February 5, 2019 • 10 mins
On today's tour of the Cabinet, one person delivers on their promise, while another stays right where they are. Either way, these tales are sure to entertain.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Its legacy is as
(00:29):
American as baseball and apple pie. It's writers were fast, famous,
and fearless. It has been the subject of over a
dozen films and television shows, and it became the foundation
of one of the largest banks in the world. When
it came to speed and reliability in the eighteen sixties,
you couldn't beat the Pony Express. As California began to
(00:53):
boom from the Gold Rush, business owners and settlers needed
a faster way to communicate with folks farther east. At
the time, letters and packages took roughly twenty five days
to travel by stagecoach, even longer if going by ship.
The Pony Express more than half that time, with an
average delivery window of about ten days. Not everyone used
(01:17):
the Pony Express, though it was really expensive for the
average person to send a letter at five dollars per
half ounces of mail. The service was primarily used as
a delivery method for newspapers, business correspondents, and government bulletins.
Gold Rush hopeful's just couldn't afford the speedy service, and
speedy it was. Ten days may have been the average
(01:40):
time it took to deliver a letter, but it certainly
wasn't the fastest. That record belonged to Robert Haslam. He
earned the nickname Pony Bob for a very good reason.
He was responsible for the fastest delivery in Pony Express history.
Bob had come to the United States from England as
a teenage major, just as the Pony Express was getting
(02:02):
up and running. He had gotten his start by building
depot stations, but was soon given a route of his own,
from Lake Tahoe to Buckland Station, a seventy five mile
stretch of Nevada Territory all his own. In May of
eighteen sixty, with his deliveries in tow, Bob traveled on
horseback from San Francisco to Buckland Station, where he got
(02:24):
a taste of a growing war. Not the Civil War,
mind you, but one that must have seemed equally as terrifying.
The Pyramid Lake Indian War had found its way to
Buckland's Station in a bad way. The relief rider, who
was supposed to carry Bob's mail east to Smith's Creek
was too scared to ride due to the growing Native
American threat. Bob couldn't let the letters he had been
(02:47):
carrying go undelivered. He had a decision to make and quick,
or his trip would have been for nothing. So he
mounted up and kept going one hundred and ninety miles
on horseback and just under nine hours without rest, and
he made it. Bob slept all night before traveling back
to Buckland Station the next day. Once he reached the
(03:09):
depot at Cold Springs, he noticed the war had finally arrived.
The station keeper had been killed and everything inside had
been taken. There was no time to stop. The longer
he lingered, the more danger he was putting himself in,
so he just kept going. Three hundred and eighty miles later,
Pony Bob had done it. He'd completed the longest round
(03:31):
trip on record for the Pony Express in less than
two days. Bob Hasslum rode for the Pony Express for
months following his record breaking journey, but the most important
ride of his life was still yet to come. In
April of eighteen sixty one, a very special delivery had
to get from Fort Kearney in the Nebraska territory, all
(03:53):
the way to Placerville, California. If it didn't make it,
the fate of the entire country might be at risk.
Only one rider was fit to carry such precious cargo,
pony Bob himself. He picked up the bundle, tucked it
into his saddle bag, and rode for one hundred twenty miles.
His route took him through Piute, Indian Territory, and as
(04:15):
he traveled, he encountered a handful of braves who didn't
take kindly to him trespassing on their land. One of
their arrows found its way into his arm, while another
flew straight into his jaw, knocking out several of his teeth.
The attack didn't deter him, though, and his horse galloped
faster until they were out of danger. He made it
(04:35):
to California in just eight hours and twenty minutes and
then delivered his package. You see, that precious cargo he'd
been carrying had been Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address, which was
to be telegraphed to Sacramento for publication up and down
the West coast. And if Bob hadn't made it in time,
California might have chosen to side with a Confederacy at
(04:57):
the start of the Civil War. What's most interesting about
the Pony Express isn't the roster of riders like Pony
Bob Hasslum or Buffalo Bill Cody, nor the blistering speed
with which mail was delivered across the country. It wasn't
even the dangerous conditions it's rider's face, like mounting threats
from the Native Americans or the harsh weather. No, it's
(05:20):
that this company, which has such an enduring legacy as
an icon of American industry, only lasted for eighteen months.
(05:43):
Selling a house can be a real pain between fixing
it up and staging everything just right. Hooking a potential
buyer takes a delicate mixture of truth with a little
bit of fiction. Sometimes the seller needs to drum up
interest by any means necessary. But not Helen Actley. She
didn't have this problem. Her house had been the talk
(06:04):
of the town for quite some time. Helen moved into
her home in Nyack, New York, in the late nineteen sixties.
She had been warned of what awaited her. That the
home came with three other tenants who showed no signs
of wanting to move out any time soon. She her husband,
and their four children, George, Kara, William, and Cynthia didn't
(06:26):
have a problem with that, though, and they lived there
for years, getting along just fine with their de facto roommates.
Sometimes one of them would shake Cynthia's bed in the
morning to rouse her from sleep. Others would give the
athlete children coins or trinkets that would vanish later, never
to be seen again. Helen spoke to her neighbors about
(06:48):
doors slamming and loud footsteps of conversations that carried on
into the night, keeping them all awake. However, despite these disruptions,
the family never tried to have their fellow home dwell
or is evicted. One day, as Helen was painting the
living room ceiling, one of the older housemates just sat
(07:08):
and watched her, never saying a word. On a particularly
eerie night, her son awoke to find another of the
residents pressed their face right up against his own. Of course,
people change, they grow, just like the children did before
moving out into homes of their own, one they didn't
have to share with three inconsiderate other people, and their
(07:30):
parents will they grew tired of their current arrangement and
decided to sell the house in They reached out to
a local realtor to facilitate the sale. Explaining the odd
situation regarding the house. People from all over heard about
the accles and the people who lived with them. Everyone
knew what buying that home meant for their dreams of
(07:51):
peace and quiet. Well, everyone except Jeffrey Stambowski. Jeffrey toured
the home quickly, deciding it would be a good fit.
He made a down payment and went into contract on
the house completely unaware of the three other tenants living inside.
Neither Helen nor the realtor told him about them. By
the time he learned about their presence, it was too late.
(08:14):
He tried to rescind the contract and ended up losing
his down payment. As a result, Mr Strombowski filed a
lawsuit against Helen Ackley for fraud. In fact, the case
went all the way to the New York Supreme Court.
That's because this wasn't just any fraud case, and the
other tenants weren't your average renters. Mr Strombowski alleged that
(08:36):
Helen Ackley neglected to disclose the presence of poltergeists in
her home, which would have lowered its value. They were
Sir George and his wife, Lady Margaret, who had lived
in Nyack in the seventeen hundreds, as well as a
Navy lieutenant who served during the American Revolution. They were
not the malevolent ghosts of films and television. But Mr
(08:58):
Strombowski didn't care. He had been made to look like
a fool, and the court surprisingly agreed with him. It
didn't matter that the Actlee ghosts were the subject of
numerous articles in national magazines. It didn't matter that everyone
in town knew all about the haunted house on Love
at a Place. According to the New York Supreme Court,
(09:18):
Mr Strombowski should have been told about the three spirits
residing in the home. The ruling, officially titled Strembovski versus Actley,
is now commonly known as the ghostbuster ruling. It states
that if a home was ever advertised to the public
as haunted by ghosts, but a potential buyer was unaware
of it, the contract can be rescinded. Today, the ruling
(09:40):
is taught in law schools and often printed on contracts
for new homes in the state of New York. No
one else has reported any paranormal activity since the Accles
moved out, Mediums who have made contact with the spirits
have said that they're none too happy with the new
homeowners and maybe they grew tired of waiting for another
family like the Accles, or maybe they decided to haunt
(10:03):
a warmer climate. I say that because after the ruling
against her, Helen Accley was reported to have said she
was moving to Florida and taking her ghostly roommates with her.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
(10:26):
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Its legacy is as
(00:29):
American as baseball and apple pie. It's writers were fast, famous,
and fearless. It has been the subject of over a
dozen films and television shows, and it became the foundation
of one of the largest banks in the world. When
it came to speed and reliability in the eighteen sixties,
you couldn't beat the Pony Express. As California began to
(00:53):
boom from the Gold Rush, business owners and settlers needed
a faster way to communicate with folks farther east. At
the time, letters and packages took roughly twenty five days
to travel by stagecoach, even longer if going by ship.
The Pony Express more than half that time, with an
average delivery window of about ten days. Not everyone used
(01:17):
the Pony Express, though it was really expensive for the
average person to send a letter at five dollars per
half ounces of mail. The service was primarily used as
a delivery method for newspapers, business correspondents, and government bulletins.
Gold Rush hopeful's just couldn't afford the speedy service, and
speedy it was. Ten days may have been the average
(01:40):
time it took to deliver a letter, but it certainly
wasn't the fastest. That record belonged to Robert Haslam. He
earned the nickname Pony Bob for a very good reason.
He was responsible for the fastest delivery in Pony Express history.
Bob had come to the United States from England as
a teenage major, just as the Pony Express was getting
(02:02):
up and running. He had gotten his start by building
depot stations, but was soon given a route of his own,
from Lake Tahoe to Buckland Station, a seventy five mile
stretch of Nevada Territory all his own. In May of
eighteen sixty, with his deliveries in tow, Bob traveled on
horseback from San Francisco to Buckland Station, where he got
(02:24):
a taste of a growing war. Not the Civil War,
mind you, but one that must have seemed equally as terrifying.
The Pyramid Lake Indian War had found its way to
Buckland's Station in a bad way. The relief rider, who
was supposed to carry Bob's mail east to Smith's Creek
was too scared to ride due to the growing Native
American threat. Bob couldn't let the letters he had been
(02:47):
carrying go undelivered. He had a decision to make and quick,
or his trip would have been for nothing. So he
mounted up and kept going one hundred and ninety miles
on horseback and just under nine hours without rest, and
he made it. Bob slept all night before traveling back
to Buckland Station the next day. Once he reached the
(03:09):
depot at Cold Springs, he noticed the war had finally arrived.
The station keeper had been killed and everything inside had
been taken. There was no time to stop. The longer
he lingered, the more danger he was putting himself in,
so he just kept going. Three hundred and eighty miles later,
Pony Bob had done it. He'd completed the longest round
(03:31):
trip on record for the Pony Express in less than
two days. Bob Hasslum rode for the Pony Express for
months following his record breaking journey, but the most important
ride of his life was still yet to come. In
April of eighteen sixty one, a very special delivery had
to get from Fort Kearney in the Nebraska territory, all
(03:53):
the way to Placerville, California. If it didn't make it,
the fate of the entire country might be at risk.
Only one rider was fit to carry such precious cargo,
pony Bob himself. He picked up the bundle, tucked it
into his saddle bag, and rode for one hundred twenty miles.
His route took him through Piute, Indian Territory, and as
(04:15):
he traveled, he encountered a handful of braves who didn't
take kindly to him trespassing on their land. One of
their arrows found its way into his arm, while another
flew straight into his jaw, knocking out several of his teeth.
The attack didn't deter him, though, and his horse galloped
faster until they were out of danger. He made it
(04:35):
to California in just eight hours and twenty minutes and
then delivered his package. You see, that precious cargo he'd
been carrying had been Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address, which was
to be telegraphed to Sacramento for publication up and down
the West coast. And if Bob hadn't made it in time,
California might have chosen to side with a Confederacy at
(04:57):
the start of the Civil War. What's most interesting about
the Pony Express isn't the roster of riders like Pony
Bob Hasslum or Buffalo Bill Cody, nor the blistering speed
with which mail was delivered across the country. It wasn't
even the dangerous conditions it's rider's face, like mounting threats
from the Native Americans or the harsh weather. No, it's
(05:20):
that this company, which has such an enduring legacy as
an icon of American industry, only lasted for eighteen months.
(05:43):
Selling a house can be a real pain between fixing
it up and staging everything just right. Hooking a potential
buyer takes a delicate mixture of truth with a little
bit of fiction. Sometimes the seller needs to drum up
interest by any means necessary. But not Helen Actley. She
didn't have this problem. Her house had been the talk
(06:04):
of the town for quite some time. Helen moved into
her home in Nyack, New York, in the late nineteen sixties.
She had been warned of what awaited her. That the
home came with three other tenants who showed no signs
of wanting to move out any time soon. She her husband,
and their four children, George, Kara, William, and Cynthia didn't
(06:26):
have a problem with that, though, and they lived there
for years, getting along just fine with their de facto roommates.
Sometimes one of them would shake Cynthia's bed in the
morning to rouse her from sleep. Others would give the
athlete children coins or trinkets that would vanish later, never
to be seen again. Helen spoke to her neighbors about
(06:48):
doors slamming and loud footsteps of conversations that carried on
into the night, keeping them all awake. However, despite these disruptions,
the family never tried to have their fellow home dwell
or is evicted. One day, as Helen was painting the
living room ceiling, one of the older housemates just sat
(07:08):
and watched her, never saying a word. On a particularly
eerie night, her son awoke to find another of the
residents pressed their face right up against his own. Of course,
people change, they grow, just like the children did before
moving out into homes of their own, one they didn't
have to share with three inconsiderate other people, and their
(07:30):
parents will they grew tired of their current arrangement and
decided to sell the house in They reached out to
a local realtor to facilitate the sale. Explaining the odd
situation regarding the house. People from all over heard about
the accles and the people who lived with them. Everyone
knew what buying that home meant for their dreams of
(07:51):
peace and quiet. Well, everyone except Jeffrey Stambowski. Jeffrey toured
the home quickly, deciding it would be a good fit.
He made a down payment and went into contract on
the house completely unaware of the three other tenants living inside.
Neither Helen nor the realtor told him about them. By
the time he learned about their presence, it was too late.
(08:14):
He tried to rescind the contract and ended up losing
his down payment. As a result, Mr Strombowski filed a
lawsuit against Helen Ackley for fraud. In fact, the case
went all the way to the New York Supreme Court.
That's because this wasn't just any fraud case, and the
other tenants weren't your average renters. Mr Strombowski alleged that
(08:36):
Helen Ackley neglected to disclose the presence of poltergeists in
her home, which would have lowered its value. They were
Sir George and his wife, Lady Margaret, who had lived
in Nyack in the seventeen hundreds, as well as a
Navy lieutenant who served during the American Revolution. They were
not the malevolent ghosts of films and television. But Mr
(08:58):
Strombowski didn't care. He had been made to look like
a fool, and the court surprisingly agreed with him. It
didn't matter that the Actlee ghosts were the subject of
numerous articles in national magazines. It didn't matter that everyone
in town knew all about the haunted house on Love
at a Place. According to the New York Supreme Court,
(09:18):
Mr Strombowski should have been told about the three spirits
residing in the home. The ruling, officially titled Strembovski versus Actley,
is now commonly known as the ghostbuster ruling. It states
that if a home was ever advertised to the public
as haunted by ghosts, but a potential buyer was unaware
of it, the contract can be rescinded. Today, the ruling
(09:40):
is taught in law schools and often printed on contracts
for new homes in the state of New York. No
one else has reported any paranormal activity since the Accles
moved out, Mediums who have made contact with the spirits
have said that they're none too happy with the new
homeowners and maybe they grew tired of waiting for another
family like the Accles, or maybe they decided to haunt
(10:03):
a warmer climate. I say that because after the ruling
against her, Helen Accley was reported to have said she
was moving to Florida and taking her ghostly roommates with her.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
(10:26):
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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