May 18, 2021 • 8 mins
Some of the most entertaining curiosities are the ones that defy expectations. And both of today's subjects do that perfectly.
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Episode Transcript
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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. Funerals are normally somber affairs. Attendees were black.
Kind words are spoken about the deceased from loved ones
and cherished friends. People cry and embrace one another during
one of the most difficult times of their lives. Therefore,
(00:49):
it would be inappropriate to say, stand up and shout
a string of swear words among the grieving crowd. But
that's exactly what happened at President Andrew Jackson's funeral. Before
he became president, Andrew Jackson was a lawyer from the
Waxhaw Settlement, right on the border between North and South Carolina.
He served as a courier with his older brother during
(01:11):
the Revolutionary War before going on to become a general
in the War of eighteen twelve. Though he had served
his country several times during his life, Jackson's reputation as
a patriot has become tarnished today by a lifetime of
racism and support for white supremacy. He was a staunch
defender of slavery and the central player in the upheaval
of Native Americans from their lands. It can be argued
(01:34):
that Jackson's genocidal tactics undermined any of the good he
managed to do as a soldier or as a president,
even something like paying off the entire national debt, which
he did in eighteen thirty five. But he was also
notoriously tough, surviving two attempted assassinations and even beating his
would be assassin within an inch of his life. There's
(01:54):
a reason his nickname was Old Hickory, and it followed
him until his death. Jackson passed away at his home
in June of eighteen forty five, surrounded by family and
close friends. According to one story, as his children cried
that day, he looked up and asked them what the
matter was and if he had alarmed them. He told
them to be good and that he would see them
(02:15):
in heaven. His heart gave out moments later, providing no
one a chance to respond or say goodbye. Jackson was
laid to rest at his Tennessee home the Hermitage on Sunday,
June eighth. His funeral was attended by three thousand mourners
who had come to pay their respects to the man
they revered despite his many moral failings. Parades were even
(02:35):
held in his honor. Presbyterian minister Reverend William Menaphee Normant
presided over the services. At least he was supposed to.
Another mourner named Paul, had chosen that particular moment to
unleash a series of vulgarities, offending everyone within earshot. It
wasn't as though people hadn't heard them before. Jackson himself
(02:56):
was known to curse up a storm when upset or frustrated. However,
a funeral was no place for such sentiments, even for
a man as colorful as Andrew Jackson. After several minutes
of interruption, Paul was escorted from the service to another room.
According to Normant, he had grown excited by the number
of people gathered and couldn't help himself. You see, Paul
(03:18):
had grown up in the Jackson home, having been adopted
in eighteen twenty seven, and became like another child to
Rachel Jackson. Andrew's wife, Rachel died a year later in
eighteen twenty eight. Paul was then left in the care
of the rest of the family. After mister Jackson's inauguration
in eighteen twenty nine, the president never forgot about him, though,
and often asked how Paul was doing in his letters home.
(03:42):
Once Jackson returned home after being president, he spent much
more time with young Paul, who picked up on every
word that came out of the man's mouth. Eventually, Paul
took to repeating everything he heard, and oftentimes that included
swearing like a soldier to anyone and everyone inside the house.
It's not clear how long Paul lived after that. In
(04:02):
the wild, they tend to have a lifespan of twenty
three years. In captivity, however, African gray parrots can live
as old as sixty. That's right, Paul was the only
parrot ever forced to leave a president's funeral for hurling
offensive words at the guests. Now that's what I call
foul language. It's called the Roxbury Conglomerate. Now, if you
(04:37):
ask me, that sounds like a nefarious corporation that's about
to be taken down by a superhero. But the truth
is that the Roxbury conglomerate is less conglomerates and more rocks.
In fact, it's the bedrock under the city of Boston.
It spreads out well beyond the neighborhood of Roxbury, though,
forming the landmass under a lot of nearby neighborhoods and towns. Apparently,
(04:59):
it's also sometimes called the Roxbury pudding stone, and while
that makes me hungry, it gives an even less accurate
impression of what it really is, unless you're a geologist
who knows what a pudding stone is. That's not why
the Roxbury Conglomerate has led to a misunderstanding, though far
from it. In fact, in the middle of the eighteen hundreds,
at a time when stone from the bedrock there was
(05:20):
being used to build walls and foundations throughout the Boston area,
there was a misconception that led to a hundred years
of argument and debate. It started, as the paper said
at the time, a few rods self of Reverend Hall's
meeting house in Boston. They were blasting in the rock
and collecting the stone fragments that flew away. It wasn't
the safest way of clearing land and gathering stone, of course,
(05:44):
but as the workmen were gathering the stone fragments, they
saw something strange shining in the rubble. When they moved
the stones aside and dusted them off, they were awestruck.
What they had found was a metallic vessel broken into
two parts. They guessed that, like the rock, it had
been torn apart in the explosion. When they put it together,
they saw the two pieces formed a silver bell shape
(06:06):
about five inches high and six inches wide. As they
showed it around, people started to make observations about it.
The metal was clearly valuable, It looked like an alloy
maybe of zinc and silver, and the craftsmanship shown was incredible,
not just for the shaping of the object, but because
it was highly decorated too. The sides were covered in
silver scroll work, flowers lined in pure silver inlay, and
(06:29):
wrapped in silver vines twisting around the contours of the bell.
It was an incredible discovery, so incredible in fact, that
its story was published in Scientific American that year, and
they were just as befuddled as the men who discovered it.
After all, the blasters told the magazine that it had
been blown out of solid pudding stone fifteen feet below
the surface. And here's the thing that formation of bedrock there.
(06:54):
It's been dated to five d seventy million years old.
If this little silver bell had somehow been caught in
the flows of sediment that formed the Roxbury conglomerate, well
then it was probably the oldest artifact ever discovered on Earth.
The story was picked up in nineteen nineteen by writers
looking for anomalies, and from there it's been told and
(07:14):
retold from time to time. It's even been used as
proof that aliens were around millions of years ago, or
even that HP Lovecraft's Cathulu mythos was real. And as
the story reappeared time after time, its reputation rested on
its strangeness. No one who wrote about the silver bell
shape in the eighteen fifties seemed to have seen anything
like it, although people would end up calling it the
(07:36):
Dorchester pot or Dorchester vessel, but none of the early
discussions of the silver objects seemed to admit that it
could have been something that mixed with the fragments of
stone during the blasting and not before, especially when that
blasting happened in the middle of an inhabited city. It
was probably from the very beginning just a little misunderstanding.
(07:57):
In the end, the biggest mystery is how the fragments
of a tiny silver bell picked up in the rubble
of the Roxbury conglomerate entertain speculators and storytellers for more
than a hundred years. One thing I do know, though
people ever since have had a blast trying to figure
it out. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
(08:20):
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, and you can learn all about it
(08:42):
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. Funerals are normally somber affairs. Attendees were black.
Kind words are spoken about the deceased from loved ones
and cherished friends. People cry and embrace one another during
one of the most difficult times of their lives. Therefore,
(00:49):
it would be inappropriate to say, stand up and shout
a string of swear words among the grieving crowd. But
that's exactly what happened at President Andrew Jackson's funeral. Before
he became president, Andrew Jackson was a lawyer from the
Waxhaw Settlement, right on the border between North and South Carolina.
He served as a courier with his older brother during
(01:11):
the Revolutionary War before going on to become a general
in the War of eighteen twelve. Though he had served
his country several times during his life, Jackson's reputation as
a patriot has become tarnished today by a lifetime of
racism and support for white supremacy. He was a staunch
defender of slavery and the central player in the upheaval
of Native Americans from their lands. It can be argued
(01:34):
that Jackson's genocidal tactics undermined any of the good he
managed to do as a soldier or as a president,
even something like paying off the entire national debt, which
he did in eighteen thirty five. But he was also
notoriously tough, surviving two attempted assassinations and even beating his
would be assassin within an inch of his life. There's
(01:54):
a reason his nickname was Old Hickory, and it followed
him until his death. Jackson passed away at his home
in June of eighteen forty five, surrounded by family and
close friends. According to one story, as his children cried
that day, he looked up and asked them what the
matter was and if he had alarmed them. He told
them to be good and that he would see them
(02:15):
in heaven. His heart gave out moments later, providing no
one a chance to respond or say goodbye. Jackson was
laid to rest at his Tennessee home the Hermitage on Sunday,
June eighth. His funeral was attended by three thousand mourners
who had come to pay their respects to the man
they revered despite his many moral failings. Parades were even
(02:35):
held in his honor. Presbyterian minister Reverend William Menaphee Normant
presided over the services. At least he was supposed to.
Another mourner named Paul, had chosen that particular moment to
unleash a series of vulgarities, offending everyone within earshot. It
wasn't as though people hadn't heard them before. Jackson himself
(02:56):
was known to curse up a storm when upset or frustrated. However,
a funeral was no place for such sentiments, even for
a man as colorful as Andrew Jackson. After several minutes
of interruption, Paul was escorted from the service to another room.
According to Normant, he had grown excited by the number
of people gathered and couldn't help himself. You see, Paul
(03:18):
had grown up in the Jackson home, having been adopted
in eighteen twenty seven, and became like another child to
Rachel Jackson. Andrew's wife, Rachel died a year later in
eighteen twenty eight. Paul was then left in the care
of the rest of the family. After mister Jackson's inauguration
in eighteen twenty nine, the president never forgot about him, though,
and often asked how Paul was doing in his letters home.
(03:42):
Once Jackson returned home after being president, he spent much
more time with young Paul, who picked up on every
word that came out of the man's mouth. Eventually, Paul
took to repeating everything he heard, and oftentimes that included
swearing like a soldier to anyone and everyone inside the house.
It's not clear how long Paul lived after that. In
(04:02):
the wild, they tend to have a lifespan of twenty
three years. In captivity, however, African gray parrots can live
as old as sixty. That's right, Paul was the only
parrot ever forced to leave a president's funeral for hurling
offensive words at the guests. Now that's what I call
foul language. It's called the Roxbury Conglomerate. Now, if you
(04:37):
ask me, that sounds like a nefarious corporation that's about
to be taken down by a superhero. But the truth
is that the Roxbury conglomerate is less conglomerates and more rocks.
In fact, it's the bedrock under the city of Boston.
It spreads out well beyond the neighborhood of Roxbury, though,
forming the landmass under a lot of nearby neighborhoods and towns. Apparently,
(04:59):
it's also sometimes called the Roxbury pudding stone, and while
that makes me hungry, it gives an even less accurate
impression of what it really is, unless you're a geologist
who knows what a pudding stone is. That's not why
the Roxbury Conglomerate has led to a misunderstanding, though far
from it. In fact, in the middle of the eighteen hundreds,
at a time when stone from the bedrock there was
(05:20):
being used to build walls and foundations throughout the Boston area,
there was a misconception that led to a hundred years
of argument and debate. It started, as the paper said
at the time, a few rods self of Reverend Hall's
meeting house in Boston. They were blasting in the rock
and collecting the stone fragments that flew away. It wasn't
the safest way of clearing land and gathering stone, of course,
(05:44):
but as the workmen were gathering the stone fragments, they
saw something strange shining in the rubble. When they moved
the stones aside and dusted them off, they were awestruck.
What they had found was a metallic vessel broken into
two parts. They guessed that, like the rock, it had
been torn apart in the explosion. When they put it together,
they saw the two pieces formed a silver bell shape
(06:06):
about five inches high and six inches wide. As they
showed it around, people started to make observations about it.
The metal was clearly valuable, It looked like an alloy
maybe of zinc and silver, and the craftsmanship shown was incredible,
not just for the shaping of the object, but because
it was highly decorated too. The sides were covered in
silver scroll work, flowers lined in pure silver inlay, and
(06:29):
wrapped in silver vines twisting around the contours of the bell.
It was an incredible discovery, so incredible in fact, that
its story was published in Scientific American that year, and
they were just as befuddled as the men who discovered it.
After all, the blasters told the magazine that it had
been blown out of solid pudding stone fifteen feet below
the surface. And here's the thing that formation of bedrock there.
(06:54):
It's been dated to five d seventy million years old.
If this little silver bell had somehow been caught in
the flows of sediment that formed the Roxbury conglomerate, well
then it was probably the oldest artifact ever discovered on Earth.
The story was picked up in nineteen nineteen by writers
looking for anomalies, and from there it's been told and
(07:14):
retold from time to time. It's even been used as
proof that aliens were around millions of years ago, or
even that HP Lovecraft's Cathulu mythos was real. And as
the story reappeared time after time, its reputation rested on
its strangeness. No one who wrote about the silver bell
shape in the eighteen fifties seemed to have seen anything
like it, although people would end up calling it the
(07:36):
Dorchester pot or Dorchester vessel, but none of the early
discussions of the silver objects seemed to admit that it
could have been something that mixed with the fragments of
stone during the blasting and not before, especially when that
blasting happened in the middle of an inhabited city. It
was probably from the very beginning just a little misunderstanding.
(07:57):
In the end, the biggest mystery is how the fragments
of a tiny silver bell picked up in the rubble
of the Roxbury conglomerate entertain speculators and storytellers for more
than a hundred years. One thing I do know, though
people ever since have had a blast trying to figure
it out. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
(08:20):
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, and you can learn all about it
(08:42):
over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
next time, stay curious. Ye
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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