The Giant and How He Humbugged America

by Jim Murphy

  Whatever the public felt about the giant (be it a petrifaction, an ancient statue, or an utter fraud), they came in droves. And with an entrance charge of only thirty cents, they seem to have gotten a genuine bargain since they could also wander around the museum to see its many other wonders and oddities.

  Seeing their giant challenged so boldly and successfully (and their future profits imperiled), the owners of the “real” Cardiff Giant decided they had to act. They rushed to New York Supreme Court to file an injunction to stop the Barnum exhibition. Ironically, the injunction wound up being heard by Judge George Barnard.

  William “Boss” Tweed (right) shakes hands with newspaper publisher Horace Greeley. Many ­people believed that Tweed paid Greeley to write favorable articles about him. (© The Granger Collection)

  If anything, Barnard was a bigger fraud than either of the giants. He had been appointed a judge by the notoriously corrupt William M. “Boss” Tweed even though Barnard knew nothing about the law. His own brother said Barnard was about as smart as a “yellow dog” when it came to his legal judgments.

  Barnard always made rulings in favor of Tweed and his cronies. He granted citizenship to thousands of immigrants with the provision that they all vote for Tweed’s handpicked candidates in future elections. He was also known to drink brandy and whittle while testimony was being given in his court.

  In the case of giant vs. giant, Barnard interrupted the Cardiff Giant’s lawyers well before they had finished reading their documents. He said there was probably no reason not to grant the injunction to close Barnum’s exhibit, but that “he had been doing a great deal of injunctions lately, and felt disposed to ‘Shut down’” for a rest. He summarily dismissed the case, adding that “he was not inclined to interfere [in] a fight between Cardiff Giants.” When the Cardiff Giant’s lawyers protested, Barnard quieted them with “Bring your giant here, and if he swears to his genuineness as a bona fide petrifaction, you shall have the injunction.”

  Having lost their case and seeing profits continue to go to Barnum and Wood, the owners of the Cardiff Giant attacked the impostor by calling it “a plaster cast taken from the original by Mr. Otto . . . without our knowledge and consent.” They then touted the authenticity of their giant by stating, “The Cardiff giant is now at the State Geological Hall, in Albany, where a room was placed at our disposal by the authorities of the State.” They also promised to bring the real giant to New York City in the very near future.

  Barnum and Wood fired back, stating that if anyone could prove their giant was a plaster cast taken from the Cardiff Giant, they would happily donate $1,000 ($16,200) to the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. They also had one of Barnum’s assistants issue a sworn statement that the Barnum-Wood giant was indeed a carved statue. As with Stub Newell’s earlier sworn statement, the assistant’s carried absolutely no legal weight.

  The dispute played out in the newspapers, which only increased attendance for the Barnum-Wood giant. People continued to visit the statue even after the newspapers seemed to have tired of the entire story. One Philadelphia paper said, “It is rather rich that we should be victimized by such a fraud upon a fraud.”

  The owners of the original Cardiff Giant had no choice but to box up their man and get him to New York City as quickly as possible. On December 20, they set him up at a site that was only two blocks from Wood’s Museum. Everything had been done so hastily that the room wasn’t even decorated to enhance the viewing experience of the public. Still, the two giants were now ready to duel it out for the public’s attention. Or as the Commercial Advertiser put it: “Two men of gypsum are in town, each claiming to be the original Cardiff wonder. . . . By and by they may come to blows, and then the consequences will be fearful to contemplate.”

  In the end, it turned out to be no contest. The first day attendance for the original Cardiff Giant was described as “fair” by a newspaper and probably numbered two or three hundred. The next day, he drew only fifty visitors. Meanwhile, the Barnum-Wood giant continued to pull in record-sized crowds, with over 5,000 visitors on Christmas Day. The New York Sun quickly called the winner: “Barnum has thus completely triumphed. He has checkmated the opposition completely and routed them ignominiously.”

  Barnum had once again proved that he was the absolute master of humbug. But even as he celebrated his victory and counted his profits, the complete undoing of his giant and the original Cardiff Giant was in the works.

  The downfall of the twin giants began well before the duel in New York City, with a simple letter from Fillmore Smith that reached several Syracuse newspapers at the end of October 1869. Smith was a twenty-four-year-old mining engineer who explained that gypsum would dissolve fairly quickly in the water-soaked ground on Newell’s farm. He ended by adding, “We are thus reduced to the necessity of believing that the statue has been placed there within a very recent period—say one or two years.”

  Smith’s letter and reasoning were largely ignored by the general public and the newspapers. One letter writer scoffed, “Now let me ask, do not all the scientific men who have made an examination of this wonderful object [say that] it is of great antiquity . . . ?”

  But at least one person took Smith’s letter to heart: John Boynton. Boynton read the letter with growing alarm as he worried he’d been completely duped. He immediately began an experiment by running water over a one-pound piece of gypsum; it dissolved completely within twenty-four hours. Not only did Boynton confirm Smith’s conclusions, he was able to say that the Cardiff Giant had been buried approximately 370 days before it was “discovered” by the well-diggers.

  An embarrassed Boynton wrote to the director of the Smithsonian Institution about his findings, adding that “my veneration for the high antiquity of the Onondaga Giant is fast waning to a taper.” He promised to do more research and to make his conclusions public.

  Boynton was moving very cautiously and slowly here. If he had indeed been suckered into believing the carving was ancient, it would be a major blow to his professional reputation. But if he claimed it was a fraud and was wrong about that . . . well, he would be the laughingstock of his scientific peers and the public. Yet despite the risks, he did send a copy of this letter to two newspapers, where it appeared on November 17.

  Very few people bothered to listen to him, even after he attacked the giant in a public lecture. The Geraud story had already been proved a hoax, and Newell had been praised as straightforward and honest. No one was in the mood for more anti-giant talk. The Daily Standard reported, “The Doctor frankly confessed that he had changed his views as to some things in regard to the Giant, and it was quite evident he is down on Old Gypsum.” But the paper refused to print his entire lecture, so very few readers were persuaded that he was correct.

  The Worcester Spy was downright dismissive: “Dr. Boynton [is] not a high authority, [and] has given up the hypothesis which he first used to explain the mystery. . . . His reasons, however, are not satisfactory; for the soft gypsum used in his experiments is not like the material of which the statue is made.” Once again, the fact that most of the proclaimed experts weren’t really expert in their respective fields played into Hull’s hands.

  Fossil hunting was a rough, dangerous business back in the nineteenth century. Here O. C. Marsh (center back row) is surrounded by his well-armed research assistants. (© Louie Psihoyos/Corbis)

  It wasn’t until late in November that noted paleontologist O. C. Marsh paid the Cardiff Giant a visit. Marsh had studied paleontology in Europe and returned to the United States where he was appointed professor of paleontology by Yale University in 1866. He had also studied mineralogy, natural history, and geology. During his extensive studies, he had been taught to examine and question objects in great detail. For instance, Marsh noticed immediately that the statue’s chisel marks had been made by modern tools and not from the kinds of tools used hundreds of years before.

  Marsh examined the statue for a few minutes and cam
e to the same conclusion as Smith and Boynton; the Cardiff Giant was “of very recent origin, and a most decided humbug.” Marsh also attacked the scientists who had authenticated the giant as an ancient artifact, saying, “I am surprised that any scientific observer should not have at once detected the unmistakable evidence against its antiquity.”

  This was followed a few days later by the first reports from citizens of Fort Dodge, Iowa, regarding the origin of the gypsum. Galusha Parsons saw the giant during its stay in Syracuse and wrote back to his hometown newspaper, “I believe [the Cardiff Giant] is made of that great block of gypsum those fellows got at Fort Dodge a year ago.” The Iowa papers began running a series of articles tracing the movements of Hull and Martin, with one citizen even recalling Hull’s name.

  Clearly, evidence was mounting against Hull and his giant, and Hull was growing increasingly nervous. Not so much at being found out. He was actually rather proud of what he had accomplished and wanted people to know he was the mastermind of the entire scheme. But he was worried that the fraud would be officially proven before January 24. That was when the three-month time period in the fraud clause ran out and Hull and his three other original partners would be able to legally collect all the money still owed them.

  Out of desperation, Hull approached Ezra Walrath, the former editor of the most outspoken anti–Cardiff Giant newspaper, the Daily Courier. Hull had a proposition for Walrath. Hull would tell him the entire story of the giant if Walrath promised not to print any details that would establish fraud before the January date. He also said he would let Walrath coauthor his book about the Cardiff Giant and share in its profits. Like the twenty other men already involved in the giant scheme, Walrath smelled money and agreed to the deal.

  Walrath did give out certain vague details to friends at the paper, and an article appeared in the Daily Courier saying that “a certain person” had “made a full confession of the birth, origin, life and history of the giant.” Another newspaper revealed that the statue had been carved in Chicago. Meanwhile, the Daily Standard announced that Newell was in the process of selling his farm and moving from the area, which the paper took as a clear sign of a guilty conscience.

  Additional accusations continued to surface all through December. The new owners of the Cardiff Giant did their best to deny the charges, but even they were beginning to believe the worst. By early January 1870, they felt their giant was a recently made fraud and hired a lawyer to get their money back from Newell. They also decided to get their giant out of New York City and away from the far more popular Barnum-Wood giant.

  The owners had other plans as well. One by one, they began selling off a part or all of their share of the giant to unsuspecting investors. The economic wisdom of this move was simple. An owner who had paid $5,000 ($81,200) for his original share could sell half of the share for the same amount. In this way, he couldn’t lose any money, and could actually earn even more if people still kept coming to see the giant. The new owner, however, stood to lose everything if the fraud was exposed and the show closed too soon after the purchase.

  And believe it or not, this was all perfectly legal at the time. The contracts the newest investors signed never promised that the giant was ancient or authentic. They said only that investors were buying a share in a stone giant and that they would receive a certain percentage of whatever profits might be earned. Because no lies were told in the contract, the new investors had no legal grounds to sue. It fell to the new investors to decide if the deal made sense, which is why the phrase “buyer beware” was so common back then.

  Of course, while these deals were being made behind closed doors, other people were watching the giant wars and plotting in secret. In December, a third giant appeared in Utica, New York. A short time later, yet another imitation giant could be seen in Colonel Joseph Wood’s Chicago Museum. It seems that sculptor Carl Otto decided he hadn’t been treated fairly by Barnum and began manufacturing giants at a furious rate—and for sizable profits. Wood paid $3,000 ($48,700) for his, while the Utica businessman paid $5,000 ($81,200). Otto would eventually be commissioned to produce an additional seven giants. At least four other giants were manufactured by people other than Otto.

  The original Cardiff Giant went from being a fascinating national story to a national joke in a matter of days. P. T. Barnum sensed the shift in the public mood and decided to get in on the action before the giant was history. He bought a second imitation giant and suggested that people come see “the two original Cardiff giants.”

  The real Cardiff Giant also acquired a new nickname. Now people began referring to him as “Old Hoaxy.”

  Even though most, if not all, of the owners of the original Cardiff Giant suspected it was a fake, they still wanted to make as much money as possible from it. Its arrival in Boston on January 22 was very subdued, with one newspaper saying only, “A big thing—the Cardiff Giant, at 113 Washington Street.”

  To get some needed publicity, the owners invited a prominent group of local intellectuals and scientists to a special viewing of the giant. One member of this delegation was the famous author Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson studied the giant from head to toe, then “with a microscope he repeated his inspection, and made himself . . . master of every feature and detail of the Giant.” Asked what he thought about it, Emerson replied, “It is beyond the depth of my philosophy, very wonderful and undoubtedly ancient.”

  The entire group seemed to endorse the giant as truly ancient and therefore not a fraud. They did this knowing full well that many other people had condemned it as an artfully done hoax. Boston newspapers seem to have been swayed by the delegation’s conclusions. The Boston Morning Journal said that “Our readers are familiar with its history and with the controversy that has arisen in regard to it. They have now a chance to decide whether it is a ‘humbug’ or not . . . We advise all to see it, for the leading question of the day will be, ‘Have you seen the giant?’”

  Some of the owners weighed in with passionate claims that the giant was indeed authentic. It seems that Hull, in a last-minute attempt to beat the fraud clause deadline, came forward with documents “proving” that the iron-bound box contained machinery and not the giant. Amos Westcott was so convinced that he exclaimed to the newspapers, “We now have ample proof that the fraud theories are without the least shadow of foundation in fact, and that these [hoax] theories are [themselves] the ‘stupendous fraud and humbug.’” He also said that the rest of his partners had decided against invoking the fraud clause.

  All of this positive publicity was enough to get the public’s attention and draw in paying customers. The giant attracted between four hundred and a thousand people on its opening day. While it never drew the huge crowds of its early days, it did average a respectable five hundred visitors a day until May, when it finally left Boston for a tour of the Northeast.

  By this time, the giant’s reign as an authentic antiquity was essentially over. The two men who had carved the Cardiff Giant came forward to confess their role in the deception. They did not do this because of guilt or remorse; they did it because Hull had never bothered to pay them. His first partner, Henry Martin, did the same and for the same reason. Everyone was willing to remain quiet and go along with the deception as long as they stood a chance to profit by it. Once it was clear they were going to be cut out of the money, they decided to settle for a little revenge.

  Many newspapers also sought a form of revenge for having been so completely bamboozled. Naturally, they took Hull and his fellow conspirators to task. The owner of the New York Daily Tribune, Horace Greeley, took a poke at Hull: “The behavior of Hull, in making a d—d fool of himself, is therefore to be deeply regretted.” Greeley reserved his most sarcastic comments for the various men of science who had verified the giant’s authenticity over and over again. “We of course understand that the eminent professors, geologists, antiquarians, and authorities on art and anatomy who vouched for the authenticity of the statue, are ‘not up to small deceit
or any sinful games,’” he said, adding, “but we should like to hear [some explanation] from these intelligent savants. . . . ”

  Greeley had conveniently forgotten that he and his paper had been a part of the deceit when they endorsed the giant and even defended it against those who were skeptical of its age. He wasn’t alone in this. The Albany Evening Journal had called the giant “a remarkable find” and “astonishing” in October. By February, the paper demanded that State Geologist James Hall resign, calling him a “vulgar fraud” and nicknaming him “Dr. Fossil.”

  The giant continued his tour, visiting cities in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and Connecticut. Attendance declined until only a trickle of people were coming to see Old Hoaxy. Newspaper coverage such as that by the Daily Journal didn’t help at all: “And who is not tired of hearing of giants to the right of them, giants to the left of them? And who does not earnestly wish for the return of ‘Jack, the giant-killer’ ?”

  The owners and former owners of the Cardiff Giant agreed with this sentiment and simply wanted to get out without losing too much money. After numerous deals were made to transfer part ownership of the giant from one individual to another, a single man ended up owning the Cardiff Giant: none other than photographer Calvin Gott.

  Gott did not want to abandon his photography business, so he turned the management of what remained of the Cardiff Giant tour over to storekeeper Billy Houghton. Houghton accompanied the giant on the last three official stops, then returned the statue to Gott’s home in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where it was stored in a shed with a leaky roof.