The history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, containing an account of settlement, growth, development and resources biographical sketches the whole preceded by a history of Wisconsin, Part 82

Author: Western historical company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 840

USA > Wisconsin > Sauk County > The history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, containing an account of settlement, growth, development and resources biographical sketches the whole preceded by a history of Wisconsin > Part 82

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Magazine Club .- There are now three magazine clubs here that operate on the inter-ex- changeable system, each member of the clubs taking some periodical which is in turn changed for

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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.

others, with the various members, until at last it comes home well read if not worn. This is a most excellent idea, and materially reduces the expense of the best of reading, while it stimulates each one to read and keep up with the times and neighbors.

There was a literary society of a social nature formed here during the past winter, which met in the parlors of the Presbyterian Church. And in all probability these meetings will be resumed next season.

The Quintecem Club-Organized in the latter part of 1879. The club is composed of fifteen members, as is indicated by its name, and has for its purpose the social enjoyment of its founders and the entertainment of their visiting friends. The members are A. H. Noyes, D. E. Morgan, Frank Strong, R. E. Noyes, Jacob Van Orden, George Rockwell, Fred Lang, Dr. W. H. Vittum, Walter Richards, Mark Warren, Lee Bohn, Ward Monroe, Will Warner, Cyrus Brown, and Frank Eldridge. They have a nicely appointed club room in Post Office Block, The floor is covered with a durable canvass, and the ceiling hung with gilt and black chandeliers, while in one end of the room stands a handsome piano and in the other a Monarch billiard table. Then there are chess, checkers and card tables, comfortable chairs and sofas, and all the appurtenances to a gentleman's club-room, the entire outfit rivaling similar institutions in the great cities. Each of the members is a host, and all are gentlemen, whom to meet is a pleasure.

Hunting Clubs .- Baraboo is the home of the members of three sporting clubs-the Gram- pus Club, consisting of Charles H. Davis, J. W. Davis, Thomas Thompson, William Thomas, E. Blakeslee and Benjamin G. Paddock ; the Skillet Creek Club, consisting of N. C. Kirk, George Mertens, Norman Stewart, A. L. Slye, T. D. Lang, C. A. Swineford, W. S. Grubb and John Hull ; and the Owl Club, consisting of Joseph Hawes, Sr., D. D. Doane, A. L. Slye, and T. D. Lang. These clubs make extended excursions into the game and fish regions of this and other Western States, and were never known to return with empty game-bags.

THE CARDIFF GIANT.

The " Cardiff Giant " controversy, instead of subsiding like a collapsed humbug, is grow- ing warmer and more mysterious. Below we give the Chicago Tribune's version of the creation of " Old Cardiff," which, if true, would seem to settle the question, and cause people to laugh loudly at one of the best-planned and most successful humbugs ever perpetrated, outrivaling the Mermaid, Joyce Heth or any of the rest of Barnum's best. On the other hand, we have before us a copy of the Onondaga (Syracuse) Standard, of February 2, containing ten affidavits and a copy of about as many freight bills, showing that the big iron-bound box which the Tribune assumes to have contained the gypsum giant, really contained tobacco manufacturing machinery of George Hull, our former townsman, packed with unmanufactured tobacco; and showing as straight a tracer as ever lawyer or railroad man could desire for conviction, that the said mysteri- ous iron-bound ton-and-a-half box was conveyed to a point on the Black River Canal, south of Rem- son, Oneida County, and there opened in presence of Orson Davis, a reputable affiant, and that its contents were tobacco machinery and tobacco, as aforesaid, and that said contents were then transferred to a canalboat in waiting. The supposition, on a review of this theory, is, that George Hull was smuggling his wares away from seizure by the revenue officers, he having been " confiscated" and proceeded against at Binghamton some weeks previous for having defrauded the Government. While the erudite, keen, scrutinizing Syracuse detectives are out affidaviting their Chicago cotemporaries, we, an unpretending countryman, well acquainted with George Hull, will suggest to them the way they were fooled, as follows: The box which they traced from Chicago to Black River Canal was not the box that started, but got duplicated by a box of similar dimensions, somewhere in the region of Cardiff ; and while the giant statue was being buried one night on Newell's farm, George Hull's machinery, boxed at the place of somebody in league with him, was trundled right along to the Black River Canal for the very purpose of

* From the first number of the Sauk County Herald, founded and edited by J. C. ("Shanghae ") Chandler, and dated February 9, 1870- Introducing the article, "Shanghae " said : " We refuse to apologize for devoting so much space to Old Cardiff. He is our meat ! Aud Bara- boo is much interested "

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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY

having this same tracer follow it as the same box which left Chicago. The head or heads cun- ning enough to originate the giant hoax are certainly shrewd cnough to mystify a people by just such a trick as this. The Tribune says :

" In an article on the 'Cardiff Giant,' published in the Tribune about two months since, it was asserted that the 'ancient individual' was made in Chicago. There was sufficient ground for making the assertion at that time, but the evidence necessary to prove it could not be obtained. It was known to exist, however, but those who possessed the facts were unwilling to divulge them, fearing that they might in some way compromise their reputations as honest men. They read the opinions given by learned scientists as to the antiquity of the piece of gypsum, and laughed in their sleeves. They could not understand how people could be so easily hum- bugged. This cannot be wondered at, because they were workers in marble and could not tell whether the statue had been cut out by a workman or not. The majority of those who were present when the ' last one of an extinct race' was unearthed, did not know whether it was stone or a petrifaction. Hence the excitement which followed, and the interest taken in the ' giant' is, in a measure, excusable. The opinion of an eminent sculptor of New York, who was called upon by the finder (?) to examine it, was not regarded, for the reason that he main- tained that it had been chiseled out. Such a thing was impossible, they said. He did not know anything. The learned scientists-gentlemen who have devoted years of study to unravel the secrets of antiquity-were next called upon. They confirmed the statement of the unlearned rustics, and said it was really a petrified man. There were some men who were incredulous, and these endeavored to explode the theories advanced by the said scientists, but, as they were in the minority, they were unsuccessful. Every story started by them was circulated through- out the country, and so were the refutations made by those pecuniarily interested in the 'giant.' The latter individuals had the best of it, and many thousands of people in the country to-day firmly believe the Cardiff Giant is really a petrifaction, and that he, thousands of years ago, walked, talked, ate and slept. To prove that this is not true is the purpose of this article. The few men who were aware of the circumstances connected with the making of the image, have furnished the information. Their names are suppressed, but if the gentlemen now exhibiting the swindle to the people of the East want them, and the affidavit of the man who cut the figure out, they can be satisfied upon application.

"In the latter part of June, 1868, two men, one of them at present a large owner in the giant, arrived in Chicago. They had some time considered the feasibility of inaugurating a humbug, and had determined upon having something ancient-a statue so old that it would cause wonder and create such an excitement that before it subsided their pockets would be full, and their object accomplished. The work of cutting out the statue would have to be done secretly, and none but a man who could remain quiet was competent to do it. They searched for some time, and finally met a German who had been in this country about four years, then in the employ of a well-known sculptor of this city. He agreed to do the work for $75, down. A block of gypsum, twelve feet long, three feet wide and eighteen inches thick, was procured from Fort Dodge, Iowa, and placed in a gentleman's barn near Lincoln Park, on the North Side. The owner of the structure was let into the secret, as was another, an assistant to the German. These were the only persons, beside the two men mentioned, who knew anything of it. Even the three did not know what was to be done with it when it was completed. In the latter part of July, the two commenced the work of chiseling. In consequence of the thinness of the stone, about a foot and a half was taken off one end of the block, in order to have a better pro- portioned man. A model was necessary, so one of the 'men who made the arrangements-Hull by name-who is himself a giant in size, with sufficient intellect to humbug the learned savans and wise men of the East, stripped and chose the peculiar position to suit the twisted and unfa- vorable position of the stone. The artist then inquired what was to be made, and was instructed to make anything-a monkey, a baboon, or something that would represent a man. So, without questioning the motives of his employers, he set to work. There was no necessity for his leaving the barn for a drink when employed, as plenty of beer was supplied him. At the close of the

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eighteenth day the figure was nearly completed. He did not work at it steadily every day, but whenever he got an opportunity during the daylight, also at night. His employers then came to look at it, but what was their surprise when they found that the artist had given the figure any quantity of hair. There were ringlets dangling from the head, long beard and patches on other parts of the body. Hull said that would never do-hair would not petrify. The German was puzzled, and knew not what they meant, but removed the hair at their request. In two days more the work was pronounced done by the artist, and his employers, after examining it, expressed themselves as satisfied. Now to make it look old. A gallon of strong acid was pro- cured and put on him. It ate into the soft material, producing spongy-looking cavities. A quantity of English ink was then applied, and this had the effect of giving the giant the appear- ance of venerable age. The next step was packing him in a box. During the next week the box was carted to the Michigan Southern Railroad depot. It remained there for so long a time that the owners were notified to take it away, as it occupied so much room and could not be moved to make space for goods received and delivering. It was subsequently removed and placed aboard a schooner, which sailed for some Eastern lake port. The next heard of it was being unearthed on a farm in New York State, and an announcement of its antiquity. What has been done with it since, the public well know, and therefore repetition is unnecessary.

" The artist, who is a very modest man, and whose name is yet unknown to fame, does not consider this his best effort. This is evidenced by a remark he made when told that it was a very poor piece of workmanship. ' Vell,' said he, ' they hurried me like doonder-any baker could make so goot a tings out of dough.' He further said, in view of these hard times, that he would be willing to take orders for duplicates from the admirers of antiquity and petrifaction at the same price, provided that the ten-acre quarry at Fort Dodge, which was purchased by Hull & Company to get the stone to make the giant, is not already exhausted by parties seeking specimens of this now celebrated stone for their cabinets.

" If the owners of the giant who perpetrated the joke on the savans, and a goodly portion of the people of the country, find that their swindle is in any way interfered with by this expose, let them secure the services of some influential newspaper, and some more affidavits and opinions of the wiseacres of science, and they may be able to sell some more stock in their enterprise. If they do this, as stated before, the names of men in this community-honest, responsible men, who are now acquainted with all the circumstances-will be given, backed by their affidavits, and conclusive proof will be brought forward to show the Cardiff Giant to be one of the greatest humbugs ever gotten up in this country."

The " discovery " of the " giant " naturally excited a good deal of interest, as is shown by the following :

To the Postmaster, Baraboo, Wis .:

SYRACUSE, December 24, 1869.

DEAR SIR-Has the man Hull alluded to in the inclosed slip ever lived in your town ? He is said to have figured there as a manufacturer or dealer in tobacco, or both.

Any information you can give of him, the time he was there, his surroundings and conduct, will be thankfully received.

Is there a Mr. Henry Peck living in your town ? By communicating early you will place me under great obligations.

Address Dr. A. Westcott, Syracuse, N. Y.

Yours, etc., A. WESTCOTT.

In reply to the above very polite note, Dr. Westcott, of Syracuse, is informed as follows

George Hull came to Baraboo in the spring of 1867, from Binghamton, N. Y., he said. He leased a shelly kind of a building, of the value of about $400, perhaps, and entered in on the manufacture of cigars, employing a couple of workers, and being associated with certain others as peddlers of his wares. His chief delight, socially, was to expound infidelity, bet on Seymour's election, and advocate New York Democracy generally. His peddle-wagon move- ments were as mysterious, circuitous and nocturnal as characterized the four-horse teams toting " Old Cardiff." Consignments of cigars and tobacco sent to him from east and west, were known to have been deposited in unreasonable and unseemly places.

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In the latter part of August (we think), of the same year, at about midnight, one night, the " cigar-factory," which stood aloof from other buildings, was discovered in a roaring blaze, from sill to rafter, and from end to end; and nothing was saved from the fire. Meanwhile, George Hull was away, on one of his peddle-wagons. Next morning it was ascertained that there had recently been insurance on the stock, amounting to about $12,000; and many people said, "Nigger in that fence!" And so thought the insurance companies ; for out of all his insurance, we are credibly informed that he settled, or compromised, or was allowed to ' slide,' on receipt of less than $1,000, after much blustering about heavy lawsuits, following the com- panies to Federal Courts, etc.

His family, we think, returned to Binghamton, the spring or summer following, and our community mostly supposed he was with them ; and the next heard of him by this public was that he was a brother-in-law or relative of the Newell who exhumed the petrified giant near the hamlet of Cardiff, twelve miles from Syracuse; and our villagers, who knew George well, all said : " George Hull holds a good share of the trumps in that game !" And after it was ascertained that, although ostensibly having no pecuniary interest in " mummied relics of a race of giants," yet he had been known to receive a loan of $9,600 from Newell, and there's not a man who knew him here who could be made to believe that he ever intended to pay a cent of it.

Since our community have all come to be interested in George Hull as a very wily fortune- maker, whose name will go down to posterity famed as a humbugger whose genius Barnum may covet, it is natural that his peculiar traits of character and uncommon conduct should be closely scrutinized. A prominent official of this city, who is known to have been on terms of intimacy with him, has divulged the fact that Baraboo came near being decided upon as the scene of the wonders of petrifaction. Near our village, on every hand, are some of the most remarkable Indian mounds found anywhere. Half a mile below the village, are several scores of the largest and highest of these conical tumuli that we ever saw-and we have seen many thousands. One of the largest of these, a little isolated from the main group, on a slight elevation, near Judge Remington's house, George Hull selected, one Sunday, as a receptacle of a petrified-something ; he hadn't decided whether to chuck in a graven Indian, or gorilla, or mongrel rhinoceros crossed with a hippopotamus. "'Twill sell fifty times as well as any cigars I can make !" declared George. But circumstances changed his field of operations.

This incipient idea, not bad, indeed, for a "sell," grew in George Hull's mind, until it assumed the proportions of the Cardiff giant, which was born of George Hull's wily brain, and has made the scientific men of the East as big a butt of ridicule as ever were taken in and done for.

We have before us a photograph of the Giant, taken by Gott, of Syracuse. He hath a high intellectual head with a phiz and expression resembling Bishop Simpson full as much as George Hull. His right hand, open, rests on the abdomen, the left behind. Our District Attorney has recognized a perfect type of that of one of our most prominent citizens in the ponderous pro- portions of another prominent feature, and openly charges him with being in complicity with Hull and standing with him for the model. The knees are a little cocked or bent, while the feet and toes are atwist and look as though "Old Cardiff" was laid out after he had got cold. Though not a graceful form, it is well conceived for an idea of petrifaction. Length of body, 10 feet, 42 inches, weight 2,990 pounds. We gaze on it some as we should on the image of gold, 60 cubits high, which Nebuchadnezzar set up in the plain of Dura; and feel about as much like taking stock in it as Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego felt like"falling down to that fellow.

We know by the peculiar twinkle in the small, keen blue eyes of George Hull's cranium that he would not scruple to humbug the world, nor any part thereof. The first time we made his acquaintance, those eyes looked right at us, and seemed to peer into us, and pry, and gimlet, and corkscrew their way clear down into the innermost recesses of our soul. And his giant six- foot-three form, with his broad shoulders, and full but not obese person, straight as a glass bottle; with about one whisker per square barley-corn on his round face, and his ever-sleek hair,

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made him a very remarkable-appearing person indeed. And yet how little we thought, when we punched amateur billiards with him, and discussed politics and the merits of cigars of his own manufacture with him, and stage-coached on the same seat with him, and_listened to his inge- nious theological dissertations -- little we thought, we repeat, that our companion was so soon to surmount the tip-top round of Fame's ladder, apply his thumb to his nasal organ, and, taking a sight o'er his digits, defiantly pipe to a world of Science, History, Literature and Finance, the mellifluous tune of " tweedle, deedle, dee !"

We have in our day seen crowned heads and princes, and mighty potentates ; we have seen the Japanese embassay ; have shaken hands with live Presidents, and in solemn awe beheld dead ones in their sarcophagi ; we have seen Daniel Webster eat, and smelt his breath after he had drank, and saw him lying in state at Marshfield ; we have seen Gen. Scott a-hossback and Lola Montez in swimming ; we have seen Henry Ward Beecher with a bile on his nose, and Tom Hyer, and George Hyer, and John C. Heenan; and Blondin lugging a cook-stove on a rope across Niagara's yawning chasm ; we have seen a wax statue of the crucifixion in the largest cathedral in America, and heard Barnum lecture on Temperance, and gazed at Pat Wildrick when he couldn't wipe his nose ; we saw Andy Johnson swing around the circle, and met the Black Hoss Cavalry ; but insignificant on the tablet of our recollection shall be all these, when we consider that George Hull, with the ingenuity adequate to dupe, diddle, defraud and gull a whole conti- nent, did nevertheless once lend us a dollar ! George, come back now and we'll pay you ?

Yes, George come back ! You shall have the freedom of the village and a key to Bender & Miller's beer cellar. The President and Trustees will greet you with open arms, and every man in town will tumble down and do you homage. Women will peep from behind curtains at you as you pass, and grin benignantly. Children will shy away and twist around you and point at you and say, sotto voce ! " Old meat Cardiff!" The revival meeting might not commend your idea of the proper use of gypsum, but we warrant you a special prayer, if we have to pray it our- self. No Connecticut town ever waxed prouder of being the home of Barnum, than will Bara- boo of having been the home of Hull. We'll erect a grand triumphal arch, on which shall be inscribed :

" THE HULL HOG OR NONE"

and Joe Davis be your charioteer as you are drawn through it in a chariot formed of the Hull of Sam Hartley's steamboat, while the band plays Hull's Victory, and the procession shall Hull and eat peanuts, and the boys play no games but Hull-gull ! Hull shall be the watchword ; Hull the password ; Hull the countersign ; and the parole shall be Hull. We'll have the almightiest Hull-ibulloo in the Hull world; and after you're gone there'll be more children named Hull than there were after you left t'other time-or if there are not there ought to be ?

- George, we cry unto you again : "Come ! Stand not on the order of your coming, but come. You little imagine how much more you'd be lionized here now than you were in days of yore ; and if you'd only strip and strike that twistified attitude you assumed for the Teutonic chiseler (for you to chisel the world by means whereof), why-

Silently we'd gaze on Hull, As on a lion loose !

[The " giant" was shipped from Chicago to Union, New York, and from there taken in the night by four-horse team to Newell's farm, in the town of Cardiff. There it was buried in New- ell's barnyard, and when it was considered "ripe," Mr. Newell employed some men to dig a well, selecting the spot where the " giant" lay .. When the workmen came upon it and reported the fact, the excitement in that community can well be imagined. Of course Hull and New- ell were present, fully prepared to be greatly astonished. The well was abandoned, the giant being removed to the barn and placed on exhibition. Thousands and thousands of people visited and paid $1 each to look at it. When curiosity began to wane, a stock company was organized and the giant was disposed of to speculators at the small figure of $100 per share, Hull and Newell disposing of their interests. The last heard of the Cardiff giant it was in New York

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City. Hull subsequently turned his attention to the manufacture of a stone giant, and running short of funds, enlisted the patronage of P. T. Barnum, who was furnishing the necessary funds to complete it, when a former employe of Hull in the cigar business threatened to expose the fraud unless he was paid $10,000. This amount not being forthcoming, he did expose it, and the scheme was abandoned. Hull is now living near Binghamton, N. Y., engaged in raising tobacco. He is as poor as a church mouse .- ED.]

THE HOME OF THE DEAD.

The first death of a white person in the Baraboo Valley is said to have been that of Dr. John Morrison, a resident of Jefferson County. Dr. Morrison was one of a commission of three appointed to locate the seat of justice of Sauk County, and while in this official capacity, being in W. H. Canfield's " sugar bush," he was stricken with apoplexy and died suddenly on the night of March 15, 1844. The body was taken to the home of the deceased for burial. The next death was that of Fred Blabern, who was drowned in the river, below the Lower Narrows, during the July (1844) flood, which proved so disastrous to mills and dams throughout the country. The body was not recovered. In 1845, a man named Birdwell, employed by George and William Brown in constructing their dam, mnet his death by the caving of an embankment. His is believed to have been the first burial of a white person in these parts. William Brown thinks the body was interred in an old Indian burying-ground northwest of the village, on what is now the Ruggles place. The next death within the memory of the oldest settler was that of Wallace Rowan, one of the very earliest of early pioneers, who went to sleep on a little knoll near his rude abode, not far from the grave of the unfortunate individual who lost his life in the treacherous cave. Mr. Rowan died in the winter of 1845 or spring of 1846, leaving a large family. One of his daughters, the wife of James La Mar, now resides in the town of Fair- field. She was born in Platteville, Grant County, as early as 1830, and is probably the oldest living woman born in Wisconsin.

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The history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, containing an account of settlement, growth, development and resources biographical sketches the whole preceded by a history of Wisconsin, Part 82

Author: Western historical company, Chicago, pub Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company Number of Pages: 840

Author: Western historical company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 840