The Cardiff Giant: A Mini-Essay

     In the autumn of 1869, individuals throughout the state of New York and beyond flocked to the small town of Cardiff to witness firsthand the peculiar giant described in local newspapers. After paying their fifty-cent admission fee, each person shuffled into the staid silence of a dim tent and peered down into the shallow grave holding the curiosity.[1] Found by a team of workers while digging a well on the property of William Newell, the ten-foot creation sparked instant interest among the population and drew such prominent figures as Andrew White, the president of Cornell University, and P.T. Barnum, who vainly attempted to purchase the oddity from Newell.[2] As the attraction grew, so did academic efforts to identify the object. Four physicians from neighboring counties examined the form and determined it was a petrified corpse while a prominent doctor from Syracuse contended that it was a stone statue possibly produced by Jesuit priests who had once occupied the area.[3] Despite its questionable nature, the crowds continued to build and a group of businessmen purchased the giant for $30,000 and had it exhumed and transported to Syracuse for a more prominent exhibit.[4] Refusing to be outdone, the irked Barnum had a replica produced and began displaying it as the original Cardiff Giant.[5] Around this same time, as public interest reached a fevered pitch, details began to emerge from Newell’s neighbors. Locals from Cardiff expressed that they remembered a massive ironbound box being delivered to the farm a year before the figure’s discovery and two sculptors confessed that George Hull, Newell’s relative, had hired them to carve a brobdingnagian body out of a huge block of gypsum.[6] Indeed, the artists’ claims were supported by Othniel Marsh, a professor of paleontology at Yale University, who confirmed that the giant was nothing more than a gypsum sculpture that had been artificially aged with a sulphuric acid bath.[7] With that, the crowds suddenly stopped and the Cardiff Giant slipped into obscurity, passing from owner to owner until it found its way to the New York State Historical Association in 1948.

Works Referenced

White, John. American Vignettes: A Collection of Footnotes to History. Convent Station, NJ: Travel Vision, 1976.
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[1] White, 81-82.
[2] White, 82.
[3] White, 82.
[4] White, 82-83.
[5] White, 83.
[6] White, 82-83.
[7] White, 83.