Weird Island

49. WEIRD ANNIVERSARY: Part 2 | Fun Facts

Episode Summary

Sometimes when I’m researching, I waste a bunch of time researching something only slightly related to the episode topic. Like the time I read an entire book about apples while researching the Tree Root that Ate Roger Williams. Today, instead of a regular episode, for each topic I’ve covered, I’m going to share one fun or interesting fact I learned while researching that didn’t make its way into the podcast.

Episode Notes

Episode Transcription

I’m Sara, and you’re listening to Weird Island. Each week, I’ll be telling you about the strangest stories I can dig up from my tiny, little state of Rhode Island. And if you tuned in last week, you know that I’m essentially giving myself two weeks off to celebrate one year of the Weird Island podcast. And in the meantime, today’s episode will be a little different. I’m going to do a fun celebration of all the past episodes. For each topic I’ve covered, I’m going to share one fun or interesting fact I learned while researching that didn’t make its way into the episode. It might actually be relevant to the topic, it might not be relevant at all. Sometimes when I’m researching, I spend an inordinate amount of time researching something only slightly related. Like the time I read an entire book about apples… while researching the Tree Root that Ate Roger Williams. If you listened to the episode, you’re probably very aware that none of us needed to know how apples grow in order to understand that story. So, I learned a lot about apples that I didn’t need to share.
So, today will be a (probably overwhelming) rapid fire list of fun facts I haven’t already shared, starting from the most recent episodes and going backwards to episode 1. It ended up being pretty long, so let’s dive in.
47. Turtle Soup: What does turtle taste like? It’s said that turtle can taste like seven distinct animals. People have said it can taste like pork, chicken, lamb, beef, shrimp, fish and goat. Others say it tastes like veal. In fact the earliest description of the taste of turtle was that the taste was “somewhere between that of veal and that of lobster.”
46. Narragansett Speedway: Lots of random fun facts on this one. My favorite was that the first city-to-city car race in the US, the Chicago Times-Herald Race, was postponed from its original date because a few of the racers driving into the city were stopped by police and told they had get horses to pull the cars into the city because, as the police informed them, they had no right to drive cars on city streets designed with horses in mind.
45. Turk’s Head Building: I was fascinated by the idea of this shop from the 1760s “At the Sign of the Elephant” and curious to know what that elephant looked like on the sign, and if it was accurate, given that the first elephant to arrive in America wasn’t here until 1796. I wondered what they based the image on, and came across this other example of someone creating imagery of an animal he’d never seen before. I’ll link to it in the show notes, it’s Albrecht Durer’s 1515 woodcut of a Rhino without having ever seen one. Kind of interesting. It looks like it’s wearing armor, but otherwise it looks surprisingly accurate.
44. Cogswell Fountains: These fountains were so hated, they inspired cities like Boston to establish Public Art Commissions to evaluate and approve public art before it was accepted by the city.
43. Edgar Allan Poe: The wedding of Edgar Allan Poe and Sarah Helen Whitman came so close to occurring, that in January of 1849, after the wedding was called off, a newspaper in New London CT ran a story of their wedding announcement.
42. Frosty the Polar Bear: I was reading about Slater Park’s history, and learned that there was once something called the Shakespearean Garden in the park. It was the idea of park superintendent Lawrence Corrente, and included 68 carefully nurtured varieties of plants specifically mentioned in Shakespeare’s works. It was believed to be unique in America.
41. Waterfire: The Woonasquatucket and Mashassuck Rivers are the two rivers flowing into Providence. Woonasquatucket is Algonquian for “where the salt water ends.” Moshassuck means “river where moose watered.” Would that have been true? It’s definitely not the case today.
40: The Polar Express: Lots of quotes from Chris Van Allsburg that I really loved. Like this one, “As a child, growing up in the Midwest, I used to draw pictures of cars, cartoon characters, and very detailed plans for tornado shelters.” Just generally, I loved Van Allsburg’s approach to life. His family owned a dairy when he was a child. At his Providence home, he had this tiny window installed between the back stoop and the pantry where someone coming by the house and seeing the window might say, “Oh, that must be where the milkman passed the cheese through the pantry.”
39. The Big Blue Bug: I just really enjoyed that at one point you could get a Big Blue Bug plush exclusively at Benny’s. A more Rhode Island statement does not exist.
38. First Presidential Phone Call: I came across this recording of one of LBJ’s phone calls in which he orders a pair of pants. Cracked me up. Link in show notes.
37. Rhoda the Sea Lion: Looking into the history of zoos, Central Park Zoo in NY has a fascinating origin story. It was not originally planned to be a zoo. It spontaneously came into existence as people gifted (aka “left”) exotic pets at the park. The first was a bear cub, tied to a tree. Followed by a monkey. Then cranes, a peacock and a goldfish? The unsolicited donations included both living and dead animals.
36. Titanic Railroad: I got side-tracked trying to understand Titanic Mania, or our collective obsession with the Titanic, which traces back to the disaster happening. While survivors were being brought back to NY onboard the Carpathia, a journalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on board the ship was able to get a message to someone in New York, who chartered a tug boat to sail to the Carpathia. The journalist then took the story he had written, informed by interviews with the survivors, stuffed it into an oilskin bag, and threw it to the waiting boat. It was published the next morning. Just one month after the sinking of the Titanic, the first film about it was released.
35. Giant Pumpkins: The concept of a jack-o-lantern originated in Ireland. The earliest versions weren’t actually pumpkins - they were turnips and potatoes.
34. Ramtail Mill: Alright, this is a weird one. But the Ramtail Mill was a Fulling Mill. I googled Fulling Mill to understand what that meant. They would essentially clean and thicken cloth (particularly wool). According to Wikipedia, in Roman times, fulling was accomplished by someone standing ankle deep in tubs of human urine, which assisted in cleansing and whitening the cloth. Urine was so important that it was actually taxed.
33. Cumberland Library: To generate income, Trappist monasteries produce artisanal goods, the most famous of which is Trappist beer. You can get beer from Spencer Brewery in MA from the same group of monks who once lived at the Cumberland monastery.
32. Belcourt Castle: I walked the Newport Cliff walk during the week of researching Belcourt Castle. I was amazed by the number of mansions and homes designed by Richard Morris Hunt. Including Ochre Court, Belcourt, The Breakers, Marble House, Chateau-sur-Mer. And many others. So much of Newport was designed and influenced by this one person.
31./ 30. Barnaby Castle: Henry Trickey, a reporter on the Barnaby Murder, was most famous for his involvement in the Lizzie Borden case. He wrote an article for the Boston Globe, exposing new evidence in the case against Lizzie Borden. When the story was proven false, he left his home in MA and fled to Canada, where he died shortly thereafter while trying to board a moving train.
29. Pawtucket’s Walk of Fame: The Pawtucket Walk of Fame features hand prints from actors in the film American Buffalo. I watched the movie while writing the episode, and it was actually pretty good, I thought. It’s very clearly based on a play, and the original play starred Al Pacino as Dustin Hoffman’s character.
28. Taylor Swift’s House: For a while when she moved in, she had a sign on the lawn that said, “I knew you were trouble when you walked in. No Trespassing.”
27. Gettysburg Gun: The Civil War was the bloodiest war ever fought on American soil. 2% of the US population died. The scale of death led to a change in how Americans handled funerary practices. During the Roger Williams episode, I went on a tangent reading about the history of coffins and caskets (coffins have six sides, caskets have four) and it was after the Civil War that American caskets came into being. They were grander, to honor the dead. The word casket calling to mind a vessel for storing precious goods.
26. Jerimoth Hill, the highest point in RI: In addition to Highpointers, there are in fact lowpointers who visit the lowest point in every state. Low pointing is described as requiring some venturing into remote areas across inhospitable terrain, with a lot of heavy brush and poison oak and poison ivy. One lowpointer described it by saying, “Lowpoints aren’t for everyone.” RI’s is sea level.
25. Precious Blood: I talked about Little Rose Ferron, the Stigmatic considered for sainthood who is buried in Precious Blood Cemetery. Stories say that when she was a little girl, no more than 2, she would say a short prayer to St. Anthony, and afterwork would quickly be able to find any lost or hidden objects. Kids made a game of it and would hide things for her to find.
24. Sistine Chapel of New England: So, there’s this Garden of Eden scene at St. Ann Arts and Cultural Center that included a nude Adam and Eve when it was first painted, and the parishioners were not into the nudity. So, in 1953, the painter begrudgingly covered them partially with leaves. But, like, not very many leaves. You can still see what’s going on. And then he took down his scaffolding and told the parishioners if they wanted more leaves, they’d have to get up there and paint them themselves.
23. Hachiko Statue: In 1994, a broadcaster in Japan was able to piece together an old record that had been broken into several pieces. On it, there was an incredible sound. The sound of Hachiko’s bark. Or his wan-wan, as it’s said in Japan. Millions of people tuned in to hear it.
22. Samuel Slater: Slater married Hannah Wilkinson. She was impressive in her own right. She invented two-ply thread. Some sources state that she was the first American woman to receive a US patent, in 1793. Others say the first to legitimately hold a patent was Mary Kies in 1809.
21. Cumberlandite: I came across a short snippet about the Snake Den Quarry in Johnston, where it was said gold was supposed to have been extracted in some cyanide vats at the beginning of the 1800s, to interest investors. The quote reads, “No gold is found in any of the RI rocks in paying quantities, and this development was simply a get-rich-quick scheme in which the gold was interjected into the process by the operators.” Interesting. I wanted to come back to that, and never did.
20. Superman Building: There are tons of photos of the Superman Building out there. But maybe you’ve come across one that’s kind of unique. There’s an image floating around of the building with an airship or zeppelin docked at the peak of the building. It’s photoshopped. The Industrial Trust Building wasn’t designed to withstand the forces of an airship twice the building’s height in length. But there was this fascination with and fantasy of tall buildings as mooring stations for airships in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It’s the quintessential steampunk image. Interestingly, while building the Empire State Building, it was announced the height would be increased by 200 feet so a mooring mast for airships could be installed. Was that mooring mast used? Eh, one time a privately owned dirigible that docked there for three whole 3 minutes in 40-mile-per-hour winds and caused insane traffic buildup while people watched. But, really, it wasn’t practical at all. It turns out, that extra 200 feet of height… it was actually to ensure the Empire State Building was taller than the Chrysler Building being constructed at the same time.
19. Drive Ins: I went on a tangent learning about Daylight Saving Time, which I always thought was intended to provide an extra hour of sunlight in the evenings during warmer months. That’s not the case. Daylight Saving Time was seen as a means to reduce electricity use in buildings. Does it work? Well, according to a 2008 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, no. It doesn’t work. It seems it actually increases residential electricity demand.
18. East Side Train Tunnel: I was reading a lot about both the Satanic Panic, and came across this Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults, released in 1994, Ut;s a VHS tape intended to educate law enforcement and concerned parents on how to deal with satanic cults. One of the key messages was, “If your child listens to heavy metal music, there’s a telltale sign that they’re probably involved in a satanic cult.”
17. The Gaspee Affair: Each year there is a Gaspee Days celebration. And there’s this mace that’s carried by someone at the head of the Gaspee Days Parade. The mace includes historic fragments of wood that are believed to be from the Gaspee, though it’s impossible to confirm. The eagle on top of the mace was carried through the Civil War on top of a staff bearing a Union battle flag.
16. Most Donut Shops Per Capita: The first donut producing machine was invented in 1920. It was called the Wonderful Almost Human Automatic Donut Machine and it churned out donuts so fast, it became a spectacle. Donuts were the featured food in the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair, where they were touted as a symbol of American progress because they were made using a machine.
15. First Set of Sideburns: I read about the little known history of American barber shops, which is heavily intertwined with slavery in America. In the 1800s, talented enslaved black barbers were treated as property and leased to local establishments that specialized in grooming and barbering of white men. Even though black-owned barbershops were run by slaves or ex-slaves, it wasn’t easy for a black man to get a haircut. After emancipation, barber shops were able to open their doors to black communities. The industry was important from an economic and cultural perspective, and one of the first African American millionaires was Alonzo Herndon, who was born into slavery. He opened his first barbershop in 1878.
14. That time it Rained Fish: While reading about Animal Rain, I also came across a story from Bath County Kentucky about a time it rained “chunks of meat” from the sky in 1876. It fell near the house of a woman who was outside making soap, and she said it looked like beef was falling all around her. People showed up to taste the meat, to determine what it might be. Everyone seemed to agree it tasted like mutton or venison. Then scientists showed up, and they determined the meat was… projectile vulture vomit.
13. Independent Man: The State House dome is considered the fourth largest self supporting marble covered dome in the world. The largest is St. peters in Vatican City, followed by the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul and the Taj Mahal.
12. Elephant Bridge: In the episode, I told you about Hachaliah Bailey, who established a predecessor of the circus in the United States. But how was he connected to the famous Barnum & Bailey circus? Well, the Bailey piece is a little funny. A nephew of Hachaliah’s was working as a circus advertiser when he met an orphaned teenager named James Anthony McGinnis and hired him as an assistant. James would later take Bailey’s name and partner with PT Barnum to establish the now well-known circus. But there was a direct connection to Barnum as well. When he was a young boy, P.T. Barnum got his start working as a ticket seller for Hachaliah Bailey’s show.
11. Apex Building: Andrew Geller, who designed the Apex building, also designed these incredibly unusual beach houses, that you really have to see to appreciate. One is described as “a box kite precariously set on edge.” Another as “a hybrid between a lighthouse and a Civil War era submarine.” One was said to have a facade that looked like a stylized cat’s face. They were given quirky names like the Bra, the Grasshopper, the Cat, the Milk Carton and the Reclining Picasso.
10. Biltmore: One of the rumors associated with the Biltmore is that of the ghost of a financier who lost all of his money in the stock market crash and leapt from a window. There’s no evidence that story is true. But, I did want to know if that was something that happened after the crash. So, at the time newspapers were reporting that distraught bankers and investors were leaping out of high rise windows. But according to Kenneth Galbraith in his book, The Great Crash 1929, there was no epidemic of suicides. In fact, the reported number of suicides in October and November of 1929 was lower than they had been during the months before the crash. So, where did that rumor come from? Well, there was a reporter who was in New York at the time, and he reported that a body fell not far from him. That reporter was Winston Churchill. It’s also possible a dark humor column published the day after the crash contributed to the myth.
9. Books Bound in Human Skin: There are a couple human skin books I couldn’t fit into the episode. In a library in Kansas City, there’s a book about the pituitary gland with a small inscription in the front that reads, “Deluxe binding of human skin from the circus giant “Perky.” This book hasn’t yet been tested and confirmed, but it’s said to be from the collection of a man named Dr. Charles Humberd, who was fanatically interested in people who grew to enormous heights due to pituitary illnesses. In addition to having this book, he had a collection of shoes and other personal possessions from these people. Just 100% my opinion–I wouldn’t be surprised if this book is proven authentic. This doctor sounds highly unethical. He was implicated in illegal body snatching and ended up in a drawn-out legal battle after he diagnosed a young boy as a “freak.” At the end of the trial, his apology to the 10-year-old boy and his family was something along the lines of, “I deeply regret” that they objected to and misunderstood what I said.
8. The Secret Apartment in the Mall: Victor Gruen, the father of the modern American mall, imagined them as little societies, enclosed spaces with schools, living spaces, museums and parks. This kind of utopian society got me off on a tangent about another similar concept–the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Also known as EPCOT. Yeah, EPCOT, the theme park at Disney World in Florida, was originally intended to be a utopian city, home to 20K residents. It was Walt Disney’s most ambitious idea. A functioning society, where new, innovative concepts in city planning and structure could be tested and studied and the people were on display. Instead of being in a mall, people would live inside a 50-acre climate-controlled snow globe, protected from rain, heat, cold and humidity. Check out the Defunctland documentary in the show notes.
7. Roger Williams and the Man Eating Tree: Maybe the episode where I went on the most digressions. I had to know the history of coffins and caskets (they’re different things). The complete history of Roger Williams (most of which I shared with you). And so much about apples. I wanted to know the variety of apple tree that ate Roger Williams. But it turns out that’s not an easy question to answer. Because in Colonial America, there were thousands (like upwards of 14K) varieties of apples. Today, in the US, there are about 100 different commercially grown apples. But in the country’s early days, apples came in all shapes and sizes. They ranged from the size of a cherry to bigger than a grapefruit. Some had smooth waxy skin, others were rough and sandpapery and looked like misshapen potatoes. There were all kinds of colors and patterns, stripes and dots. And a huge variety of tastes and purposes. The period between 1804 and 1904 is known as the Golden Age of American apples. And it was a time when apples were critically reviewed and rated with enthusiasm, like you might rate or review a movie or a restaurant. Some of today’s top varieties, the Red Delicious and Golden Delicious, get ratings ranging from “just average” to “sweetened sawdust” when compared to some of the heirloom varieties. But our current market favors apples that have good color, disease resistance, a long shelf life, and are able to ship long distances. You’ll notice that the list doesn’t include flavor. One of these days I’d like to get my hands on some heirloom apple varieties. And don’t even get me started on bananas.
6. Jonnycakes, Quahogs, and Pizza Strips: More food history! Did you know corn was domesticated in Mexico about 10,000 years ago and is believed to have been derived from a wild grass.
5. Hot Wieners, Coffee Milk and Del’s: The American lemonade stand has an interesting history. In 1860s New York, “lemonade merchants” would fill dirty wooden or tin pails with a murky mix of water, molasses and vinegar, throw some sliced lemon rinds in there, and sell the mixture to arriving immigrants as lemonade. By 1880, these vendors were everywhere, and this unsavory business model was so successful, soda fountains and bars struggled to compete. But it was an immigrant who revolutionized the lemonade stand. As a young boy Edward Bok, a Dutch immigrant, noticed that horse carriages heading to Coney Island would stop so horses and the men on board could get a drink. But the women and children passengers stayed in the carriage. He began a business of bringing water to the women and children. Later, when competitors moved in, he added sugar and lemons. He went on to make a name for himself as an editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and when his 1921 biography came out, the story of his childhood business struck a chord, and the lemonade stand exploded as a symbol of childhood entrepreneurship.
4. Pirates: Remember Thomas Tew, THE Rhode Island Pirate? Well, his very first pirate voyage (referred to by Wikipedia as his first pirate cruise, which might either be the most fun or the most unfun cruise you could imagine) was on his ship the Amity. And he was joined by another ship called the Amy, captained by pirate George Dew. So, if you’re following, we’ve got Thomas Tew on the Amity and George Dew on the Amy--And I was like, are we sure George Dew isn’t just Thomas Tew’s alter ego? Imagine, he was captaining both boats at once? He slaps on a fake mustache, hops onto the other ship, captains for a bit. Pulls it off and no one ever finds out?
3. Ladd School: This is a really disturbing fact. I mentioned in the episode that following WWII, there was a movement to abandon eugenics policies in many countries around the world. The US was not one of those countries. Though compulsory sterilization is now seen as an abuse of human rights, Virginia had laws allowing for sterilization until 1974. Between 1907 and 1963, over 64,000 people in the United States were forcibly sterilized.
2. Mercy Brown: Five years before her death, Mercy Lena Brown made a quilt. It has what is called a Bear’s Paw quilting pattern, but over time myth mingled with reality, and people started to tell the story that her quilt was a Wandering Foot pattern. There’s a superstition that after sleeping under a Wandering Foot quilt, young boys would be cursed to one day head west, leaving their mothers behind. And a bride sleeping under a Wandering Foot would someday be left by her husband. The myth of the Wandering Foot seemed to fit Lena’s vampire narrative, so some tell that story today.
1. Newport Tower: And all the way back to episode number one! Holy cannoli, I didn’t know what I was doing back then. It feels like forever ago. At the end of that episode, I included the latest theory about the Newport Tower. That possibly it has masonic origins. I wanted to know when the first Masonic lodge was established in America. It was in 1730, in Philadelphia, and Benjamin Franklin was a founding member. Other notable freemasons included George Washington, Paul Revere, John Hancock, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Harding, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Gerald Ford… But, yeah, long story short, there were definitely Freemasons in America in the mid 1700s, which is roughly where carbon dating puts the origin of the tower. I think some day I’ll have to return to the episode and dig into this theory deeper, and give you more of a critical perspective on it. But, as it stands, this has already become my longest episode ever.
I hope you found these random facts interesting. I sure did. But, if you didn’t, I’ll be back next week with your typical episode. Thank you so much for listening. If you’re enjoying the podcast, I would love it if you could share it with your family and friends. And if you have an idea for an episode, I’d love to hear it! You can email me at weird rhode island @ gmail.com or find me on Instagram at weird Island podcast. See you next week as we dig up more stories about all things weird and wonderful in the little state of Rhode Island. Until next time!