Your Daily Giant 2/2/2013
At the Cattaraugus County Museum in New York exists evidence of an ancient race of giants of a different sort. The museum houses wooden replicas of two mound builder giants unearthed at the Cowan farm on Conewango road in the county. Charles Huntington was present when the skeletons were unearthed in 1876 and secured the exact measurements made by Dr. Franklin Larkin and Dr. T. Apoleon Cheney to be the basis for the wooden Mound Builders. Mr. Huntington's models are of a 9 foot man and an over 7 foot female. Sharon Fellows of the museum sent me images of the replicas, a newspaper account of the find from the Randolph Register and contact information for the grandson of Mr. Huntington. I recently spoke with Joanne Huntington wife of Charles Huntington's grandson. She told me Charles was an extremely bright and competent inventor who was driven by what he had witnessed to create a memory of this incredible fact. The account from the Randolph Register states that the original bones crumbled to dust because they were so ancient but notes,
"One of the hunters, Jeff Darling told Mr. Huntington that the jaw bone was so large that when it was held to his face there was room for both his hands between his jaw and that of the skeleton." Once again this bizarre anatomic anomaly appears again.
I decided to read through the history of Cattaraugus County knowing that these giant skeleton reports never happen in isolation. I didn't get too far in the book when I found this. On page 13 of the 1879 History of Cattaraugus County New York by Ellis and Nash I found the following passage,
"A remarkable characteristic of these skeletons was their enormous proportions. The skull of one of these skeletons would fit loosely on my head; a rib bone would pass round me from spine to colon, a thigh bone reached from my knee to the upper part of the hip-bone; and the sub-maxillary would incase my jaw like an easy- fitting mask. The teeth were enormous especially the molars. An attempt was made to preserve portions of these remains, but by exposure to the atmosphere they crumbled to a fine powder. These people must have been at least 8 feet high, with other proportions corresponding."
At the Cattaraugus County Museum in New York exists evidence of an ancient race of giants of a different sort. The museum houses wooden replicas of two mound builder giants unearthed at the Cowan farm on Conewango road in the county. Charles Huntington was present when the skeletons were unearthed in 1876 and secured the exact measurements made by Dr. Franklin Larkin and Dr. T. Apoleon Cheney to be the basis for the wooden Mound Builders. Mr. Huntington's models are of a 9 foot man and an over 7 foot female. Sharon Fellows of the museum sent me images of the replicas, a newspaper account of the find from the Randolph Register and contact information for the grandson of Mr. Huntington. I recently spoke with Joanne Huntington wife of Charles Huntington's grandson. She told me Charles was an extremely bright and competent inventor who was driven by what he had witnessed to create a memory of this incredible fact. The account from the Randolph Register states that the original bones crumbled to dust because they were so ancient but notes,
"One of the hunters, Jeff Darling told Mr. Huntington that the jaw bone was so large that when it was held to his face there was room for both his hands between his jaw and that of the skeleton." Once again this bizarre anatomic anomaly appears again.
I decided to read through the history of Cattaraugus County knowing that these giant skeleton reports never happen in isolation. I didn't get too far in the book when I found this. On page 13 of the 1879 History of Cattaraugus County New York by Ellis and Nash I found the following passage,
"A remarkable characteristic of these skeletons was their enormous proportions. The skull of one of these skeletons would fit loosely on my head; a rib bone would pass round me from spine to colon, a thigh bone reached from my knee to the upper part of the hip-bone; and the sub-maxillary would incase my jaw like an easy- fitting mask. The teeth were enormous especially the molars. An attempt was made to preserve portions of these remains, but by exposure to the atmosphere they crumbled to a fine powder. These people must have been at least 8 feet high, with other proportions corresponding."
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