Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Interesting If True - Episode 9: Stubs The Soapy Giant
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Interesting If True - Episode 9: Stubs The Soapy Giant
Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast where I make at least two men shut up and let me tell them a story.
I'm your host this week, Jenn, and with me are (introduce each host and their blurb)
I'm Shea, and this week I learned that barn owls were super excited when humans finally invented barns.
I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that most of us are constantly surrounded by ancient giants… but no one cares because trees are boring.
A Most Decided Humbug
* https://www.history.com/news/the-cardiff-giant-fools-the-nation-145-years-ago
* https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cardiff-giant-was-just-big-hoax-180965274/
* https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cardiff-giant
* https://www.livescience.com/55787-cardiff-giant.html
It’s time for another installment in WEIRD HISTORY...EEE...EEE...eee…
Setting: Random farmstead in late 1860’s upper New York state. Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols are laborers, digging a well for the farm owner, William ‘Stub’ Newell. It’s October, 1869, and the workers are a bit confused about the well digging, because they actually had dug Stub a well a few years before that was still working as a well should, with water and stuff.
Stub directs the men to dig a fair piece away from the farm, near a tree, which makes digging a bit more difficult. Stub was not to be naysayed (“if there’re roots there, there’s water there”)and the men get work, with the invitation to ‘help themselves to some water from the other well’ if they wished.
It didn’t take very long before they hit a snag, and it wasn’t a root. About 3 feet down they uncover a huge stone foot, attached to a very big stone man. “I declare,” one of the men supposedly said.
“Some old Indian has been buried here!”
In fact it was a 10ft tall giant, made of stone, lying in a weirdly contorted manner, but with a serene expression on his big ole face.
Despite looking like a first-timer’s practice sculpture, people were very bored in those days and word traveled quickly. After it was fully excavated people began to flock to the farm for a view. From history.com, the Syracuse Journal later wrote:
“Men left their work, women caught up their babies, and children in numbers, all hurried to the scene where the interest of that little community centered.”
Since Cardiff was already known for its fossil deposits, many surmised that the body was an ancient man that had been petrified by the waters of a nearby swamp. While early examinations appeared to confirm this theory, a Syracuse-based science lecturer later declared the giant was not a man, but rather a statue possibly carved by French Jesuits centuries earlier. As the speculation mounted, Stub Newell played the part of the humble farmer with aplomb. He even vowed to re-bury the giant and forget about it until his neighbors “convinced” him that the discovery might have some historical value.”
Yes, Stub made a spectacle of being reticent about housing the giant, but he pretty quickly had a big tent set up over the hole and began charging $0.25 per view.
In addition to thinking he may be a fossilized person, Biblical literalists were thrilled with the idea of real giants, proving that the verse in Genesis that references giants is real and true and good. (The verse that states “there were giants in the earth in those days.”)
With the numbers of thrill-seekers growing and the p...
View all episodes
By Aaron, Jenn, Jim, Shea & Steve
5
2121 ratings
Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast where I make at least two men shut up and let me tell them a story.
I'm your host this week, Jenn, and with me are (introduce each host and their blurb)
I'm Shea, and this week I learned that barn owls were super excited when humans finally invented barns.
I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that most of us are constantly surrounded by ancient giants… but no one cares because trees are boring.
A Most Decided Humbug
* https://www.history.com/news/the-cardiff-giant-fools-the-nation-145-years-ago
* https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cardiff-giant-was-just-big-hoax-180965274/
* https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cardiff-giant
* https://www.livescience.com/55787-cardiff-giant.html
It’s time for another installment in WEIRD HISTORY...EEE...EEE...eee…
Setting: Random farmstead in late 1860’s upper New York state. Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols are laborers, digging a well for the farm owner, William ‘Stub’ Newell. It’s October, 1869, and the workers are a bit confused about the well digging, because they actually had dug Stub a well a few years before that was still working as a well should, with water and stuff.
Stub directs the men to dig a fair piece away from the farm, near a tree, which makes digging a bit more difficult. Stub was not to be naysayed (“if there’re roots there, there’s water there”)and the men get work, with the invitation to ‘help themselves to some water from the other well’ if they wished.
It didn’t take very long before they hit a snag, and it wasn’t a root. About 3 feet down they uncover a huge stone foot, attached to a very big stone man. “I declare,” one of the men supposedly said.
“Some old Indian has been buried here!”
In fact it was a 10ft tall giant, made of stone, lying in a weirdly contorted manner, but with a serene expression on his big ole face.
Despite looking like a first-timer’s practice sculpture, people were very bored in those days and word traveled quickly. After it was fully excavated people began to flock to the farm for a view. From history.com, the Syracuse Journal later wrote:
“Men left their work, women caught up their babies, and children in numbers, all hurried to the scene where the interest of that little community centered.”
Since Cardiff was already known for its fossil deposits, many surmised that the body was an ancient man that had been petrified by the waters of a nearby swamp. While early examinations appeared to confirm this theory, a Syracuse-based science lecturer later declared the giant was not a man, but rather a statue possibly carved by French Jesuits centuries earlier. As the speculation mounted, Stub Newell played the part of the humble farmer with aplomb. He even vowed to re-bury the giant and forget about it until his neighbors “convinced” him that the discovery might have some historical value.”
Yes, Stub made a spectacle of being reticent about housing the giant, but he pretty quickly had a big tent set up over the hole and began charging $0.25 per view.
In addition to thinking he may be a fossilized person, Biblical literalists were thrilled with the idea of real giants, proving that the verse in Genesis that references giants is real and true and good. (The verse that states “there were giants in the earth in those days.”)
With the numbers of thrill-seekers growing and the p...