The Cardiff Giant

now on the History Channel stories from the pages of time stories of triumph and tragedy adventure and achievement as we go in search of history a Goliath a colossus a behemoth quite simply a giant he sure is one giant naked man tens of thousands of people paid to see this giant there was quite a controversy going on was it real was it a ancient statue was it a fake the giant was discovered in upstate New York at a time in the 19th century when traditional religious beliefs were clashing with those of Charles Darwin and other scientists join us as we go in search of history to unearth the story the scandal and the truth behind the Cardiff giant up until Saturday morning October 16th 1869 William Newell was just another struggling farmer in the small community of Cardiff New York some 12 miles from Syracuse the only thing special about him was his colorful name he was known as Stubb Newell and he got the nickname because he had frozen his toes and had to have one big toe removed and awarded an ornament around his neck but the activities of that Saturday morning will bring fleeting Fame and enduring infamy to Newell his farm and the town of Cardiff Stubb Newell hires two men to dig a new well on his farm even though his old one still has plenty of water ignoring the workers suggestions of better locations Newell directs the workmen to the precise point to begin digging and as they were digging away they discovered the foot and jump back one of them exclaimed that they'd found his huge engine this however is no Indian further excavation revealed a mammoth human figure the body measures well over 10 feet in height has a shoulder span of some free feet 7 inch wide hands and feet 19 and a half inches long its enormous he's lying there with his legs sort of folded into the side a little bit flexed at the knee he's got at least one hand I decide in one hand over his his chest his eyes are closed his nose is enormous and he has this little hint of a smile and he sure is one giant naked man at first no one knows exactly what to make of this behemoth but its discovery causes quite a commotion on eul's harm word spread very rapidly throughout the village in the town and the townspeople were the first people to come running over to see what was going on popular opinion quickly coalesces around the grandiose notion that the discovery must be a petrified giant and ages old being who had once walked the earth since the earliest days of civilization Giants were viewed as a real part of the world from ancient mythologies to fairytales to the Bible these colossal creatures have always been a part of humans belief systems in Norse mythology Giants are the rivals of the gods and live in their own realm called Jotunheim in' or giant land in greek mythology the Giants are the monstrous children of the goddess earth and the siblings of the Titans if you go to almost any country you'll find tales with giants in them the more Giants in some places and fewer and other places but there always are giants in folklore giants often represent obstacles for the hero to defeat so he can achieve his goal these stories have been around since people began sharing spoken tales and are well known in the 1860s everyone would have heard of giants and would have heard stories like Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the giant-killer they would have been very familiar with those because they were published over and over again and also they would have known the Bible and they would have read that there were giants in the earth the Bible tells of mammoth beings who actually walk among humans these biblical Giants are the children of fallen angels and the cause of the flood of Noah's time if you to search the Bible you will find no fewer than 18 specific references to Giants or races of Giants almost entirely all of them are Aran Genesis and they're most of them are just casual references that in this kingdom there was a giant who beset the land and so on or there's a reference to and in the kingdom of OGG which was populated by a race of giants the most famous giant in the Bible is Goliath the menacing Philistine who was slain by David using only a slingshot according to the Bible Goliath was between 10 and 12 feet tall he wore armor that weighed over 150 pounds and carried a spear that weighed 19 pounds when you look at the at the the figures for Goliath size you're talking about somebody who was an order of magnitude bigger than even the biggest people I mean they were making a point in the Bible Goliath wasn't just a big guy he was a giant to people in the 1860s religious faith usually means unquestioning acceptance of the word of the Bible I think that for many people certainly the 19th century the Bible was taken as literal fact as as as a veritable history ladies were not symbols they weren't metaphors there really were Giants and really were whole races of giants and they're all gone now but they existed in the past because it says so in the first book of the Bible in Genesis the Bible doesn't say there were giants on the earth says there were giants in the earth so it was quite natural for them to believe that the petrified body of a giant had been found in the earth and discovered in upstate New York one of the most religiously active regions in the country people in central New York were actively engaged in religion and active engaged in really a diverse array of religion it became known as the burned-over district because of the the fervor that took place in terms of specific religious advocates and the folks of a country town like Cardiff were involved in the revivals revival preachers would come through towns and literally burn up the landscape however these traditional religious views and the deep faith people have in salvation are beginning to be challenged by the emerging natural sciences and the ideas of Charles Darwin it is in this atmosphere of swirling debate than the Cardiff giant emerges Darwin's ideas begin to to eke out and to move into the into the population and Darwin is undermining not science as much as religion the stake in the Cardiff giant was if this was a giant in the land that they have uncovered it will prove the word of the Bible is true was this giant a sign that the Bible was literally true at a time when there were skeptics and that of course is the origin of the giant to begin with as we continue a man named George hull concoct a scheme to show just how far people would be willing to go in believing the literal truth of the Bible and how much of their money they would be willing to part with to prove it Hall knew that people were gullible he knew that people would buy the idea that an actual body a human body would preserve like a petrified log the world's tallest man was Robert Pershing Wadlow from Alton Illinois born in 1918 he grew to a height of 8 feet 11 and a half inches before he died at the age of 22 the Cardiff giant will be back here on the History Channel the Cardiff giant returns the discovery of the Cardiff giant is a surprise to many but not to stub mewls cousin george hall a businessman from Binghamton New York with strong feelings about religion Hall is now described as a scoundrel and an atheist a man who enjoyed the part of a villain even dressed like one and he delighted in arguing with people about the Bible and religion that's kind of a man he was but that made it possible to do what he did the birth of the Cardiff giant begins in 1866 three years before the discovery when hall visits his sister and brother-in-law in Iowa while he was there visiting minister named the Reverend Turk happened to get into conversation with him the conversation stemmed around literal interpretation of the Bible ho being an atheist certainly does not believe in a literal truth of the Bible but no matter how he challenges the minister Turk maintains complete faith in the Bible's literal truthfulness and Hull even brings up the possibility all you believe in stories like jounin wail and mistresses yes and somewhere in there the conversation gets to Goliath you don't really believe there's a 12 foot tall giant getting killed by this puny little guy with a sling and the minister says it's in the Bible it's true at this point in the argument ho has an epiphany according to Hull it was right at that moment that he hatched the idea of having a giant man carved and placed someplace where he discovered and where then they could sell tickets to people who wanted to view that giant as a way to make money and a way as an atheist to take advantage of people's religious credulity or gullibility Paul who was a skeptic himself was annoyed at the kind of preaching that was going on and he wanted to show them up and what better way to show them up is to get them to believe in a fake well officially George Hall was a tobacco farmer and a businessman but I think he was essentially a huckster he was a man on the make he was a man very much of his period and when he finds a good opportunity a good way to fool that public and maybe make a buck I mean I think he just jumps on it right away in June 1868 two years after his argument with a Reverend Turk Hall secures an enormous chunk of gypsum from a quarry in Fort Dodge Iowa it was about five tons but it proved to be so big a blog that the carriages at the time and the horses of the time couldn't even carry it to follow through with his plan so is eventually whittled down to something around two tons or so this slab of gypsum is then sent by train to Chicago arriving on August 4th the gypsum is delivered to the workshop of Edward Burghardt a stonecutter it is Burghardt with the help of sculptors Henry Sally and Fred Mormon who will create a recumbent giant in terminal agony while no evidence exists that these sculptors knew the details of the hoax their suspicions must have been raised by Hall's instructions I cannot imagine what these sculptors must have thought this guy was after a giant naked man well okay the sculptors must have known something about what was going on because the whole thing was carried out in secrecy the windows that went into the stonecutter shop were covered with rugs or blankets they were supposed to muffle the sound and George hull supposedly kept them in beer to keep them out of the bars and keeps him from talking and keep them happy their Hall instructs the workmen on the size and position of the statue and leave them to their work returning a month later Hall is horrified to see that the sculptors made the giant look exactly like Hull himself right down to a full head of hair and a mustache and beard Hall knew that people were gullible he knew that people would buy the idea that an actual body a human body would preserve like a petrified log but who in their right mind would believe that a beard and moustache could petrify and be preserved over thousands of years hull orders the removal of the hair and beard but is still not satisfied with his stone giant he did have trouble with the gypsum trying to make it look old ageless a thousand two thousand years old ten thousand years old whatever the story was going to be so he did personally spend a lot of time trying to age this block of gypsum which is pretty pure white stone when it comes out of the ground in a masterstroke Hall decides to drive a bunch of needles through a block of wood and pound on the statute to simulate pores then for the look of age he pours acid over his giant the sculptures must've been horrified they just worked on this beautiful piece of sculpture and he is beating on it making it look old and all cruddy sculptors must have thought this guy was insane but when he was finished he was happy with what he had because it looked old and the the needle marks looked in fact like like pores on skin finally satisfied that the statue would convince the masses Hulk rates up the giant and ships it by rail to Union New York then in November of 1868 under cover of darkness the enormous crate is carted over backcountry roads to a farm in Cardiff owned by hulls cousin William stove Newell stub and George hull and supposedly been the people who'd buried it which is quite a feat in itself since he weighs one and a half tonnes but supposedly just the two of them were the ones that took it off the wagon and buried it three feet down or so in the field behind stub Newell's barn and they buried it over there and then left it for a year to make sure that no one was wise to their scheme as we continued crowds flock to see the giant in a society anxious to believe this was something to believe in elsewhere in world in 1868 President Andrew Johnson became the first president to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives French archaeologists at violet a discovers skeletons of cro-magnon man in the cave near Perry Zoo and earthquakes in Ecuador and Peru killed 25,000 people the cart of time will be back here on the History Channel we now return to the Cardiff giant after spending a reported $2,600 on the preparation of his hoax hull and the giant lion wait the important thing with the hopes then is obviously to bring it off so he went away for a year and stubb Newell had two farm hands in October of 69 go out supposedly dig a well we started digging that well instead of water they found a giant set of feet they expanded the excavation all thoughts of a well ended and immediately Stubb knew all knew he had something of course he knew he had the giant that he had planted a year before after having only played a bit part in the preparation of the hoax Newell now becomes its public face Stubb Newell is said to be a very laconic individual and he did not overplay the idea of having found this remarkable creature in his vac barn yard as it were he didn't immediately run off in shriek and yell that they'd discovered the ancient history and changed the history books he supposedly as a ghost was very quiet and a non-committal newel even turns down offers to buy the giant but that doesn't mean he isn't interested in cashing in on the discovery within two days mule starts charging for the privilege of seeing his prehistoric giant it was on Saturday that they found that Sunday it was free people in the community came to see this miraculous pec-tacular archaeological discovery by Monday he was charging 50 cents to see the giant news of this astonishing find rapidly spreads across the country it's the kind of story that sells newspapers and magazines it was a big story in many newspapers and magazines and Harper's for example which was a national circulation magazine did a big story about it and sent an artist who did drawings of Vijayan devoted almost a full page to the story so that would be the equivalent of say today having one of the major circulation magazines like time or Newsweek do a story on something like this some of the newspapers disputed it but it was a better story to affirm the Giant and the newspapers were trying to sell papers then just as they are today soon people from all over the Northeast are travelling to upstate New York to view the Cardiff giant the next day the guy's got a circus tent over it and people came in droves they lined up for hours to see the giant stub new living on a farm in Cardiff in the middle of nowhere he provided a taxi service he'd bring the wagon down to the train station he'd bring people up for a fee his wife was making sandwiches selling cider to these people they had themselves a nice little roadside attraction that was pumping in money thousands and thousands of people came to see it I knew grant Hitchings who told me that he was eight years old at the time and his father set him up on the side of the road to sell apples to the people that came and that there were horses tied to every fence post for miles in all directions among the spectators that are streaming into the Newell farm are members of the religious community as George Hall anticipated they strongly endorsed the Cardiff giant as proof of the Bible in a society anxious to believe this was something to believe in it wasn't a negative it was a positive and so the ministers came and said this proves what Genesis says that there were giants in those days and here it was farmer knew all had it and everybody wanted to come see it business owners in nearby Syracuse begin to reap enormous benefits from all the travelers to the region just one week after the Giants discovery a country banker named David Hannum forms a group of local businessmen determined to ensure that giant stays right where it is a number of people made offers to stub nool to purchase the giant and each time he turned them down almost certainly with george hall making those decisions in the background and it really wasn't until a consortium of Serkis businessman approached stub newell and offered to purchase a three quarter interest in the giant for thirty thousand dollars and that was an offer that Stubb couldn't refuse toy scientists and others who examine the giant are highly suspicious of the petrification theory there was quite a controversy going on was it real was it a ancient statue was it a fake there were lots of theories going on and certainly the idea that was a hoax was one of them but one of the reasons it was successful is that there were so many conflicting theories that people wanted to go and see for themselves and they were relatively well-respected people had that had differing opinion some scientists suggest it might instead be a very old statue perhaps made by the Jesuit missionaries known to have been in the region about two hundred and fifty years before this event but others are not fooled at all there were renowned people like Andrew white the first president of Cornell University who came up and looked at it and recognized it for what it was a hoax dr. oath Neal C Marsh well-known paleontologist Discoverer of many dinosaur bones was supposed to have said when viewing the giant this is remarkable and when the newspaper reporters asked well can we quote you on that he said no but you can quote me on this it's a remarkable hoax for the scientists holes choice of materials for the statue and his insistence on skin pores have no authenticity that was real clear from the use of gypsum then this thing couldn't be a petrified man how you used it anyway perhaps not realizing that that was going to be a problem or maybe keyring skin would not petrify uh flesh would not have to find that way is no way this could have happened in it the scientists knew this at the time but the opinions of White Marsh and other scientists do not change the public's belief that the Cardiff giant is a real petrified man from before the flood of Noah's time it didn't really fool any of the scientists but the lesson here the important thing to get from this is that that didn't make much of a difference that for most people the fact that scientists were skeptical about it didn't matter they still want to see the giant and I think they still wanted to believe somehow those scientists must be wrong in spite of the scientific opinions an average of four hundred people a day continue to flock to the Newell farm to see the giant on one Sunday the crowd swells to more than 2,600 people on November 5th nearly three weeks after the discovery the giant is carted from the Newell farm to Syracuse where it will be accessible to more visitors New York Central Railroad actually had a stop in Syracuse where passengers going east or west could stop for ten minutes run across the road take a look at the Cardiff giant for 50 cents buy something to drink or eat and run back on the train but stories that the giant is a hoax continue to surface letters were published in some newspapers of people who questioned stub Newell's veracity and honesty and some who even said that they remembered a year ago seeing a large wagon pulling a large wooden box out towards Cardiff n well they couldn't swear to what was in that way that box it was sort of a coincidence though the newspaper reports do little to dissuade people from seeing the giant it is just a matter of time before the conspirators can't keep the ruse to themselves anymore apparently Stubb Newell whose job it was to be quiet and taciturn and sit there and take the money for the tickets started talking he started bragging to people about the great hopes that he had pulled and now he's getting rich and George hall I think resented the fact that Stubb Newell had who really wasn't the brains behind this thing he just had the farm where it was gonna be found it was a little resentful that Stubb was trying to take credit for and I think he also realized that with Stubb talking sooner or later people were going to investigate and get mighty angry so George Hall began talking to people and saying yep the whole thing is a hoax after a spectacular though brief two-month run as the ancient wonder of Cardiff the Giants days as a genuine biblical Goliath are over in December 1869 Paul confesses all to the newspapers and at that point the Giants value went from being a spectacular archaeological discovery to being just a clumsy fraud as we continued the astonishing success of the Cardiff giant is just the kind of attraction to get the attention of the huckster of all hucksters PT Barnum he just couldn't resist anything when he heard about the Cardiff giant he wanted to buy it and put it on an exhibition of so the History Channel brings you in search of history's the quest which culture was the first to preserve the bodies of their dead the Egyptians the South Americans the Romans the answer when you return Cardiff giant returns with the answer to the quest South Americans were the first to preserve the bodies of their dead civilizations from Chile and Peru began mummifying bodies at about 5,000 BC more than 2,000 years before the Egyptians now the Cardiff giant by the time the Cardiff giant is revealed to be a hoax in December 1869 tens of thousands of people have already seen it its place in history is secured George Hall's confession that the giant is nothing more than a recently sculpted gypsum statue does not diminish its popularity with the public and its owners coffers continue to be filled with a great deal of money at this point it catches the attention of PT Barnum Barnum one of the wealthiest men in America became rich and famous by tapping into the public's willingness to believe even the most unbelievable claims PT Barnum was an absolute master but in the 19th century was called hucksterism and he had enough tinge of reality in what he was selling so that people were amused by it and went to see it from his birth in 1810 in Bethel Connecticut until his death in 1891 Phineas Taylor Barnum held many different jobs from a lottery agent to a member of the Connecticut state legislature but it is as a purveyor of bizarre entertainments and as the owner and driving force behind the greatest show on earth the Barnum and Bailey Circus that he is remembered today at the age of 25 PT Barnum moves from Bethel to New York City already a thriving metropolis New York is the center of business and finance as well as the burgeoning entertainment industry realizing early on that the twin powers of the press and advertising are the key to any successful entertainment venture Barnum quickly develops his very own brand of the art of the humbug I think humbug probably is a different name meaning today tricking people things like that Barnum would have thought of an advertising sense and to attract people's attention Barnum's first major success is the exhibition of Joice Heth who is promoted as being 161 years old and the former nursemaid of George Washington the successful exhibitions lasts for only a few months before Joice Heth dies but Barnum relishes the experience he became kind of quite with the idea of being in show business and staying in show business in 1842 he builds the American Museum at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in Manhattan Barnum now directs his promotional skills at getting people into his museum by whatever means necessary his first big draw is the Fiji mermaid complete with promotional posters featuring the alluring scantily clad seductress of the sea familiar to most people but the Fiji mermaid is quite clearly a hoax and a hideous one at that it is made from the head of a baboon the torso of a female orangutan and the tail of a fish nonetheless the masses who flocked to see the Fiji mermaid at the American Museum are not disappointed people knew the Barnum had a reputation of maybe putting a trick on them or hoaxing them without fooling them and it became kind of a challenge than to see if arm could fool them and he did they kind of laughed and if they paid money to see the man-eating chicken and they came in and saw him in a table eating a chicken they kind of laughed about it the American Museum houses some of the living curiosities which make Barnum famous General Tom Thumb Chang and Eng the Siamese twins and Jojo the dog-faced boy as well as other assorted thinman contortionists and bearded ladies but after a 23 year run the American Museum burns down in 1865 undaunted Barnum rebuilds it only to see his second museum devastated by another fire in 1868 Barnum abruptly retires but a slumbering giant in upstate New York brings him back into the public eye maybe Barnum was bored of being retired as a so-called retirement he just couldn't resist anything when he heard about the cart of China he wanted to buy it and put it on exhibition himself he offers an astonishing $60,000 but he's too late the Syracuse consortium already paid George Hall $30,000 for a three quarter interest in a giant Barnum however was not a man to simply take no for an answer PT Barnum did what he had to do which is he had to go out and make a fake Cardiff giant now that's a fake of a fake then started showing that giant as the real Cardiff giant Barnum's advertising acumen and his renowned serve him well people knew Barnum they knew he would put on a good show maybe that boy didn't care if it's fake or real hey it's PT Barnum it's got to be interesting the greatest irony is that at one point in New York the Cardiff giant the real fake was on display at the same time in the same city that the fake fame and wouldn't you know it PT Barnum's fake of the fake-out drew the real thing after being on display in New York Barnum's copy of the Cardiff giant joins the circus or more precisely PT Barnum's grande traveling museum caravan and circus the precursor to the greatest show on earth as we continue the Cardiff giant continues to fascinate America well into the 20th century and I make fun of all those people who pay 50 cents to see the giant well the last time I went there was pretty close to ten bucks and I paid that ten bucks to see the giant and a very nice museum though often attributed to PT Barnum scholars believe the quote there's a sucker born every minute was uttered by someone else reportedly David Hannum an associate of George Hall the Cardiff giant will be back here on the History Channel we now return to the Cardiff giant as far as most hoaxes go the reign of the Cardiff giant was relatively brief but in the two short months from his discovery on Stub Jules farm in October 1869 to George Hall's confession of the scheme in December the giant manages to capture the attention and imagination of thousands of people including some of America's most illustrious figures Mark Twain was moved to write a short story about the Cardiff giant called a ghost story the idea in the ghost story is that this this sub gentleman finds a room at a hotel the hotel's right across the street from an exhibit hall where the Cardiff giant is being displayed throughout the night the gentleman is terrified by anguished moans and the sound of loud echoing footsteps finally the ghost of the Cardiff giant appears and explains why he is haunting the hotel he says I could have no rest no peace till they have given that poor body burial again now what was the most natural thing for me to do to make men satisfy my wish terrify them into it haunt the place with a body lay and the gentlemen in the hotel starts laughing and lights off his perch and says this is the funniest thing I've ever heard the Jensen why is this funny I'm in agony here he goes but don't you see the thing across the street that you've been haunting that's not the real one that's Barnum's fake you've been haunting a fake of yourself the Cardiff giant has fooled everybody else now its fooled you with dwindling crowds and Syracuse the owners of the real giant decide to put it in a travelling exhibition to make as much money as possible after the giant was exposed as a hoax they took it on the road the circus businessmen hope that maybe taking it to other cities would boost interest in it even if it people believed it was a hoax Twain's contemporaries Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes both visit the Giant when it's in Boston it seems the Cardiff giant is having a double life earlier as an amazing archaeological find later as a fantastic hoax when the general public learned that it was a hoax they wanted to see it I think with the idea to find out if they would be fooled by it and to go and laugh at the people who have made prescriptions on it that it was shows the hand of God or or whatever by the mid-1870s however the popularity of the original giant begins to wane after was no longer profitable to show it and to the crowds it was retired to a barn actually in Massachusetts and it and it lay there pretty much undiscovered for 30 years or more in 1877 with the Cardiff giant out of the public eye George Hall hatches another scheme this time he improves his methods but the idea is much of the same after the Cardiff giant hulled went west and cut of china been so successful that he took heart from all the scientific information that he got as to why it was a hoax and he tried to create another one in Colorado Hall's new creation is a seven and a half foot tall statue but instead of using gypsum Hall makes this Demi giant from a mix of stone clay plaster ground bones blood and meat also instead of competing against the master Paul enlists PT Barnum's financial and promotional support from the start of this hoax following the script of the Cardiff giant hoax Hall has the new giant buried this time in the wilds of the new state of Colorado soon after it is fortuitously discovered by a co-conspirator this discovery is dubbed the solid low dune by the local papers named after an Irish drinking song but despite the better preparation the solid Muldoon never captures the imagination and interest of the American public the way the Cardiff giant had was a different climate is different set up so he'd done more research on it but that never took off the timing wasn't right the place wasn't right there weren't enough people I mean it just didn't work the way everything clicked for the Cardiff giant after this last grasp at fame and fortune both George Hall and his Solid Muldoon fade into obscurity it seems as though the original Cardiff giant itself will suffer much the same fate as its creator but at the dawn of the 20th century it regains its amazing ability to captivate an audience the Cardiff chime was brought out again in 1901 at the pan-american exposition in Buffalo in the 1920s it was in Fort Dodge Iowa for a while in 1934 it appeared at the New York State Fair in Syracuse and in 35 it was in the Iowa State Fair by this time the Cardiff giant was the property of Gardner Cole's of Des Moines Iowa why he had the Cardiff giant I don't know but it was probably the fact that he was a native Iowan and very proud of Iowa and that's where the origin of the gypsum was and according to what I have read had it in their family room in the house which is you know a giant naked man statue might be an interesting conversation piece I guess to have in your rumpus room then in 1948 Stephen Clark the founder of the farmers Museum in Cooperstown New York wants to display the Cardiff giant he tracks it down in Iowa and buys it for twenty thousand dollars I think he wanted the giant because he felt it was an important part of New York State history that it expressed part of that intellectual entertainment spiritual side of life that's hard to show in a museum it's hard to capture in history the Cardiff giant is still exhibited at the farmers museum in a setting that recreates stubb Newell's farm in 1869 and people continue to visit the Giant in all his splendor but most of these visitors are sure to know it's just a hoax if you have a hoax today and they're probably unfortunately people who are trying to fool people today you'd have to develop much more sophisticated mechanism to fool people most of us are a little bit more schooled in science then then the folks of the hundred years ago and more we get better training we have access to more information I think that's that's an important thing which increases our knowledge science may have surpassed the Cardiff giant but hoaxes are not just a thing of the past will it happen again everybody hopes not but I wouldn't be surprised if something else happens I think we're a gullible people we want to believe in things and I think the Cardiff giant coming when it did fit what people needed and fit in the scientific religious debate of the era the host couldn't work today because of their belief in science and scientific methods but it doesn't mean that there aren't other hoaxes in the right time in the right place next year or the next decade or so couldn't work just as well the Cardiff giant albeit a hoax still holds the power to captivate the fact that there are more than 35 sites on the worldwide web associated with the giant can only be a sign of its enduring appeal and it still manages to bring in revenue I make fun of all those people who pay 50 cents to see the giant well the last time I went there was pretty close to 10 bucks and I paid that 10 bucks to see the giant and a very nice Museum last time I was there there weren't people look at the Giant who were talking about the wonder of it all and here was a giant petrified man and they walked out and it was like 1869 all over again the exceptional success of the Cardiff giant and its continuing ability to fascinate can only partly be attributed to the efforts of its creators George Hall and Stubb Newell the other party to its success is the public its willingness and need to believe in something whether it's credible fascinating or bizarre stories like this abound as we discover when we go in search of history you

Channel: Onondaga Historical Association

Views: 276,347

Rating: 4.3698978 out of 5

Keywords: Onondaga Historical Association, Cardiff Giant, Cardiff

Id: hO189oBtn5U

Length: 45min 37sec (2737 seconds)

Published: Sat May 16 2015