Joseph Mulhattan (c1853 – 1914)

We live in an era of fake news where it is hard to determine whether you are having your leg pulled or whether you are just being fed something to satisfy a prevailing political agenda. There is nothing new under the sun and fake news is no exception.

The pre-eminent American hoaxer in the 1970s and 1880s was Joseph Mulhattan – there are various variants of his surname but this seems to be the most commonly accepted. Mulhattan had no desire to profit from his pranks, just enjoying the thrill of the chase and seeing how long his hoax would run for and how many would fall for it. His internet was the press. As the Syracuse Sunday Herald reported in December 1900, “He never made a cent by his lies and in ordinary business affairs he spoke the truth, but he had a mania for giving misinformation to the newspaper and indulged himself in the mania to the injury of his other business.”

Joseph opened his hoaxing career by announcing to a startled world in 1877 that when George Washington’s sarcophagus was opened up for repairs, the workers were greeted with the sight of a petrified President. “The features [were] perfectly natural … the body is of a dark leathery colour, and may be said to be soft sandstone, which would likely break should an attempt be made to move it..” Pure bunkum, of course.

Moving to Kentucky in the late 1870s Mulhattan announced his arrival in the Bluegrass State by reporting the discovery of a giant cave near Glasgow Junction, at least twenty-three miles long and with three rivers, which contained mummified remains. One local entrepreneur, J R Pucket, was so taken in that he was going to set up a steamboat service to take sightseers to this marvel.

Joseph’s flight of fancy in 1880 concerned a young girl by the sea who had been given a bunch of balloons. The wind got up and carried her off and but for the presence of mind and steady aim of an old hunter, who shot the balloons one at a time and enabled her to return to terra firma unharmed, she would have been seen no more.

In 1883 Joseph reported that a giant meteor had landed in Brown County in Texas, killing several cattle, destroying the home of herdsman, Martinez Garin, and imbedding itself 200 feet into the ground. So large was the meteor that it stuck out 70 feet into the air and resembled the Fort Worth court-house in design. The poor telegraphist at Brown County received hundreds of telegrams from reporters seeking more details.

In February 1887 Joseph reported to the Kentucky Register that a local farmer, one J N Parkes, had trained a troupe of monkeys to pick hemp. The story spread like wildfire and the New York Times printed an angry editorial denouncing the scab monkeys, noting that if the practice spread, honest labourers would be out of a job. Poor Parkes, who neither had any monkeys nor grew hemp, started to receive hate mail and eventually persuaded the Register to print a retraction.

Mulhattan, despite being an ardent prohibitionist, was an alcoholic and his health declined, so much so that in 1901 it was feared he was on his last legs. The Cambrian printed an epitaph for him, “Here lies what’s left of liar Joe,/ A truly gifted liar,/ Who could outlie the liar below/ In realms of flame fire./ He lied in life, in death he lies,/ And if, his lies forgiven,/ He made a landing in the skies,/ He plays the lyre in heaven.” As with Joseph, not everything was as it seemed and he hung on until 1914.

Filed under: Culture, History Tagged: epitaph to James Mulhattan, giant meteor of Brown County, J N Parkes, J R Pucket, James Mulhattan, James Mulhattan hoaxer, Syracuse Sunday Herald, The Cambrian, the George Washington hoax, the girl with the balloons hoax, the monkey labourers hoax