The Mystery of The Little Giants

Meandering through the Seneca Fall (NY) public library recently I noticed a shelf filled with some interesting-looking notebooks (no, not laptops, actual old-fashioned three-ring binders). These binders contained archival material from the village historian. They were arranged by date from the 1700’s through the 2000’s. My heart jumped a bit – not exactly like a kid in a candy store, more like the actual young me: when our family went on vacations I apparently grabbed all the tourist brochures and pamphlets I could fit into my pockets. I eagerly got the binder that included 1860 and started browsing. The notebook contained many clippings from local newspapers.

One article mentioned a meeting of the Little Giants. Unfortunately there was no information about the actual date of publication, but the clipping was identified in ink as 1860. 250 supporters of Stephen A. Douglas, the Little Giant, from Seneca Falls traveled by boat on the Cayuga and Seneca Canal to neighboring Waterloo. [11-11-2020 – the supporters were from Seneca Falls, not Mr. Douglas.] They joined up with about 250 Waterloo residents for a torchlit procession and speeches.

The Little Giant

The same binder had an article reporting on a pole raising by the Little Giants of the 4th Ward. It was a beautiful hickory pole 150 feet in length. The Democrat Party used hickory poles in honor of Andrew Jackson, “Old Hickory”. See this article about Pole Raising

I’ve been reading a lot about the Wide-Awakes recently, but I have not seen any mention of a corresponding group that supported Douglas. There is information at Yates County, NY, in the Civil War that Douglas visited Yates and Ontario counties (near Seneca Falls) in September, 1860, but nothing about “The Little Giants”.

I googled and yahooed and binged. I eventual found a bit more information about the Little Giants. Cowan’s Auctions sold an ambrotype of a Little Giants club member in 2009.

Little Giants club member

Cowan’s explains that they have seen several images of Wide-Awakes, but this is the first of a Douglas supporter.

If anyone has any information about an official organization supporting Douglas calling itself The Little Giants and paralleling the Wide-Awakes, I’d like to hear about it.

Extra! Extra!

• I’m not sure about the legality of publishing the photo of the ambrotype, but it seems that the ambrotype has the value

• The Yates County site describes several pole raisings in that county during the 1860 campaign

• The Seneca County Little Giants did not affect the election outcome in Seneca County- according to Wikipedia Lincoln carried every county in the Finger Lakes area and almost all counties in New York State.

• For an interesting political cartoon that combines “base ball” and the 1860 election check out the Civil War site at Dickinson College