The Cardiff Giant

By Craig: Since the dawn of recorded history people have been fascinated by giants. The Bible mentions a race of people called the Nephilim who were great warriors of old that were the sons and daughters of the gods. Goliath, the Philistine was said to have stood nearly 10 feet tall. In English mythology, there is the legend of Jack the giant Killer. The Norse speak of the giants from the land of Jotun-heim where Thor walked with his mighty hammer. During the age of Atlantic exploration, giants were said to have been seen by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan on the coast of modern day Argentina. Even today giants still roam the earth in the guise of Meh-Teh, or the Yeti of the Himalayas, and Sasquatch in North America.

     In the days preceding and following the American Civil War the traveling carnival became a popular roadside attraction in many American communities. People became fascinated by oddities and what at the time were labeled as "freaks." There was the great American showman P.T. Barnum and his circus who at times would send some of his prize showpieces on tour. These included the famed Tom Thumb who stood only 3 feet 4 inches high, and the Fiji Mermaid, an elaborate hoax promoted by Barnum and created by fellow collaborator Moses Kimball. The alleged mermaid was really nothing but a monkey's head sewn onto the back of a paper-mache fish. The mermaid (which was copied by other hoaxers) was sometimes billed as the missing link, or proof that mermaids did exist.

The Cardiff Giant

       During the summer of 1981 my parents took us on a road trip to New York State. We stopped at Cooperstown and visited the Baseball Hall of Fame. We might have spent a few hours touring this shrine to America's great pastime. However, after we left there, we decided to visited a place called the Farmers Museum. To me, the greatest thrill of this day was viewing an ugly looking stone man displayed in a sort of stable. It was the once famed but now forgotten Cardiff Giant. My brother Jay also stood there glaring at it as if it might move or start talking to us. "Hello there" it would say. "Do you know my story?" I would shrug and look at my brother who would do likewise. "I am made of gypsum, but the dummies who lived back in the 19th century didn't know this, they thought that I was the fossilized image of a giant prehistoric man! Can you believe it? Some guy named Stub Newell and his cousin George Hull created me with chisels and hammers and then charged people 50 cents a whack just to get a peek of me! What do you think?"
I would ponder on this question for a few seconds before respectfully responding to the giant. "I can see that you were a fake,but now, you have become something else." The Cardiff Giant would then raise up on it's elbow and slowly move it's stone head in my direction, all the time,and with every slight movement a grating sound along with a fine powdered gypsum would float through the air. "Something else? What do you mean?" It would say.
"Well Mr. Cardiff, you are now a work of art, a piece of history, I should think. Did you know that P.T.Barnum made a fake of you? "
The giant jumped to his feet in a sudden cloud burst of gypsum which startled us so much that we fled to the barn door.
"Wait! don't leave!" the giant pleaded. "I'm sorry I startled you! It's just that, I have been stared at by gawkers for over a century! Oh look at the fake!, they say. Or Oh, look at the fraud! and now this! Is it true? Am I no longer a fake?"
We returned to our place outside of the giant's stable. He stood towering over us. I shook my finger at him.
"Mr. Cardiff, you have become the real thing."
For a minute the giant stood there dumbfounded, staring at us. Suddenly we heard some people outside of the barn and the giant quickly dove to the ground taking his classic pose which he will perform for all eternity, his right arm resting over his stomach, legs seemingly welded together by gypsum. After the gawking nuclear family had left, the giant turned his head slightly toward us and winked. "The real thing you say?"
Once again I shrugged and my brother too. "Don't you know that all people are fakes? We all have masks that we wear, at least I think we do, but you! you are the real deal because you are made of stone! How can you be a fake?" my brother asked.
The Cardiff Giant seemed to ponder over this lame, juvenile reasoning. Once again he raised himself up in a reclining position resting his bald stony head on his stubby stone hand.
"I like you two, can you come back to visit me often?"
"Perhaps, Mr. Cardiff we will return to visit," I replied, knowing that it would be a long time before I would be able to return.

                                               Cardiff Giant Being Exhumed 1869

     The Cardiff Giant was debunked as a hoax shortly after it's arrival on Stub Newell's farm in 1869. This, however, did not prevent opportunists like Barnum from profiting from it. Barnum was so impressed by the hoax that he offered the hoaxers a princely sum if he could display it. He was rebuffed, but this did not stop him from getting in on the Cardiff Giant mania which had spread across New York and most of the northeast. He created his own Cardiff Giant and displayed it to even larger audiences than the original!

      It has been 31 years since I last visited with the Cardiff Giant, but I plan on returning one day to see how he is getting along. Perhaps he will wink at me once again and tell me that "being a fake is not so bad after all."

                                            Jay (left) & Craig at the Farmer's Museum 1981
Update: December 26, 2019
Since I last visited this blog post over seven years ago a lot has happened. My twin brother Jay passed away in 2018 after a long battle with cancer. However, I promised the Cardiff Giant that I would one day return to visit & I kept my promise. Since my previous visit which is now 38 years in the past the giant has been moved inside of the museum. I found this to be a bit incongruous as I knew him to be a lover of the outdoors. After all, he was born out there carved from gypsum. As I strolled to the location of his current resting place I was thrilled to see that there was no one else around. After all, he might be shy and would be reluctant to talk to anyone other than myself. But would he recognize me? I was but a 12 year old boy the last time that I had talked to him. I slowly approached and addressed him quietly.
"Mr. Cardiff? Do you remember me?"
He did not respond so I addressed him again, this time a little louder looking over my shoulder to see if anyone was approaching. What would they think if they saw me talking to a man chiseled from gypsum?
Still, he did not respond. For a short time I just stood there looking at him and then I told him who I was. I perceived a slight turn of his head and his gaze fell upon me.
"You promised me that you would return," he said with a hint of melancholy in his voice.
"And here I am. It took me nearly 40 years, but here I stand."
He rose up on his elbow and shook away over three decades of dust.
"Wow. It's been a long time since I moved," he said. "But tell me...where is your brother?"
"He is here with me, but only his spirit," I said.
He did not know what to say. So I started to tell him the news. what had happened in the world since I had last seen him, and what I had been doing throughout the years. I could see him in deep reflection and finally he interrupted me.
"So I see that you have aged since we last met. Do you still latch on to the reasoning that people are fakes?"
"I do, but I have learned to try and be less cynical of human motives. It does no good. It can only lead to misery."
"And your brother? Did he believe this also?"
"He believed what I believe and vice versa. We are twins and it is impossible to think otherwise."
"And what about me? Do you still believe that I am real?" he asked hoping that I had not changed my mind.
"I do. You are as real as the gypsum from which you are carved from."
He smiled and resumed his eternal state of rest.
"That is good. I can rest again. But promise me that you will return in another 40 years to reassure me again," he said.
I smiled. "Well, I will try. I will be about 90 then so there are no guarantees. But if fate decides that I am still a part of the corporeal world I will come again."
There was no response, but as I started to walk away I looked back one last time at my stone friend and could almost swear that I saw a tear running down his cold cheek.

                                                      Craig with the Cardiff Giant today