LETTER: Digging leads to unusual discovery

It was in the 1860s, what would be called the golden age for hoaxes. Two workers were in the process of digging for water in a new well. The owner of the land they were digging on belonged to William “Stub” Newell in New York State.

For some reason, Stub had picked out a specific spot for the men to start digging. The men were not particular where they started as Stub would be paying good money for their work. Stub had a good repuation for paying workers for their time, and they were glad to get the work.

After about four hours in the hot sun, the workers hit hard rock. The rock was white in color, very unusual for the area. The workers had not seen this kind of rock before, so after much talk between themselves, they decided to stop digging and contact their boss about their discovery.

Upon discussion with Stub, he told them to go home for the day and come back th enext day to see if they might be able to work around what was turning out to be some sort of shape.

William was a cigar maker and a naturally curious man. He told his workers that he would pay them for the additional time they would spend if they would keep the next day a secret, which they both agreed to do.

The next day, both workers showed up early. When they had finished digging, they had uncovered what had looked like a petrified giant man. The workers were so excited, they could hardly explain what they had found to their boss and urged him to hurry on over to see it. It took Stub nearly two hours to reach the site. Stub lived less than an hour away from the discovery site, yet it took him nearly three hours to reach the workers.

Part two to come.