"Historical Footnotes of North American Giants"

                                                       
                                        (President Abraham Lincoln and a few 'others')


By Chad Miles Team Tracker Member

These days the mere mention of a giant roaming in the wilderness of North America is bound to be met with laughter and ridicule.  There is hardly a person, outside of a relatively small “community” of believers, who does not equate Sasquatch with a unicorn. I would have said a mermaid, but Animal Planet has successfully muddied the waters there.

However, this was not always the case.  The existence of giants was practically common knowledge to the early settlers and native inhabitants of North America.  There are hundreds of reports from the nineteenth and early twentieth century about the discovery giant remains including skulls, artifacts, and even complete skeletons.

Modern day naysayers dismiss these reports as sensational stories which were dreamed up by reporters of the day who had no journalistic integrity and were only trying to sell newspapers.  This “Weekly World News” approach may have been true in some instances, but definitely not all.  In fact, there are some very high profile mentions of North American giants which should give the diehard skeptics pause.

Abraham Lincoln wrote about giants after he had seen the Niagara Falls. In his memoirs he wrote, “The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now.” (Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 2)

While serving as a Colonel during the French and Indian War, George Washington made a discovery of giant remains.  While digging the foundation for Fort Loudoun in present day Tennessee, Washington’s soldiers discovered the skeleton of what they thought were Native Americans which were over seven feet tall. (Historic Haunts of Winchester: A Ghostly Trip Through the Past)

One of the most fascinating accounts comes from Buffalo Bill Cody.  While serving as a cavalry scout in the US Army, Cody had an encounter with some Indians who brought him giant remains.  Cody wrote of the experience in his autobiography:

"While we were in the sand hills, scouting the Niobrara country, the Pawnee Indians brought into camp some very large bones, one of which the surgeon of the expedition pronounced to be the thigh-bone of a human being. The Indians claimed that the bones they had found were those of a person belonging to a race of people who a long time ago lived in this country; that there was once a race of men on the earth whose size was about three times that of an ordinary man, and they were so swift and powerful that they could run along-side of a buffalo, and, taking the animal in one arm, could tear off a leg and eat the meat as they walked." (The life of Hon. William F. Cody, known as Buffalo Bill, the famous hunter, scout and guide)  

As you can see, these accounts of giants were taken very seriously in the past.  The modern day approach of ridicule and scorn toward someone who has a Sasquatch encounter or story is most unfortunate.  Sure, some people’s Bigfoot accounts are just too sensational to believe, but most are fleeting encounters that leave the witness confused and shaken.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of Bigfoot just remember that these historical figures approached the issue of North American giants as a part of our natural history.