The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-25
MADE THE CARDIFFGIANT
THE INVENTOR OF A FAMOUS HOAX
NOW VERY Ill.
George HuII's story of the Big Petri-
Showmen Who Tried 10 buy 1t.
Binghamton IN. " Letter in New York

BlngndmtOn IN. ~ Letter III new YORK
Sum-
George Hull. the inventor of the famous
Cardiff giant is very ill at the home of his
daughter, at IL Pennsylvania avenue. this
city. He is now seventy-six years of age.
For some months he has been able TO get
about only with the aid of clutches.
He never tires of telling about the big
stone man with which he deceived the pub
lie twenty years ago, and still bears a
grudge against the relative to whom
he confided his scheme, and who. he says.
gave away the snap that lost him big
fortune He is a giant himself standing
six feet two inches in his stocking feet,
with shoulders apparently yard wide and
a well-proportioned frame.
Yes he said, with a good-humored
smile, to a Sun correspondent, Il am
George Hull, and made the Cardiff giant.
/ am a Connecticut Yankee by birth. My
father, John Hull, New Hampshire
man, and married my mother in Suffield,
Conn. She was a Connecticut woman.
They were both of English extraction. My
father was a contractor for bridges and
other public works. He lost good deal
of money by partner. and, when / was
young we all had to put our noses to the
grindstone. 1 never had but one years
schooling, and when 1 was fourteen l went
to work on a farm and turned the soil with
a wooden plow.
when / was sixteen years old | learned
to make cigars in a small factory, and
worked an apprentice for three years.
Then 1 went to work in neighboring towns,
and became somewhat of sport. L wres-
tied ran and had a good time gen.
orally. There were few who could beat me
in hundred yards. trained Samuel Day,
a Connecticut boy, till he could beat me
about five feet in Il hundred yards, and then
we travelled together AT Binghamton, n.
Y, where 1 worked several years, l mar
ried in 1856 and settled down In 1860 l in
vented a harness snap. out of which L
ought to have made myself rich, but L
didn't. ] sold the patent for $780, Fourteen
years later the purchaser paid me wow TO
lend my name TO petition for an extern
sion of the patent for another fourteen
years. | afterwards learned that they
made at least $4GJ000 out of my snap.
ORIGIN OF THE IDEA.
''Welt, it was at Ackley, Ia, that l first
conceived the idea of fooling the world with
the big stone man. had some relations at
Ackley, and sent my sisters husband 10000
cigars to sell. He couldn't pay me- and l
went out there to see about it, l found the
farm he owned encountered, and as I
thought good deal of the family, before 1
left / cleared up the mortgage. At that time
a Methodist revivalist was in Ackley and
prayed all over the settlement. The people
were too poor to paw him anything, and he
boarded around One night he was at my
sisters house, and after supper we had a
long discussion and hot one / was then
and am now an atheist. Al midnight we
went to bed. and ! lay wide awake wonder
ing why people would believe those remark
"A N he a 81 ia w
suddenly thought of making stone giant
and passing it off a petritied man. 1 re-
turned to BinghamtOn and sold out my bust
ness. went to Wisconsin. where the idea con-
tinued to haunt me- and went back to New
York State with my family. and finally re-
turned to Iowa. But l didn't go near my
folks at Ackley.
After while ] found a suitable kind of
stone near Fort Dodge on the river bank.
gypsum. with dark-colored blush streaks,
which afterward passed for veins of human
body found mass OF this rock cropping
an acre of this land. Then | went to work
with a force of men. and in three weeks
\ had a block ready to take away. 1t was
about eleven feet four inches in length three
feet six inches wide and over two feet thick.
This ] transported by land to the nearest
railroad station, Boone, forty-tive miles dis
tant. The removal to the station occupied
three weeks and cost over $500 1t was no
small job transporting this ponderous mass
over prairie roads, fOrdS and weak bridges.
Two men in succession threw up their con-
tracts and if | had not been supervising
the job, aided by jack screws. levers, beams
and wndlasses it would have remained in
the road.
AT Boone ] shipped it to Chicago. where
l rented a one-story frame building on
North Clark street. close to the lake. Then
/ hired stone cutter and cautioned him TO
secrecy. When the Fort Dodge people had
asked me what / wanted of the stone | had
told them I was going to take it to Wash
ington as a specimen of the best building
stone in the world Now / expected great
trouble in avoiding the inqusitive. The
stone cutetr was a German and all he
wanted was his wages. / never told him
what | was going to do. and he never told
anybody what he was doing.
Il first made the model of q man In clay.
1t lay on its back and was just the shape
which the Cardiff giant assumed as the
work of cutting it out progressed On the
under side of the body i cut away some
places, as I did not wish to have the giant
parts of his flesh which had not petrihed.
and, therefore, rotted away. / then made
tpol with bundles of darning needles, the
handles cast in lead, and with this tool
went over every inch of the body, making
millions of little holes in the stone. Scien-
tific men afterward viewed them with mag
nifying glasses and thought they were pores
of the giants skin. In order to give the
giant the appearance of age, l procured two
gallons of sulphuric acid and swabbed the
figure with 1T. The steam from the acid
and the stone rose in clouds. The acid
gave the stone dingy brown color and an
appearance of great antiquity. Then | put
the giant in an iron-bound box and shipped
it to Union, N. Y. nine miles from Bling
hamton 1t weighed with its packing. 1000
pounds. The figure itself weighed 1896
pounds
BURYING THE GIANT.
"Onondaga hollow is near Tully, a sta
ton thirteen miles from Syracuse. 1t is a
marked depression in the ground, and there
is hill on each side. Biologists say 1t was
at one time Il lake, and many petrified fish
and reptiles have been found there. In this
hollow is situated the crossroads hamlet
called Cardiff, and had determined it was
just the place to bury my giant. There
lived there relative named Stub Newell,
whom l took into my confidence, first
swearing him to secrecy. Union Station as
sixteen miles, away. We took the giant in
his big box across country 10 Cardiff, ar
irving at Newells farm at midnight in e
pouring rain. We put the box back of the
barn and covered it with hay and straw
and two weeks later we went back and
buried II in a grave five feet deep The in
terment took place at dead of night, and
hsa1 fvan RI md. So.