cardiff Giant was less an isolated hoax than a mirror reflecting America’s tangled relationship with belief, skepticism, and entertainment.
A Hoax Born of Frustration and Opportunity
Behind the giant stood George Hull, a Binghamton cigar maker with a reputation for sharp business instincts and sharper skepticism. Hull, an avowed atheist, had grown frustrated by arguments with religious fundamentalists. One such encounter, in Iowa in 1866, sparked a plan that fused his contempt for literalist Bible interpretations with an eye for profit.
Debating a revivalist minister over Genesis 6:4, “There were giants in the earth in those days”, Hull reportedly left the argument disgusted by what he saw as blind credulity. That night, he imagined crafting a stone giant that could be “discovered,” baiting the faithful and lining his pockets in the process.
Hull committed more than words to his plan. He spent the modern equivalent of over $60,000 to commission a forged “petrified man,” an audacious gamble blending satire and business. His goal wasn’t just to mock biblical literalism. He also recognized the public’s thirst for spectacle. If the hoax succeeded, he would expose what he saw as religious gullibility while reaping the financial rewards of a national curiosity.
The Crafting of a Colossal Lie
Hull’s first challenge was finding the right material. In Iowa’s Fort Dodge region, he located a block of fine-grained gypsum. Hull lied to the quarrymen, claiming the slab was destined for a Lincoln monument in New York. Hauled to Chicago, the five-ton stone passed into the hands of Edward Burghardt, a German stonecutter Hull swore to secrecy. Burghardt enlisted two sculptors, Henry Salle and Fred Mohrmann, to shape the giant in a barn outside the city.
To throw off suspicion, the sculptors worked in secrecy, muffling their chisels behind heavy quilts. The figure’s features were modeled, in part, on Hull himself, an odd blend of vanity and satire. But crafting a convincing ancient artifact demanded more than skill with a chisel. Hull directed the men to avoid hair or beards, knowing petrified flesh wouldn’t preserve such details.
They gave the figure skin-like texture by pounding it with boards embedded with steel needles, then rubbed it with sand and water to simulate centuries of erosion. Finally, they stained the statue with sulfuric acid, deepening its color and enhancing its illusion of age. By the time they finished, the giant bore enough anatomical precision, and enough deliberate weathering, to seem plausibly ancient, especially to an eager public with little understanding of geology or archaeology.
Burying the Giant and Unearthing the Spectacle
In the fall of 1868, Hull shipped the statue east. With the help of his cousin, Stub Newell, the giant was secretly buried in a field behind Newell’s barn. The men waited nearly a year, allowing the ground to settle and rumors to fade before setting their final stage.
On October 16, 1869, Newell hired two unsuspecting laborers to dig a well directly over the buried statue. Their astonishment at uncovering the giant played perfectly into Hull’s plan. Local legends of Native American giants, biblical echoes, and folk stories provided fertile ground for belief to take root.
Newell’s farm became a carnival of curiosity. After a single day of free viewing, he roped off the site, pitched a tent, and charged fifty cents per visitor. Hundreds arrived daily. In less than a month, Newell cleared thousands of dollars, more than a year’s income for a farmer of modest means.
Hull soon sold controlling interest in the giant to a group of Syracuse businessmen led by David Hannum. They moved the statue to Syracuse for exhibition, drawing even larger crowds. By now, the hoax had transcended its origin. It had become a business venture and a cultural phenomenon.
Barnum’s Challenge and the War of the Giants
The success caught the attention of P.T. Barnum, America’s reigning king of spectacle. Barnum offered the syndicate a princely sum to buy or lease the giant for his American Museum in New York. When rebuffed, he did what Barnum did best, he staged his own spectacle.
Barnum sent agents to study the Cardiff Giant and produced a plaster replica. He displayed it in Manhattan, boldly claiming his was the real petrified man and the Hannum group’s was a fake. The public, ever eager for a good controversy, swarmed both exhibits.
Hannum sued Barnum for slander. The case was dismissed with a legendary quip from the judge, who reportedly suggested the giant testify to his own authenticity if Hannum wanted an injunction. The press ran wild. By the time the dust settled, Barnum’s hoax had eclipsed Hull’s original, proving that in the age of humbug, even a fake of a fake could command the public’s attention.
Science and Hoax
Scientists and academics wasted little time dissecting the fraud. Andrew D. White, Cornell University’s first president, called the giant an obvious statue. Others proposed alternative theories, suggesting it might be a missionary-era statue carved by Jesuits.
The final verdict came from Yale paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh. After examining the figure, Marsh pointed out fresh chisel marks and the soft, soluble nature of gypsum. Had the giant truly been buried for centuries, it would have deteriorated beyond recognition. His conclusion was swift, a complete humbug.
The hoax’s unraveling accelerated when rumors circulated that Stub Newell had been bragging of the prank. In December 1869, George Hull himself confirmed the deception. He expressed no regret, framing his confession as vindication, a personal triumph over what he saw as mass gullibility.
An Enduring American Myth
Exposed as a fraud, the Cardiff Giant refused to fade into obscurity. Its notoriety only grew, fueled by a public that seemed less outraged by the deception than fascinated by its audacity. Spectators continued to pay for the chance to see the “old humbug,” drawn as much by the story of the hoax as by the curiosity itself. The giant’s infamy became part of its allure, turning the exposure of the fraud into an extension of the spectacle.
The giant toured the country, drawing crowds in cities and rural fairs alike. It inspired editorial cartoons, parodies, and became a touchstone in the growing American tradition of showmanship and playful deceit. Mark Twain, ever alert to the peculiar blend of credulity and skepticism in American life, even wrote a short story featuring the ghost of the Cardiff Giant, a satirical jab at both the hoax and those eager to believe it.
Today, the original Cardiff Giant rests in Cooperstown, New York, on display at The Farmers’ Museum, a fixture of cultural history rather than scientific curiosity. Barnum’s plaster replica, crafted in the heat of their famous rivalry, still survives too—now exhibited at Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum in Michigan. Both remain artifacts of a bygone era when a good story could still outlive its own exposure.
Giants, Hoaxes, and the Human Hunger for Wonder
The Cardiff Giant stands in a long tradition of giant stories, a tradition older than recorded history and found in every corner of the world. Cultures have told stories of giants to explain landscapes, account for ancient ruins, or fill the space between the known and the imagined. These tales often begin with mystery and end with meaning, a way of giving shape to the unknown.
In Ireland, the basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway rise from the sea like a staircase built for gods. Legend holds that Finn McCool, the great Irish giant, built them as a bridge to Scotland. Geology explains the formation, yet the myth still draws visitors who come as much for the story as the stones.
In ancient Greece, Cyclops legends may have sprung from the discovery of mammoth skulls, their nasal cavities mistaken for a single eye socket. The bones answered a question the Greeks had not yet learned to ask in scientific terms.
Across North America, Native nations carried their own stories. The Iroquois spoke of giants defeated in ancient times. The Paiute told of red-haired giants driven into caves. Whether as enemies or ancestors, these giants served as links to a distant, shadowed past.
China has legends of petrified sages. African stories tell of beings turned to stone by divine will. These myths preserve cultural memory, explaining natural features while keeping wonder alive.
Even the scientific world has fallen to similar patterns. The Piltdown Man hoax in England convinced researchers for decades. A human skull fused with an ape’s jawbone satisfied their hope for a missing evolutionary link. Like the Cardiff Giant, it thrived on the public’s desire for a story that felt true.
These tales do more than expose human gullibility. They reveal a deep desire to connect with the unknown, to find meaning in what we don’t fully understand. Whether in stone, bone, or story, the search for giants becomes a way of reaching toward something larger than ourselves.
The philosopher Michael Pettit called this “the joy in believing.” That joy survives exposure and thrives on the shared act of wonder. Myths, hoaxes, and legends become part of the way we connect with the world, and with each other.
The Cardiff Giant reminds us that the hunger for wonder can outlast any hoax. We still search for giants, in history, in the earth, and in the depths of shared memory. This search doesn’t weaken us. It speaks to something essential, a refusal to surrender wonder in a world that often demands certainty.
The Age of Humbug and Its Modern Shadow
The Cardiff Giant succeeded because it arrived at a moment when postwar optimism, religious fervor, scientific curiosity, and a thriving media created perfect conditions for belief. The “Burned-Over District” of upstate New York, rich in religious movements and revivalism, offered fertile ground for faith in the fantastic.
The giant’s legacy runs deeper than the story of a single hoax. It shows how spectacle can override skepticism, how narratives, carefully crafted and skillfully sold, can take on a life of their own. The same forces are alive today, driving viral misinformation, digital hoaxes, and the endless churn of sensational news.
At its heart, the Cardiff Giant story remains a parable for the human condition. We are drawn to mystery, often knowing it may be false, because part of us still wants it to be true. That tension, the pull between fact and belief, keeps the old humbug’s grin fresh in our cultural memory.
The Cardiff Giant wasn’t just a joke played on a gullible public. It was a story America wanted to believe, and in believing, made real.
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Documentation
Nickell, Joe. Secrets of the Sideshows. University Press of Kentucky, 2005.
A detailed look at American sideshow traditions, including the Cardiff Giant and other hoaxes of the era.Saxon, A. H. P.T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man. Columbia University Press, 1989.
A definitive biography of Barnum, exploring the cultural climate of showmanship and humbug in the 19th century.White, Andrew D. Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White. The Century Co., 1905.
First-hand reflections from the Cornell University founder and an early critic of the Cardiff Giant hoax.Marsh, Othniel C. “On the So-Called ‘Cardiff Giant.’” American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. 49, 1870.
Yale paleontologist O.C. Marsh’s professional assessment debunking the Cardiff Giant.Gould, Stephen Jay. The Flamingo’s Smile: Reflections in Natural History. W.W. Norton, 1985.
Includes essays on scientific hoaxes, including the Cardiff Giant’s place in the history of frauds and curiosities.Young, Alfred F. The Democratic Turn: American Radicalism, 1776–1828. Knopf, 2000.
Contextualizes the cultural environment of skepticism and belief in early American public life.Pettit, Michael. The Science of Deception: Psychology and Commerce in America. University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Explores the psychological appeal of hoaxes and the cultural appetite for spectacle in American history.“The Cardiff Giant” — Farmers' Museum, Cooperstown, NY.
https://www.farmersmuseum.org/cardiff-giant/
The museum’s official history of the Cardiff Giant, including its exhibition history and cultural impact.“There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute” — Smithsonian Magazine, 2015.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/theres-sucker-born-every-minute-180954446/
A look at the legacy of hoaxes in American popular culture, with the Cardiff Giant as a central example.
Historical Disclaimer
This article is based on verified historical accounts, contemporary newspaper reports, scholarly research, and primary sources related to the Cardiff Giant hoax and its cultural impact. Every effort has been made to present an accurate and defensible narrative grounded in documented evidence.
References and supporting materials are drawn from academic works, period accounts, and reputable historical analyses. For a full list of sources or direct citations, please contact the author.
Restoration Obscura remains committed to factual integrity, critical analysis, and the responsible interpretation of historical events.
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