$100,000 lawsuit over Wesley Jukes Cardiff Giant statue

Cardiff Giant Back in Limelight as Center of $100,000 Suit.

N. Y. Man Claims

Grandfather Made

80-Year-Old Hoax

COOPERSTOWN. (AP) — The Cardiff giant, an 80-year-old hoax once accepted by thousands as a "petrified human," was back in the limelight yesterday as the center of a $100,000 lawsuit.

The stone Goliath, one of America's most sensational practical jokes, settled down last May 19 in the farmer's museum of the New York State Historical society after 79 years of wandering.

Return Alternative

The society is being sued for $100,000 or return of the giant, which weighs 2,990 pounds and measures 10 feet 4 1/2 inches, Attorney Owen C. Becker of Oneonta disclosed yesterday. The firm of Becker, Plowden, Wardlaw & Leamy represents the association.

In a suit filed last week in supreme court in New York county, Michael Fitzmaurice of New York city alleges that his grandfather. Westley [sic] Wesley L. Jukes, fashioned the giant and lent it to the late P. T. Barnum.

Fitzmaurice claims the circus impressario agreed to return the giant to Jukes after exhibiting it. But, Fitzmaurice's complaint adds, the giant was stolen and Jukes never regained possession.

The New Yorker said he only recently learned its whereabouts.

Becker told a reporter that "as far as the Farmers' museum is concerned, we have no knowledge or any information that P. T. Barnum ever had this Cardiff giant.

CLAIMS REPLICA MADE

Becker said he understood that Barnum had had a replica of the original made and that several years ago both were exhibited in New York city at the same time.

Dr. Louis C. Jones, museum director, said the original was made by Edward Burkhardt, a Chicago sculptor.

The museum acquired its Cardiff giant from Gardner Cowles, Jr., newspaper and magazine publisher, who had purchased it in 1936 from a man in Fort Dodge, Ia.

At the museum, the Cardiff giant is exhibited in approximately the same position in which it was uncovered in 1869 on the farm of "Stubb" Newell, near Cardiff in Onondaga county.

Workmen digging a well on the Newell farm unearthed a giant the man had died in pain.

Cardiff became a mecca for sightseers,at 50 cents a look, and the "take" soon reached $100 an hour.

ACCLAIMED AS MARVEL

The "find" was acclaimed by scientists, ministers and educators as the greatest marvel ever discovered. Many, however, cried "humbug."

In the midst of the furore. George Hull, a Binghamton tobacco dealer, confessed the Cardiff giant was his brain child. He told this story:

For a barrel of beer he had obtained a block of gypsum at Fort Dodge. He had a sculptor fashion the giant recumbent figure, and he rubbed the statue with sulphuric acid to give a mellow, aged-in-look.

Hull smuggled the form to the farm of Newell, his brother-in-law and interred it. About a year later. Hull directed workers to dig a well on the spot.

Hull said he intended to ridicule religious extremists who accepted literally Biblical references to "giants in the earth" in ancient times.

The giant was exhibited in several eastern cities, later was purchased by a Fort Dodge resident and placed on view there.