April 1, 2026 • 35 mins
The Pompey Stone was discovered in the early 1820s, and was believed to be hundreds of years old. It turned out to be a hoax, but a fairly benign one.
Research:
- Barber, John Warner and Henry Howe. “Historical collections of the state of New York : containing a general collection of the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes, &c. relating to its history and antiquities, with geographical descriptions of every township in the state ; illustrated by 230 engravings.” New York : S. Tuttle. 1841. https://archive.org/details/historicalcollec01barbg/
- Beauchamp, W.M. “The Pompey Stone.” The American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal April-June 1911: Vol 33 Iss 2. https://archive.org/details/sim_american-antiquarian-and-oriental-journal_april-june-1911_33_2/page/7/
- Clark, Joshua Victor Hopkins. “Onondaga, or, Reminiscences of earlier and later times : being a series of historical sketches relative to Onondaga, with notes on the several towns in the county, and Oswego.” Syracuse, N.Y. : Stoddard and Babcock. 1849. https://archive.org/details/onondagaorremini00clar/
- Conlon, John Thomas. “The Beginnings of Catholicism in New Netherland.” United States Catholic Historical Society 1933: Vol 23. https://archive.org/details/sim_united-states-catholic-historical-society-records_1933_23/page/171
- Crowell, Kathy. “Early Development of the Town of Pompey.” Dwight H. Bruce (ed.), Onondaga's Centennial. Boston History Co., 1896, Vol. I, pp. 595-608; 627-631.. https://onondaga.nygenweb.net/POMPEY/EARLYDEV.HTM
- Homes, Henry A. “The Pompey (N.Y.) Stone with an Inscription and Date of A.D. ” Transactions of the Oneida Historical Society at Utica. 1881. https://archive.org/details/transactionsofon00onei/page/83/mode/1up
- Huguenin, Charles A. “The Pompey Stone.” New York Folklore Quarterly. Spring 1958: Vol 14 Iss 1. https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-folklore-quarterly_spring-1958_14_1/
- O’Connor, Thomas F. “An Alleged Spanish Entrada into New York.” Mid-America : an historical review. Chicago, Ill. : Loyola University. 1943. https://archive.org/details/midamericahistor25unse/
- “Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society at the Semi-annual Meeting in Boston, April 29, 1863.” Boston. John Wilson and Son. 1863.
- Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe. “Notes on the Iroquois, or, Contributions to American history, antiquities, and general ethnology.” Albany : E.H. Pease. 1847. https://archive.org/details/bp_1739112/
- Squier, E. G. “Antiquities of the state of New York; being the results of extensive original surveys and explorations, with a supplement on the antiquities of the west.” Buffalo, G. H. Derby. 1851. https://archive.org/details/antiquitiesofsta00squi/
- “The Pompey Stone.” Harper's Weekly 1879-12-20: Vol 23 Iss 1199. https://archive.org/details/sim_harpers-weekly_harpers-weekly_1879-12-20_23_1199/page/983/mode/1up
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. This is coming out on
April Fool's Day. So I wanted to find an episode
about some kind of historical hoax or a prank, but
with the times that were living in, not one in
which anybody got seriously hurt or killed or otherwise just harmed.
(00:37):
And also, I did not want something like the Piltdown Man,
which was a scientific hoax that led some researchers at
least just down the wrong path to wrong conclusions for years,
and then it helped erode the public's trust in science
and scientists when that hoax was exposed. So I didn't
(00:57):
want anything with consequences like that. We talked about the
Piltdown Man in an episode that we ran as a
Saturday Classic back in January twenty twenty two. Today's hoax
did lead people astray a little bit, but in a
way that was fairly localized, not so much fallout. It
(01:18):
was called the Pompey Stone.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
The Pompy Stone was unearthed on the farm of Pilo Cleveland,
who lived in Onondaga County, New York. He lived in Watervale.
That's an area between the towns of Manlius and Pompey,
and those two towns were really interconnected, and various accounts
put Cleveland's farm in one or the other of them,
but really situated in the middle. All of this is
(01:42):
about fifteen miles or twenty four kilometers southeast of Syracuse. Coincidentally,
Pompey is just a few miles east of Cardiff, New York,
home to the Cardiff Giant, which would become one of
the most sensational archaeological hoaxes in US history after its
purpose discovery in eighteen sixty nine. So in eighteen twenty
(02:04):
or eighteen twenty one, Filo Cleveland was cutting down trees
and digging up rocks to expand a meadow on his farm,
and toward the end of the day one day, he
used an iron bar to turn a large stone out
of some damp ground. He was tired by this point,
so once he'd pried up this stone, he leaned against
(02:26):
a nearby stump to rest with his hands on the
top of the bar. While he was resting, his eyes
sort of fell on the stone that he had just
turned over, and he noticed that it seemed to have
some letters or markings on it. He did not really
think much of this, and after he got up again,
he put the stone on top of the pile of
rocks that he had dug up earlier in the day.
(02:49):
A few days passed before he got back out there,
and in the meantime it had rained. The rain had
washed the dirt off of this stone, making the markings
on it a lot more obvious. The stone was about
fourteen inches long by twelve inches wide and eight inches thick,
as about thirty six by thirty x twenty centimeters. In
(03:09):
the center, there was an engraving that looked like a
sketch of a snake climbing a tree. There was a
phrase or a name, partly on one side of the
tree and partly on the other, and it looked like
Leod l On, almost like Leo de Leon, with a
period after Leo and the letter missing from Leon.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
On the bottom left was a Roman numeral six that's
made up of the capitol letters VII and the number
fifteen twenty, and on the bottom right was a large x,
which in some interpretations was meant to be a cross,
and that was next to some kind of indistinct shape.
If you look at photographs of this stone today, the
inscription doesn't quite look like that, because at some point
(03:54):
after this some unknown person altered it. So this et,
this carving, whatever you want to call it. It was
interesting enough that Cleveland invited some of his neighbors to
look at it, and then eventually he took the stone
over to a nearby blacksmith's shop. For about the next
six months, people would stop by the shop and they
(04:15):
would take a look at this stone, and the words
of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who wrote one of the earlier
printed accounts of this quote, it was not uncommon for
some of them to take a horsenail or old file
and scrape the cracks, seams and carvings till all the
parts of the inscription were freed from dirt. The stone
(04:36):
was eventually taken from water Vale to Manlius, where it
remained for about a year, and during that time, in
Schoolcraft's words, it was quote visited by several gentlemen of science,
most of whom were disposed to admit that it was genuine.
He doesn't say who these gentlemen of science were or
how they made this determination, and neither does anyone else
(04:59):
who mentions them. Eventually, the stone was given to the
State Museum of the Albany Institute now known as the
Albany Institute of History and Art.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I like, how there's just these mysterious gentlemen of science.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Just some dudes came by, they were credentialed. It's fine,
don't they all said? They all said it was legit.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
About twenty years passed between the stone's reported discovery and
the first description of it in writing that I was
able to find. That was in the eighteen forty one
Historical Collections of the State of New York, containing a
general collection of the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes,
(05:45):
et cetera relating to its history and antiquities, with geographical
descriptions of every township in the state, illustrated by two
hundred and thirty engravings.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
That was by John W. Barber and Henry Howe. These
two men wrote a lot of books like this.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Just the title of it reminds me of the kinds
of books that you would find in a touristy gift shop.
The books about like the state or local history and lore.
Barber had already written and illustrated books on the city
of New Haven, the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and
the whole region of New England, New York, and New
(06:25):
Jersey before this book came out, and he also wrote
other similar books after this one came out. Howe was
a collaborator on some of Barber's books and also wrote
a number of similar history books of his own. Barbara
also wrote religious works like The Bible Looking Glass and
The Picture Preacher, some of which how contributed to Barber
(06:48):
and Howe. Source for the story of the Pompy Stone
was an unpublished history manuscript written by someone they call
the Reverend mister Adams. That was the Reverend John Watson Adams,
who worked as a school teacher in Manlius before being
ordained and installed as a pastor of First Presbyterian Church
in Syracuse. Adams died in eighteen fifty, so it's possible
(07:12):
that Barbara and Howe met him while researching this book.
It's possible that they also talked about the Pompy Stone
with locals.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Barber and Howe described this stone as being part of
the archaeological landscape of the area. Quote in the cultivation
of the lands lying upon the Onondaga Creek, Innumerable implements
of war and husbandry have been found scattered over a
territory of four or five miles in length. Swords, gun barrels, gunlocks, bayonets, balls, axes, hoes,
(07:45):
et cetera have been found. A stone was found in
the town of Pompey, now in the Albany Museum, about
fourteen inches long by twelve broad and eight inches in thickness.
It has in the center a figure of a tree
with a serpent climbing it, with the following inscription on
each side, and then it just kind of renders those
(08:06):
letters as text. Barbara and Howe offered this explanation for
how to interpret the inscription. Quote. We have here the
true chronology of the pontificate of Leo the Tenth, and
probably the year in which the inscriptions were made. The
inscriptions may be translated Leo the Tenth, by the Grace
of God, eighth year of his pontificate, fifteen twenty. This
(08:30):
stone was doubtless designed as a sepulchral monument. Ls signified
the initials of the person buried. The cross that he
was a Catholic, and the inverted you some other emblem
which is now in a great measure of fast would
Barbara and how describe as an inverted you. Other sources
have interpreted as the letter in Barber and Howe went
(08:54):
on to say, quote mister Adams considers that it is
not incredible that this stone was carved by a Spaniard
on or near the spot near which it was found.
Florida was discovered by the Spaniards as early as fifteen
oh two. Possibly some adventurers of this nation, allured by
the story of a lake at the north whose bottom
(09:14):
was lined with silver the salt at Selena Springs, traversed
this region in pursuit of their darling object. One of
the number dying here, the survivor or survivors may have
placed this monument over his remains. These were the first
of many people to publish work about the stone, and
we'll get to more after a sponsor break four decades.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
People seem to just take for granted that the Pompy
Stone was a genuine sixteenth century relic. In eighteen forty seven,
six years after Barber and Howe published their History of
New York, geographers, theologist and ethnologist Henry Rose Schoolcraft published
an edition of his book Notes on the Iroquois, or
Contributions to American History, Antiquities, and General Ethnology. Schoolcraft was
(10:13):
born in New York, and his writing career started with
accounts of his travels through Missouri and Arkansas. He was
appointed a Federal Indian Agent in eighteen twenty two, and
he married a woman named Jane Johnston, who had both Scots,
Irish and a Jibway heritage. Schoolcraft wrote a number of
books about indigenous peoples, culture, and history, including a six
(10:34):
volume work that was commissioned by Congress. The eighteen forty
seven edition of Notes on the Iroquois was about two
hundred pages longer than the one he had published a
year before, and it included a section called Antique Inscribed
Stone of Manlius. In it, Schoolcraft gave a description of
the poppy stone and an account of its discovery and
(10:57):
what happened to it afterward, which we read a bit
from earlier. Schoolcraft's interpretation of the inscription is quote by
the figure of a serpent climbing a tree, a well
known passage in the Pentitook is clearly referred to by
the date. The sixth year of the reign of the
Roman pontiff Leo the tenth has been thought to be denoted.
(11:18):
This appears to be probable less clearly from the inscriptive
phrase Leo delon six than from the plane date fifteen twenty,
being six years after this pontiff took the papal chair.
So the pentitook is the first five books of the
Christian Bible, and the most well known passage involving a
snake is, of course, the Book of Genesis, in which
(11:39):
a serpent tempts Eve to eat an apple.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
From the tree of Knowledge. The basic assumption pretty much
across the board was that fifteen twenty was the year
that this stone had been carved, and people also assumed
that the person who did that carving was Spanish. Schoolcraft
walked through some of the proposed explanations for who this
person might have been. He said it could not have
(12:04):
been someone who arrived with her non Cortes, even though
Cortes arrived in southeastern Mexico in fifteen nineteen. Schoolcraft thought
Cortes and his force would have just been way too
focused on conquering the Aztec Empire to send anybody exploring
farther north until after they were done conquering the Aztec
capital in fifteen twenty one. Apparently, Schoolcraft had heard people
(12:28):
suggest that the stone could have been carved by someone
who arrived with Hernando de Soto, but that was impossible
since de Soto didn't even leave Spain until fifteen thirty eight.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Another possibility was that this was somebody who had arrived
with Wuamponsee de Leon, who reached Florida in fifteen thirteen.
As we said earlier, part of the inscription looked almost
like it said de Leon. Schoolcraft also vaguely suggested that
this rock could have been inscribe by somebody associated with
(13:01):
Portuguese explorer Gaspar Quartirial, who reached Greenland in fifteen hundred
and Canada in fifteen oh one. Quarteiriel disappeared on his
return voyage and was presumed lost at sea. His brother
mounted an expedition to search for him and disappeared in
fifteen oh two and was presumed lost as well. Schoolcraft
(13:24):
did not try to pinpoint which of these was most
likely to have been the source of the stone, but
he offered this general explanation quote. If by the prefix
of Leo or Lyon a compliment to a brave and
hardy explorer was designed to have been expressed, it would
have well corresponded with the chivalric.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Character of that age. As a mere historical question, a
claim to the discovery of the interior of New York
by the Spanish crown might, in this view, find something
to base itself on. Schoolcraft then made it clear that
the first really concrete ofudents of a European presence in
the area traced back to the French in the mid
(14:04):
seventeenth century, roughly one hundred and fifty years after the
year inscribed on the stone. Two years after Schoolcraft published
this book, Joshua V. H. Clark of the New York
Historical Society wrote about the Pompy Stone in Onondaga, or
Reminiscences of Earlier and Later Times, being a series of
(14:26):
historical sketches relative to Onondaga, with notes on the several
towns in the county and Oswego. Clark used the Reverend
John Watson Adam's unpublished manuscript as a source for this book,
and he also made a couple of references to Schoolcraft's work.
His description of the stone and how it was found
(14:47):
is extremely similar to school Crafts, even down to the
detail of Filo Cleveland being tired and resting against a
stump with his hands on top of the bar, and
the stone being visited by quote gentlemen of science. It
is not totally clear whether Clark was paraphrasing Schoolcraft or
(15:08):
if both of them were actually paraphrasing Atoms, and Schoolcraft
just did not mention using atoms as a source. Clark
did not doubt that the stone was authentic. In his words, quote,
it is not at all probable that mister Cleveland or
any of the persons who first saw the stone in
the field or at the shop, could have designed or
(15:28):
executed the carvings. Besides, there are many persons now living
who would bear testimony to its authenticity. He concluded that
the stone might have been a memorial to someone who
had died. Quote. It may not appear incredible that a
party of Spaniards, either stimulated by the spirit of adventure
or allured by the love of gold, or driven by
(15:50):
some rude blast of misfortune, may have visited this region,
lost one of their number by death, and erected this
rude stone. With its simple inscription as a tribute to
his memory.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
In eighteen fifty one, if I am George Squire published
Antiquities of the State of New York, being the results
of extensive original surveys and explorations, with a supplement on
the antiquities of the West. He gave the same basic
description of the Pompy Stone and how it was found
as the men before him had saying, quote, there seems
to be little doubt that the stone was found as represented,
(16:27):
and that is a genuine remnant of antiquity. Some have
supposed that it attests that Ponce de Leon Narvaez or
some other Spanish adventurer penetrated thus far to the northward
during the period of Spanish adventure in Florida. We haven't
mentioned Narvaa's before this, but we talked about his expedition
(16:48):
in North America in our episode on Estevandico in August
of last year.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
In eighteen sixty three, Buckingham Smith submitted a paper to
the American Antiquarian Society, which society librarian S. F. Haven
summarized in his report in the Society's proceedings that year.
Tracy was not able to find the actual paper, but
according to Haven, Smith called the stone a quote well
(17:14):
authenticated relic and suggested that the inscription may have been
abbreviating the phrase Leo Decimus, pontifix Maximus or Leo the
tenth Pope. On November eleventh, eighteen seventy nine, Henry A. Holmes,
librarian of the New York State Library, delivered a thirteen
(17:34):
page paper on the Pompy Stone before the Oneida Historical Society,
and this paper gave the most in depth and detailed
exploration of the stone's possible origins. Holmes noted that the
region where the stone was found was full of archaeological
finds related to the area's indigenous peoples, as well as
(17:55):
French and Dutch settlements dating back to the seventeenth century.
Holmes went on to say, quote, the genuineness of the
inscriptions upon it have never been questioned by any of
those who have written regarding them, down to mister Haven
of the American Antiquarian Society, who very lately has declared
them to be well authenticated. These writers have merely failed
(18:17):
to give explanations or conjectures regarding its origin and meaning
that have harmonized with all.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
The facts from there, Holmes summarized the work of Clark, Schoolcraft, Squire,
and Smith. He said, of Schoolcraft's notations about the Pentitook
and Leo the Tenth and Ponce de Leon quote, his
contradictory conclusions only create dilemma and bewilderment. He found Clark's
(18:45):
explanations to be quote nearer to correct, though incomplete. Overall,
Holmes thought these earlier explanations were quote either improbable or impossible.
It is even now surmised that the stone might refer
to Leo the Tenth Pope, and only for the reason
that he was pope from fifteen thirteen to fifteen twenty one.
(19:06):
But he was not from the town or kingdom of Leon,
a part of Spain, and there is nothing but the
date to connect the stone with him. Leo or Leon
is a very common name among all the Latin nations.
It is surmised that the name may have referenced to
Ponce de Leon, the discoverer of Florida. The answer is
(19:27):
that in this case there is no coincidence of a
name of person, but only of a name of place.
Holmes also pointed out that a lot of the speculation
around the stone's origins linked it to expeditions that happened
after fifteen twenty, which didn't really make any sense. Like
so many other people who had written before him, Holmes
(19:49):
concluded that the Poppy Stone was a memorial to someone
who had died. He interpreted the inscription as meaning in
the year of our Lord fifteen twenty, in the sixth month,
which according to old style would be September or October, Leo,
a Spaniard of the city of Lyon in Spain, died here.
But he added another layer to who that person might
(20:11):
have been. Quote the Poppy Stone is a memorial stone
of a European, probably of a Spaniard, who, previous to
fifteen twenty, with one or more companions, had been made
a captive by the Indians in some part of North America,
and both had been adopted as members of the tribe
with which they were living, and one of them had
(20:32):
become a sakam. At the death of Leo, a surviving
companion carved on the stone his name, with the month
and year of his death and emblems of his hope
of an immortal life. From there, Holmes argued that this
person might have arrived in North America on pretty much
any expedition in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century,
(20:55):
not just the ones that departed from Spain, because there
were people from all over Europe on every voyage. He
listed off a huge number of expeditions as possibilities. He
also speculated that there could have been other smaller voyages
that left Europe and never returned and were never written about,
and any of those could have included people from Spain.
(21:18):
He thought expeditions to the Caribbean and Central and South
America were possibilities as well. Maybe people left on their
own and traveled north very far, all the way to Whatsound,
New York, and nobody ever really documented it. Holmes also
backed up this conclusion by noting that there was a
lot of writing about European contact with indigenous peoples and
(21:41):
Europeans who started living among indigenous communities in North America.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
He said it would take too long to write about
all of them, but quote the original narratives and the
compilations of the historians show that there were many, either
as captives or as adopted members of the tribes living
with them an occasion, acting as interpreters to vessels that
touched the coast for commerce our libraries are full of
(22:06):
narrations of what are called Indian captives. He also speculated
that the engraving was an amalgam of Christian and Indigenous imagery.
He said that the figures on the bottom right, one
of which just looks kind of like some lines to me,
were two crossed pipes and a tobacco pouch, and those
(22:27):
were all meant to represent peace. He said.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
The serpent climbing the tree merged the Biblical tree of
knowledge of good and evil, which Holmes said was also
the tree of life, with an Indigenous reverence for trees
and for serpents. He backed all of this up with
descriptions of serpent symbolism and serpent worship from indigenous communities
around the world.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Holmes also claimed that the Onondaga people worshiped a figure
called Hoda Harrow, who was depicted with snakes in his hair.
This seems to be a sort of mangled interpretation of
an Indigenous story about the founding of the Haddanashani Confederacy.
In that story, Tato Dajo was an Onondaga man who
(23:12):
was described as an evil sorcerer whose body was twisted
and whose hair was filled with writhing snakes. When the
Peacemaker united the nations of the Haddanashani, he had to
convince Tata Dajo to join the side of peace, and
as part of this, the Peacemaker is said to have
combed the snakes from Tato Dajo's hair. Yeah, I don't
(23:33):
think there's any other figure that he could have been
referring to with this kind of incorrect name of Hotaharo.
And also this was not about worshiping a figure with
snakes in their hair. Holmes concluded, quote, I think we
are authorized to regard the Pompi inscribed Stone, with its
genuineness and authenticity, as the earliest monument either in the
(23:58):
state of New York or in the United States, attesting
the discovery of the New World and the presence here
of the European So that was a whole lot of
writing about something that it turned out was fake. We
will get to that revelation after we pause for a
sponsor break. After Henry A.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Holmes delivered his paper before the Oneida Historical Society, the
Poppy Stone started to get some press outside of New York.
Harper's Weekly was based in New York City, but it
was distributed nationally, and it published a short write up
about the stone in December twentieth, eighteen seventy nine. That
write up called Holmes a quote, accomplished and accurate scholar.
(24:50):
In eighteen eighty five, another short piece from the Rochester
Post Express was picked up and published all over the country,
including an Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina,
North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont. In Wisconsin is a couple
of paragraphs and it said that the Pompy Stone was
(25:11):
the grave marker of a Spanish adventurer who had come
looking for gold, and that it was the earliest known
evidence of Europeans in the area.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
In eighteen ninety four, Onondaga County started preparing for the
celebration of its centennial, and as part of that, Episcopal
Rector William Martin Beecham had the opportunity to examine the stone.
Beecham's formal education was in religion. He had a Doctor
of Sacred Theology degree, but he had also done a
lot of work in archaeology and ethnology, doing some of
(25:44):
this work on government commissions and serving as archaeologist of
the New York State Museum. He published at least ten
books over the course of his life. After examining the stone,
Beecham wrote up his findings and sent them to the
Syracuse Ernel, which printed them on June ninth, eighteen ninety four.
(26:04):
He said that this inscription was not as a lot
of people had supposed, etched onto the stone with a knife.
Someone had used multiple stone carving tools, including two different
cold chisels, both of them good quality. They had slightly
different shapes, and one of them was duller than the other.
Some of the marks had been made with a smith's punch.
(26:27):
These had been struck with a mallet or a hammer.
Beacham wrote, quote, a hammer, two cold chisels, and a
good punch would make a pretty good kit of tools
for a wandering spaniard. And he may have found these
things enough. If anyone thinks he carried them so far,
he may believe in the Pompy Stone. From there. Beecham
pointed out that the characters in the inscription were not
(26:50):
sixteenth century characters. They were purely modern, which could be
confirmed by comparing them to the numerals in books printed
one hundred and fifty or two hundred year earlier. Or
to recently printed books which they matched. According to Beacham,
the shapes of the letter L and the numeral five
were particularly problematic, and there were more problems based on
(27:14):
the account of the stone's discovery. It was found in
a spot that was wet and strewn with boulders and
large stones. In other words, this was not a good
spot for a settlement or a grave or even a
temporary camp. There also wasn't an indigenous settlement known to
be nearby in fifteen twenty. In Beecham's words, quote I
(27:37):
may add that I have investigated several frauds in every
way more antique in character than this inscription. Beecham doesn't
really unpack why people were so ready to believe something that,
to him was such an obvious fake. But knowing how
much local lore there was around the stone. After he
submitted his piece to the Syracuse Journal, he braced her impact.
(28:02):
But then he was pleasantly surprised to hear from John E. Sweet,
whose response to Beacham's article was published in the Journal
on June eleventh. Sweet said, quote, my uncle Cyrus Avery,
who was born in Pompy and lived there during the
early part of the century told me the last time
I saw him, eighteen sixty seven, that he and his nephew,
(28:24):
William Willard of this city cut the figures on the
Pompy Stone, and just to see what would come of it.
When it came out in Clark's history, so much had
come of it they thought it best to keep still Altogether.
I have no doubt the tools were those mentioned by
mister Beecham, as such tools were exactly the ones most
(28:46):
likely to be at hand in grandfather Avery's blacksmith's shop
at Oran. Mister Willard's friends will hardly credit his being
interested in a practical joke of that kind. But mister Avery,
a brother of the late doctor Avery of Phoenix, was
given to just that sort of thing. Sweet went on
(29:06):
to say, quote, the Poppy Stone is nothing more or
less than a joke. It can hardly be called a fraud,
as it does not pretend to be anything, nor did
the makers ever do anything to make it appear that
it was. I doubt if either of them ever saw
it after it was brought to light. Really, I hardly
think the stone worth sending back to Albany. And mister
(29:28):
Beecham may congratulate himself upon having sized up the inscriptions
so accurately. Later on, Colonel William A.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Sweet corroborated John Sweet's account, and Beacham later speculated on
why Avery and Willard had chosen these particular words and
dates that they inscribed on the stone and Beacham's words quote.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
The answer is simple. They were of a notable New
England family, and of course familiar with the history of
the Reformation. The year fifteen twenty saw lew There's the
renunciation of papal authority, followed immediately by his excommunication by
Leo the Tenth. No New England boy was ignorant of
the approximate date of these events. To them, they were
(30:12):
the greatest in European history. When an early date was
desired one soon after the discovery by Columbus, no other
date was so likely to be used. All of this
definitively marked the Pompy Stone as a hoax, but there
were still some people who referenced it as legitimate after
this point. For example, in eighteen ninety six, the Reverend
(30:35):
doctor John F. Mulaney of Syracuse gave a sermon in
which he used the Pompy Stone as evidence that Spanish
Catholics had visited northeastern North America one hundred years before
Protestants arrived and before the Dutch settled on Manhattan Island.
Milaniy assumed that the stone was a marker to a
Catholic missionary who had died. A nineteen oh five article
(30:58):
in the New York Tribune for the stone as though
it was authentic and proof of an early Spanish presence
in New York. In nineteen thirty three, the Reverend John
Thomas Conlin published an article titled the Beginnings of Catholicism
in New Netherland, including a footnote citing the Pompy Stone
as evidence of a few Spanish Catholics in what is
(31:21):
now New York, noting quote, the monument is regarded as
genuine and authentic. Yeah, I suppose none of them had
heard the news today. There's a historical marker in Pompey,
New York, which was placed by the New York Folklore
Society William C. Pomeroy Foundation in twenty seventeen. That historical
(31:42):
marker is headed Legends and Lore, and it says Pompy
Stone eighteen hundreds prank believed true. There's some more text
after that, and it ends with eighteen ninety four hoax revealed.
That is the Pompy Stone. Do you have some listener mail.
It may or may not be a hoax. It is
(32:02):
not a hoax. It is about the unusual spelling of
Florida from our Fort mose episode. So that's sort of
tangentially related to today since that also had a lot
of Florida discussion. This email is from Steph Dear Holly
and Tracy. I will type part of the cut time
in all caps just to avoid confusion with lowercase ls
(32:26):
in this email. This is about how in one of
the things that we read in the Fort Mosee episode,
the word Florida was spelled llriida all in lowercase. This
is just my intuition plus knowledge of manuscripts from studying
European history music sources. However, here goes the writer chose
(32:48):
to draw a somewhat confusing double f on purpose to
avoid having it perceived considering the writer's no caps writing
style as l r ida LL is of course the
the yeasma digraph in Spanish, A reader could misapprehend the
all lower case Florida as l o r ida, which
would send them down the wrong phoneme. Road, and who knows,
(33:12):
they might never get to f F l O r
Ida or aha Florida. And then there is a link
to a knowledgeable linguist talking about double letter usage in
modern Spanish and says this is all I've got.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Obviously, listeners who work with historical Spanish manuscripts more than
me will send you their expert and corroborated answers, which
you can please index above mine. Thank you for your
rigorously historical and gracious presence on the Internet. And then
there's a series of five hearts for the way you
always aim to recognize human dignity in your retellings, analysis
and remarks. Steph PPPs here is a photo of our
(33:51):
families departed, the happy dog who went by happy for short.
He was a short, energetic and vocal mix of rat
terrier plus know what and we miss him and so
we have a very very adorable, just very inquisitive looking
puppy dog, sweet baby, very sweet. Thank you so much,
Steph for that email. I don't know if this explanation
(34:19):
has to do with the use of l O ri
ida is a spelling only because that particular thing was
not a Spanish document. It was English speakers coming from
Carolina to Florida, so it's possible, but maybe not. But
it is the only potential explanation we have received so
(34:40):
far as to why it may have been spelled that way.
So thank you again, Steph. If you would like to
send us a note where at history Podcasts atiheartradio dot
com and you can find the show notes to our
episode with links to all of these many things we
read from today missinhistory dot com, and you can subscribe
(35:02):
to the show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else
you'd like to get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Stuff you Missed in History.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. This is coming out on
April Fool's Day. So I wanted to find an episode
about some kind of historical hoax or a prank, but
with the times that were living in, not one in
which anybody got seriously hurt or killed or otherwise just harmed.
(00:37):
And also, I did not want something like the Piltdown Man,
which was a scientific hoax that led some researchers at
least just down the wrong path to wrong conclusions for years,
and then it helped erode the public's trust in science
and scientists when that hoax was exposed. So I didn't
(00:57):
want anything with consequences like that. We talked about the
Piltdown Man in an episode that we ran as a
Saturday Classic back in January twenty twenty two. Today's hoax
did lead people astray a little bit, but in a
way that was fairly localized, not so much fallout. It
(01:18):
was called the Pompey Stone.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
The Pompy Stone was unearthed on the farm of Pilo Cleveland,
who lived in Onondaga County, New York. He lived in Watervale.
That's an area between the towns of Manlius and Pompey,
and those two towns were really interconnected, and various accounts
put Cleveland's farm in one or the other of them,
but really situated in the middle. All of this is
(01:42):
about fifteen miles or twenty four kilometers southeast of Syracuse. Coincidentally,
Pompey is just a few miles east of Cardiff, New York,
home to the Cardiff Giant, which would become one of
the most sensational archaeological hoaxes in US history after its
purpose discovery in eighteen sixty nine. So in eighteen twenty
(02:04):
or eighteen twenty one, Filo Cleveland was cutting down trees
and digging up rocks to expand a meadow on his farm,
and toward the end of the day one day, he
used an iron bar to turn a large stone out
of some damp ground. He was tired by this point,
so once he'd pried up this stone, he leaned against
(02:26):
a nearby stump to rest with his hands on the
top of the bar. While he was resting, his eyes
sort of fell on the stone that he had just
turned over, and he noticed that it seemed to have
some letters or markings on it. He did not really
think much of this, and after he got up again,
he put the stone on top of the pile of
rocks that he had dug up earlier in the day.
(02:49):
A few days passed before he got back out there,
and in the meantime it had rained. The rain had
washed the dirt off of this stone, making the markings
on it a lot more obvious. The stone was about
fourteen inches long by twelve inches wide and eight inches thick,
as about thirty six by thirty x twenty centimeters. In
(03:09):
the center, there was an engraving that looked like a
sketch of a snake climbing a tree. There was a
phrase or a name, partly on one side of the
tree and partly on the other, and it looked like
Leod l On, almost like Leo de Leon, with a
period after Leo and the letter missing from Leon.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
On the bottom left was a Roman numeral six that's
made up of the capitol letters VII and the number
fifteen twenty, and on the bottom right was a large x,
which in some interpretations was meant to be a cross,
and that was next to some kind of indistinct shape.
If you look at photographs of this stone today, the
inscription doesn't quite look like that, because at some point
(03:54):
after this some unknown person altered it. So this et,
this carving, whatever you want to call it. It was
interesting enough that Cleveland invited some of his neighbors to
look at it, and then eventually he took the stone
over to a nearby blacksmith's shop. For about the next
six months, people would stop by the shop and they
(04:15):
would take a look at this stone, and the words
of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who wrote one of the earlier
printed accounts of this quote, it was not uncommon for
some of them to take a horsenail or old file
and scrape the cracks, seams and carvings till all the
parts of the inscription were freed from dirt. The stone
(04:36):
was eventually taken from water Vale to Manlius, where it
remained for about a year, and during that time, in
Schoolcraft's words, it was quote visited by several gentlemen of science,
most of whom were disposed to admit that it was genuine.
He doesn't say who these gentlemen of science were or
how they made this determination, and neither does anyone else
(04:59):
who mentions them. Eventually, the stone was given to the
State Museum of the Albany Institute now known as the
Albany Institute of History and Art.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I like, how there's just these mysterious gentlemen of science.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Just some dudes came by, they were credentialed. It's fine,
don't they all said? They all said it was legit.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
About twenty years passed between the stone's reported discovery and
the first description of it in writing that I was
able to find. That was in the eighteen forty one
Historical Collections of the State of New York, containing a
general collection of the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes,
(05:45):
et cetera relating to its history and antiquities, with geographical
descriptions of every township in the state, illustrated by two
hundred and thirty engravings.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
That was by John W. Barber and Henry Howe. These
two men wrote a lot of books like this.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Just the title of it reminds me of the kinds
of books that you would find in a touristy gift shop.
The books about like the state or local history and lore.
Barber had already written and illustrated books on the city
of New Haven, the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and
the whole region of New England, New York, and New
(06:25):
Jersey before this book came out, and he also wrote
other similar books after this one came out. Howe was
a collaborator on some of Barber's books and also wrote
a number of similar history books of his own. Barbara
also wrote religious works like The Bible Looking Glass and
The Picture Preacher, some of which how contributed to Barber
(06:48):
and Howe. Source for the story of the Pompy Stone
was an unpublished history manuscript written by someone they call
the Reverend mister Adams. That was the Reverend John Watson Adams,
who worked as a school teacher in Manlius before being
ordained and installed as a pastor of First Presbyterian Church
in Syracuse. Adams died in eighteen fifty, so it's possible
(07:12):
that Barbara and Howe met him while researching this book.
It's possible that they also talked about the Pompy Stone
with locals.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Barber and Howe described this stone as being part of
the archaeological landscape of the area. Quote in the cultivation
of the lands lying upon the Onondaga Creek, Innumerable implements
of war and husbandry have been found scattered over a
territory of four or five miles in length. Swords, gun barrels, gunlocks, bayonets, balls, axes, hoes,
(07:45):
et cetera have been found. A stone was found in
the town of Pompey, now in the Albany Museum, about
fourteen inches long by twelve broad and eight inches in thickness.
It has in the center a figure of a tree
with a serpent climbing it, with the following inscription on
each side, and then it just kind of renders those
(08:06):
letters as text. Barbara and Howe offered this explanation for
how to interpret the inscription. Quote. We have here the
true chronology of the pontificate of Leo the Tenth, and
probably the year in which the inscriptions were made. The
inscriptions may be translated Leo the Tenth, by the Grace
of God, eighth year of his pontificate, fifteen twenty. This
(08:30):
stone was doubtless designed as a sepulchral monument. Ls signified
the initials of the person buried. The cross that he
was a Catholic, and the inverted you some other emblem
which is now in a great measure of fast would
Barbara and how describe as an inverted you. Other sources
have interpreted as the letter in Barber and Howe went
(08:54):
on to say, quote mister Adams considers that it is
not incredible that this stone was carved by a Spaniard
on or near the spot near which it was found.
Florida was discovered by the Spaniards as early as fifteen
oh two. Possibly some adventurers of this nation, allured by
the story of a lake at the north whose bottom
(09:14):
was lined with silver the salt at Selena Springs, traversed
this region in pursuit of their darling object. One of
the number dying here, the survivor or survivors may have
placed this monument over his remains. These were the first
of many people to publish work about the stone, and
we'll get to more after a sponsor break four decades.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
People seem to just take for granted that the Pompy
Stone was a genuine sixteenth century relic. In eighteen forty seven,
six years after Barber and Howe published their History of
New York, geographers, theologist and ethnologist Henry Rose Schoolcraft published
an edition of his book Notes on the Iroquois, or
Contributions to American History, Antiquities, and General Ethnology. Schoolcraft was
(10:13):
born in New York, and his writing career started with
accounts of his travels through Missouri and Arkansas. He was
appointed a Federal Indian Agent in eighteen twenty two, and
he married a woman named Jane Johnston, who had both Scots,
Irish and a Jibway heritage. Schoolcraft wrote a number of
books about indigenous peoples, culture, and history, including a six
(10:34):
volume work that was commissioned by Congress. The eighteen forty
seven edition of Notes on the Iroquois was about two
hundred pages longer than the one he had published a
year before, and it included a section called Antique Inscribed
Stone of Manlius. In it, Schoolcraft gave a description of
the poppy stone and an account of its discovery and
(10:57):
what happened to it afterward, which we read a bit
from earlier. Schoolcraft's interpretation of the inscription is quote by
the figure of a serpent climbing a tree, a well
known passage in the Pentitook is clearly referred to by
the date. The sixth year of the reign of the
Roman pontiff Leo the tenth has been thought to be denoted.
(11:18):
This appears to be probable less clearly from the inscriptive
phrase Leo delon six than from the plane date fifteen twenty,
being six years after this pontiff took the papal chair.
So the pentitook is the first five books of the
Christian Bible, and the most well known passage involving a
snake is, of course, the Book of Genesis, in which
(11:39):
a serpent tempts Eve to eat an apple.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
From the tree of Knowledge. The basic assumption pretty much
across the board was that fifteen twenty was the year
that this stone had been carved, and people also assumed
that the person who did that carving was Spanish. Schoolcraft
walked through some of the proposed explanations for who this
person might have been. He said it could not have
(12:04):
been someone who arrived with her non Cortes, even though
Cortes arrived in southeastern Mexico in fifteen nineteen. Schoolcraft thought
Cortes and his force would have just been way too
focused on conquering the Aztec Empire to send anybody exploring
farther north until after they were done conquering the Aztec
capital in fifteen twenty one. Apparently, Schoolcraft had heard people
(12:28):
suggest that the stone could have been carved by someone
who arrived with Hernando de Soto, but that was impossible
since de Soto didn't even leave Spain until fifteen thirty eight.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Another possibility was that this was somebody who had arrived
with Wuamponsee de Leon, who reached Florida in fifteen thirteen.
As we said earlier, part of the inscription looked almost
like it said de Leon. Schoolcraft also vaguely suggested that
this rock could have been inscribe by somebody associated with
(13:01):
Portuguese explorer Gaspar Quartirial, who reached Greenland in fifteen hundred
and Canada in fifteen oh one. Quarteiriel disappeared on his
return voyage and was presumed lost at sea. His brother
mounted an expedition to search for him and disappeared in
fifteen oh two and was presumed lost as well. Schoolcraft
(13:24):
did not try to pinpoint which of these was most
likely to have been the source of the stone, but
he offered this general explanation quote. If by the prefix
of Leo or Lyon a compliment to a brave and
hardy explorer was designed to have been expressed, it would
have well corresponded with the chivalric.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Character of that age. As a mere historical question, a
claim to the discovery of the interior of New York
by the Spanish crown might, in this view, find something
to base itself on. Schoolcraft then made it clear that
the first really concrete ofudents of a European presence in
the area traced back to the French in the mid
(14:04):
seventeenth century, roughly one hundred and fifty years after the
year inscribed on the stone. Two years after Schoolcraft published
this book, Joshua V. H. Clark of the New York
Historical Society wrote about the Pompy Stone in Onondaga, or
Reminiscences of Earlier and Later Times, being a series of
(14:26):
historical sketches relative to Onondaga, with notes on the several
towns in the county and Oswego. Clark used the Reverend
John Watson Adam's unpublished manuscript as a source for this book,
and he also made a couple of references to Schoolcraft's work.
His description of the stone and how it was found
(14:47):
is extremely similar to school Crafts, even down to the
detail of Filo Cleveland being tired and resting against a
stump with his hands on top of the bar, and
the stone being visited by quote gentlemen of science. It
is not totally clear whether Clark was paraphrasing Schoolcraft or
(15:08):
if both of them were actually paraphrasing Atoms, and Schoolcraft
just did not mention using atoms as a source. Clark
did not doubt that the stone was authentic. In his words, quote,
it is not at all probable that mister Cleveland or
any of the persons who first saw the stone in
the field or at the shop, could have designed or
(15:28):
executed the carvings. Besides, there are many persons now living
who would bear testimony to its authenticity. He concluded that
the stone might have been a memorial to someone who
had died. Quote. It may not appear incredible that a
party of Spaniards, either stimulated by the spirit of adventure
or allured by the love of gold, or driven by
(15:50):
some rude blast of misfortune, may have visited this region,
lost one of their number by death, and erected this
rude stone. With its simple inscription as a tribute to
his memory.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
In eighteen fifty one, if I am George Squire published
Antiquities of the State of New York, being the results
of extensive original surveys and explorations, with a supplement on
the antiquities of the West. He gave the same basic
description of the Pompy Stone and how it was found
as the men before him had saying, quote, there seems
to be little doubt that the stone was found as represented,
(16:27):
and that is a genuine remnant of antiquity. Some have
supposed that it attests that Ponce de Leon Narvaez or
some other Spanish adventurer penetrated thus far to the northward
during the period of Spanish adventure in Florida. We haven't
mentioned Narvaa's before this, but we talked about his expedition
(16:48):
in North America in our episode on Estevandico in August
of last year.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
In eighteen sixty three, Buckingham Smith submitted a paper to
the American Antiquarian Society, which society librarian S. F. Haven
summarized in his report in the Society's proceedings that year.
Tracy was not able to find the actual paper, but
according to Haven, Smith called the stone a quote well
(17:14):
authenticated relic and suggested that the inscription may have been
abbreviating the phrase Leo Decimus, pontifix Maximus or Leo the
tenth Pope. On November eleventh, eighteen seventy nine, Henry A. Holmes,
librarian of the New York State Library, delivered a thirteen
(17:34):
page paper on the Pompy Stone before the Oneida Historical Society,
and this paper gave the most in depth and detailed
exploration of the stone's possible origins. Holmes noted that the
region where the stone was found was full of archaeological
finds related to the area's indigenous peoples, as well as
(17:55):
French and Dutch settlements dating back to the seventeenth century.
Holmes went on to say, quote, the genuineness of the
inscriptions upon it have never been questioned by any of
those who have written regarding them, down to mister Haven
of the American Antiquarian Society, who very lately has declared
them to be well authenticated. These writers have merely failed
(18:17):
to give explanations or conjectures regarding its origin and meaning
that have harmonized with all.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
The facts from there, Holmes summarized the work of Clark, Schoolcraft, Squire,
and Smith. He said, of Schoolcraft's notations about the Pentitook
and Leo the Tenth and Ponce de Leon quote, his
contradictory conclusions only create dilemma and bewilderment. He found Clark's
(18:45):
explanations to be quote nearer to correct, though incomplete. Overall,
Holmes thought these earlier explanations were quote either improbable or impossible.
It is even now surmised that the stone might refer
to Leo the Tenth Pope, and only for the reason
that he was pope from fifteen thirteen to fifteen twenty one.
(19:06):
But he was not from the town or kingdom of Leon,
a part of Spain, and there is nothing but the
date to connect the stone with him. Leo or Leon
is a very common name among all the Latin nations.
It is surmised that the name may have referenced to
Ponce de Leon, the discoverer of Florida. The answer is
(19:27):
that in this case there is no coincidence of a
name of person, but only of a name of place.
Holmes also pointed out that a lot of the speculation
around the stone's origins linked it to expeditions that happened
after fifteen twenty, which didn't really make any sense. Like
so many other people who had written before him, Holmes
(19:49):
concluded that the Poppy Stone was a memorial to someone
who had died. He interpreted the inscription as meaning in
the year of our Lord fifteen twenty, in the sixth month,
which according to old style would be September or October, Leo,
a Spaniard of the city of Lyon in Spain, died here.
But he added another layer to who that person might
(20:11):
have been. Quote the Poppy Stone is a memorial stone
of a European, probably of a Spaniard, who, previous to
fifteen twenty, with one or more companions, had been made
a captive by the Indians in some part of North America,
and both had been adopted as members of the tribe
with which they were living, and one of them had
(20:32):
become a sakam. At the death of Leo, a surviving
companion carved on the stone his name, with the month
and year of his death and emblems of his hope
of an immortal life. From there, Holmes argued that this
person might have arrived in North America on pretty much
any expedition in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century,
(20:55):
not just the ones that departed from Spain, because there
were people from all over Europe on every voyage. He
listed off a huge number of expeditions as possibilities. He
also speculated that there could have been other smaller voyages
that left Europe and never returned and were never written about,
and any of those could have included people from Spain.
(21:18):
He thought expeditions to the Caribbean and Central and South
America were possibilities as well. Maybe people left on their
own and traveled north very far, all the way to Whatsound,
New York, and nobody ever really documented it. Holmes also
backed up this conclusion by noting that there was a
lot of writing about European contact with indigenous peoples and
(21:41):
Europeans who started living among indigenous communities in North America.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
He said it would take too long to write about
all of them, but quote the original narratives and the
compilations of the historians show that there were many, either
as captives or as adopted members of the tribes living
with them an occasion, acting as interpreters to vessels that
touched the coast for commerce our libraries are full of
(22:06):
narrations of what are called Indian captives. He also speculated
that the engraving was an amalgam of Christian and Indigenous imagery.
He said that the figures on the bottom right, one
of which just looks kind of like some lines to me,
were two crossed pipes and a tobacco pouch, and those
(22:27):
were all meant to represent peace. He said.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
The serpent climbing the tree merged the Biblical tree of
knowledge of good and evil, which Holmes said was also
the tree of life, with an Indigenous reverence for trees
and for serpents. He backed all of this up with
descriptions of serpent symbolism and serpent worship from indigenous communities
around the world.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Holmes also claimed that the Onondaga people worshiped a figure
called Hoda Harrow, who was depicted with snakes in his hair.
This seems to be a sort of mangled interpretation of
an Indigenous story about the founding of the Haddanashani Confederacy.
In that story, Tato Dajo was an Onondaga man who
(23:12):
was described as an evil sorcerer whose body was twisted
and whose hair was filled with writhing snakes. When the
Peacemaker united the nations of the Haddanashani, he had to
convince Tata Dajo to join the side of peace, and
as part of this, the Peacemaker is said to have
combed the snakes from Tato Dajo's hair. Yeah, I don't
(23:33):
think there's any other figure that he could have been
referring to with this kind of incorrect name of Hotaharo.
And also this was not about worshiping a figure with
snakes in their hair. Holmes concluded, quote, I think we
are authorized to regard the Pompi inscribed Stone, with its
genuineness and authenticity, as the earliest monument either in the
(23:58):
state of New York or in the United States, attesting
the discovery of the New World and the presence here
of the European So that was a whole lot of
writing about something that it turned out was fake. We
will get to that revelation after we pause for a
sponsor break. After Henry A.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Holmes delivered his paper before the Oneida Historical Society, the
Poppy Stone started to get some press outside of New York.
Harper's Weekly was based in New York City, but it
was distributed nationally, and it published a short write up
about the stone in December twentieth, eighteen seventy nine. That
write up called Holmes a quote, accomplished and accurate scholar.
(24:50):
In eighteen eighty five, another short piece from the Rochester
Post Express was picked up and published all over the country,
including an Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina,
North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont. In Wisconsin is a couple
of paragraphs and it said that the Pompy Stone was
(25:11):
the grave marker of a Spanish adventurer who had come
looking for gold, and that it was the earliest known
evidence of Europeans in the area.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
In eighteen ninety four, Onondaga County started preparing for the
celebration of its centennial, and as part of that, Episcopal
Rector William Martin Beecham had the opportunity to examine the stone.
Beecham's formal education was in religion. He had a Doctor
of Sacred Theology degree, but he had also done a
lot of work in archaeology and ethnology, doing some of
(25:44):
this work on government commissions and serving as archaeologist of
the New York State Museum. He published at least ten
books over the course of his life. After examining the stone,
Beecham wrote up his findings and sent them to the
Syracuse Ernel, which printed them on June ninth, eighteen ninety four.
(26:04):
He said that this inscription was not as a lot
of people had supposed, etched onto the stone with a knife.
Someone had used multiple stone carving tools, including two different
cold chisels, both of them good quality. They had slightly
different shapes, and one of them was duller than the other.
Some of the marks had been made with a smith's punch.
(26:27):
These had been struck with a mallet or a hammer.
Beacham wrote, quote, a hammer, two cold chisels, and a
good punch would make a pretty good kit of tools
for a wandering spaniard. And he may have found these
things enough. If anyone thinks he carried them so far,
he may believe in the Pompy Stone. From there. Beecham
pointed out that the characters in the inscription were not
(26:50):
sixteenth century characters. They were purely modern, which could be
confirmed by comparing them to the numerals in books printed
one hundred and fifty or two hundred year earlier. Or
to recently printed books which they matched. According to Beacham,
the shapes of the letter L and the numeral five
were particularly problematic, and there were more problems based on
(27:14):
the account of the stone's discovery. It was found in
a spot that was wet and strewn with boulders and
large stones. In other words, this was not a good
spot for a settlement or a grave or even a
temporary camp. There also wasn't an indigenous settlement known to
be nearby in fifteen twenty. In Beecham's words, quote I
(27:37):
may add that I have investigated several frauds in every
way more antique in character than this inscription. Beecham doesn't
really unpack why people were so ready to believe something that,
to him was such an obvious fake. But knowing how
much local lore there was around the stone. After he
submitted his piece to the Syracuse Journal, he braced her impact.
(28:02):
But then he was pleasantly surprised to hear from John E. Sweet,
whose response to Beacham's article was published in the Journal
on June eleventh. Sweet said, quote, my uncle Cyrus Avery,
who was born in Pompy and lived there during the
early part of the century told me the last time
I saw him, eighteen sixty seven, that he and his nephew,
(28:24):
William Willard of this city cut the figures on the
Pompy Stone, and just to see what would come of it.
When it came out in Clark's history, so much had
come of it they thought it best to keep still Altogether.
I have no doubt the tools were those mentioned by
mister Beecham, as such tools were exactly the ones most
(28:46):
likely to be at hand in grandfather Avery's blacksmith's shop
at Oran. Mister Willard's friends will hardly credit his being
interested in a practical joke of that kind. But mister Avery,
a brother of the late doctor Avery of Phoenix, was
given to just that sort of thing. Sweet went on
(29:06):
to say, quote, the Poppy Stone is nothing more or
less than a joke. It can hardly be called a fraud,
as it does not pretend to be anything, nor did
the makers ever do anything to make it appear that
it was. I doubt if either of them ever saw
it after it was brought to light. Really, I hardly
think the stone worth sending back to Albany. And mister
(29:28):
Beecham may congratulate himself upon having sized up the inscriptions
so accurately. Later on, Colonel William A.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Sweet corroborated John Sweet's account, and Beacham later speculated on
why Avery and Willard had chosen these particular words and
dates that they inscribed on the stone and Beacham's words quote.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
The answer is simple. They were of a notable New
England family, and of course familiar with the history of
the Reformation. The year fifteen twenty saw lew There's the
renunciation of papal authority, followed immediately by his excommunication by
Leo the Tenth. No New England boy was ignorant of
the approximate date of these events. To them, they were
(30:12):
the greatest in European history. When an early date was
desired one soon after the discovery by Columbus, no other
date was so likely to be used. All of this
definitively marked the Pompy Stone as a hoax, but there
were still some people who referenced it as legitimate after
this point. For example, in eighteen ninety six, the Reverend
(30:35):
doctor John F. Mulaney of Syracuse gave a sermon in
which he used the Pompy Stone as evidence that Spanish
Catholics had visited northeastern North America one hundred years before
Protestants arrived and before the Dutch settled on Manhattan Island.
Milaniy assumed that the stone was a marker to a
Catholic missionary who had died. A nineteen oh five article
(30:58):
in the New York Tribune for the stone as though
it was authentic and proof of an early Spanish presence
in New York. In nineteen thirty three, the Reverend John
Thomas Conlin published an article titled the Beginnings of Catholicism
in New Netherland, including a footnote citing the Pompy Stone
as evidence of a few Spanish Catholics in what is
(31:21):
now New York, noting quote, the monument is regarded as
genuine and authentic. Yeah, I suppose none of them had
heard the news today. There's a historical marker in Pompey,
New York, which was placed by the New York Folklore
Society William C. Pomeroy Foundation in twenty seventeen. That historical
(31:42):
marker is headed Legends and Lore, and it says Pompy
Stone eighteen hundreds prank believed true. There's some more text
after that, and it ends with eighteen ninety four hoax revealed.
That is the Pompy Stone. Do you have some listener mail.
It may or may not be a hoax. It is
(32:02):
not a hoax. It is about the unusual spelling of
Florida from our Fort mose episode. So that's sort of
tangentially related to today since that also had a lot
of Florida discussion. This email is from Steph Dear Holly
and Tracy. I will type part of the cut time
in all caps just to avoid confusion with lowercase ls
(32:26):
in this email. This is about how in one of
the things that we read in the Fort Mosee episode,
the word Florida was spelled llriida all in lowercase. This
is just my intuition plus knowledge of manuscripts from studying
European history music sources. However, here goes the writer chose
(32:48):
to draw a somewhat confusing double f on purpose to
avoid having it perceived considering the writer's no caps writing
style as l r ida LL is of course the
the yeasma digraph in Spanish, A reader could misapprehend the
all lower case Florida as l o r ida, which
would send them down the wrong phoneme. Road, and who knows,
(33:12):
they might never get to f F l O r
Ida or aha Florida. And then there is a link
to a knowledgeable linguist talking about double letter usage in
modern Spanish and says this is all I've got.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Obviously, listeners who work with historical Spanish manuscripts more than
me will send you their expert and corroborated answers, which
you can please index above mine. Thank you for your
rigorously historical and gracious presence on the Internet. And then
there's a series of five hearts for the way you
always aim to recognize human dignity in your retellings, analysis
and remarks. Steph PPPs here is a photo of our
(33:51):
families departed, the happy dog who went by happy for short.
He was a short, energetic and vocal mix of rat
terrier plus know what and we miss him and so
we have a very very adorable, just very inquisitive looking
puppy dog, sweet baby, very sweet. Thank you so much,
Steph for that email. I don't know if this explanation
(34:19):
has to do with the use of l O ri
ida is a spelling only because that particular thing was
not a Spanish document. It was English speakers coming from
Carolina to Florida, so it's possible, but maybe not. But
it is the only potential explanation we have received so
(34:40):
far as to why it may have been spelled that way.
So thank you again, Steph. If you would like to
send us a note where at history Podcasts atiheartradio dot
com and you can find the show notes to our
episode with links to all of these many things we
read from today missinhistory dot com, and you can subscribe
(35:02):
to the show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else
you'd like to get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Stuff you Missed in History.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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Tracy Wilson
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