The world of the strange has always held a certain draw. The pull of a mystery, the intrigue of a natural obscurity or the exciting twists of the unexplained. This was a market that was heavily seized upon in typical bombastic fashion in America during the 19th Century when the art of the humbug was refined, polished and displayed on a grande stage by the likes of P. T. Barnham and his museum of magic, conjuring and social, cultural and natural oddities. In 1869, a new chapter in the pantheon of the strange was freshly penned with the discovery of a 10 foot tall petrified human giant on a farm in Cardiff, New York. As one might expect, all was most definitely not, what met the eye and the saga would, if nothing else, slot right in as suitably bizarre.
SOURCES
Dodge, J. Roy, (2018) Cardiff & its Environs, Lafayette, New York.
Barnham, P. T., (1865) The Great American Humbug, Lapham's Quarterly, Accessed Online:
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/swindle-fraud/great-american-humbug
Murphy, J., (2012) The Giant & How He Humbugged America, Scholastic Press, NY, USA.
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