Story tells of 12-foot-tall 'Goliath' skeleton unearthed in Etowah County, Alabama in April 1886

Grave of James Keener “Keeney” Henry in Etowah County, Ala.

Many in the reading audience will know longtime Conecuh County resident Lawrence Gladwell, who reads The Courant every week and has gotten a big kick out of all the recent Bigfoot news.

Lawrence dropped by our office one day last week and brought me a recent copy of Shorelines magazine, which is published by Alabama Power Co. for its customers with properties along major Alabama lakes like Lake Jordan, Logan Martin, Smith Lake and others. Between the covers of this magazine, Lawrence found a story that he thinks will interest many of our readers.

This article, titled “Tall tales of the Coosa” by Erin Harney, describes large serpents, “sea monsters” and man-sized fish once believed to inhabit the Coosa River, but the thing that caught Lawrence’s eye – and mine – was the portion of the article that described “Alabama Goliaths.” The article heavily quoted Danny Crownover, who is the president and executive director of the Etowah Historical Society and Heritage Museum in Gadsden.

Biblical 'Goliath' brandishes his giant spear.

According to Crownover, Gadsden, which is the county seat of Etowah County in Northeast Alabama, was hit by heavy rains in the spring of 1886, and these downpours caused the Coosa River to flood. According to the article, Gadsden area residents saw the river rise six feet above the previous highwater flood mark.

As you would imagine, this flood caused widespread damage and stripped many farms of their valuable crop-sustaining topsoil. On April 12, 1886, once the flood had subsided, a farmer named James Henry returned to his farm at Whorton Bend, about five miles from Gadsden, and made an astonishing discovery – an ancient Indian burial ground that had been uncovered by the flood.

The story goes that Henry found all sorts of artifacts, including earthenware pots, knives, pipes and tomahawks. At this point, the story takes a turn for the weird as Henry supposedly went on to find the skeletal remains of “enormous giants,” according to Harney’s article. Henry even was said to have found a skull so large that he could put his entire head inside of it, Crownover said.

The article went on to say that, supposedly, Henry dug up and pieced together an entire giant skeleton, which was over 12 feet tall, prompting Henry to declare that the Biblical warrior Goliath must have come from Alabama. Henry’s discovery caused a big stir among his neighbors and many of them came by to see the giant skeleton and to look at the artifacts Henry found. Unfortunately, no one currently knows what became of Henry’s giant skeleton and the other artifacts unearthed by the flood of 1886.

After reading the article Lawrence brought by the office, I did a little research of my own and have come to believe that the James Henry mentioned in the article is probably James Keener “Keeney” Henry, who was born in Alabama on Jan. 1, 1848, which would have made him 38 years old at the time of the 1886 flood. Henry lived to the ripe old age of 83 before passing away on Feb. 2, 1931 in Etowah County. He is buried in the Red Hill Cemetery in the Etowah County community of Ivalee, which is less than 10 miles from downtown Gadsden.

In the end, I can’t say for sure if giants once roamed the hills and hollows of old Alabama, but I can say that James Henry was a real person and apparently lived his entire life in and around Etowah County’s Coosa River. If anyone out there in the reading audience knows more details about this story (or any other tales of Alabama giants), please let me hear from you.