History & local legend
In July 1916, newspapers reported an extraordinary archaeological discovery near Athens: skeletons of men seven feet tall, some supposedly bearing horns on their foreheads. The report came from excavations at Murray Farm on Queen Esther’s Flats, and the story soon reached newspapers well beyond the Susquehanna Valley.
Louise Welles Murray, who was present during the excavation, later explained the incident. A worker had exclaimed that there were horns above a person’s head. A passing visitor overheard and asked another worker about it; that man treated the question as an opportunity for a joke. What the excavators actually found was a burial covered with deer antlers.
Archaeologist Alanson Skinner sent a correction, but the sensational version outlived it. The “horned giants” became a durable regional legend, often moved in later retellings to Spanish Hill or to the 1880s. The original episode belongs to the 1916 Murray Farm excavation.
Sources
- Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology, 1916 coverage and Skinner’s correction
- Deb Twigg, Susquehanna River Archaeological Center, reproducing the explanation by eyewitness Louise Welles Murray
- Donald Thieme, University of Georgia, distinguishes Murray Farm on the west bank of the Chemung from the Murray Garden site
