The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1871-10-07


BINGHAMPToN, Sept. 18.-Tbe world must
confess that it was never humbugged so bril-
llantiy as 1T was year ago last sumner by
the discovery of the petrifed man near SYRIA
cuse, n. Y. The Cardiff Giant was the
work OF no ordinary genius. The man that
could conceive ard successfully carry out
such masterpiece of jugglery is a chaIsc>
ter. | propose to give short account Of the
individual and of his mysterious enterprise.
sign In front of a fine new brick build
ing in this place bears the inscription, Geo
Hull, manufacturer aud dealer in foreign and
domestic cigars" Inside the building are
evidences of quite an extensive business.
UncoGtradicted rumor says that both build
ing and business have been established with
capital earned to the proprietor by the Car
diff Giant, of which he was also the sole ori-
ginator, manufacturer and perpetrator. Mr..
Hull is now in his 49th year. He was born
at Sidney's Ford, on the Connecticut River,
between Hartford and Springfield. Here he
lived on a farm till he was %. Through his
youth, which was filled with remarkable in
cidents. he cultivated his peculiar mind in
very peculiar way, almost wholly without
books but, after all, in a way just as well
adapted as any other to fit him for making
the Cardiff Giant. He was born inventor.
\ harness .'snap" invented by him has come
into universal use. His parents were Puri~
taus-sturdy old Connecticut people. The
young man was brought up in the most !m~
plicit obedience to his good Puritan mothers
religious faith. But at the age when the
reasoning powers begin to supersede the sm>
plest trust Of childhood be began to launch
out into free>thinking, and then for the first
time he set himself to reading. His books
bfS n r--iIu
ply. Cutting loose from the faith in which
he had been bred. he invented daring theories
of his own uUon religious matters. His the
illogical inventions were, abstractedly speak
ing, very unfortunate, though, practically,
they earned for him all the money he possess
es in the world for the Cardiff Giant-;he
source OF his fortune was the direct upshot
aud result of his metaphysics, and that III
this wise: The young skeptic, coming to
manhood, possessed a tolerable knowledge Of
the polemical literature of religion. lie had
read something on both sides. though, of
course, generally on the wrong side. lie
had devoured everything that savored OF ra-
tonal philosophy, whether found IN David
Bume's writings or in The SpTlnGetd Repu6~
hcan. Thus he had become quite Gecently
fortified in infidelity. aud liked nothing bet
ter than to show eff his pyrotechGic argu-
cussions witL clergymen. deacons and church
elders. 1t was in the midst Of one Of these
discussions that there flashed upon his mind
the conception Of John Henry Cardiff, the
Onondago Giant of Gypsum.
At the age Of twent weight the young, but
confirmed, skeptic left the paternal farm TO
make his own independent fortune in the
world. Chance guided his footsteps to Bing-
hamI ton, then one of the fourishing large
villages of interior New York. Charmed
with the resemblance of the Chenango Val
ley to the rich hat>lands of the Connecticut,
he sought Kim out a few fertile acres two
miles north of the village, and transplanted
there his old Connecticut occupation of to-
bacco raising. 90 this farm he stayed fifteen
years, and besides arguing all his religious
neighbJrs out of their senses, he continued
to pay for his land, and afterward 20 sup
port his old parents under his own roof. At
the end Of this fifteen years he found himself
in possession Of a-for afaTmeI-comlortable
little fortune, being worth, when the lmpcr-
tant crisis in his life came, say $4,000. This
was about 1868. The war was then making
men restless, aud driving them hither and
thither on all sorts Of mad erraads, either OF
fortune OF military glory. The Broome coun-
tv tobacco~panter was infected, and taxing
his family. he started for 1.-THE West" lie
went to Wisconsin. ard then to Iowa. He
never forgot his skeptical arguments. W her
ever be went, no clergyman or preacher,
Protestant or Catholic, Hebrew or Greek.
escaped his batteries. Many were the nights
that he sat up till morning arguing on theo-
logical matters. One dark, stormy winter 5
evening at Ackley, Hardin county, Iowa, he
was sitting by the dying bed OF man named
Ogden The village pastor had been called
in, and he too was a watcher IN the SICK
room. True to his instincts, Mr. Hull called
out the aged divine in viudication of his be-
lief. From measured and slow converse
ton they advanced to a heated discussion,
which prolonged itself uto an al gument, and
continued till nearly morning. Debating
upon the veracity of the Old Testament MS
tory the skeptic stated his CONVICTION that
the first two chapters of Genesis, giving the
history of the Creation, were false. This the
venerable clergyman stoutly contested. ex-
pressing the most implicit faith in the narra-
tive of the Creation, and in the fact that our
first parents were more nearly perfect than
their descendants have proved to be. There
were giants in those days, you know" SAID
the clergyman. "What evidence have you
that there were giants 2" demanded bis an>
taeonist. why, some have been found,
sir ;" replied the jealous but imprudent cler-
gyman.
Retiring to bed about daybreak. the heateG
brain of the skeptical debater reflected long
upon what seemed to him the bigotry OF re-
ligious zealots. "They are ready to believe
anything" he argued with himself. mo
matter how improbable, they take stock IN
anything that affords them an argument
yerily believe that old gentleman would be-
lieve sack of hard salt was Lots vile, II 1t
were properly shown him. Hundreds oil
people would believe in stone image OF one
of the sons of Anak if they should find 1T
already manufactured and couldn't discover
! its origin'' Then flashed ON him tut! con-
ception of John Henry Cardiff, the Ononda-
60 Giant. 1t spranS up in his heated brain
in full panoply. Every detail was there
the stone image. its burial and discovery,
and the fortune TO be made out OF showing
it to thousands of the credulous at hfty cents
head 1t is wonderful how works oil ge-
q /. - - I'LL a.