The Ten-Foot Stone Statue That an Atheist Buried on a Farm to Prove a Point and Was Then Bought by a Syndicate for $37,500
George Hull, a New York cigar-maker and atheist, had a ten-foot gypsum statue carved in Chicago in 1868 to mock the biblical line "there were giants in the earth in those days." He buried it on his cousin's farm at Cardiff, New York, and had it "discovered" in October 1869. A syndicate bought a three-quarter share for $37,500 within a month. P. T. Barnum tried to buy it. Hull confessed in December 1869.
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