The Pompey Stone Hoax

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Pompey Stone Hoax"

Podcast: Stuff You Missed in History Class
Hosts: Tracy V. Wilson, Holly Fry
Date: April 1, 2026
Producer: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This episode, airing on April Fool’s Day, explores the curious case of the Pompey Stone—an archaeological "find" in 19th-century New York that fooled scholars, became enshrined in local lore, and was revealed to be a hoax. Tracy and Holly trace the stone’s discovery, the evolving speculation about its origins, and how its true story finally came to light. The tone is light-hearted, skeptical, and curious, befitting the spirit of historical pranks.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Scene: Why a Hoax?

• Tracy opens with the goal of picking a historical hoax without harmful impact, distinguishing the Pompey Stone from infamous cases like the Piltdown Man ([02:38], Tracy).
• The Pompey Stone was chosen for being a localized, relatively benign prank.

Discovery and Early Accounts

• The stone was unearthed by Philo Cleveland (Watervale, Onondaga County, New York) around 1820–21 ([03:42], Holly).
• At first, Cleveland barely noticed the stone’s odd markings; rain later revealed its carved inscription ([04:24], Tracy & Holly).
• Description: Stone size approx. 14 x 12 x 8 inches; a snake climbing a tree, letters resembling "Leo de El on" (possibly "Leon"), Roman numeral VI, year 1520, cross, and other symbols ([05:10], Holly).
• Cleveland shared the find with locals, and it was examined at the nearby blacksmith’s shop ([06:20], Tracy).
  • Quote: “It was not uncommon for some of them to take a horse nail or old file and scrape the cracks, seams and carvings till all the parts of the inscription were freed from dirt.” – Henry Rowe Schoolcraft ([06:57], Holly quoting Schoolcraft).
• After a year, the stone was sent to the State Museum of the Albany Institute ([06:57], Holly).

Early Scholarly Interpretations

• First described in a printed work in 1841 by John W. Barber and Henry Howe ([07:39], Tracy).
• Their source was Rev. John Watson Adams, a local figure ([09:10], Holly).
• Barber & Howe’s theory: the stone’s inscription documented the death of a Spanish explorer in 1520, possibly connected to Pope Leo X or the explorer Ponce de Leon ([10:29], Holly).
  • Quote: “We have here the true chronology of the pontificate of Leo X and probably the year in which the inscriptions were made.” – Barber & Howe ([10:29], Holly).

Building the Legend

• Other 19th-century historians—Schoolcraft, Clark, Squier, Smith—echoed or elaborated on these theories, tying the stone to Spanish expeditions or Catholic missionaries ([15:51]–[22:39]).
• Holmes (1879) expanded the tale, suggesting complex theories about European captives among native tribes and syncretic symbolism in the engraving ([22:39]–[28:46]).
  • Notable misinterpretation: Holmes conflated an Onondaga culture story about a figure with snakes in his hair (“Hoda Haro”) but confused the actual Haudenosaunee tradition ([28:05], Holly).
  • Holmes’s conclusion: “...the Pompey inscribed stone...as the earliest monument either in the state of New York or in the United States attesting the discovery of the New World and the presence here of the European.” ([28:46], Holly quoting Holmes).

Widening Fame

• The story spread regionally and then nationally via popular periodicals ([31:04], Tracy).
• By the 1880s, the Pompey Stone was widely referenced as authentic evidence of early European exploration in New York ([33:27], Holly).

Exposing the Hoax

• For Onondaga County’s centennial (1894), Episcopal rector and amateur archaeologist William M. Beauchamp examined the stone ([33:27], Holly).

  • He determined the engravings were made with modern tools, and the characters were of contemporary rather than 16th-century form ([34:51], Holly).
  • “Based on 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.” ([35:15], Tracy, quoting Beauchamp).
  • “...I have investigated several frauds in every way more antique in character than this inscription.” ([35:15], Tracy quoting Beauchamp).

• Breakthrough: John E. Sweet published a letter recounting that his uncle, Cyrus Avery, and William Willard had carved the inscription as a practical joke ([36:17], Tracy).

  • Avery and Willard never tried to pass it off as real or draw attention to themselves ([37:11], Holly).
  • “[The Pompey 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.” ([37:11], Holly quoting John Sweet).

• The likely motive for the chosen inscription: The year 1520 marks an important Reformation event (Luther’s break with Rome and Leo X’s excommunication), which would have been familiar to educated New Englanders like Avery and Willard ([37:41], Tracy quoting Beauchamp).

The Afterlife of a Hoax

• Despite the exposure, the myth continued in some circles: sermons, articles, and even scholarly works cited the stone as authentic decades after the hoax was revealed ([38:29], Holly).

  • “The monument is regarded as genuine and authentic.” ([39:33], Tracy quoting 1933 article).

• Today, Pompey, NY, has a historical marker stating: "Pompey Stone: 1800s prank believed true...1894 hoax revealed." ([39:33], Tracy).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “[The Pompey Stone] 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.” — John E. Sweet ([37:11], Holly)
• “These mysterious gentlemen of science.” — Tracy ([07:31])
• Holly (joking about the credentialed onlookers): “Just some dudes came by. They were credentialed. It’s fine, don’t ask the shit.” ([07:35], Holly)
• On the myth's persistence: “[People] thought it best to keep still altogether… Really I hardly think the stone worth sending back to Albany…” — John Sweet ([37:11], Holly)
• “No New England boy was ignorant of the approximate date of these events. To them they were 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.” — Beauchamp ([37:41], Tracy)

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Chronological Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:38] — Motivation for choosing a hoax-themed episode
• [03:42] — The discovery of the stone & initial descriptions
• [06:20] — Community inspection and arrival at the Albany Institute
• [09:10] — Early written records and local scholars' input
• [10:29] — 19th-century attempts to interpret the inscription
• [15:51] — Summary of prominent academic opinions (Schoolcraft, Holmes, etc.)
• [22:39] — Holmes’ elaborate interpretation and his errors
• [31:04] — National dissemination of the myth
• [33:27] — Beauchamp's critical examination
• [36:17] — Revelation by John E. Sweet (hoax confirmed)
• [38:29] — Persistence of the myth post-exposure
• [39:33] — Modern acknowledgment with a historical marker

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Conclusion

The Pompey Stone hoax reveals how the allure of mystery and the desire for a grand historical narrative can lead to even the most dubious artifacts being embraced as fact. With careful, sometimes humorous, scrutiny, Holly and Tracy demonstrate how skepticism and solid research eventually won the day—though not before the "joke" had taken on a life of its own. The tale is both a cautionary and entertaining lesson in the persistence of historical myth.

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Additional Notes

• The hosts’ tone oscillates between bemusement and admiration for the audacity and endurance of the story.
• The episode provides an excellent case study in local legend, the fallibility of scholarship, and the love of a good hoax.
• Listener mail and questions about linguistic oddities were covered after main content ([40:08]), but are not central to the hoax discussion.

Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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 we're living in, not one in which anybody got seriously hurt or killed or otherwise just harmed. And also, I did not want something like the Piltdown man, which was a scientific hoax that led to 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 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 of 2022. Today's hoax did lead people astray a little bit, but in a way that was fairly localized, not so much fallout. It was called the Pompystone.

[Holly Fry]

The Pompystone was unearthed on the farm of Philo 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 about 15 miles, or 24 kilometers southeast of Syracuse. Coincidentally, Pompe 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 purported discovery in 1869.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So in 1820 or 1821, Philo 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 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.

[Holly Fry]

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. Obviously, the stone was about 14 inches long by 12 inches wide and 8 inches thick. That's about 36 by 30 by 20 centimeters. In 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 Leo de El on, almost like Leo de Leon with a period after Leo and the letter missing from Leon. So on the bottom left was a Roman numeral 6 that's made up of the capital letters VI and the number 1520. 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 after this, some unknown person altered it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So this etching, 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 shop. For about the next six months, people would stop by the shop and they would take a look at this stone. In 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 horse nail or old file and scrape the cracks, seams and carvings till all the parts of the inscription were freed from dirt.

[Holly Fry]

The stone was eventually taken from Watervale to Manlius, where it remained for about a year. And during that time, in Schoolcraft's words, it was 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 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I like how there's just these mysterious gentlemen of science.

[Holly Fry]

Just some dudes came by. They were credentialed. It's fine, don't ask the shit.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

They all said it was legit. About 20 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 1841 Historical collections of the State of New York, containing a general collection of the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes, et cetera, relating to its history and antiquities, with geographical descriptions of every township in the state, illustrated by 230 engravings. That was by John W. Barber, and Henry Howe. These two men wrote a lot of books like this. 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, New 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 Barbara's books and also wrote a number of similar history books of his own. Barber also wrote religious works like the Bible, Looking Glass and the Picture Preacher, some of which Howe contributed to Barber.

[Holly Fry]

And Howe's source for the story of the Pompey stone was an unpublished history manuscript written by someone they call the reverend Mr. Adams. That was the reverend John Watson Adams, who worked as a schoolteacher in Manlius before being ordained and installed as a pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Syracuse. Adams died in 1850, so it's possible that Barbara and Howe met him while researching this book. It's possible that they also talked about the Pompey Stone with locals.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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, gun locks, bayonets, balls, axes, hoes, etc have been found. A stone was found in the town of Pompey, now in the Albany Museum, about 14 inches long by 12 broad and 8 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 letters as text.

[Holly Fry]

Barbara and Howe offered this explanation for how to interpret the inscription. Quote, we have here the true chronology of the pontificate of Leo X and probably the year in which the inscriptions were made. The inscriptions may be translated Leo X by the Grace of God, 8th year of his pontificate, 1520. This 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 U some other emblem which is now in a great measure effaced what Barbara and Howe describe as an inverted U. Other sources have interpreted as the letter N.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Barber and Howe went on to say, quote, Mr. 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 1502. Possibly some adventurers of this nation allured by the story of a lake at the north whose bottom was lined with silver. The salt at Salina Springs traversed this region in pursuit of their darling object, one of the number dying here. The survivor for survivors may have placed this monument over his remains.

[Holly Fry]

These were the first of many people to publish work about the stone, and we'll get to more after a sponsor break.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

The 1847 edition of Notes on the Iroquois was about 200 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 Pompey stone and an account of its discovery and 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 Pentateuch is clearly referred to by the date. The sixth year of the reign of the Roman pontiff Leo X has been thought to be denoted. This appears to be probable less clearly from the inscriptive phrase Leo de Lan 6 than from the plain date 1520, being six years after this pontiff took the papal chair. So the Pentateuch 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. The in which a serpent tempts Eve to eat an Apple from the Tree of Knowledge.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The basic assumption pretty much across the board was that 1520 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 been someone who arrived with Hernan Cortez, even though Cortez arrived in southeastern Mexico in 1519. Schoolcraft thought Cortez 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 1521.

[Holly Fry]

Apparently, Schoolcraft had heard people 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 1538.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Another possibility was that this was somebody who had arrived with Juan Ponce de Leon, who reached Florida in 1513. 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 inscribed by somebody associated with Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte Real, who reached Greenland in 1500 and Canada in 1501. Corte Real disappeared on his return voyage and was presumed lost at sea. His brother mounted an expedition to search for him and disappeared in 1502 and was presumed lost as well.

[Holly Fry]

Schoolcraft 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. If by the prefix of Leo or lion, a complement to a brave and hardy explorer, was designed to have been expressed, it would have well corresponded with the chivalric 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 evidence of a European presence in the area traced back to the French in the mid 17th century, roughly 150 years after the year inscribed on the stone.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Two years after Schoolcraft published this book, Joshua V.H. clark of the New York Historical Society wrote about the Pompey Stone in 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. Clark used the Reverend John Watson Adams, 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 is extremely similar to Schoolcrafts, even down to the detail of Philo 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 if both of them were actually paraphrasing Adams. And Schoolcraft just did not mention using Adams as a source.

[Holly Fry]

Clark did not doubt that the stone was authentic in his words. Quote it is not at all probable that Mr. Cleveland or any of the persons who first saw the stone in the field or at the shop could have designed or 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 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1851, Ephraim 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 Pompey 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 and that it 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 Narvaez before this, but we talked about his expedition in North America in our episode on Estevanico in August of last year.

[Holly Fry]

In 1863, 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 authenticated relic and suggested that the inscription may have been abbreviating the phrase Leo Decimus Pontifex Maximus or Leo X Pope.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On November 11, 1879, Henry A. Holmes, librarian of the New York State library, delivered a 13 page paper on the pompystone 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 French and Dutch settlements dating back to the 17th century.

[Holly Fry]

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 Mr. Haven of the American Antiquarian Society, who very lately has declared them to be well authenticated. These writers have merely failed to give explanations or conjectures regarding its origin and meaning that have harmonized with all the facts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

From there, Holmes summarized the work of Clark, Schoolcraft, Squire and Smith. He said of Schoolcraft's notations about the Pentateuch and Leo X and Ponce de Leon. Quote, his contradictory conclusions only create dilemma and bewilderment. He found Clark's explanations to be, quote, nearer to correct. Though incomplete.

[Holly Fry]

Overall, Holmes thought these earlier explanations were either improbable or impossible. It is even now surmised that the stone might refer to Leo X Pope, and only for the reason that he was pope from 1513 to 1521. 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 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 1520, which didn't really make any sense.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Like so many other people who had written before him, Holmes concluded that the pompystone was a memorial to someone who had died. He interpreted the inscription as meaning in the year of our Lord 15:20, 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.

[Holly Fry]

But he added another layer to who that person might have been. Quote, the Poppy stone is a memorial stone of a European, probably of a Spaniard, who, previous to 1520, 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 become a sachem 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.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

From there, Holmes argued that this person might have arrived in North America on pretty much any expedition in the late 15th or early 16th century, 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. 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 what's down New York, and just nobody ever really documented it.

[Holly Fry]

Holmes also backed up this conclusion by noting that there was a lot of writing about European contact with Indigenous peoples and Europeans who started living among Indigenous communities in North America. 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 and living with them and occasionally acting as interpreters to vessels that touch the coast for commerce. Our libraries are full of narrations of what are called Indian captives.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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 were all meant to represent peace. He said 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.

[Holly Fry]

Holmes also claimed that the Onondaga people worshiped a figure called Hoda Haro, 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 Haudenosaunee confederacy. In that story, Tadodaho was an Onondaga man who 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 Haudenosaunee, he had to convince Tadodaho to join the side of peace. And as part of this, the Peacemaker is said to have combed the snakes from Tadodaho's hair.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, I don't think there's any other figure that he could have been referring to with this kind of incorrect name of Houteharo. 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 Pompey inscribed stone with its genuineness and authenticity as the earliest monument either in the state of New York or in the United States attesting the discovery of the New World and the presence here of the European.

[Holly Fry]

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.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

you in part by Vital Farms. One of my very favorite easy meals to make is to fry up an egg in some chili oil, throw that over rice, maybe wilt a little spinach and garlic. So I have some greens in there. Delicious. So fast. So easy. You can make it with Vital Farms pasture raised eggs. These hens have access to open pastures, fresh air and sunshine. And you can actually trace your eggs back to the farm they came from. There's a little thing on the side of the carton. You can find the farm name and look it up. See pictures plus Vital Farms is a certified B corporation, which I always appreciate. That means they are committed to improving the lives of people, animals and the planet. Food so farmers who care hens that get to roam and eggs that you can feel good about. Next time you are in the store, look for the black carton in the egg aisle and visit vitalfarms.com to learn more. Vital Farms Good eggs no shortcuts On Amtrak, you can spend more time relaxing and enjoying the ride and less time cursing under your breath in traffic. Whether you're going on a quick trip or up and down the Northeast, they'll make sure you do it in comfort with no middle seats and plenty of legroom. Stretch out without ever stressing out. Book a traffic free [e-mail] Amtrak retrain travel. After Henry A. Holmes delivered his paper before the Oneida Historical Society, the Poppy stones started to get some pressure 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 20, 1879. That write up called Holmes a quote, accomplished and accurate scholar. In 1885, another short piece from the Rochester Post Express was picked up and published all over the country, including in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvan, Vermont and Wisconsin. This is just a couple of paragraphs, and it said that the Pompey stone was 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.

[Holly Fry]

In 1894, Onondaga county started preparing for the celebration of its centennial, and as part of that, Episcopal rector William Martin Beacham 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 this work on government commissions and serving as archaeologist of the New York State Museum. He published at least 10 books over the course of his life.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

After examining the stone, Beecham wrote up his findings and sent them to the Syracuse Journal, which printed them on June 9, 1894. 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. These had been struck with a mallet or a hammer, beecham 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 Pompey Stone.

[Holly Fry]

From there, Beecham pointed out that the characters in the inscription were not 16th century characters. They were purely modern, which could be confirmed by comparing them to the numerals in books printed 150 or 200 years earlier, or to recently printed books which they matched. According to Beecham, the shapes of the letter L and the numeral 5 were

[Tracy V. Wilson]

particularly problematic, and there were more problems. Based on 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 1520, in Beauchamp's words, quote, I may add that I have investigated several frauds in every way more antique in character than this inscription.

[Holly Fry]

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 for impact. But then he was pleasantly surprised to hear from John E. Sweet, whose response to Beecham's article was published in the Journal on June 11.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Sweets said, quote, my uncle Cyrus Avery, who was born in Pompei and lived there during the early part of the century, told me the last time I saw him, 1867, that he and his nephew William Willard of this city, cut the figures on the Pompey 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 Mr. Beacham, as such tools were exactly the ones most likely to be at hand in Grandfather Avery's blacksmith shop at Orin. Mr. Willard's friends will hardly credit his being interested in a practical joke of that kind. But Mr. Avery, a brother of the late Dr. Avery of Phoenix, was given to just that sort of thing.

[Holly Fry]

Sweet went on to say, 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 Mr. Beecham may congratulate himself upon having sized up the inscription so accurately.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Later on, Colonel William A. Sweet corroborated John Sweet's account, and Beecham later speculated on why Avery and Willard had chosen these particular words and dates that they inscribed on the stone in Beecham's words quote, the answer is simple. They were of a notable New England family and of course, familiar with the history of the reformation. The year 1520 saw Luther's renunciation of papal authority, followed immediately by his excommunication by Leo X. No New England boy was ignorant of the approximate date of these events. To them they were 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.

[Holly Fry]

All of this definitively marked the Pompystone as a hoax, but there were still some people who referenced it as legitimate after this point. For example, in 1896, the Reverend Dr. John F. Mullaney of Syracuse gave a sermon in which he used the Pompey Stone as evidence that Spanish Catholics had visited Northeastern North America 100 years before Protestants arrived and before the Dutch settled on Manhattan Island. Mullany assumed that the stone was a marker to a Catholic missionary who had died. A 1905 article in the New York Tribune framed the stone as though it was authentic and proof of an early Spanish presence in New York. In 1933, the Reverend John Thomas Conlon published an article titled the Beginnings of Catholicism in New Netherland, including a footnote citing the Pompey Stone as evidence of a few Spanish Catholics in what is now New York, noting, quote, the monument is regarded as genuine and authentic.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, I suppose none of them had heard the news. Today there's a historical marker in Pompei, New York, which was placed by the New York Folklore Society William C. Pomeroy foundation in 2017. That historical marker is headed Legends and Lore, and it says Pompey Stone 1800s prank believed true. There's some more text after that and it ends with 1894 hoax revealed. That is the Pompey Stone.

[Holly Fry]

Do you have some listener mail that may or may not be a hoax?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It is not a hoax. It is about the unusual spelling of Florida from our Fort Mose episode. So there'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 time in all caps just to avoid confusion with lowercase Ls in this email. This is about how in one of the things that we read in the Fort Mose episode, the word Florida was spelled L l o r I d a all in lowercase. This is just my intuition plus knowledge of manuscripts from studying European history music sources. However, here goes the writer chose to draw a somewhat confusing double f on purpose to avoid having it perceived, considering the writer's nocap's writing style as llorida. Ll is of course the Yasma digraph in Spanish. A reader could misapprehend the all lowercase Florida as llorida, which would send them down the wrong phoneme road. And who knows, they might never get to fflo, r, I d a 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. 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 family's departed, the happy dog who went by Happy for short. He was a short, energetic and vocal mix of rat terrier plus we don't know what and we miss him. And so we have a very, very adorable, just very inquisitive looking puppy dog.

[Holly Fry]

Sweet baby.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Very sweet. Thank you so much Steph for that email. I I don't know if this explanation has to do with the the use of llorida as a spelling only because the 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 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, we'[e-mail] and you can find the show notes to our episode with links to all of these many things. We read from [e-mail] and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff youf Missed in History 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, Experience scenic views and private rooms that let you stretch out. Enjoy hassle free travel as it should be on amtra. Book some Z's at Amtrak.com Amtrak retrain travel brought to you in part by Vital Farms. I love eggs. I turn to them all the time as a quick and easy way to start a meal. And Vital Farms eggs are brought to you by hens that have access to fresh air and sunshine and you can actually look up on the carton and see the farm that those eggs came from. Vital Farms is also a certified bee corporation with a purpose to improve the lives of people, animals and the planet through food. Look for the black egg carton in the egg aisle and visit vitalfarms.com to learn more. Vital Good Eggs no shortcuts at Britbox

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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