October 18, 2018 • 11 mins
Some people strive hard to get away, while others want nothing more than to retreat deeper inside. either way, they've left us with amazing stories.
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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. Henry Brown knew nothing
(00:29):
but slavery for most of his life. Despite his upbringing
on the Hermitage plantation in Virginia, Henry had a surprisingly
positive outlook on life. He appreciated nature and enjoyed showing
the children on the plantation the flowers that grew there.
He was a religious man, with a whole lot of
faith in a world that had done him so much wrong.
(00:50):
Henry's faith brought him to Nancy, another slave, and the
two of them got married and had three children of
their own. He'd been making regular payments to his wife's
master as a way of keeping him from selling her
and the children off, but the master had other ideas.
There was more money in selling Nancy and the kids
to the highest bidder than there was in taking Henry's
(01:11):
meager payments, so the master separated the family, leaving Henry
despondent and alone. You might think something like that would
break Henry's faith in people, but it didn't. In fact,
he was about to take the biggest leap of faith
in his life with the help of two men who
had a plan. After the loss of his family, Henry
(01:32):
knew he had to get out. He refused to go
through something as heartbreaking is that again if he could
help it. So, he contacted a friend, a freed black
man named James Smith, who helped him orchestrate his escape.
James and a white shoemaker named Sam Smith came up
with an ingenious way to get Henry out of Virginia
and into the North where he could be free. Except
(01:55):
Henry didn't use the underground railroad or abolitionist safe houses
to his gape. He chose a very different route, actually
several different routes, including a trip by wagon, then by railroad,
transferred to a steamboat, another wagon, a second journey by train,
a ferry, and another railroad, until he finally reached Philadelphia
(02:18):
after twenty seven grueling hours. Henry was free, and he
used that freedom to advocate on behalf of other slaves.
He spoke out as an abolitionist against the South and
its barbaric practices. To avoid the Fugitive Slave Law of
eighteen fifty he moved to England and became a magician
to entertain crowds and earn a living. He eventually remarried
(02:41):
and began a new family, taking them back to the
US with him after the end of the Civil War.
Now you might be asking yourself, what is it about
Henry's story that still resonates today. Many slaves escaped their fates,
but we never got to hear their stories. Well, Henry's
tail is a special Like other slaves, he was so
(03:02):
desperate to leave a life of pain and suffering that
he embarked on a journey where at any moment he
could either die or be discovered. But of course his
efforts were a success, and literature about how he earned
his freedom found its way back Selth, boosting the morale
among other slaves. He became a sort of celebrity. For
(03:22):
better or for worse. You see, Henry Brown was the
first slave to mail himself to freedom. He spent a
little over one day in a three ft by two
ft crate that was hauled from his home in Virginia
to the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee in Pennsylvania. He survived with
the help of a single air hole cut in the
(03:43):
side of the box and a small portion of biscuits
and water by his side. Any person might be dehydrated, exhausted,
or even unconscious after such a long, difficult journey. He
even spent part of that journey upside down. But Henry
Box Brown never lost his positive attitude. Upon opening the
(04:04):
crate in Philadelphia, one of the men remembered hearing Henry's
very first words as a freeman. True to his positive attitude,
they were anything but frustrated, tired, angry, or even afraid.
He simply smiled from inside the dark wooden crate, waved
his hand and cheerfully said, how do you do, gentlemen?
(04:27):
Henry Brown, it seems knew how to deliver a powerful message.
Long before the age of social media, people kept to themselves.
(04:50):
More lives were lived in private, and no one had
to know every little detail about what we had for
lunch or what we bought at the store. Privacy was
not a four letter word. Nobody embodied that philosophy more
than Homer and Langley. They were brothers who lived in
New York City, Harlem in fact, and a brown stone
(05:10):
with their mother and father. Their childhood was pretty normal.
They went to public school, attended Columbia University and went
on to do great things. Langley and engineer and concert
pianist performed at Carnegie Hall, while Homer practiced maritime law.
The brothers were close best friends, even having only each
(05:32):
other and no spouses to speak of. They continued to
live at home with their parents well into adulthood, sadly
nothing less forever. Their mother and father divorced in nineteen
o nine, and the boys, wanting to remain in their
home with their mother, stayed in Harlem while their father
moved downtown. For twenty years, the boys lived in that
(05:52):
brown stone until two major life events changed them forever,
the stock market crash of nine and death of their mother.
As the Great Depression ravaged the city, their neighborhood began
to change as well. Their mother had left them everything,
every known possession, including the brownstone. Their neighbors had not
(06:13):
been so lucky, and as the people they knew moved away,
groups of African Americans looking for a better life moved in.
Harlem was beginning its shift into the jazz capital of
the world, a place that would cultivate greats like John
Coltrane and Charlie Parker, but Homer and Langley saw things differently.
With their mother gone and their neighborhood changing into something
(06:35):
they no longer recognized, they retreated from it. They boarded
up their windows, locked their doors, disconnected their telephone, and
slipped away from public life. It wasn't that they feared
certain kinds of people. Homer and Langley were terrified of
change in all its forms. After divorce, depression, and death,
(06:57):
I think they had simply taken all they could manage
and just sort of closed themselves off from the world,
both mentally and physically. Rumors began to circulate about the
brothers unorthodox lifestyle, which brought unwanted attention to their doorsteps.
Some people thought the men were hoarding vast amounts of
money and treasure in their house. After a few attempt
(07:20):
at burglaries, Langley had to put his engineering knowledge to
use by building a series of traps to discourage thieves
from entering uninvited. The thing was the Collier brothers were
hoarding something in their Harlem brownstone everything boxes, old bicycles, guns,
camera equipment, part of a horse drawn carriage, over twenty books,
(07:44):
human organs in jars, and afford model t which Langley
had rigged to provide electricity to the house. The once
pristine brownstone had become a maze of boxes and debris,
and the men took to crawling through tunnels to get
from room to room him As they grew older, however,
disease took its toll, and Homer was hit the hardest.
(08:06):
He went blind and eventually succumbed to inflammatory rheumatism, which
left him paralyzed. Langley took everything upon himself, becoming his
brother's sole caregiver. He brought him food and water, bathed him,
and kept the public away. But all that privacy came
at a cost. Years later, a man who identified himself
(08:27):
as Charles Smith called the local police, claiming there was
a dead body inside the Collier home. When the police arrived,
they found it impossible to get in the front door.
It wasn't just that the windows were barred or that
the doors were locked. They couldn't get past the stack
of boxes and old newspapers, or the furniture that had
been piled up in the brownstones entryway. It took seven
(08:50):
men to haul enough junk out in order to give
police the access they needed. Once inside, they were able
to look around, and what they found astounded them. Over
one hundred twenty tons of debris had been collected inside
the home, but tucked away in a corner, surrounded by
boxes that stretched from floor to ceiling was a human corpse.
(09:12):
The dead body, it turns out, was real, and it
was Homer. Authorities assumed his brother had been the one
to make the anonymous phone call, but Langley was nowhere
to be found. There were rumors that he'd managed to
skip down. Reports came in for over a week about
Langley being sighted in nine different states, but none of
(09:33):
them turned out to be true. You see, Langley, even
in his old age, had refused to give up on
his brother, but his fear of the outside world had
left him with no options for getting Homer the help
he needed. It wasn't until after more than one hundred
tons of clutter were removed from the brownstone when he
finally resurfaced. It turns out he'd been there the whole time.
(09:58):
Langley had been in the process of bringing his brother
some food, crawling through a narrow tunnel of rusty bedsprings,
when he triggered one of his own traps. Moments later,
a massive pile of suitcases and bundled newspapers collapsed on
top of him. Like I said before, Langley Collier had
(10:20):
taken everything upon himself literally. 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
(10:40):
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. Henry Brown knew nothing
(00:29):
but slavery for most of his life. Despite his upbringing
on the Hermitage plantation in Virginia, Henry had a surprisingly
positive outlook on life. He appreciated nature and enjoyed showing
the children on the plantation the flowers that grew there.
He was a religious man, with a whole lot of
faith in a world that had done him so much wrong.
(00:50):
Henry's faith brought him to Nancy, another slave, and the
two of them got married and had three children of
their own. He'd been making regular payments to his wife's
master as a way of keeping him from selling her
and the children off, but the master had other ideas.
There was more money in selling Nancy and the kids
to the highest bidder than there was in taking Henry's
(01:11):
meager payments, so the master separated the family, leaving Henry
despondent and alone. You might think something like that would
break Henry's faith in people, but it didn't. In fact,
he was about to take the biggest leap of faith
in his life with the help of two men who
had a plan. After the loss of his family, Henry
(01:32):
knew he had to get out. He refused to go
through something as heartbreaking is that again if he could
help it. So, he contacted a friend, a freed black
man named James Smith, who helped him orchestrate his escape.
James and a white shoemaker named Sam Smith came up
with an ingenious way to get Henry out of Virginia
and into the North where he could be free. Except
(01:55):
Henry didn't use the underground railroad or abolitionist safe houses
to his gape. He chose a very different route, actually
several different routes, including a trip by wagon, then by railroad,
transferred to a steamboat, another wagon, a second journey by train,
a ferry, and another railroad, until he finally reached Philadelphia
(02:18):
after twenty seven grueling hours. Henry was free, and he
used that freedom to advocate on behalf of other slaves.
He spoke out as an abolitionist against the South and
its barbaric practices. To avoid the Fugitive Slave Law of
eighteen fifty he moved to England and became a magician
to entertain crowds and earn a living. He eventually remarried
(02:41):
and began a new family, taking them back to the
US with him after the end of the Civil War.
Now you might be asking yourself, what is it about
Henry's story that still resonates today. Many slaves escaped their fates,
but we never got to hear their stories. Well, Henry's
tail is a special Like other slaves, he was so
(03:02):
desperate to leave a life of pain and suffering that
he embarked on a journey where at any moment he
could either die or be discovered. But of course his
efforts were a success, and literature about how he earned
his freedom found its way back Selth, boosting the morale
among other slaves. He became a sort of celebrity. For
(03:22):
better or for worse. You see, Henry Brown was the
first slave to mail himself to freedom. He spent a
little over one day in a three ft by two
ft crate that was hauled from his home in Virginia
to the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee in Pennsylvania. He survived with
the help of a single air hole cut in the
(03:43):
side of the box and a small portion of biscuits
and water by his side. Any person might be dehydrated, exhausted,
or even unconscious after such a long, difficult journey. He
even spent part of that journey upside down. But Henry
Box Brown never lost his positive attitude. Upon opening the
(04:04):
crate in Philadelphia, one of the men remembered hearing Henry's
very first words as a freeman. True to his positive attitude,
they were anything but frustrated, tired, angry, or even afraid.
He simply smiled from inside the dark wooden crate, waved
his hand and cheerfully said, how do you do, gentlemen?
(04:27):
Henry Brown, it seems knew how to deliver a powerful message.
Long before the age of social media, people kept to themselves.
(04:50):
More lives were lived in private, and no one had
to know every little detail about what we had for
lunch or what we bought at the store. Privacy was
not a four letter word. Nobody embodied that philosophy more
than Homer and Langley. They were brothers who lived in
New York City, Harlem in fact, and a brown stone
(05:10):
with their mother and father. Their childhood was pretty normal.
They went to public school, attended Columbia University and went
on to do great things. Langley and engineer and concert
pianist performed at Carnegie Hall, while Homer practiced maritime law.
The brothers were close best friends, even having only each
(05:32):
other and no spouses to speak of. They continued to
live at home with their parents well into adulthood, sadly
nothing less forever. Their mother and father divorced in nineteen
o nine, and the boys, wanting to remain in their
home with their mother, stayed in Harlem while their father
moved downtown. For twenty years, the boys lived in that
(05:52):
brown stone until two major life events changed them forever,
the stock market crash of nine and death of their mother.
As the Great Depression ravaged the city, their neighborhood began
to change as well. Their mother had left them everything,
every known possession, including the brownstone. Their neighbors had not
(06:13):
been so lucky, and as the people they knew moved away,
groups of African Americans looking for a better life moved in.
Harlem was beginning its shift into the jazz capital of
the world, a place that would cultivate greats like John
Coltrane and Charlie Parker, but Homer and Langley saw things differently.
With their mother gone and their neighborhood changing into something
(06:35):
they no longer recognized, they retreated from it. They boarded
up their windows, locked their doors, disconnected their telephone, and
slipped away from public life. It wasn't that they feared
certain kinds of people. Homer and Langley were terrified of
change in all its forms. After divorce, depression, and death,
(06:57):
I think they had simply taken all they could manage
and just sort of closed themselves off from the world,
both mentally and physically. Rumors began to circulate about the
brothers unorthodox lifestyle, which brought unwanted attention to their doorsteps.
Some people thought the men were hoarding vast amounts of
money and treasure in their house. After a few attempt
(07:20):
at burglaries, Langley had to put his engineering knowledge to
use by building a series of traps to discourage thieves
from entering uninvited. The thing was the Collier brothers were
hoarding something in their Harlem brownstone everything boxes, old bicycles, guns,
camera equipment, part of a horse drawn carriage, over twenty books,
(07:44):
human organs in jars, and afford model t which Langley
had rigged to provide electricity to the house. The once
pristine brownstone had become a maze of boxes and debris,
and the men took to crawling through tunnels to get
from room to room him As they grew older, however,
disease took its toll, and Homer was hit the hardest.
(08:06):
He went blind and eventually succumbed to inflammatory rheumatism, which
left him paralyzed. Langley took everything upon himself, becoming his
brother's sole caregiver. He brought him food and water, bathed him,
and kept the public away. But all that privacy came
at a cost. Years later, a man who identified himself
(08:27):
as Charles Smith called the local police, claiming there was
a dead body inside the Collier home. When the police arrived,
they found it impossible to get in the front door.
It wasn't just that the windows were barred or that
the doors were locked. They couldn't get past the stack
of boxes and old newspapers, or the furniture that had
been piled up in the brownstones entryway. It took seven
(08:50):
men to haul enough junk out in order to give
police the access they needed. Once inside, they were able
to look around, and what they found astounded them. Over
one hundred twenty tons of debris had been collected inside
the home, but tucked away in a corner, surrounded by
boxes that stretched from floor to ceiling was a human corpse.
(09:12):
The dead body, it turns out, was real, and it
was Homer. Authorities assumed his brother had been the one
to make the anonymous phone call, but Langley was nowhere
to be found. There were rumors that he'd managed to
skip down. Reports came in for over a week about
Langley being sighted in nine different states, but none of
(09:33):
them turned out to be true. You see, Langley, even
in his old age, had refused to give up on
his brother, but his fear of the outside world had
left him with no options for getting Homer the help
he needed. It wasn't until after more than one hundred
tons of clutter were removed from the brownstone when he
finally resurfaced. It turns out he'd been there the whole time.
(09:58):
Langley had been in the process of bringing his brother
some food, crawling through a narrow tunnel of rusty bedsprings,
when he triggered one of his own traps. Moments later,
a massive pile of suitcases and bundled newspapers collapsed on
top of him. Like I said before, Langley Collier had
(10:20):
taken everything upon himself literally. 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
(10:40):
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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