The American Goliah | Page 6

street. The entire force of drivers became within three days perfectly acquainted, not only with the road, but with the leading facts regarding the wonderful discovery. The demand for carriages has been immense, and is constantly increasing. If parties desire to spend the day at Cardiff, they can take the Syracuse & Binghamton Railroad to Lafayette Station, and (with considerable difficulty,) secure a team across to Mr. Newell's house, a distance of about three miles. There is no village at Lafayette Station.
WHO VISITS THE WONDER?
Everybody. Old and young, male and female, people of all classes of community, rush in a constant stream to view the immense curiosity. People from all parts of the United States are hastening to see the Giant before he shall be removed from his long resting place. The average daily attendance for the first week was from three to five hundred persons.
HOW LONG WILL HE BE KEPT WHERE HE WAS FOUND?
Probably for some time, as that seems to be the public wish. Arrangements have been made for some of the chief scientific men of the country to examine critically the colossus. Their opinion or opinions, (which will be published promptly in this work,) will have much weight in the minds of the managers in deciding when and what to do.
WHO OWN THE IMAGE?
Three capitalists have bought of Mr. Newell, (who has declined probably over one hundred offers,) a three-fourths interest in the enterprise. The tour partners will determine what course to pursue.
We subjoin several reports of the Press for a few days succeeding the discovery of his Giantship.
From the Syracuse Daily Standard Oct. 18th, 1869.
The valley of Onondaga has a romance of beauty in its wild scenery, and as the home of the famous tribe of the red men of the forest-- the Onondagas--around whose council fires the chiefs and young warriors of the Six Nations assembled to consult on matters of great moment. It commences at the head of Onondaga Lake, having a broad surface where the main part of our city stands, and moderate hill-side boundaries, until we pass two miles south of the city bounds, where the bed of the basin begins to narrow away and the hills on either side to be more abrupt and higher. It continues to decrease in width, until it terminates against Tully Hill, a distance of fourteen miles from the lake. Its beauty of wild scenery is perhaps in greatest perfection in that part known as the Indian Reservation--still held by the Onondaga tribe--somewhat south of the centre of the valley. Two main roads lead up the valley, one at the base of the hills on either side; and riding along either of them in a pleasant day, an admirer of nature's wild grandeur has ample occasion of admiration. The gentle slope, rising way back and up as if touching the clouds, and the more abrupt and ragged, shrub-covered, not less high hills, miniature mountains, with every now and then a ravine down which the water leaps playfully along till it reaches the plateau below and into the little creek on its way to the ocean--is a landscape of beauty not easily described.
Just now this valley is the scene of an excitement, in the finding of a supposed petrifaction of a human being--a giant. The point of interest is on the south side of the valley, opposite and just beyond the little village of Cardiff, in the town of Lafayette-- twelve miles from this city, on a farm belonging to Mr. William C. Newell.
On Saturday last Mr. Newell thought to dig a well some six or seven rods east of his house, and a trifle south-east of his barn. The spot is probably thirty feet below the house, and the surface soil is a loose, half sand, half dark muck, the natural washing from the hills above. It is not more than twenty rods from the creek, the channel of which is thought to have been at or very near this spot many years ago. Mr. Newell and a hired man, in digging, had gone down but two and a half feet when something hard was struck, which was believed to be a stone. They thought but little of it at first, expecting to have to break it loose and pry it out. But throwing out a few more shovels of earth from its side, the feet of a man appeared. A few minutes more of labor exposed the legs to the calf; and now their interest being excited, they began to dig carefully around it, until the whole form of a man--petrified giant--was brought to view. The neighbors began to hear of what was found, and of course went at once to see.
Mr. Silas Forbes, who resides a mile and a-half distant, came to the city