For several weeks now, after mentioning to you readers that I was planning to include a part two to my story about how the Cardiff Giant was born, grew into adulthood and became one of America’s greatest discoveries, I present it to you now.
The Giant dates somewhere in the 1860s from a mere chunk of rock buried into the Earth and was born from the hands of two men. One lived in Iowa, George Hull. The other settled in New York by the name of William Newell, nicknamed “Stub.”
They were able to catapult white rock to such great sizes into what they thought they needed. Eventually, they mined it into the likeness of a 10-feet 4-inch man. When finished, the statue weight nearly 3000 lbs, about the size they had wanted.
The rock was called gypsum, and was fairly rare during that early stage of history in New York but not so rare in Iowa. Iowa had been using the gypsum as a coolant to preserve foodstuffs.
The two men, Hull and Newell, were cousins and had kept fairly close over the years. Newell was a farmer and owned a little land in New York. He had been telling his neighbors that he would probably be needing to dig a new well since he felt his present well drying up.
That comment was enough to help set up the discovery of the giant that Stub had buried two years previous. Stub felt that he needed to age the giant a bit. Newell would hire a couple of common workers who would find the giant after being told to dig.
Newell had an inkling they might find water in that specific location. Eventually, after a couple of dry digs, they hit the hard rock he had previously buried which turned out to be the petrified giant Stub had buried.
I had originally intended to add a part three, but that was partially covered in part one. The ending was pretty well covered with the original story. I might add that the title of Cardiff was added to the giant because when the giant was discovered, it was found near the little town of Cardiff.
The town’s people just naturally added the name nearest their town and it just stuck. Later on, after the whole secret had been divulged and the source of gypsum found out to have originally come from Iowa, Iowa took advantage of ownership.
It became known as an Iowa petrified giant. Some references still give Iowa the credit for the greatest hoax in America.