The Cardiff Giant

The Cardiff Giant currently in repose at the Farmer's Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Another view.

Letter to The Farmers Museum

Letter, to: The Farmers Museum, Inc. Conservator, Amy Barnum Dir. of Coll. A. Bruce MacLeish
p.o. box 800, Cooperstown, New York, 13326
20 March, 1997:

Dear Museum;

I am writing to you concerning the Cardiff Giant. The Giant has always fascinated me, ever since reading about it many years ago in the history of Fitchburg Mass., The City and the River, by Dorothy Kirkpatrick. She lists it as part of the traveling collection of a Fitchburg Photographer and Dentist named Calvin Gott. “In the fall of 1869 on the farm of William C. Newell in Cardiff, N.Y. a corps of diggers brought to the surface a ten-foot, ton-and-a-half petrified giant with a not-too-bright expression.” [p. 386, with plate, “...Farmers Museum, Cooperstown”].

I wonder how much information is available on this notorious artifact? I believe that it was exhumed somewhere in New York State, and that several men exhibited it, on separate occasions, on cross-country tours during the Nineteenth Century. Barnum himself, I believe, constructed a full size replica and exhibited it in his American Museum in New York. Information on any file material you have would be greatly appreciated, as our Museum here in White River takes special interest in all such unusual phenomenæ, exhibiting young artists work along side Sea-Monsters [related to Champ, of Lake Champlain] and Vermontia of the strangest type.

My more immediate question is this: is the Giant in any condition to make any more regional tours? I have an idea to exhibit, at our Museum here in White River Junction, artifacts relating to [our region and perceptions of—or actual examples of—Gargantua.

The schedule we have tentatively planned is for a Fall exhibit, 1998.

We have a very visible, yet slightly cramped, typically American, Main Street store front venue here and a great relationship with the local press and the Boston papers. I can guarantee press coverage should I display your curiosity; and every stage of the exhibition process would be attended to with my personal supervision. You should know that there is no climate control in The Museum.

I understand however, that your prize specimen weighs in at one ton and a half, and so any mobility is, in all probability, quite impossible; still, I am curious as to your thoughts on this unique relic. It seems to speak volumes about our history, and our future...

I enclose a sample of our press-clippings and our press releases to give you some idea of the nature of our venture here; and invite you to stop in anytime you are in the area. Good luck with your wonderful fossil.

Cordially Yours,

—David Fairbanks Ford, Prop. enclosures: p.rs. from msm.