August 27, 2020 • 10 mins
Time has a way of making us forget people. On today's tour, you'll meet two such neglected individuals. Thankfully, both of their stories are worthy of addition to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. 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
(00:27):
of Curiosities. People tend to be shaped by their surroundings.
Their family, friends, and neighbors all contribute to their upbringing.
The kinds of people they become depend on what they
were taught and how they were treated in their past.
(00:48):
But what happens when the past refuses to stay there?
Casper's past wasn't quite known by those who knew him
in Germany. Even Casper was hazy on the details himself.
According to a letter he carried, Casper had been handed
over to the letters author in eighteen twelve, when he
was only a few months old. This anonymous person had
(01:08):
allegedly educated Casper in all subjects, including reading and writing,
as well as the Bible, all the while Casper had
never left the person's house. He was the reward as
well as a prisoner of sorts, now that he had
come of age, though Casper had expressed interest in becoming
a cavalryman like his birth father. The letter had been
meant for one, Captain von Weisenegg, of the fourth Squadron
(01:31):
of the sixth Cavalry Regiment. The request from Casper's former
caretaker to the captain was to either enlist the young
man or hang him his choice. Casper made his way
to the captain's home with the help of a local cobbler.
Though he'd been taught to read and write, Casper only
answered the captain with one of three phrases. The first
was I want to be a cavalryman as my father was.
(01:51):
The second was simply horse horse. Difficult questions prompted the
third response, don't know. Casper was six years old, but
behaved and spoke like someone much younger. Sadly, the captain
did not take him in, though he didn't hang him either. Instead,
he was locked up in a tower in Nuremberg Castle
for the crime of being poor. As word about the
(02:14):
boys spread throughout town, so did speculation about his upbringing.
Some thought that he had grown up in the forest,
raised among the animals. The mayor of Nuremberg himself, though
Yaka Friedrich Binder claimed that he learned the truth after
visiting the young man in prison. This enigmatic young man
hadn't been raised in a home by an obliging caretaker. Instead,
(02:34):
he had been locked away in a dark cell only
two meters long by one meter wide. His bed had
been made of straw, and the only toys in his
possession were a dog and two horses that had been
whittled out of wood. During his time, he only ate
rye bread and drink water, which were also the only
food and drink he would accept while locked in the
tower in Nuremberg Castle. Sometimes, though he claimed that water
(02:57):
tasted bitter and would make him sleep, he'd wait up
hours later to new straw in his bed, as well
as trimmed nails and hair. He had no contact with
another soul for years until just before he showed up
in Nuremberg. It was a man, maybe the caretaker or
perhaps another acquaintance of theirs, who had come to teach
Casper how to talk and write his name. He had
(03:18):
also taught him the phrases to recite to Captain von Wessnig.
When the mayor's story about Casper broke out, it only
added to his mystery. Those who had gotten a glimpse
of him noticed he looked an awful lot like the
Grand Duke of Baden. Rumors swirled about how the Nuremberg
newcomer was none other than the Prince of Baden, originally
thought to have died in eighteen twelve, only months after
(03:40):
his birth. Casper celebrities soon led to his freedom. As
well as being adopted by the town, he was provided
with money for food and to further his education. Friedrich Dahmer,
a local teacher and philosopher, took him under his wing
and provided him with a home. Unfortunately, Casper's new life
would be interrupted by a vision for his past. In
(04:01):
October of eighteen twenty nine, the boy was discovered bleeding
in Dahmer's basement. He had been slashed across the forehead.
Casper claimed it was from a hooded stranger whose voice
matched that of the man who had brought him to
Nuremberg a year earlier. The incidents caused a stir in
the town. People started to wonder if the House of
Baden had tried to take him out instead. Skeptics didn't
(04:22):
buy Casper's story, though, nor did they believe that he
was the long lost descendant of the House of Baden.
They figured that Casper had just been accused of line
by Dahmer and then cut himself to Gardner sympathy and
throw people off his trail. Three years later, Casper had
gone through a few more caretakers and then moved to
the town of Ansbach. He was now being looked after
(04:42):
by schoolmaster Johann Meyer and financially supported by a separate
wealthy patron, But that patron died in eighteen thirty three,
which strained Casper's relationship with Meyer. Five days after that
patron's death, Casper was stabbed in the chest. Just like before,
the wound was inflicted by an unknown assailant. This time,
though Casper had been given a small bag, it contained
(05:04):
a note from the person who had allegedly attacked him.
He told his story to the authorities, who conducted an
investigation of their own. Sadly, Casper would never get to
hear their findings. He died three days later. If he
had survived, he would have heard how they didn't believe him,
how the notes had been folded into a triangle shape,
just like Casper used for all of his notes. He
(05:26):
would have heard how the police thought that he stabbed
himself and made up the story about the attacker as
a pr stunt to get people to talk about him again.
Casper was buried in on spot under a headstone with
the inscription that reads, here lies Casper Houser riddle of
his time. His birth was unknown, his death mysterious. Was
(05:49):
he merely a traumatized young man, or a con man,
or even a lost royal prince? No one knows for sure.
But one thing is certain. He died as he lived,
a complete and total enigma. Neither snow nor rain, nor heat,
(06:19):
nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift
completion of their appointed rounds. Though not an official motto,
these words have stood as a testament to the dedication
and nobility of the men and women of the United
States Postal Service. Before the Post Office Department was formed,
in individual colonies would handle their own mail deliveries. They
(06:40):
would hire contractors on horseback to deliver mail along specified routes.
Time was of the essence to these post writers, and
with tensions between the Crown and the colonies growing stronger
every day, their metal was about to be put to
the test. War was on the horizon, and it would
be a postmaster, not a soldier nor an army who
would bring the colonies together again. It's the British. One
(07:01):
such writer was Israel Bistle, born in seventeen fifty two.
He lived with his family in Massachusetts, where he took
a job as a post writer, delivering the mail. On
the night of April eighteenth of seventeen seventy five, British
troops marched from Lexington and conquered from Boston, not to
bring war, but to arrest the rebels and take their supplies.
Paul Revere sat out that night on his famous midnight ride,
(07:23):
alerting the local militia men to prepare. Two lanterns were
hung in Boston's Old North Church, letting patriots know the
British had left Boston coming and made their way across
the Charles River to Cambridge. By five o'clock the next morning,
the Revolutionary War had begun. The American militia was told
to disband, and both sides told their men to hold
but a miscommunication resulted in a single shot being fired,
(07:45):
a shot that changed the course of history. No one
knew where it had come from, and it's easy to
understand why if you've been to the farm where it happened,
I have, and it's a wide open space with a
few period buildings, some of which still have holes in
their walls where musket balls ripped through. It must have
been chaos and eight colonial fighters were killed in the skirmish.
(08:08):
Word of the attacks needed to be brought to nearby towns,
including Wooster and Marlborough. The job was given to post
writer Israel Bissell, only twenty three years of age and
about to embark on the most important ride of his life.
He was given an important letter written by Joseph Palmer,
a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. In the letter,
Palmer outlined the events that had transpired at Lexington that morning.
(08:30):
Bissell raised it from Watertown to Worcester in only two hours.
It said that his horse died from the effort once there.
The letter was copied for other writers to carry throughout Massachusetts,
and beyond warning everyone about what had happened, Bissell procured
another horse and continued on his journey. He'd been told
to seek out help from a Connecticut man named Israel Putnam.
Putnam was a veteran in his own right, having fought
(08:52):
in the French and Indian Wars. Before settling down on
April twenty, Bissell told Putnam about the attack, which prompted
the man to fetch his rifle from his barn and
joined the fight. In the meantime, Bistill rode off again,
this time to the coastal village of New London, Connecticut.
The New Londoners were not as quick to believe him
as Israel Putnam had been, nor the folks in Worcester.
(09:13):
They needed to know that this was at all some
sort of prank being pulled at their expense. Bissell had
to provide Swarren testimony as to the truth about the
information he carried, which took him hours to do so.
Once he placated those New Londoners, though, he set out
once more for New Haven, followed by Fairfield, where he
was provided with a new horse which would carry him
all the way to Manhattan. He gave the people of
(09:34):
New York the news from Lexington before traveling through Princeton
and Trenton, New Jersey, all the way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
By April, it took Bissile five days to go from Watertown,
Massachusetts to Connecticut. New York, New Jersey, and finally Pennsylvania,
but in doing so he managed to alert thousands of
troops about the Lexington attack. Sadly, he was never immortalized
(09:57):
in poetry for his efforts like Paul Revere, but perhaps
he should have been. While Revere had traveled a mere
twenty miles on his midnight ride, Israel Bistle had shown
everyone the true measure of a postal worker and a patriot,
covering a massive stretch of three hundred and forty five miles.
(10:18):
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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,
(10:41):
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Ye
Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. 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
(00:27):
of Curiosities. People tend to be shaped by their surroundings.
Their family, friends, and neighbors all contribute to their upbringing.
The kinds of people they become depend on what they
were taught and how they were treated in their past.
(00:48):
But what happens when the past refuses to stay there?
Casper's past wasn't quite known by those who knew him
in Germany. Even Casper was hazy on the details himself.
According to a letter he carried, Casper had been handed
over to the letters author in eighteen twelve, when he
was only a few months old. This anonymous person had
(01:08):
allegedly educated Casper in all subjects, including reading and writing,
as well as the Bible, all the while Casper had
never left the person's house. He was the reward as
well as a prisoner of sorts, now that he had
come of age, though Casper had expressed interest in becoming
a cavalryman like his birth father. The letter had been
meant for one, Captain von Weisenegg, of the fourth Squadron
(01:31):
of the sixth Cavalry Regiment. The request from Casper's former
caretaker to the captain was to either enlist the young
man or hang him his choice. Casper made his way
to the captain's home with the help of a local cobbler.
Though he'd been taught to read and write, Casper only
answered the captain with one of three phrases. The first
was I want to be a cavalryman as my father was.
(01:51):
The second was simply horse horse. Difficult questions prompted the
third response, don't know. Casper was six years old, but
behaved and spoke like someone much younger. Sadly, the captain
did not take him in, though he didn't hang him either. Instead,
he was locked up in a tower in Nuremberg Castle
for the crime of being poor. As word about the
(02:14):
boys spread throughout town, so did speculation about his upbringing.
Some thought that he had grown up in the forest,
raised among the animals. The mayor of Nuremberg himself, though
Yaka Friedrich Binder claimed that he learned the truth after
visiting the young man in prison. This enigmatic young man
hadn't been raised in a home by an obliging caretaker. Instead,
(02:34):
he had been locked away in a dark cell only
two meters long by one meter wide. His bed had
been made of straw, and the only toys in his
possession were a dog and two horses that had been
whittled out of wood. During his time, he only ate
rye bread and drink water, which were also the only
food and drink he would accept while locked in the
tower in Nuremberg Castle. Sometimes, though he claimed that water
(02:57):
tasted bitter and would make him sleep, he'd wait up
hours later to new straw in his bed, as well
as trimmed nails and hair. He had no contact with
another soul for years until just before he showed up
in Nuremberg. It was a man, maybe the caretaker or
perhaps another acquaintance of theirs, who had come to teach
Casper how to talk and write his name. He had
(03:18):
also taught him the phrases to recite to Captain von Wessnig.
When the mayor's story about Casper broke out, it only
added to his mystery. Those who had gotten a glimpse
of him noticed he looked an awful lot like the
Grand Duke of Baden. Rumors swirled about how the Nuremberg
newcomer was none other than the Prince of Baden, originally
thought to have died in eighteen twelve, only months after
(03:40):
his birth. Casper celebrities soon led to his freedom. As
well as being adopted by the town, he was provided
with money for food and to further his education. Friedrich Dahmer,
a local teacher and philosopher, took him under his wing
and provided him with a home. Unfortunately, Casper's new life
would be interrupted by a vision for his past. In
(04:01):
October of eighteen twenty nine, the boy was discovered bleeding
in Dahmer's basement. He had been slashed across the forehead.
Casper claimed it was from a hooded stranger whose voice
matched that of the man who had brought him to
Nuremberg a year earlier. The incidents caused a stir in
the town. People started to wonder if the House of
Baden had tried to take him out instead. Skeptics didn't
(04:22):
buy Casper's story, though, nor did they believe that he
was the long lost descendant of the House of Baden.
They figured that Casper had just been accused of line
by Dahmer and then cut himself to Gardner sympathy and
throw people off his trail. Three years later, Casper had
gone through a few more caretakers and then moved to
the town of Ansbach. He was now being looked after
(04:42):
by schoolmaster Johann Meyer and financially supported by a separate
wealthy patron, But that patron died in eighteen thirty three,
which strained Casper's relationship with Meyer. Five days after that
patron's death, Casper was stabbed in the chest. Just like before,
the wound was inflicted by an unknown assailant. This time,
though Casper had been given a small bag, it contained
(05:04):
a note from the person who had allegedly attacked him.
He told his story to the authorities, who conducted an
investigation of their own. Sadly, Casper would never get to
hear their findings. He died three days later. If he
had survived, he would have heard how they didn't believe him,
how the notes had been folded into a triangle shape,
just like Casper used for all of his notes. He
(05:26):
would have heard how the police thought that he stabbed
himself and made up the story about the attacker as
a pr stunt to get people to talk about him again.
Casper was buried in on spot under a headstone with
the inscription that reads, here lies Casper Houser riddle of
his time. His birth was unknown, his death mysterious. Was
(05:49):
he merely a traumatized young man, or a con man,
or even a lost royal prince? No one knows for sure.
But one thing is certain. He died as he lived,
a complete and total enigma. Neither snow nor rain, nor heat,
(06:19):
nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift
completion of their appointed rounds. Though not an official motto,
these words have stood as a testament to the dedication
and nobility of the men and women of the United
States Postal Service. Before the Post Office Department was formed,
in individual colonies would handle their own mail deliveries. They
(06:40):
would hire contractors on horseback to deliver mail along specified routes.
Time was of the essence to these post writers, and
with tensions between the Crown and the colonies growing stronger
every day, their metal was about to be put to
the test. War was on the horizon, and it would
be a postmaster, not a soldier nor an army who
would bring the colonies together again. It's the British. One
(07:01):
such writer was Israel Bistle, born in seventeen fifty two.
He lived with his family in Massachusetts, where he took
a job as a post writer, delivering the mail. On
the night of April eighteenth of seventeen seventy five, British
troops marched from Lexington and conquered from Boston, not to
bring war, but to arrest the rebels and take their supplies.
Paul Revere sat out that night on his famous midnight ride,
(07:23):
alerting the local militia men to prepare. Two lanterns were
hung in Boston's Old North Church, letting patriots know the
British had left Boston coming and made their way across
the Charles River to Cambridge. By five o'clock the next morning,
the Revolutionary War had begun. The American militia was told
to disband, and both sides told their men to hold
but a miscommunication resulted in a single shot being fired,
(07:45):
a shot that changed the course of history. No one
knew where it had come from, and it's easy to
understand why if you've been to the farm where it happened,
I have, and it's a wide open space with a
few period buildings, some of which still have holes in
their walls where musket balls ripped through. It must have
been chaos and eight colonial fighters were killed in the skirmish.
(08:08):
Word of the attacks needed to be brought to nearby towns,
including Wooster and Marlborough. The job was given to post
writer Israel Bissell, only twenty three years of age and
about to embark on the most important ride of his life.
He was given an important letter written by Joseph Palmer,
a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. In the letter,
Palmer outlined the events that had transpired at Lexington that morning.
(08:30):
Bissell raised it from Watertown to Worcester in only two hours.
It said that his horse died from the effort once there.
The letter was copied for other writers to carry throughout Massachusetts,
and beyond warning everyone about what had happened, Bissell procured
another horse and continued on his journey. He'd been told
to seek out help from a Connecticut man named Israel Putnam.
Putnam was a veteran in his own right, having fought
(08:52):
in the French and Indian Wars. Before settling down on
April twenty, Bissell told Putnam about the attack, which prompted
the man to fetch his rifle from his barn and
joined the fight. In the meantime, Bistill rode off again,
this time to the coastal village of New London, Connecticut.
The New Londoners were not as quick to believe him
as Israel Putnam had been, nor the folks in Worcester.
(09:13):
They needed to know that this was at all some
sort of prank being pulled at their expense. Bissell had
to provide Swarren testimony as to the truth about the
information he carried, which took him hours to do so.
Once he placated those New Londoners, though, he set out
once more for New Haven, followed by Fairfield, where he
was provided with a new horse which would carry him
all the way to Manhattan. He gave the people of
(09:34):
New York the news from Lexington before traveling through Princeton
and Trenton, New Jersey, all the way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
By April, it took Bissile five days to go from Watertown,
Massachusetts to Connecticut. New York, New Jersey, and finally Pennsylvania,
but in doing so he managed to alert thousands of
troops about the Lexington attack. Sadly, he was never immortalized
(09:57):
in poetry for his efforts like Paul Revere, but perhaps
he should have been. While Revere had traveled a mere
twenty miles on his midnight ride, Israel Bistle had shown
everyone the true measure of a postal worker and a patriot,
covering a massive stretch of three hundred and forty five miles.
(10:18):
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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,
(10:41):
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Ye
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Host
Aaron Mahnke
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