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David Hannum’s House

Location: NYS Historical Marker located at 80 South Main Street, Homer NY
(42.633825, -76.179011)

Word spread like wildfire, and the enterprising Stub quickly erected a tent and began charging a 50-cent admission. Meanwhile, a clever banker and notoriously scheming horse trader saw gargantuan dollar signs.

Assembling a syndicate of five men, headed by himself, David Hannum, they purchased the two-thirds interest of the giant for $23,000, just ten days after its discovery. George Hull, Stub’s brother-in-law, held the last third interest.

By now, the newspapers had coined the colossal, petrified man, The Cardiff Giant, after the town in which it was discovered. Hannum, not wasting a moment, quickly loaded the giant on a train for its Central New York tour. Geologists, scientists, religious teachers, and gawkers alike flocked to see the giant.

[The Giant] was one of the strongest magnet curiosities which toured the land and which thousands paid dimes to see and marvel at.

The Sunday Telegraph, New York

Oliver Wendell Holmes and Ralph Waldo Emerson inspected the giant, boring explorative holes; they declared their discovery as a prehistoric man. Even Judge William C. Ruger of the New York Court of Appeals was a believer.

No one can look at that grand smile of mingled sweetness and strength without being convinced that the giant once lived and had a being.

The Tully Times

Famous sculptor Cyrus Cobb stated as reported by The Tully Times, “Any man who considered the giant a fraud simply declared himself a fool.”