The Taughannock Giant - Resurrected

The Taughannock Giant - Resurrected

By Dave Lutes

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

I know this because I was the one who lit the candle and put it there. I did it to bring light and right again to our town after nearly 100 years of darkness.

To bring back the Taughannock Giant.

To right a terrible wrong.

Terror would follow, of this I had no doubt. But I had no choice.

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In 1965, my best friend Peter and I built a cabin-like treehouse in the woods not far from Kingtown Orchard, where we both lived in Trumansburg, NY – close to Cayuga Lake, in the Finger Lakes Region. I was 13; Peter was 14. For many months before this, not only did we semi-hopefully wander the orchards looking for the Taughannock Giant’s unmarked and unofficial burial site, we also listened to and read accounts of local folklore, and other stories about the so-called hoax. My great-grandmother, Granny McCluen was born around the time when it happened and being a descendent of one of those who not only founded the town, but also whose life interconnected with the perpetrators, I heard about the Giant a lot.

One of the original ‘hoaxer’s’ granddaughter, Pearl Holman, had also been sharing her understanding of the story in various formats publicly – much of what her grandfather, Ira Dean, had told her about the ‘hoax’; and how and why he’d done it. She sifted out fact from fiction and wrote about it extensively. It was intriguing and captivating and perhaps just the type of excitement Peter and I needed – and for some reason, we got hooked on the whole thing.

Big time!

Our fascination with the Giant resulted in us trying to build the cabin-like treehouse – a much smaller version based on an old photo of a famous treehouse we had seen from ‘those days’; a treehouse that had been once used as an overlook on the shores of Cayuga Lake. It was near the upper glen where the Giant was discovered.

What was strange, no, what was really bizarre about our construction, was that we built it with a sense of purpose – a determination that was borderline fanatical and obsessive. We spent every spare moment after school, on the weekends – every holiday – building something of real importance. We called it The Fort…why, I don’t remember. What I do remember is that we needed it to see the truth…to know the truth…to be part of bringing the truth back to the area.

We absolutely, supernaturally, believed it!

Our supernatural reason and motivation to build came to us both on the same night, at the same time – in our dreams. The Giant visited us both - with the same, very precise, and ominous message.

“Bring me back. Light a candle and put it in the cabin window, bring me back and make it right.”

If the film, Field of Dreams, had come out by then, we might have said, “If you build it, he will come.”

Bring him back? How?! What candle?

What cabin? Whose cabin? Where?

Make what right?

Why?

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I woke up from the dream truly creeped out and a nervous wreck. From that moment, I had the distinct, unsettling, and menacing sense that the Giant had a sinister purpose and intent; a need to get even, to settle a score.

Violently.

And that he needed my help to do so.

Why me?!

When Peter and I got together the next morning, and compared ‘dream notes’, we were both highly charged with excitement and nervous energy. And, while we would never admit it to each other, at the same time truly and genuinely scared. It wasn’t t just that the dreams had actually happened, or about the details of the dreams, but also the ‘meaning’ behind what we ‘saw’…and felt. We nervous-laughed our way through the conversation.

We both really weren’t sure what to say to each other about it, or what we really thought. The dreams were no doubt real, and the message, that vivid - but at the same time, that vague. It unnerved us. We couldn’t believe we were actually talking about it – who would believe us!?

But at the same time, it/he gave us a mysterious shot of teenage thrill adrenalin that we had never experienced before – nothing remotely like it. Had anyone!? As bizarre as it sounded, to say we were extremely passionate to be collaborating with the Taughannock Giant (really, seriously!?), somehow, someway, would be an understatement. We were extremely giddy - a mixture of belief and unbelief. Distracted, yet focused. There, but not there. Our parents started to suspect we had secrets and began to look for other ‘signs’ of ‘influence’.

But then it got much stranger and more sinister very quickly.

Not for Peter - for me.

Why me?! It wouldn’t be long before I learned the awful truth – and the reason.

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I couldn’t talk about it with anyone, because in the days that followed, I had the distinct feeling of being watched or followed - stalked. If I looked in a mirror, a dark shadow would surround me and even fill the room behind me. When I whipped my head around to look, the room was clear. On any given day, I would turn a corner on my way to wherever, and a moment of darkness – a dark creepy shadow would suddenly ‘happen’ before my eyes - and I had to pause and look and ‘feel’ or try to sense the atmosphere around me. Shiver. I was glancing over my shoulder, turning to look left and right dozens of times per day.

A presence.

I felt observed…and even stranger, I also felt like I was being protected. From what or by whom or what, I didn’t know. I knew the Giant was part of it; of that I was certain. But why?

Guided by an unseen force.

And then the voice began to live inside my head. One voice. And the words, ‘his bones’ – and ‘blood on his hands’ - began to dominate the one-sided conversation.

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One day shortly after the voice ‘came’, I walked up from our house on Washington Street, up Strowbridge Street - I don’t know why - all the way to the top of the hill where it ‘T’d’ with Bradley Street. We go-carted from that very spot down the hill often. But on this day, I walked up the hill alone. Bradley Street always gave me the creeps because the Spook House was also on the street…an historically ghostly, death house that was a stone’s throw South away. We always rode by the house on our bikes extra fast. I didn’t go to Bradley Street willingly.

I don’t think anyone did.

Just to make it clear why…a friend of mine, Robin (12), who had broken into the Spook House as a prank with some other friends the year before mysteriously disappeared while inside (allegedly). According to the other guys with him, he entered and disappeared into a secret tunnel behind a fireplace in a ‘cloud of blue haze’, from where his terrified screams were heard. No tunnel was ever found – and neither was Robin. The other boys suffered ‘severe trauma induced mutism’ for many months.

Terror caused them to be unable to speak. In fact, they couldn’t speak a word whenever the subject of that dreadful day was brought up.

The ghoulish minds in the village talked of the “Spook House claiming another life.”

Then, after just a year, Robin’s decomposed body was found by a hunter some miles away in Kingtown Orchard. The mystery grew, and fear gripped the community, because Robin’s legs had been cut off and removed. Robin’s family were descendants of John Thompson who was connected with the Taughannock Giant hoax. Speculation grew that Thompson’s history of trickery, corruption and meanness were finally catching up with him.

Most of the community just laughed this off as typical of the ghostly tales that were a common feature of our historic village.

But this was very much on my mind when I arrived at the top of Strowbridge Street hill.

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When I got there, suddenly a terrifying chill – a spooky realization really – gripped my heart. The darkness came all around me again. In a flash of insight, I knew it immediately – Robin was somehow part of all that I was going through now with the Giant. How, and in what way, I couldn’t begin to understand. I didn’t really want to think about it.

So, I found myself standing in front of the old family home belonging to the Dean’s…which was, historically, the birthplace of the Taughannock Giant. I just stood there and stared at the house – for how long, I can’t say. All I began to ‘know in my knower’ from that moment on, was that we were no longer just building a treehouse; but rather, we were preparing for the opening of a door. What worried me was, when I thought like this, I was scared spitless to my core about where the door, if opened, might lead to.

Or maybe worse, what I might be letting into our lives - and even the world.

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Then, the noises started, the sound of heavy feet dragging, shuffling, along a stone floor, in a cabin, in a woods - that broke into my sleep. The bursts and flashes of ‘knowledge’ or insight that came at all times of the day and night brought a distinct form of terror into my heart and mind…these things made me into a ‘disturbed’ teen. I wasn’t sleeping at all well. I was afraid to try. But somewhere deep inside me, connections were being made. My parents were worried.

“Bring me back…the bones are not mine.”

It was relentless, like a faucet drip, drip, dripping; wearing away my resistance and hesitancy. In time, however, the Giant’s voice became my trusted ‘companion’ – my confidant – someone I could tell my secrets to, but also who already seemed to know them almost before I did.

Or was it he who put them inside my mind?

To be honest, and reflecting back, ever since I learned that the ‘hoax’ was ‘built’ on Bradley Street, I was captivated. I don’t know where the ‘secret inner eye’ instinct or hunger came from, but I carried with me a sense of inevitability and impending terror – maybe doom. I began to believe my own purpose – and even my life - was tied to the Giant’s. To resist the impulse, the pull, the inner ‘dark’ light, was futile.

Was I being possessed?

It was not at all comforting, because it seemed like I had no choice. One small or brief moment, or step of cooperation or ‘obedience’ only led to more ‘guidance’ and instructions. Ominous and foreboding – mixed in with the friendly and protective.

“His bones. Blood on their hands.”

I had the distinct sense that I must NOT tell Peter. I was too scared to ‘argue’ or debate this mysterious, ‘psychic’ instruction, even with myself.

“Bring me back. Find new bones.”

The conviction grew increasing, that in bringing him back…people were going to get hurt – and likely die - when he came…and no one, no one, including me, should get in his way. What I didn’t realize was that someone already had…died.

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“It all began on July 2, 1879. It was a hot day, and the workmen, who were widening the carriage drive to the upper glen at Taughannock Falls, a few miles southeast of Trumansburg, were wishing for cooler weather. Despite this, however, the work of excavating the road had progressed as far as the land of one John Thompson, who owned a summer hotel nearby.

Suddenly, one of the workers felt his pick strike something hard in the dirt. Believing he had come across a large rock, he began to loosen the dirt around it. As he dug away the ground, he stopped, and his jaw dropped in amazement. For there in the ground, partly exposed to his startled gaze, was what appeared to be a petrified man.

Finding his voice, he shouted to the other men, and soon the crew, oblivious to the heat, was digging frantically. When the men had finished their work, they stood in silence, viewing what they had uncovered. In the cavity lay the body of a seven-foot man, a giant man of stone. His hands were crossed over his right thigh, while the left leg lay over the right, which was bent up toward the body. Around his neck grew the roots of a nearby tree.

To say the men were gripped with excitement is to put it mildly, for they had apparently uncovered the petrified remains of a man who had existed countless centuries before.

The news spread like wildfire, and it was not long before hundreds of spectators were flocking to the scene. Exploitation of the petrified giant naturally fell to John Thompson, upon whose land it had been found. Thompson had photographs taken and the photographers enjoyed a period of prosperity as people bought the pictures as fast as they could be made.

Cornell University and other prominent authorities and scientists visited the spot, and, at Thompson’s invitation, chipped off small fragments for study. After analyzing these bits of the body, the scientists proclaimed that, without a doubt, here was an authentic petrifaction of a human being of an extinct, prehistoric race. For months, Trumansburg and vicinity became the mecca of thousands of tourists and the fame of the Taughannock Giant spread far and wide.” (adapted from - Life in the Finger Lakes, Fall, 2003 - A. Glenn Rogers originally wrote about this in 1953)

And business at the hotel boomed! Oh, yes, business was very good indeed!

Soon hundreds of spectators were flocking to the scene. One account described the 10 mile stretch of road along the lake from Ithaca to the site as a cloud of dust, such were the number of horse-drawn carriages making the journey.

Newspaper reporters flocked there, too. Within two days, a reporter from the New York World was on the scene, and described the artifact like this:

“He is nearly seven feet long, and was apparently a muscular man, without a superabundance of flesh, but with the muscles, joints, and bones quite prominent.

He lies upon his back, with his head slightly raised, the right arm following the line of the body, with the hand resting on the right thigh, the left arm crossed over the right, with the right leg crossing the other just below the knee, the left foot being somewhat deformed or claw-shaped and resembling slightly a summer squash, as an honest country woman present remarked. The head indicates a low degree of intellect, the forehead slopes back, and the crown is shaped like an ape’s. The nose is flat and broad at the end, and the cheekbones are rather low than high. The joints, knees, etc., are very distinct, and the muscles and bones are indicated perfectly.” (By Charley Githler - Tompkins Weekly, December 26, 2017)

In the end, at least 5,000 people viewed the giant.

One of the workmen who found the Giant looked on from a short distance away…smiling.

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Local people and the authorities were suspicious of John Thompson immediately. He had a reputation for pulling dramatic publicity stunts before. Not only that, but his father was also known at the time (and named later in an article published by the Trumansburg Free Press in 1890) as a part of a suspect group of Masons – like a sect - of questionable character. So was the father of Frank Creque.

"Children were taught to shun Masons as human ghouls...now read carefully the names of these twelve men, whom their successors call the "twelve apostles" to this day and whose memory fills a larger place in their hearts than all else besides and see if any of these honored names were borne by murderers, incendiaries or traitors. Nickol Halsey, Lyman Strobridge, Nathaniel Ayers, Henry Taylor, Isaac Watts Hart, Elias J. Ayers, Milo VanDusen, David K. McLallen, James McLallen, Philomon Thompson. Uriel Turner and John Creque." [‘A History of Trumansburg’ - Trumansburg Free Press, 1890 – p. 44)

By all accounts, Thompson was cunningly greedy and unscrupulous – a conman and manipulator who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

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In any event, the hoax didn’t survive for long. Within days, one of the schemers, Frank Creque, his tongue ‘unleashed’ and ‘unlocked’ by alcohol in a Trumansburg tavern, revealed that the stone man ‘uncovered’ on the hotel property called the Annex, was a fake. According to Creque, the plan was contrived to attract business to the Taughannock House Hotel. The hotel’s owner, John Thompson, along with Ira Dean, a Trumansburg mechanic who lived on Bradley Street, and Mr. Creque, had mixed a concoction of eggs (including shells), ox blood, iron filings (to oxidize and convey age) and cement together to use for ‘authentic’ shaping and creating.

And bones? He said nothing about bones…to the authorities or press - then.

But after another evening of wild drunkenness, Creque confessed that he and Dean told Thompson that they thought they couldn’t convince anyone that the ‘man’ was real if there were no bones – fragments, at the very least. They insisted they would not go ahead with the scheme without bones. Thompson said he knew someone who could help him get some bones.

They watched him head South down Bradley Street.

Thompson brought bones – two leg bones, quite small; scrubbed clean – two days later…along with a death threat reminder should they ever think of telling a soul. The authorities, when they heard version of the story, did nothing – believing it to be an exaggeration to add mystery to the hoax.

There was no investigation.

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According to the archived records from that time, they resumed their preparation of the Man. After many nights of patiently molding the material into the resemblance of a prehistoric man, Dean baked it in a huge oven in his Bradley Street basement until it was rock hard. Then, in the dead of night, Dean, Thompson and Creque put the 800-pound object on a two-wheeled, mule-drawn cart and transported it just under 4 miles to the hotel Annex property near Taughannock gorge where it would later be ‘discovered’.

…and later be revealed as a hoax.

When the hoax was revealed, the authorities and public pressure forced the hoaxers to remove the Giant from the overhanging embankment and dispose of it. In the process of removing it, he was dropped and broke into three pieces – each leg and the rest of the body. The pieces were taken and buried somewhere in Kingtown Orchard near Trumansburg, where they remained to this day, the exact spot long since lost to memory.

Until the Giant spoke the real truth to us.

“Bring me back. The bones are not mine. They killed the candle boy.”

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We knew building our treehouse cabin was important – necessary to finding him and bringing back. We had felt all along that we were showing our commitment to him – to his return – and that our loyalty would be rewarded in some way. Things began to escalate quickly from this point.

That night, and not knowing fully what he wanted from us, for some reason we decided to light a candle in our ‘tree cabin’ and placed it in the window - to show our commitment, or something. The Giant spoke again – clear as a graveyard bell…not in a dream….it was an atmospheric voice wrapping its eerie presence around us, filling the room. It cut into our souls like a knife of ice.

“Peter, give me the candle and follow me. Now.”

Looking at me and shaking his head in bewilderment, Peter began to tremble, visibly, then quite violently as he hesitantly offered the candle into thin air out in front of him. Tears streaming down his face, Peter screamed in anguish, let go of the candle and turned and ran from the treehouse – jumping off the balcony on to the path heading out of the woods.

I was alone.

And the candle just hovered in the air in front of me.

I peed my pants.

“Come…now. The bones are not mine.”

The candle floated out the door, about 4 feet off the floor, down the wooden steps and turned due East and down a well-worn hunter’s trail directly through Kingstown orchard - toward the lake which was about 3 miles away. I was utterly terrified and tried to turn and run. I couldn’t. I was now being…drawn, dragged, tugged, pulled…unable to NOT follow.

What was extra strange - the candle didn’t flutter or move in the breeze while in motion.

As I followed zombie-like, I remembered that the Giant’s pieces had been buried in Kingtown Orchard and I wondered if this was significant. I found out very soon.

After about an hour of following the candle, I could see in the moonlight, a cabin up ahead. It was old – ancient actually – and very run down…completely dark inside…the door open, with a floor made of stone. My fear was now being replaced with curiosity; and a sense of ‘events finally coming together’.

The candle entered inside. I obediently followed. Then I saw him standing there, and what was lying on the bed nearby. I passed out.

I came to after I don’t know how long. Until this time he was just an eerie voice, a presence…not much more than a spooky concept that I ‘believed’ in. Now, he was right there before me; all nearly 7+ feet of him.

Semi-solid. Kind of ethereal. Shimmering. But no less real – and ominous in the dim candlelight.

He shuffled across the room...the sound of dragging, scraping feet across the stone floor moving toward the bed.

I couldn’t see his legs.

On the floor next to him now, were two white leg bones.

He spoke.

“They murdered the candle boy in the old house – and took his legs to build me.”

“The boy they say died in the Spook House? The ghost boy people claim they see, or saw, standing in an upstairs window, holding a candle…for a long time after he died?”, I asked.

“He was innocent.”

“Who murdered him?”

“Thompson! Others did not stop him!” His voice peaked in anger – his image began to become even more translucent. I thought he would disappear before my eyes.

I was genuinely terrified at what I might be asked to do.

“Reach inside my legs. Now.”

I had no idea what he meant. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t really see any legs! Then, that familiar force began to pull me closer. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I was forced to my knees in front of the shimmering image.

“Reach!”

I stretched out my arms and hands toward where his right leg would be. I ‘entered’ his leg and immediately my hand was crippled with ice cold, excruciating pain. I tried to pull it away but instead felt my finger grip something hard…bone. Panic! Instinctively I tried to pull my hand away…but instead I found I was pulling out a human bone. As if struck by lightning, I dropped it quickly on the floor.

“Reach!”

I couldn’t fight the command. I reached into his other leg area and removed the second bone…and dropped it to the floor.

“Put!”

Again, uncertain what he meant; my gaze was immediately directed to the other bare white leg bones nearby. I picked up each of them and a reached out with them toward his now shimmering legs. They leapt – were snatched - from my hands; moved the short distance through the air and disappeared inside his form.

The Giant’s form shape-shifted to something more solid and he cried - no wailed - so loudly, so deeply and emotionally that I was struck to my core. It was a blend of cruelty and grief, and final destiny, that could only come after decades of pain and waiting. And maybe triumph?

“Take and return. The candle boy’s bones. He is waiting for you. It is now made good.”

He scraped-shuffled toward the only window and turned his back to me – looking out.

“Put.” Kind of nodding toward the candle…if you could call it a nod.

I knew immediately what he meant. I took the floating candle and placed it on the windowsill.

Immediately, his form became solid – rock solid. Standing guard. Frozen in time.

I untied my sweatshirt that was around my waist, picked up the bones and wrapped them in it. As I left, I tried to close the door. It wouldn’t close. I tugged at it. No movement whatsoever. I understood in my heart that it would remain open for as long as the Taughannock Giant stood there. Would it be open for him to come out again – or for others to enter this unreal place of horror, death, and resurrection? I almost didn’t care by this time. Somewhere inside me I sensed I would journey back there, and that more blood would be shed along the way.

In that moment, I surrendered to my fate.

As I left the cabin with the bones under my arm, the hazy light of dawn began to appear. I didn’t go home with the bones. Instead, I made the 3½ mile trek to the Spook House. As I entered the overgrown driveway, I glanced up at the upstairs bedroom window. He was standing there, candle on the windowsill, face pressed against the pane – a look of anguish and fear.

Then he called me with his hand to come to him.