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[Assistant] A captain by the name of Hugh Polson brought his whole crew on board hoping to either be able to get the ship running again or at least tow it to port where it could be salvaged for its valuable materials.


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[Assistant] But the longer they stayed on the ship, the more ominous and oppressive it felt.


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[Assistant] The idea of ghost ships is one that we've held onto for a very long time. Whether it's the ancient tales of ships like the Caluche of Chilliway Island or the Flying Dutchman of Europe, or newer ones such as the Valencia of Vancouver Island and the Governor Parr near Nova Scotia, it seems no matter what we do, we can't escape the stories. Ghost ships, it seems, are here to stay.


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[Assistant] And they become one of the most popular bits of folklore, too, drifting their way into film, television, and books over the past couple of centuries. We see glimpses of those legends in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, an epic poem from 1798 by Samuel Taylor Cooleridge, and the Pirates of the Caribbean films have their own interpretation.


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[Assistant] It's impossible to say how long we've been telling their stories, but it's clear that we'll never really stop.


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[Assistant] The Mary Celeste has had quite an impact all on its own, too. Since the events surrounding its abandonment in 1872, whispered versions of the story have spread all throughout pop culture. It's been subject of multiple films, novels, and television episodes. It's even appeared in the British sci-fi series, Doctor Who.


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[Assistant] Go ships have proven themselves to be a thing that simply won't go away. They may drift off into the fog for a little while, but eventually, when we least expect it,


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[Assistant] They will make their return, appearing in some new context or location.


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[Assistant] And no legend backs up that dependability like the SS Bachimo.


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[Assistant] The ship was spotted off and on over the years that followed its abandonment, making the first eight years of its story something of a mystery. And that's how it went, decade after decade, until one final sighting was reported in 1969, almost 40 years after the original crew had been rescued.


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[Assistant] After that, the authorities lost track of the ship once more. And to this day, no one is quite sure where it might be.


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[Assistant] Perhaps the ice finally won and it's resting on the ocean floor. Or maybe it's just drifting a bit too far outside normal shipping routes to be spotted. In our modern world of satellite imagery and commercial air travel, one would think it would be easy to find. But so far, we've had no luck.


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[Assistant] Like many of the ghost ships found in folklore, the Bachimo has come to represent equal parts hope and despair. It shows us just how much is possible when it comes to abandoned ships and their longevity, making it clear that not all that is lost is gone forever.


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[Assistant] But it also reminds us that real life can sometimes be a bit more frustrating than we'd like.


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[Assistant] Tales of ghostly ships that never seem to go away are one of the most attractive and popular stories for lovers of the strange and the unusual. And I hope you enjoyed your voyage on board many of the better known ones today.


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[Assistant] But there's one more story that doesn't get told enough, and it adds a new twist to a classic legend. I'll tell you all about it right after this short sponsor break.


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[Assistant] The Ellen Austin was a three-mast schooner. It slid off the shipyard and into the cold Atlantic waters way back in 1854 under the ownership of one Captain Tucker. Back then, Maine was the place to be if you wanted timber for building, and it had been for centuries.


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[Assistant] Prior to the Revolutionary War, there was a constant flow of resources headed back to England. But now, local shipbuilders up on the coast of Maine were getting rich making new vessels for wealthy owners. And the Tuckers were one such group.


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[Assistant] I could tell you about how large the ship was. How it was over 200 feet long and weighed in at 1,800 tons. And I could tell you how it was sold a few years later in 1857. But the most important thing to know about the Ellen Austin is that it was very good at making the trip between London and America.


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[Assistant] Actually, 1857 really wasn't a good year for the crew of that ship. In February of that year, a report was published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that claimed the current Captain William Garrick had been using violence to abuse and control his men. It seemed he had a temper and tended to take his anger out on anyone near him.


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[Assistant] A few months later, in July of 1857, the ship left Liverpool full of passengers and began headed toward New York City. But along the way, a wave of smallpox broke out on the ship and it had to be quarantined so that the sick could be taken care of. Five months later, it happened again.


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[Assistant] The Ellen Austin didn't just travel to New York City, though. In the late 1860s, it was making trips to San Francisco, although after a number of accidents that involved running into other ships, it was eventually repaired and brought back to the East Coast. Through most of the 1870s, it was back to that standard London-New York route.


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[Assistant] And then something changed in December of 1880. The ship had been sold to new owners sometime that year and was sent on a journey farther south, toward Florida and the Caribbean, which is where something rather strange happened to them. Off in the distance, they spotted another ship, but it wasn't moving.


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[Assistant] The captain at the time was a bright fellow who was very aware that pirates often used tactics like this to their advantage. Pretend the ship was empty, wait for another ship to come closer, and then pounce. So instead of approaching the mysterious vessel, they lowered their sails and set a watch on it.


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[Assistant] After two days of vigilant observation, the captain of the Ellen Austin decided that it was safe to approach. Once on board, they discovered that the vessel had, in fact, been abandoned.


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[Assistant] The cargo was still intact and safe, and there seemed to be a full supply of food rations. But if the former crew had left because of some emergency, there didn't seem to be any sign of it on board. They were just... gone.


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[Assistant] So the captain assigned a small party of his crew to get the ship ready to sail, and then the pair of vessels left the area together, headed for London to cash in on their newly salvaged prize. Only the weather had other ideas.


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[Assistant] A storm blew in three days later, and the two ships became separated.


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[Assistant] Looking back, we now know that it was a large hurricane that was headed toward the southern portion of the United States. But to the crew of the Ellen Austin, it was just frustration. They had lost sight of the other ship.


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[Assistant] The captain ordered the ship to turn around and search the area. It took them days, but finally they spotted the missing ship off in the distance. Relieved that they would be reunited with their prize and the fellow crew members who were operating it, they sailed toward it. But even from a distance, things didn't look right.


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[Assistant] The captain of the Alan Austin hailed the other ship, hoping his men had safely weathered the storm. But surprisingly, no one replied. So they approached the lifeless vessel and boarded it, guns drawn in case of pirates. What they found, though, defied explanation.


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[Assistant] Everything seemed just as they had found it days earlier. The valuable cargo was still in the hold, safe and sound, the store of food was still untouched, and the beds all seemed to have been unused. And yet nowhere on the ship could they find any sign of the small crew they had transferred over. The men were gone.


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[Assistant] Over the years, new details have been added to the story. Some claim that the captain ordered a second team to pilot the ship home only to have fog separate them again, resulting in yet another lost crew. But that story comes to us from a naval officer who wrote about it in the 1930s, and there doesn't seem to be much proof of it outside of that.


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[Assistant] Still, it's a fantastic tale that takes the notion of a ghost ship and turns it around in a way that defies explanation. And it also reminds us of just how unpredictable and mysterious life on the open sea really can be.


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[Assistant] We humans love the predictable. We love consistency and dependability and being able to count on life going a certain way. We build our sense of security and safety around the notion that everything will be okay.


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[Assistant] But once we set our oars in the ocean, or raise our sails and travel to distant lands over treacherous waves, it becomes clear that we've stepped into a whole new world that is outside of our control.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with music by Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.


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[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Erin Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both of them. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.


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[Assistant] You can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, theworldoflore.com slash now.


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[Assistant] And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] Rest in peace. It's a common response to the death of someone well-known or well-loved and has been for a very long time. While it's been popular since the 18th century, instances of it can be found all the way back to the 400s. When people die, we truly do wish that they will rest in peace. But of course, that's not always the case, is it?


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[Assistant] In 2013, researchers working at Virginia's historic Jamestown site uncovered the bodies of four men that are believed to be part of the original leadership of the colony. And yes, I could tell you all about them, who they were and what they did, but that would be missing the point.


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[Assistant] They were at rest for a long while, but eventually that rest was disturbed.


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[Assistant] Archaeologists are good at that. It's part of their job, really, to study the remains of the past in order to put the puzzle of ancient history back together again.


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[Assistant] But researchers aren't the only people digging up graves and disturbing the rest of those within them.


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[Assistant] Watch any documentary on ancient Egypt and you'll eventually be introduced to the concept of tomb robbers.


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[Assistant] Individuals who made a living by breaking into tombs and stealing the valuable goods inside them. That's what made King Tut's tomb so spectacular.


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[Assistant] He was a minor pharaoh who didn't rule for very long, so it's safe to assume other rulers would have had much more lavish collection of valuables in their tomb.


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[Assistant] No, King Tut was exceptional because his tomb managed to evade the tomb robbers.


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[Assistant] But there's a third group of people who break that sacred boundary and disturb the sleep of the dead. Although we tend to forget about them.


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[Assistant] Partly because we honestly just never expect to find them in the first place, but also because we have so much faith in humanity that we don't expect them to exist.


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[Assistant] And yet for a very long time, they not only existed, but thrived and they earned a name that has become synonymous with disrespect and violation because everyone feared the body snatchers.


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[Assistant] What started out as a simple renovation had become something more mysterious.


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[Assistant] In July of 1999, workers were on site at Harvard University's Holden Chapel, where they discovered something wholly unexpected and equally unsettling. The walls of the chapel's basement were lined with bones. Human bones.


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[Assistant] And did it take long for their true nature to be discovered? The bones dated to the late 1700s and represented one of the darker chapters of the university's long history. Because the bodies weren't stashed there by a prolific killer or even a public afraid of plague-ridden remains. No, they were put there by faculty.


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[Assistant] You see, the late 1700s was a boom era for medical schools. More and more hopeful students were pursuing a career in medicine. And that meant that schools were beginning to overflow with fresh minds to train. But with that influx of students came a new problem. There were no longer enough human corpses to go around for everyone to study.


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[Assistant] It's a problem that's most often discussed within the framework of England and Scotland. And stories of people like Burke and Hare have gone a long way toward planting that dark chapter in British history into our modern minds. But it's not a problem that stayed across the Atlantic.


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[Assistant] It seems that even in America, that challenge of supply and demand was met with a less than savory solution.


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[Assistant] A lot of it came down to the laws. In the United Kingdom the only bodies that were legal for dissection were those of executed criminals, which happened rarely enough to effectively choke the supply of medical school cadavers.


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[Assistant] And because Massachusetts began as an English colony, it shared many of those same laws, and the restrictions caused by them.


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[Assistant] Which explains all those bones beneath Harvard's Holden Chapel.


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[Assistant] One man even tried to build a bit of organization around it. Joseph Warren was the son of Dr. John Warren, a professor of anatomy at Harvard.


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[Assistant] Now, maybe young Joseph had heard his father's complaints too often to ignore. Or perhaps his father was in on the idea all along. But sometime around 1796, Joseph formed a secret society called the Anatomical Club. It wasn't a study group though.


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[Assistant] Instead, it was a group of men committed to the art of body snatching.


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[Assistant] And I don't use the term art lightly. This group developed a set of best practices and general philosophy about their work.


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[Assistant] For example, the proper crew for an evening of body snatching was apparently three people. Two to do the digging and dragging, and another to transport the corpse to the customer.


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[Assistant] And I can't move on without mentioning that one of Joseph Warren's partners in this endeavor was a guy named John Revere, son of the legendary Paul Revere.


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[Assistant] But this activity wasn't limited to Harvard University or even Massachusetts. It was common at other medical schools including those in Baltimore and Philadelphia. Anywhere there was demand, certain people rose up to meet it. And they got really, really good at it too. And tricky.


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[Assistant] There are reports of medical students paying women to go to local poor houses and claim fresh bodies, pretending to be their grieving relatives. In other cases, students would bribe lamp lighters in the city to take the night off, or at least skip the area of town near their preferred graveyards.


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[Assistant] According to historian Michael Sapple, this activity even became organized across entire communities. In 1828, a group of anatomy professors in Philadelphia all signed a treaty that set the terms for who received corpses for their classrooms, how many, and how often.


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[Assistant] If anyone had problems, the mayor was designated as the person to resolve the disagreements. It was literally a conspiracy that went all the way to the top. And it worked.


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[Assistant] But body snatching, like so many other human activities, quickly became yet one more arena where human flaws were reflected.


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[Assistant] Medical students and those who worked for them typically avoided the graves of people from middle and upper class. Instead, they focused on potter's fields and the poor of their communities. Because, in their minds at least, people mattered less and had fewer rights when they were poor.


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[Assistant] Another favorite spot tended to be military burial grounds, especially those of sailors. They were poor, typically disconnected from a local family, and quite often were from a minority group. And there was one place where this prejudice was put on full display. New York City.


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[Assistant] But the Big Apple has never been the sort of place to take things lying down. The people there have a way of fighting for a better life. And they always have. So when a practice as unethical as body snatching moved in and took root in the late 1700s, you can probably guess how the people of New York handled it.


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[Assistant] Sadly, things didn't end well for anyone involved, and yet it lined up neatly with something that history has proven we are very, very good at. Tragedy, and violence, and death.


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[Assistant] It was easier than you might have thought. Becoming a medical doctor in New York City in the late 1700s wasn't the nearly endless gauntlet of schooling and residency that physicians face today. Back then, folks had a couple of options. An actual medical school or private lessons from a practicing doctor.


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[Assistant] For the official track, there was Columbia College. As New York City's only medical school at the time, this was where you could enroll and work toward a real degree. But if that wasn't an option, one could go to the New York Hospital, where Dr. Richard Bailey offered to teach classes of his own.


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[Assistant] Each option for all their differences had the same problem though. There were just not enough cadavers to go around, which meant that a lot of students lacked the hands-on experience they needed to truly master their lessons. Thankfully for them, there were less than savory alternatives.


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[Assistant] Columbia College sat conveniently close to a pair of cemeteries, although their demographics shouldn't surprise you. One was a potter's field, a burial place for the poor and unclaimed, while the other was called the Negro's Burial Ground. And although it was a few blocks away, the New York Hospital made use of those cemeteries as well.


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[Assistant] Now, Columbia College's medical program was run by a man named Dr. Charles McKnight. He had a solid reputation in the community and didn't blatantly instruct his students to provide their own cadavers through body snatching. But he didn't tell them not to, and it stands as a perfect illustration of how silence from authorities can often empower the worst in people.


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[Assistant] However, New York Hospital's Dr. Bailey had a less than perfect reputation. He was rumored to be a cruel man who experimented on the sick against their wishes. His patients were often poor and without the social clout to fight back, making them the perfect choice for a medical teacher looking for hands-on experience for his students.


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[Assistant] In January of 1788, the city's medical students began to increase their activity at night, robbing dozens of graves. One reason was that snow was still on the ground, and bodies stayed fresh longer in the cold.


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[Assistant] Typically, dissection had to begin immediately after the body was dug up, for obvious reasons. But the cold and snow allowed for a bit more time.


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[Assistant] In fact, there are stories of severed limbs being stored in bundles of snow, while internal organs were often pickled in whiskey or vinegar to fight off decay.


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[Assistant] It was messy. They most likely took a strong stomach to handle it all. But the students did it every single night. But rather than keep their activity discreet, they became more and more bold, which left evidence around for the general public to notice and be disturbed by.


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[Assistant] Two things happen as a result of their bold and obvious crimes. First, the local community of free black New Yorkers gathered together a committee and sent them to Town Hall, which was located nearby.


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[Assistant] They stood before the city council and asked them to find the people who were stealing the bodies of their loved ones and require them to be more discreet about it. And I know what you're thinking.


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[Assistant] Why didn't they just ask the city council to stop them completely? And the answer is complex. Because yes, the medical students were being disrespectful. And the way they handled things was ham-fisted and sloppy. But there was also a large percentage of New Yorkers who understood the upside to body snatching.


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[Assistant] Because if students didn't get a proper hands-on education, they wouldn't make for good doctors. And that had the potential to turn into decades of pain and suffering for their future patients. Was it an easy choice? Absolutely not. But they felt like they were picking the lesser of two evils.


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[Assistant] The second major event kicked off by the increase in body snatching was a letter sent to the local paper, the Daily Advertiser.


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[Assistant] This letter addressed to the editor of the paper complained about the criminal deeds taking place, and it suggested that laws should be passed to prohibit it, pointing to just how insidious, disrespectful, and racially biased the crimes were.


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[Assistant] The Daily Advertiser published that letter in mid-February of 1788, generating a storm of dialogue and concern. But within just a couple of weeks, another anonymous letter was sent to the paper, this time a rebuttal of the first.


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[Assistant] The author of the second letter was most likely a medical student, so we have to acknowledge the obvious bias that drove them to write it. But it made that same old argument as before. More cadavers meant better doctors, and everyone wants a skilled medical professional on their side when life goes sideways.


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[Assistant] Alongside this new letter, the Daily Advertiser published news of another body snatching in the city.


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[Assistant] Now obviously there were far too many taking place to report on all of them, and it was rare for poor and minority communities to get print space. This one though was different. It seems the body of a woman was stolen from the graveyard of Trinity Church, and the church wanted to offer a financial reward for her return.


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[Assistant] All of this tension began to put a strain on the people of New York City. The tug of war between the need for better medical education and the common decency that all graves should receive.


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[Assistant] The balance between desperation and morality and the clear differences between the way graves of the middle and upper class were treated and those of the poor and underrepresented. Frustration like that doesn't just go away.


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[Assistant] Instead, it simmers and builds and becomes something more and more volatile over time.


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[Assistant] What set it all off was a wave of the hand. To understand what I mean though, we need to back up slightly. Because I need to help you understand exactly what most of these medical students were like in 1788.


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[Assistant] According to historians, a good majority of doctors began their training around the age of 15. And while we could do that dance where we talk about maturity levels over the past few centuries, and how 15 year olds back then were getting married and working jobs, there's still the glaring fact that those teenagers were barely separated from their childhood.


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[Assistant] So, medical school or not, they weren't the most mature.


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[Assistant] In fact, despite the public uproar over the rash of body snatching that everyone knew was being done by these students, they would frequently dress up in the traditional clothing of their trade and walk through the streets. It was almost as if they were taunting the people of their community. They seemed to be saying, yes, we know you disapprove, and we don't care. But I mentioned a wave, didn't I?


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[Assistant] The way the story has been recorded, a group of children were playing in the empty field beside the New York hospital when one of them spotted something frightening. He pointed up toward a window and the rest of his friends followed the gesture.


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[Assistant] In one record of the events, one of the boys found a ladder and climbed up to the window for a better look. Once level with the opening, he saw that the room was occupied. In fact, it was a dissecting room, where a student named John Hicks was working on the corpse of a woman.


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[Assistant] When Hicks noticed the boy, he picked up the severed arm, told him that it belonged to his recently deceased mother, and then shook the arm at him, causing the limp hand to flop back and forth in a morbid wave. Understandably, the boy was frightened out of his mind, and he quickly descended the ladder and ran home.


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[Assistant] Home and to his father, a man still grieving the loss of his wife.


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[Assistant] At the news of what John Hicks had done and what he had claimed in his words to the boy, this father rushed from the house in a rage. As quickly as he could, he arranged for his wife's grave to be exhumed, looking for proof that the young medical student had been guilty of nothing more than being a petulant teenager. But the coffin was empty.


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[Assistant] I have a feeling John Hicks knew that he had crossed a line. Yes, digging up the bodies of the recently deceased without permission was miles past the line already, but this felt different. He had flaunted that disrespect to a young boy, and I have to believe that he quickly realized it was a mistake.


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[Assistant] In the moments after the boy had been frightened off, Hicks made his own escape by running for the home of a retired physician by the name of Dr. John Cochran. The boy's father though didn't hide.


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[Assistant] No, he gathered a mob of equally angry members of his community. Together, they all marched toward the hospital, where they burst inside and discovered a number of bodies laid out on dissection tables.


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[Assistant] To the medical students, it was nothing more than homework. To the angry mob, though, it looked like brutal mutilation, proving once again that just about everything in life is a matter of perception.


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[Assistant] The mob exploded in rage and began to drag every cadaver they found out into the street where they tossed them into a bonfire. Then, perhaps because their anger had clouded their judgment, they rounded up every medical student in the building, along with one of their instructors, a man named Dr. Wright Post, and removed them from the building.


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[Assistant] Some in the crowd suggested that they be tossed into the fire as well.


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[Assistant] The next morning, the mob moved on to a new target. Columbia College.


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[Assistant] News of their arrival had preceded them though, and when they arrived, one of the college's former students was standing on the front steps of the school, ready to send them home.


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[Assistant] But despite the fact that this man was none other than Alexander Hamilton, the mob pushed right past him and searched the school for more bodies. And it wasn't a small crowd, either. Most estimates place the size of the mob at around a few thousand, making it something too serious to ignore. In response, the governor sent in the militia.


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[Assistant] But with tensions already as high as they could get, armed military personnel was the last thing the situation needed. In the confrontation that followed, at least three militiamen were killed by rocks that the mob had thrown.


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[Assistant] In response, the soldiers fired back, killing just as many.


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[Assistant] When it was all over, the conflict moved on to the courtroom. Some doctors produced sworn affidavits that claimed that they had no idea their students were robbing graves. Others dodged the issue by remaining in hiding. And the student who had set it all off, John Hicks, never appeared in court, despite being ordered by the authorities to do so.


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[Assistant] In fact, they did manage to track him down to the home of that retired physician, Dr. John Cochran, but they never found Hicks. Which is amazing, really.


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[Assistant] Because according to one historian, the search team actually went as far as to stand in front of the window that looked out onto the roof of Cochrane's home. But they never opened it and climbed outside. If they had, they might have been tempted to look around.


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[Assistant] And that would have been bad news for young John Hicks because he was curled up in a ball on the roof of the house next door, hiding in the shadow of the chimney like a common thief. And considering what he had done to get there,


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[Assistant] It's easy to look back on earlier moments in history and past judgment. We can find flaws in just about everything done by the people who came before us. And I typically try to see past all of that to understand the particular situation they might have been in.


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[Assistant] Whether it was unusual behavior driven by superstitious folklore or the pursuit of scientific discoveries that we now know were impossible or laughable, the actions of those who came before us can certainly seem primitive, but that attitude would be misguided in most situations.


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[Assistant] The people who came before us did their best with what they had, and we can learn a lot from their tenacity.


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[Assistant] The doctor's riot of 1788, though, is an exception. Yes, it's true that medical students needed cadavers to further their education. No one is disputing that, trust me.


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[Assistant] But the natural and social laws that they broke in pursuit of that education aren't something that looks better if we could only just put ourselves in their shoes. What they did was wrong, plain and simple. And they knew it.


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[Assistant] I understand that hands-on experience with the human body helped these students become better physicians. I think all of us get that. But the respect and dignity that we showed toward the dead isn't a passing fad. It's been part of human culture since the very beginning.


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[Assistant] The practice of body snatching continued for many years, and with it there were more riots like the one in New York.


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[Assistant] In fact, in the roughly 90 years between 1765 and 1854, there were at least 17 similar riots by angry communities, from Baltimore and Philadelphia to Cleveland and beyond.


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[Assistant] And if you watch the news carefully enough these days, you might just catch the occasional modern rendition of these events. Because body snatching is sadly still something that takes place. Even today, criminals harvest organs and other body parts from the dead.


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[Assistant] Authorities call them body brokers because they gather and sell human body parts like inventory in a warehouse.


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[Assistant] Rest in peace is a wonderful sentiment and one that all of us hope is true.


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[Assistant] Life is often difficult and painful as history is so quick to remind us.


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[Assistant] But when it's all over, most people cling to the promise that they'll finally get some rest.


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[Assistant] One last detail about the 1788 Doctors' Riot. It turns out Dr. John Cochran was probably the most powerful person John Hicks could have fled to, considering his options.


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[Assistant] Why? Because not only was Cochrane a doctor who understood the complex nature of the situation, but because he also served as a surgeon in the Revolutionary War before becoming the fourth Surgeon General in American history.


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[Assistant] That was part of his power. The rest came through relationships.


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[Assistant] In fact, Cochran was part of that legendary crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas night in 1776. The one that's depicted in that famous Emanuel Lutz painting. And because of his participation in such a pivotal moment in American history, he had a very powerful friend.


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[Assistant] A friendship that practically guaranteed that the people who were searching Cochran's house wouldn't have free reign to violate the doctor's rights. And that friend?


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[Assistant] Beyond being a heroic general who was loved and admired by nearly everyone in the young nation,


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[Assistant] Dr. John Cochran's powerful friend, of course, was George Washington.


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[Assistant] I hope that you enjoyed this brief tour through the world of American body snatching. And while I fully admit that some of the details are hard to hear, there is so much about our country's early years that we can learn from the practice.


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[Assistant] And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I have one more tale left to tell you.


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[Assistant] Ben arrived early for his father's funeral. His father, John Scott, had been 73 years old and had passed away peacefully in his sleep just four days earlier.


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[Assistant] And it was on his walk toward the grave site that Ben noticed something odd. One of the nearby graves, that of a young tuberculosis victim named Augustus Devon, had been dug up and emptied. Body snatchers.


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[Assistant] Of course, that's not a reassuring thing to see on the morning of your own father's funeral. So, once the ceremony was over, Ben pulled two of his brothers aside, Carter and John, and together they planned a way to make sure their father didn't meet the same fate.


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[Assistant] According to the story, they had workers enter their father's crypt and lay three stone slabs over the top of the coffin before covering it all with concrete.


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[Assistant] For added safety, the brothers slip some cash to a local man to stand watch over the tomb for a full month. Plenty of time for nature to take its course, making their father's body less than desirable to potential thieves.


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[Assistant] But Ben wasn't finished just yet. He'd spent the past three decades of his life working as an attorney and knew just how insidious these body snatching operations could be. So he pulled some strings and obtained a search warrant for the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati.


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[Assistant] There had been reports of strange nighttime deliveries to the back alley, and he had a few suspicions about that.


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[Assistant] The day after his father's burial, Ben showed up with an entire team behind him. His brother John was there, as was a cousin named George, and there were three Cincinnati police officers ready to assist if needed. And after being led inside by a janitor, they quickly found what they were looking for.


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[Assistant] It seems that the back alley door had led to a small room with a tunnel built into the ceiling, almost like looking up into an elevator shaft. It ran straight up into the darkness, but there was plenty to look at right there in the basement room.


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[Assistant] According to reports, they found multiple bodies, men and women, and even children.


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[Assistant] That had all been stolen from local graves. And the evidence was damning.


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[Assistant] But they still needed to see what was at the top of that vertical shaft, so they followed the janitor up, arriving a short while later in a room at the top of the building that was fitted with a winch, expertly designed to haul heavy objects up from below.


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[Assistant] Whether it had been installed for a more mundane purpose long before, no one knew.


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[Assistant] But it was clear to Ben and the others that it now served as a mechanism for lifting bodies up from the cellar.


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[Assistant] Out of curiosity, and still hoping they might find the stolen body of Augustus Devon, one of the police officers turned the crank to raise the rope. As it inched upwards, so too did a body laid on a small wooden platform, its form covered with a white sheet.


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[Assistant] Ben glanced at it and remarked to his brother that the body seemed too heavy to be that of a former tuberculosis patient and that they should look elsewhere. But his brother John was more persistent. Perhaps, he suggested, we should check beneath the sheet, just in case.


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[Assistant] Ben nodded and then reached out and tugged the white cloth away. A moment later, both brothers caught their breath. He had been right. It wasn't the body of Augustus Devon, but someone much more familiar to both of them. It was their father.


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[Assistant] What could be more connected and powerful than being related to two American presidents? You see, not only had John Scott Harrison lived his life as the son of former president William Henry Harrison, but just a decade after his death and the theft of his body, his own son would take up that mantle. That's right.


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[Assistant] Ben, the intrepid investigator who broke up a body snatching ring in Cincinnati, went on to serve in the highest elected office in the nation, becoming America's 23rd president. Benjamin Harrison.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Michelle Muto and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life.


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[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both.


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[Assistant] Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, theworldoflore.com slash now.


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[Assistant] And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] The treaty was supposed to fix everything, but that was a lie.


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[Assistant] In August of 1678, France signed the Treaty of Nijmegen to end the Dutch War. On the surface, it put all the broken pieces back together. But France's King Louis XIV wasn't a big fan of following the rules.


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[Assistant] If the six-year-long conflict hadn't solidified King Louis' reputation as the bully in Europe, the way he exploited the treaty over the next few years certainly did. And it was a mantle that he wore with pride.


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[Assistant] He was rich and powerful and stood at the very pinnacle of French society's cutthroat world of upward mobility and social status.


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[Assistant] The same year he signed the treaty, he wrapped up construction on Versailles. It had taken 17 years, but when it was completed, his old hunting lodge had become the centerpiece of royal life and the stage upon which countless dramas were played out.


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[Assistant] We have records of women in the court literally breaking out into fights and screaming matches to decide who would get to sit closest to the queen. Courtiers would stay at the palace for months at a time, afraid to leave and let some competitor take their place. Even if that meant allowing their property back home to fall into ruin and lose all value.


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[Assistant] It was a world full of rivalries and failure, hungry ambition, and painful sacrifices.


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[Assistant] For those closest to the king and queen, every waking moment felt as if their happiness and good fortune hung in the balance. Everyone was desperate for a leg up over their rivals, and many were known to pay for help.


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[Assistant] Astrologers, mediums, and fortune tellers were all common straws that these desperate socialites grasped for.


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[Assistant] As hyperbolic as it might sound to us today, each of them felt that their every decision, no matter how big or small, had somehow become a matter of life and death. And for a while, at least, everyone was right.


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[Assistant] Catherine was born in Paris, France, around 1640. But that's about all we know. Her exact date of birth is still a mystery, as are the names of her parents. Like a lot of the lower class of her day, she came into the world unnoticed. But she wasn't about to stay that way.


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[Assistant] You see, there was a world of difference between the social elites that swarmed around the royal court, like flies on a carcass, and the filthy underbelly of the French working class. But one thing Catherine did have in common with them was ambition.


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[Assistant] She was born to wield power and had the tenacity to reach for it.


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[Assistant] By the age of nine, she was learning the art and secrets of fortune telling. And I can't help but imagine Catherine plying those skills on the streets of Paris. Drawing in crowds who were just as interested in the child prodigy as they were in details of their own futures.


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[Assistant] But like a lot of young women of that era, she hoped for a marriage that would provide for her and get her off the streets.


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[Assistant] For Catherine, that man was Antoine, a silk merchant who ran a shop out of a building on the Pont-Marie Bridge.


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[Assistant] Today the bridge is a beautiful stretch of open space and ancient stone, but in the late 1600s it was lined on both sides by buildings where merchants sold their wares. And for a time, I imagine life was relatively good for Catherine and Antoine.


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[Assistant] But at some point early in their marriage, Antoine's business failed, and so Catherine had to step in and help support their household. She worked as a midwife, but it was her fortune telling that pulled in the bigger clients. The aristocrats looking for an edge over their rivals, or peace of mind amidst a sea of anxiety.


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[Assistant] Whatever it was, Catherine Monvoisin was there to give them exactly what they needed.


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[Assistant] Things were looking up for Catherine, but Antoine's failure had hit him hard. He began to drown himself in alcohol, making it impossible for him to contribute to the family income. And eventually Catherine was the only adult supporting herself, Antoine, and their four children. And this apparently frustrated her beyond belief.


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[Assistant] It was said that one of the most respectful ways to greet Catherine in private was to ask whether or not her husband had died yet. It's what she wanted, and most people knew that. Even Antoine himself.


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[Assistant] In fact, they apparently live near one of the local executioners. And it's said that Antoine approached him more than once to request an autopsy should he ever drop dead unexpectedly.


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[Assistant] Catherine filled her time with a lot of hard work. Her network was growing, and that meant more and more people knew of her services. And she began to get so busy that she started referring clients to other fortune tellers, taking a large cut of the fee as a commission, of course. But in her spare time, she maintained a steady flow of lovers.


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[Assistant] One of them was a young magician named Adam Lasage, who was more than a little interested in removing Catherine's husband from the picture. He even convinced her to participate in a ritual that would set dark powers in motion to kill him, part of which involved burying the heart of a sheep in her backyard.


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[Assistant] At the last moment, though, Catherine backed out and dug the organ back up, which might have been the most perfect illustration of the phrase change of heart in all of history. But that didn't mean that she was any less interested in being rid of her husband. She just had a lot of other things on her mind, and a career that was exploding in popularity.


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[Assistant] By some accounts, she was earning the modern equivalent of nearly $200,000 annually, which shows just how important her services were to the people of Paris. And she spent it lavishly too, throwing regular celebrations and gatherings at her stylish home.


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[Assistant] One record even suggests that she spent roughly $25,000 on a single dress.


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[Assistant] Business, as they say, was very, very good.


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[Assistant] More and more people were interested in learning about their future, what decisions to make, and how they might avoid failure in the middle of a competitive society. Rich or poor, day laborer or aristocrat, it didn't matter. Catherine Monvoisin would sit down with them, provide them answers, and sometimes even solutions.


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[Assistant] She used chiromancy, otherwise known as palm reading, as well as physiognomy, the art of reading another person's face. Many were sent away with instructions to pray to certain saints. Some were prescribed specific rituals, while others were given potions that included toad bones, mole teeth, and powdered human remains.


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[Assistant] She would later say that there were three major requests that brought people to her over and over again throughout the years. Love was always on the forefront of people's minds, and she fielded countless requests for help in securing a spouse. Another big topic was money, and many of her clients came looking for help in growing their personal fortunes.


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[Assistant] But right up there with love and money was another request. Although this one was a bit less traditional. Many of the individuals who came to her were women looking for freedom from their husbands. And they were willing to do whatever it took to make it happen. And as it turns out, so was Catherine.


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[Assistant] The end began with an arrest. One of Catherine's peers, a fortune teller named Magdalene de la Grange, was arrested in February of 1677. She was accused of forgery, which was bad enough, but she was also guilty of killing her own husband with poison.


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[Assistant] While she sat in prison awaiting her execution, De La Grange decided to help the authorities out. She told them that she was a small fish in a much bigger pond.


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[Assistant] Others, just like her, were out there performing the same services for their clients. Selling what they coyly referred to as inheritance powders. An herbal remedy meant to speed up the process of inheriting wealth from a loved one. A fancy term for poison.


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[Assistant] She also told them that these other people were part of a larger plot. One to assassinate the king. But it seems that while the authorities listened, they didn't act right away. It wasn't until an anonymous letter detailing the plot to kill the king was discovered inside a Paris church that things really heated up.


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[Assistant] In late 1678, another well-off fortune teller hosted a large party at her house, and a number of influential people were there. One of them, a power-hungry lawyer named Perron, overheard another of the guests comment that all she needed to do was poison three more people and then she'd be able to retire.


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[Assistant] Perron immediately went to the police and turned the woman in.


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[Assistant] Her name was Marie Beauce, but like a lot of women from the lower ranks of society, she was known by her surname, so everyone simply called her La Beauce. She was arrested on January 4th of 1679 and taken to a fort just outside of Paris called Chateau de Vincennes, where she was held for questioning.


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[Assistant] With a new lead in their possession, Lagrange was executed to tie up loose ends and also provide a bit more pressure on Labose, who would certainly want to avoid the same ending.


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[Assistant] Her home was searched, and the investigators discovered ample quantities of cantharides, otherwise known as Spanish Fly. In small doses, it could serve as an aphrodisiac, but could be highly toxic if too much was taken.


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[Assistant] Labose quickly rolled on her clients. Over the next two months, she named dozens of women who had all come looking for poisons with the intention of killing their husbands, running the spectrum from working-class wives to well-known aristocrats. But Labose refused to admit selling the poisons to them herself. The main source of it all, she told them, was one woman, Catherine Monvoisin.


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[Assistant] On Sunday, March 12th of 1679, Catherine, known by everyone around Paris as La Voix Zen, stepped out of church to find the authorities waiting for her, and she was immediately taken into custody.


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[Assistant] Back at the chateau, she and Les Beaux were separately interrogated, and each woman did her best to pin the blame on her rival. It seems that even among those who served the social elites, competition was a way of life.


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[Assistant] Roughly two months later, though, the French authorities had reached the frustrating end of their rope. Sure, Laboz had pointed them to Lavoisin, as well as confess enough to have herself sentenced to death. But Lavoisin had somehow managed to keep herself silent through it all, refusing to admit to any wrongdoing. So the authorities turned up the heat.


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[Assistant] On May 10th of 1697, La Beaux was tortured one last time. I imagine her screams would have been heard all throughout the fortress, including the cell of Lavoisin.


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[Assistant] Then she was taken outside along with her son and daughter for their final punishment.


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[Assistant] Her son was hanged for the crime of helping his mother prepare her poisons. And then Labose herself was burned alive while her daughter was forced to watch. It must have been a horrific scene.


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[Assistant] And one that would have left an impression on everyone who heard it. And that included Lavoisin.


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[Assistant] She held on for a few more months, but on September 16th, she called for one of her interrogators and told him that she was ready to talk.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was the terror she felt at the notion of burning alive as LaBose had done. Or perhaps it was the liberal supply of alcohol they'd been giving her. Either way, she was ready to give them information. The first thing she did though wasn't confess.


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[Assistant] Now she pointed the finger at yet one more person.


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[Assistant] Her old lover, the magician, the one who had asked her to bury the sheep's heart in her back garden, Adam Lasage.


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[Assistant] He'd been arrested a decade earlier and served five years on a French prison ship before earning his freedom by serving in the military. Yes, he had a checkered past full of black magic and dark rituals, but he was a reformed man now. And he was also desperate to not lose his freedom again.


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[Assistant] When he and Lavoisin had parted ways back in 1667, he immediately set up shop as a direct competitor to her, which didn't go over very well.


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[Assistant] She had a lot of rivals around Paris, as most upwardly mobile people had at the time. But Lesage was different. He had been her lover and business partner. He had learned things from her that she shared with few other people. And not all of it was good.


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[Assistant] In the end, Lavoisin's distraction backfired. When Lesage was brought in, rather than being an easy target, he brought all of that new evidence with him.


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[Assistant] He told them that Lavazin was guilty of murders that had slipped past the authorities, and that she had a long list of well-known clients. It was she who supplied the entire network of fortune tellers with the deadly poisons that were being used across the city. But there was more.


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[Assistant] According to Lesage, Lavoisin was also directly involved in a plot against the king. In fact, one of her clients, he told them, was one of the king's mistresses. Unfortunately, that was news that the interrogators took directly to the king, rather than through the usual channels. And when he caught wind of what was happening, he panicked.


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[Assistant] Someone close to the King was attempting to plot his death, and I have to imagine he began to wonder who, of all the people at court around him, could actually be trusted. Even his own mistresses were suspected at this point, and I'm betting he felt more than a little trapped. So he began to lock the investigation down and take control.


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[Assistant] One of the first things he did was order that the written records from the interrogations at the chateau not be bound in a book.


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[Assistant] Which sounds like an odd request, I know. Until you realize that this was essentially a request to keep the records as deleteable as possible. Without binding, anyone could slip a dangerous page of notes out of the official records and make them disappear.


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[Assistant] And among them were the Duke of Luxembourg and the Comtesse de Suisson, both of whom had hired Lavoisin to help them move up the ranks in the court.


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[Assistant] But it's impossible to keep rumors like this under wraps for long.


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[Assistant] In a volatile environment like the royal court of Louis XIV, when every single person was grasping for an advantage over their rival, this was juicy information. The court was filled with murderous traitors who were hiring Lavoisin to poison their way to success. So naturally, word spread.


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[Assistant] From the court of the socialites, the rumors trickled down to the streets of Paris. Suddenly, everyone was obsessed with Lavoisin and her network of poisoners. But inside her prison cell in the Chateau, she continued to deny all of it.


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[Assistant] Some historians think that's because the rumors and accusations of her plot to kill the king, if proven true, would lead to instant death. Keeping silent was Lavoisin's way of staying alive. It didn't work though.


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[Assistant] On February 22nd of 1680, after a brief trial and quicker conviction, a carriage arrived at the Chateau to transport her to her execution.


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[Assistant] She was driven to the square in front of Paris City Hall, but when the carriage stopped to let her out, she refused to exit. After a moment of struggle, she was dragged out of the car by a pair of guards, kicking and screaming the entire time.


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[Assistant] After tying her to the stake, the fire was lit. Legend says that she tried putting out the flames by kicking at them, but eventually gave up and waited for death. She burned alive.


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[Assistant] And the infamous affair of the poisons was finally brought to an end.


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[Assistant] Yes, it drives talented people to claw their way through barriers of self-doubt and social norms. Yes, it empowers those with enough courage to strive for success. But ambition has a darker side as well.


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[Assistant] Ambition was one of the driving forces behind westward expansion, which displaced millions of Native Americans in a bloody land grab.


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[Assistant] Ambition drove HH Homes to build an entire apartment complex filled with trap doors, secret rooms, and gas chambers. All for the purpose of killing for money. Ambition can be wonderful, yes. But it can also be horribly ugly.


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[Assistant] And while the list of crimes against Catherine Lavoisin was long and included activities like deception, attempted regicide, and even murder, it might be simpler to boil it all down to one basic fault. Lavoisin was ambitious, and in the end, that came with a heavy price.


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[Assistant] Historians today believe that Lavoisin was responsible, either directly or through a third party, for the murder of over 1000 individuals, although some estimates place that number as high as 2500.


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[Assistant] She was the perfect example of what can happen when an ambitious person has the right skills, the right access and a complete lack of morals. She took what she wanted, regardless of the cost it inflicted on those around her. That cost went beyond lost lives too.


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[Assistant] Because an event like the Affair of the Poisons, as it's become known by historians, was guaranteed to leave a mark on French history in multiple ways. Yes, there were deaths, but there were also a great number of reputations destroyed in the short time it took place. And one of those was the woman I mentioned earlier, the Comtesse du Suisson.


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[Assistant] She herself had a lot to lose. She had wanted to become the king's new mistress and had tried poisoning her way into that role. When she was caught by the authorities, the king was presented with a dilemma. Imprison her and draw massive scandal from across Europe or turn a blind eye and let her escape.


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[Assistant] Louis chose the latter, and the Comtesse fled France in the dead of night.


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[Assistant] She died in Belgium 30 years later, never able to return to Paris.


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[Assistant] He was an ambitious teenager with visions of glory, but he found the royal court had become frustratingly inhospitable to him because of what happened to his mother.


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[Assistant] He tried asking the king for a position in the French army, but he was turned away from that as well. So he followed his mother's lead and left France.


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[Assistant] Instead of Belgium, Eugene traveled to Austria, where he pledged his allegiance to the Habsburgs and Leopold I, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. There he entered the military, and he served the empire for decades with great success. Today, he's considered one of the most successful military commanders in modern European history.


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[Assistant] His list of accomplishments is long, and it wouldn't be fair to boil his achievements down to one event. But it is fair to say that his power as a general was a major reason why the Holy Roman Empire and her allies defeated France in the Nine Years' War, crushing France's aggressive expansion into Europe.


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[Assistant] Oh, and putting an end to the plans of the one man he hated more than anyone else. The man who turned him away after ruining his mother's life. A man he couldn't help but view as his biggest rival. King Louis XIV


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[Assistant] The story of Catherine Mavoisin is one of political intrigue and deadly ambition. But that's nothing new to those familiar with the history of France.


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[Assistant] Coming up after this brief sponsor break, I want to introduce you to a brand new podcast I've helped create. The very first episode premieres tomorrow and it begins in France. This is a show you don't want to miss, so stick around to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] One of my jobs as an executive producer for iHeart Podcasts is that I get to help shepherd and build new podcasts that deserve to see the light of day. Last year, that opportunity allowed me to bring you two new hit shows, Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, but I'm not slowing down.


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[Assistant] Tomorrow, we'll be releasing a brand new podcast called Noble Blood, and I think you're gonna love it. It's a narrative exploration of history's most fascinating monarchs and nobles, both the infamous and the overlooked.


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[Assistant] Each episode of Noble Blood focuses on a single subject and a story from their life, ranging from the final days of Marie Antoinette to the cockney butcher who convinced the world he was a long-lost baronet.


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[Assistant] It's written and hosted by author Dana Schwartz and produced in a style that will be very familiar to fans of lore. As you might expect, these stories aren't for the faint of heart.


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[Assistant] But if you're up for it, I want to share a clip from the first episode with you right here, right now.


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[Assistant] So sit back, make yourself comfortable and enjoy this taste of Noble Blood. And when you're done, be sure to subscribe to Noble Blood on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you listen to podcasts.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Marset Crockett and music by Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] If you love today's story and want to dive deeper, I highly recommend a book called The Affair of the Poisons, written by Anne Somerset. It's readily available on Amazon and if you want to learn more about Lavoisin's story, you really need to grab this book.


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[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.


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[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both of them. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.


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[Assistant] You can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place. theworldoflore.com slash now


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[Assistant] Then you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] According to the tale, Robert worked as a teacher at a local school, and as young people are known to do, he fell in love. The trouble was, this young woman, Jean, was already committed to another man.


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[Assistant] One night he opened his eyes to find a small creature standing beside his bed. He described it as a dwarf, a small, strange, human-like creature that ran around the room and circled his bed menacingly. He could even see it flexing its tiny fingers, as if getting ready to choke him yet again.


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[Assistant] Two centuries ago, the County Prison in Gloucester, England installed a treadmill.


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[Assistant] It wasn't for exercise, though. In an era when many of the inmates there had been sentenced to hard labor, authorities had been finding it very difficult to deliver on that promise. That is, until January of 1823.


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[Assistant] That was the year a man named William Cubitt got involved. He came from a long line of millers, people who understood better than most how to build machines that ran continuously on the power of water or wind. In Gloucester though, he was tasked with tapping into a different source of energy. The prisoners.


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[Assistant] They would step onto the wooden slats and do a sort of walk mixed with climbing. The power they generated wasn't wasted either. In Gloucester, it was harnessed to grind corn, but in other prisons who adopted the same form of punishment, it sometimes pumped water. Many though.


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[Assistant] Did nothing at all. So they called it grinding the wind.


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[Assistant] For as odd as that punishment sounds, it was actually pretty mild compared to a lot of methods used over the centuries. In medieval times, they used the picket, where a criminal would be hung by their thumb or wrist with a sharp spike beneath their foot.


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[Assistant] Deciding between standing on the painful spike or hanging from just their thumb created a painful dilemma for those subjected to the picket.


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[Assistant] Fans of the Game of Thrones might recognize Rat Torture, another real punishment pulled right out of Darker Times.


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[Assistant] Criminals would have a bucket strapped to their chest with a rat inside. When the bucket was set on fire, the rat would attempt to dig and chew its way out. I'll leave the rest of that process to your imagination.


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[Assistant] Punishment today almost feels like a walk in the park compared to the past, doesn't it?


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[Assistant] At the core of it all though is the propensity for humans to punish the criminals among us. We spent thousands of years creating laws and expectations that guide human behavior and have placed punishment around it all like a pit filled with snakes. And for the most part, it's worked.


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[Assistant] Today we trust that the justice system will help us find the truly guilty and deliver a just punishment for their crimes.


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[Assistant] But when long years of imprisonment, hard labor, and even painful or deadly consequences await those who pass through the halls of justice, it's reason enough to take pause and wonder.


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[Assistant] To ask ourselves the question that might be infinitely more frightening than treadmills or angry rats.


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[Assistant] Folks didn't think too highly of Russell. Some of it was based on his personal qualities. He was known to be feeble-minded and weak of intellect among the people of Manchester, Vermont. But he was also lazy and in an age when everyone needed to work to keep their families alive. That was viewed as a character flaw.


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[Assistant] Russell had this tendency to go for long walks in the middle of the workday. Sometimes those walks would last many days, and the people of his community would begin to wonder where he'd gone, only to have him stroll back into town, happy as a clam, ready to pick up where he left off.


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[Assistant] In a town where there was always a field to work or repairs to make to the barn, Russell wasn't respected much. And he somehow married a woman just like himself.


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[Assistant] Sally came from a local family, the Bournes, and was one of five grown children. But while her four siblings all worked hard and toiled in the expected way, Sally had taken on a bit of her husband Russell's personality. She, like Russell, would go on walks of her own, although never for quite as long.


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[Assistant] For a long while, they had all lived with Russell's parents. But when Russell's father walked out in 1801 and never returned, they lost the farm and had to go elsewhere. Russell's mother was cared for by the town, but he and his growing family ended up knocking on the door of Sally's own family. And they took them in.


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[Assistant] By 1812, they'd been living with the Borns for over a decade. That was a long time for Sally's brothers, Stephen and Jesse, to watch Russell fail to carry his own weight.


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[Assistant] Over ten seasons of hard work in the fields while Russell took long naps or disappeared for a week at a time into the woods on one of his unannounced walkabouts. And I don't think I'm projecting when I say that it would have been incredibly frustrating to everyone else.


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[Assistant] On May 12th of 1812, the family tension reached a boiling point. It was one of those rare days when Russell was actually out in the field with Stephen and Jesse, along with Russell's 10-year-old son, Lewis. They were clearing stones from the rocky New England soil, perhaps to get a piece of new land ready for crops.


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[Assistant] A neighbor named Thomas Johnson happened to be walking by and claimed that he saw the three men arguing. Being a polite man, he turned a blind eye and continued to his own house, where he stepped inside.


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[Assistant] But the tension that had been in the air didn't sit well with him, so he came back out a while later to check on them.


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[Assistant] Peace seemed to have returned, and the three men, along with the boy Lewis, were still out in the field, hard at work clearing away the countless stones in the soil.


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[Assistant] Satisfied that nothing bad had happened, Johnson went back inside


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[Assistant] And I mentioned him not just because he was a witness to the arguments, but also because of something else. Thomas Johnson was one of the last people to see Russell Colvin alive.


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[Assistant] Many years later, Russell's son Lewis would explain what happened that day.


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[Assistant] According to him, his uncles Steven and Jesse continuously attacked his father for a variety of reasons.


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[Assistant] He was lazy. He spent too much time at the tavern. He wasn't a responsible father. On and on they went, and as they did, the tensions rose with them. That's when Russell lashed out.


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[Assistant] Lewis claimed that his father used a small writing stick to take a swing at Stephen, who returned the favor with a hard blow from a wooden club.


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[Assistant] Russell fell to the ground but immediately stood back up and launched another attack on Steven, who swung his club even harder the second time, knocking him back down. This time, Russell didn't get up.


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[Assistant] Louis ran to his father's side and shook him, but the man was unmoving and silent. There was no blood, but to a ten-year-old boy I doubt that mattered. Frightened by what had happened and perhaps to escape his Uncle Stephen, Louis bolted for the house and vanished inside.


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[Assistant] The following day, according to Lewis, his Uncle Stephen cornered him with an angry expression on his face.


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[Assistant] Russell had run off on another of his long unannounced walks, he told him. This one though was probably the result of the fight they'd had the day before, and Stephen felt guilty about that. He threatened to beat Lewis to death if he told anyone about it, and so the boy remained silent.


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[Assistant] It would be seven years before anyone was ready to put the pieces together.


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[Assistant] I said it took seven years before they started looking for answers, but in reality, people were wondering from the moment he vanished.


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[Assistant] They always wondered when it came to Russell. Seeing as how his own father had walked out on the family back in 1801, it wouldn't be a stretch to expect Russell to do the same. So every time he walked off and didn't come home for dinner, people wondered.


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[Assistant] Except this time he didn't return with that innocent grin on his face, as if nothing had happened. He just didn't return. Period.


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[Assistant] Maybe they held out hope, or perhaps they wrote him off as long gone and never coming back. The fight could very well have frightened him away, after all, triggering whatever it was inside him that loved to escape the world.


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[Assistant] The years that followed were filled with some unusual experiences though. No, this isn't where I tell you that his ghost haunted the farm. And how Steven or Jesse or Sally's parents weren't able to sleep due to all the wrappings and levitating objects. Those things never happened. But other things did.


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[Assistant] In the spring of 1813, the barn on the Bourne family farm burned to the ground.


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[Assistant] No one was ever able to figure out how the fire started, so it was all chalked up to an act of God, and eventually cleaned up and rebuilt.


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[Assistant] Two years later, in the spring of 1815, Sally vanished on one of her Russell-like excursions and returned many days later. When she reappeared, she was pregnant again. And of course, that created a few problems.


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[Assistant] First, knowing Russell had been gone for three years at that point, someone else had to be the father of the child. Even Sally herself admitted to that.


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[Assistant] The trouble was she had no legal standing for receiving financial help from him. At the time, Vermont law stated that only an unmarried woman could do that and since Russell had only vanished, Sally was still technically married to him.


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[Assistant] So, she went to her brothers, Steven and Jesse, to ask for help.


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[Assistant] Steven, true to his hot-headed nature, was angry with his sister, but he also delivered a startling revelation to her. She was free and clear to request financial support from the baby's father, because Russell was long dead.


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[Assistant] That little detail was certainly informative, but it most likely got lost in the chaos of the coming months.


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[Assistant] In the summer of 1815, that polite neighbor of theirs, Thomas Johnson, ended up buying the born farm to extend his own land.


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[Assistant] Sally, her parents, and all her kids, ended up finding a different place in Manchester to live. But Stephen saw the sale of the farm as his chance to move on to new adventures. And he moved west to upstate New York, near the shores of Lake Ontario.


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[Assistant] In the spring of 1816, Johnson's children were out exploring their new land when they found something interesting.


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[Assistant] When they handed it to their father, he immediately recognized it. It was the hat Russell Colvin had been wearing on the day he'd seen the argument in the field back in 1812. It was odd.


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[Assistant] Sometime in 1819, Sally's uncle Amos paid her a visit. He seemed visibly upset, as if something disturbing had happened to him. When she asked about it, Amos told her about the dream he'd had the night before.


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[Assistant] In it, her lost husband Russell had reappeared beside his bed and told him that he'd been murdered.


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[Assistant] He even named the killers too. Her own brothers, Steven and Jesse.


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[Assistant] But the vision of Russell did more than that. He told Amos that the proof of the crime was in the cellar beneath the old-born house.


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[Assistant] Right away, the authorities were brought in to examine the cellar. After sifting through the dirt floor, they discovered a few items of interest. A penknife, a button, and a few small bones. And while the bones could have belonged to any number of animals, the penknife was a dead giveaway.


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[Assistant] No pun intended, I promise. Because the knife belonged to Russell.


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[Assistant] Almost immediately, warrants for the arrest of both brothers were issued. But because Stephen had moved away, only Jesse was brought in by the authorities.


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[Assistant] Despite having very little physical evidence, he was thrown in a jail cell to await his trial. And that's where he met a career criminal named Silas Merrill and told the stranger his own version of the events.


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[Assistant] According to Merrill, Jesse confirmed that there had been a fight that day back in the field in 1812.


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[Assistant] After Lewis had run inside, the born patriarch Barney came out to see what had happened and discovered Stephen and Jesse standing over Russell's body.


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[Assistant] The older man asked if his son-in-law was dead, but Stephen shook his head. Barney seemed rather disappointed at that news.


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[Assistant] Jesse claims that they helped the old man carry Russell's unconscious body to the cellar, where he told them to cut the man's throat using his own penknife. Then, they hid the corpse in the barn where the sheep were kept. After a few months, they purposely burned down the barn to destroy the body, and then moved the remains to an old tree stump on the property.


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[Assistant] Silas Merrill was set free in exchange for sharing the story with the authorities, but Jesse was left to clean up the mess. He denied it all, and instead claimed that Steven had acted alone, clubbing Russell to death and then moving the body to the cellar for a time.


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[Assistant] Maybe Jesse thought this was his ticket to freedom. Maybe he thought that because Stephen had moved away and was out of reach, it was better to blame him than take the fall himself.


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[Assistant] If they couldn't locate the true killer, surely Jesse would get to go free. But that's not how it played out.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, Stephen was in custody as well, and he denied all of the accusations. Neither of them had killed Russell Colvin, and he would swear to it in court if he had to.


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[Assistant] The court, to their credit, was more than happy to give him that chance, but there were other things on the horizon that no one could have planned for. Everything was about to fall apart, and in the most spectacular way possible.


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[Assistant] The people of Manchester, Vermont, had had seven years to fantasize about what had happened to Russell Colvin. That's a long time, and as you can imagine, they'd become rather creative in their assumptions.


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[Assistant] But that's the thing. Assumptions are a house of cards, and if the wind blows just right, it will all come crashing down.


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[Assistant] The first winds blew into the courtroom in October of 1819. That was when a number of significant testimonies were given by witnesses on the stand.


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[Assistant] Stephen, Jesse, and Sally had another brother, William Bourne, and he stood before the courtroom and told everyone about how Stephen had once told him he wished Russell was dead.


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[Assistant] Russell's son Lewis, now 17 years old at this point, also testified, as did former neighbor Thomas Johnson.


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[Assistant] Even Sally had a chance to speak, bringing back up that conversation she'd had with Steven four years prior about the father of the baby and how he was certain Russell was dead.


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[Assistant] There were others too. All of them took the stand and reported on the character of Stephen Bourne and on the history he had of violence and threats toward Russell.


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[Assistant] One of those witnesses was a lawyer named William Wyman, who claimed that Stephen had come to him for legal advice in 1801, wondering if he and his brother really had to take Sally, Russell, and their kids into their home.


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[Assistant] In the process, he swore an oath that if no one else would stop it, he would personally do it himself.


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[Assistant] The jury left the courtroom on October 26th to meet and discuss the case. And when they returned, they brought their verdict with them.


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[Assistant] Stephen and Jesse Bourne were guilty of murder. They were both sentenced to execution by hanging. But in the days that followed, Jesse's punishment was changed to life in prison. Justice, it seems, had won the day. Or had it.


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[Assistant] You see, in the lead up to his date with the hangman in January of 1820, Stephen and his attorney made a strange request.


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[Assistant] They wanted to place an advertisement in as many newspapers as possible to see if anyone had seen Russell Colvin alive.


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[Assistant] These ads informed readers of Stephen's plight and described Russell's physical appearance. I doubt that anyone expected the ads to net any results. So when someone came forward with information, it was a complete shock.


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[Assistant] Tabor Chadwick was a Methodist minister from Shrewsbury, New Jersey who had seen an account of the trial in the New York Post. When he reached out to Stephen's attorney, he claimed that he knew of a farmhand in the nearby town of Dover who went by the name of Russell Colvin and spoke often about Vermont.


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[Assistant] A second man, James Welpley, read about Chadwick's claim and decided to go to Dover, New Jersey to see for himself.


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[Assistant] Sure enough, he found the farmhand, but when Welply mentioned the story and court case, the man denied being Russell at all.


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[Assistant] Not willing to give up so easily, Welply enlisted the help of a female friend to lure the farmhand onto a train. A train that was headed north, to Vermont.


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[Assistant] Upon arriving in Bennington, Vermont, where the court was located, Wellfleet managed to deliver the farmhand straight into a packed courtroom. Despite being a completely unrelated trial, there were enough people in the room who knew about the case that a stunned silence descended over the crowd.


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[Assistant] After that, Welpley sent a telegram to Manchester and told them that he was bringing Russell Colvin back home.


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[Assistant] When they arrived later that day, a crowd was waiting for them, including a large number of Russell's former neighbors, and all of them smiled in recognition. Russell Colvin had finally come home.


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[Assistant] The rest of that day was a bit of a blur for everyone, including Russell Colvin.


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[Assistant] When he was taken to visit Steven in jail, he took one look at the shackles on his brother-in-law's wrists and asked why he was locked up.


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[Assistant] Like I mentioned earlier, he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.


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[Assistant] I feel the need to point out that there were no photographs of Russell to look at or compare, but his children recognized him, as did his neighbors.


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[Assistant] He even had a pair of scars on his forehead, most likely from that fight in the field back in 1812. So there was no reason to doubt his reappearance for a moment.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, Russell went to the courthouse to swear he really was who he claimed to be, and as a result, the charges against Steven and Jesse were dropped.


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[Assistant] There was some conversation about Russell packing up his family and taking them back to Dover. And that's eventually what they did.


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[Assistant] He returned to work on the farm where James Welply had found him. But that new chapter of his life was short. At the age of just 46 years old, Russell Colvin passed away. This time though, he really was dead.


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[Assistant] We place so much trust in our justice system, and for the most part, it's well founded.


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[Assistant] Setting aside the debates about what constitutes justice or how far punishment should go, there is a beautiful simplicity in the judicial process. When crimes are committed, the evidence needs to be examined and that informs who is punished and how.


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[Assistant] But there are no perfect systems, especially ones that involve human beings. We tend to be biased people, and sometimes that bias finds its way into the courtroom. Looking around today, it's easy to find modern examples of times when that's happened.


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[Assistant] Adnan Syed, the key figure in the first season of the podcast Serial, is one of the most prominent examples, but there are others.


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[Assistant] Joey Watkins, Freddie Gray, Terrence Lewis, and so many others. All of them are at the center of debates about political bias and imperfect justice. These are all cases where we've had to step back and confront the possibility of wrongful conviction and the devastation it can lead to.


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[Assistant] Looking back, many historians believe that the imprisonment and planned executions of Stephen and Jesse Bourne represent the first of those missteps in U.S. history.


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[Assistant] Thankfully, it was corrected before it became too late.


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[Assistant] I'm certainly not suggesting that every case can be easily resolved, and I'm certainly not placing the blame on any particular people.


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[Assistant] The story of Russell Colvin is full of those flaws. I mean, this was a courtroom that allowed a ghostly dream and a handful of character witnesses to act as evidence. It's impossible to hand out precise and comprehensive justice with that kind of bias.


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[Assistant] Life after the trial was a gift to Steven and Jesse Bourne. They'd been cleared of all charges and set free to do what they wanted. Steven, from what I can tell, returned to New York, where he'd been found before the trial.


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[Assistant] I have a feeling he welcomed slipping back into obscurity. Jesse though, squandered his new lease on life.


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[Assistant] He traveled the country and fell in with a bad crowd, eventually becoming part of a gang of counterfeiters based out of Cleveland.


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[Assistant] In 1860, he was approached by a man named Hackett who had heard about Jesse's work and wanted to join up.


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[Assistant] Jesse sat down with the man, had a few drinks, and when the alcohol really started to flow, bragged about all his past crimes.


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[Assistant] Hackett turned out to be a U.S. Marshal. And all of the stories Jesse told him that night landed him in a stretch in prison. Well, most of them.


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[Assistant] There was one tale that Hackett didn't really know what to do with, but he passed it along to the court nonetheless.


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[Assistant] You see, after getting suitably drunk, Jessie bragged about an older crime.


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[Assistant] He and his brother he said had murdered someone.


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[Assistant] He didn't name the victim or provide enough details to nail down where the crime had taken place, but he described it in a way that's left everyone wondering ever since. He and Steven killed a man, he said, but eventually got caught.


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[Assistant] To help get them out of jail and to avoid the frightening sentences that had been passed against them, they did something bold and risky. They hired an imposter to pretend to be the victim. And it worked.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Marsak Crockett and music by Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] I make two other podcasts that I think you'll love, Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and both are available everywhere you download podcasts, and each of them is another slice of the weird and dark underbelly of history, written and hosted by me.


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[Assistant] Lore exists outside this podcast too. There's a lore book series in bookstores all around the country and online. And a lore television show on Amazon Prime. The second season arrives on October 19th. And if you want a little more lore in your life, those are all good things to be looking for.


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[Assistant] You can always learn more about everything going on over in one central place. theworldoflore.com slash now


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[Assistant] And if you're a social media person, you can follow the show on your favorite network, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. It doesn't matter. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and click that follow button and be sure to say hello when you do. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] Before moving to Portsmouth, Rhode Island, Thomas and Rebecca had owned a popular inn and tavern in Boston. Thomas was actually one of the earliest settlers of the city, arriving there in 1638 from England. But in 1643, they packed up and left town due to some tense religious infighting that was taking place.


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[Assistant] Technically, Thomas was what they called an antinomian, but what's important to know is that as a result of this infighting, Thomas and others who agreed with him all headed south to escape. He and Rebecca packed up their lives and started over in their new home on a peninsula of land along New York's East River.


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[Assistant] Today the area is known as the Bronx, but back then it was forest and farmland, and Thomas Cornell's original four mile tract of land is known today as Classen Point, but his time in the Bronx was brief.


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[Assistant] A year after they arrived, conflict with the local Native American tribe forced Thomas and his family to head back north where they settled in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. That was 1644.