September 25, 2018 • 11 mins
On our tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities today, we will meet two unique individuals. One spent his life looking for fame, while the other wanted to escape it. Whether they each achieved their goals is up for debate.
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Episode Transcript
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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. Charlie was tired of
(00:29):
selling sewing machines. Charlie wanted to get rich, and walking
door to door in the hot summer sun fingers crossed
for a sail every few days was not going to
get it done. Charlie wanted to make it rain, so
he did. He'd been born in Kansas in but his
Quaker family packed up and moved to southern California. Five
(00:51):
years later. They settled in on their dusty ranch about
thirty five miles north of San Diego, and then life
just sort of kept going. By four, Charlie was a
twenty nine year old sewing machine salesman who was frustrated
with his lot in life. He still lived with his parents, and,
judging by how hard they had both worked just to
stay afloat all these years, Charlie's own future was far
(01:14):
from bright and sunny. Charlie was a smart guy, though
he'd been paying attention, and he noticed something about the
weather as far as he could tell, rain storms had
a way of following big battles that involved cannons and rifles.
He wondered if there was a chemical reason why, and
started to dig into the field of pluviculture, literally the
(01:35):
science of making rain. Charlie got busy testing out his ideas.
He began to experiment with different chemicals, mixing them inside
a large wooden tub. When he was sure he had
the recipe right, he covered it and let it sit
for a while before carefully pushing the lid off from
some distance with a long pole. The resulting steam drifted
(01:57):
up into the sky and then caused rain to fall
on his father's bone dry ranch. He'd done it. The
first place he took his services was north to Los Angeles.
They agreed to pay Charlie a thousand dollars if he
could give them eighteen inches of rain, and that was
a lot of money to a poor sewing machine salesman,
close to twenty eight thousand dollars in modern American currency
(02:20):
in fact. So Charlie built himself a small tower near
ruby O Canyon, put his big wooden vat on top
of it, and let the chemicals get to work. And
it was a success. Charlie gave Los Angeles over eighteen
inches of rain and took home a big, fat paycheck.
With success under his belt and the testimony of a
(02:40):
happy city, he started going elsewhere. In the decade between
nineteen o five and nineteen fifteen, Charlie worked on as
many as seventeen contract jobs. Sometimes they were cities, other
times they were groups of farmers looking for a little help.
And then San Diego called. They were in the middle
of a big drought, and after hearing about Charlie's services,
(03:03):
they decided to give the rainmaker a try. They asked
him to fill their depleted reservoir, and he agreed. The
city council met and voted on the project and agreed
to pay him ten thousand dollars if he could deliver
on his promise. The first thing he did was build
another of his towers about sixty miles to the east
of the city, right on the edge of the Moraina River.
(03:26):
I'm not sure how moving his chemicals twenty feet higher
was supposed to help a process that involves sending fumes
into the clouds to agitate them and create rain, but
Charlie insisted on it. That was January one of nineteen sixteen.
Four days later, the rain arrived. The local newspaper reported
on a light sprinkle that day, but it was certainly
(03:48):
not enough to fill the local reservoir. But it rained
the next day as well, and the next after that.
In fact, it wasn't stopping. The ranges seemed to keep coming,
pouring from the sky day night. In those first five days,
the city recorded at least seventeen inches of rain. It
was wonderful, but also a bit troubling. The rain had
(04:09):
filled the San Diego River and it was beginning to
spill over into the land around it. Reports of flooding
and mud slides began to pour in, as was the
news that homes were being swept away. It was still
raining on January when the reservoirs dam broke. A torrent
of water at least forty ft high, crashed down from
(04:31):
the hills towards the city, destroying buildings and taking lives
along the way. It was pure and utter destruction, all
because of the rain. The January nineteen sixteen rain storm
brought thirty inches of rain into San Diego, but it
was also a disaster for Charlie. The city was so
upset over the destruction his rain had caused that they
(04:53):
refused to pay him. The resulting legal battle took two
decades to fizzle out, but Charlie never saw a dime
or it. He did well elsewhere for a while. He
apparently signed a contract in nine up in Canada and
received offers from Cuba, but when the Great Depression arrived,
cities no longer had the funds to pay for something
(05:14):
as frivolous as rainmaking. He eventually closed up shop and
went back to selling sewing machines. Charlie Hadfield never wrote
his recipe down. He repeated it dozens and dozens of times,
and we have accounts from witnesses about what he did
with his mixture or what it smelled like, but never
what the ingredients were. So when Charlie died in nineteen
(05:37):
fifty eight, he took his secret formula with him to
the grave. His recipe might be forgotten, but the catastrophe
he delivered certainly hasn't been. San Diego still remembers Hatfield's flood,
although folks are still divided on how it all really happened. Either.
Charlie Hatfield was the miracle worker he claimed to be,
(05:59):
or he simply manage to arrive at the perfect time
for an extraordinary act of God. I'll let you decide
which option to believe. When Catherine the Great, the longest
(06:23):
reigning Empress of Russia, passed away in seventeen ninety six,
her son Paul the First, ascended to the throne. That's
how things are done in a monarchy, after all, But
that doesn't mean the people had to like it. Granted,
the people of Russia had gotten used to Catherine, so
Paul seemed like a small, cheap replacement for something so
powerful and irreplaceable, which might explain why the conspiracies began
(06:47):
almost immediately. Five years later, he was assassinated and his
son Alexander the First took the throne. Now there's been
debate for decades about that situation about whether or not
Alexander had played a part in his father's death. Certainly,
there isn't enough proof to make a solid case for it,
but there's wiggle room in there for sure. Most of
(07:10):
the reports from Alexander's life say that he was very
remorseful about his father's death. Maybe it was guilt or
maybe it was just grief. We'll never know, but It's
important to keep that in mind when I tell you
the rest of the story, because the next twenty four
years were a roller coaster ride for him, and it
didn't end well. There were victories, such as the eighteen
(07:34):
twelve defeat of Napoleon, who had tried to invade Russia
and marched to Moscow, only to be turned back, but
he was plagued by attempts on his life and even
a botched kidnapping plot. By the end of his life,
he was incredibly distrusting of the people around him and
wanted to escape at all. In eight he had his chance.
(07:55):
His wife had been ill for some time, and they
decided to take a journey to the southern city of
tagg and Rock on the coast of the Sea of Azov.
Along the way, he caught a cold and eventually died
of typhus. His wife passed away while his body was
being returned, and the throne passed on to his brother Nicholas.
And that's the story we're all told. But there are
(08:17):
rumors of something more bizarre. It said that Alexander, haunted
by remorse for his father's assassination and driven by a
desire to get out of the Spotlight hadn't died after all,
but had actually stepped down from his position as emperor
so he could remove himself from society. It would mean
two things, though, first that his confid in St. Petersburg
(08:39):
was empty, and second, the real Alexander lived on for
many years elsewhere in Russia. It's a fantastic tale, but
there might actually be some truth to it. In eighteen
thirty six, someone in the mountains outside of perm claimed
to see a man who looked exactly like the former emperor.
(09:00):
He lived as a hermit in the area, and locals
referred to him as Father Kuzmich. One tale in particular
spoke of how a student of this monk had the
chance to visit the city, where she had an opportunity
to see a portrait of Emperor Alexander. Upon returning to
her teacher, she told him that he was the spitting
image of the dead ruler. Was Father Kuzmich really Alexander
(09:24):
the first in a sort of self imposed exile. We'll
never know for sure, but it's certainly fun to imagine
it being true that a ruler as powerful as Alexander
could simply step aside, fabricate his own death and then
live out the rest of his life helping others in
the mountains as a monk. Well, it's intriguing at the
very least. Father Kuzmitch passed away in eighteen sixty four
(09:50):
after a long life of serving and teaching. Over a
century later, in nineteen eighty four, he was canonized by
the Russian Orthodox Church. Whether he was an emperor or
a hermit, the people of Russia have refused to forget him.
And the coffin of Alexander, Well, it seems that it's
been opened back up on more than one occasion. The
(10:12):
most significant of those events took place in It said
that the Soviet authorities were looking for valuables and had
opened a number of tombs to see what they could
find inside. When they reached the tomb of Alexander, they
found the royal seals on his coffin still intact. Breaking
it open, they peered inside, hoping for some lost treasure
(10:33):
or priceless jewelry that might be used to raise money. Instead,
they found something much less precious, lumps of lead weights.
Alexander's body. Assuming it had been there in the first place,
it was nowhere to be found. I hope you've enjoyed
(10:58):
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 Mankey 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
(11:21):
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. Charlie was tired of
(00:29):
selling sewing machines. Charlie wanted to get rich, and walking
door to door in the hot summer sun fingers crossed
for a sail every few days was not going to
get it done. Charlie wanted to make it rain, so
he did. He'd been born in Kansas in but his
Quaker family packed up and moved to southern California. Five
(00:51):
years later. They settled in on their dusty ranch about
thirty five miles north of San Diego, and then life
just sort of kept going. By four, Charlie was a
twenty nine year old sewing machine salesman who was frustrated
with his lot in life. He still lived with his parents, and,
judging by how hard they had both worked just to
stay afloat all these years, Charlie's own future was far
(01:14):
from bright and sunny. Charlie was a smart guy, though
he'd been paying attention, and he noticed something about the
weather as far as he could tell, rain storms had
a way of following big battles that involved cannons and rifles.
He wondered if there was a chemical reason why, and
started to dig into the field of pluviculture, literally the
(01:35):
science of making rain. Charlie got busy testing out his ideas.
He began to experiment with different chemicals, mixing them inside
a large wooden tub. When he was sure he had
the recipe right, he covered it and let it sit
for a while before carefully pushing the lid off from
some distance with a long pole. The resulting steam drifted
(01:57):
up into the sky and then caused rain to fall
on his father's bone dry ranch. He'd done it. The
first place he took his services was north to Los Angeles.
They agreed to pay Charlie a thousand dollars if he
could give them eighteen inches of rain, and that was
a lot of money to a poor sewing machine salesman,
close to twenty eight thousand dollars in modern American currency
(02:20):
in fact. So Charlie built himself a small tower near
ruby O Canyon, put his big wooden vat on top
of it, and let the chemicals get to work. And
it was a success. Charlie gave Los Angeles over eighteen
inches of rain and took home a big, fat paycheck.
With success under his belt and the testimony of a
(02:40):
happy city, he started going elsewhere. In the decade between
nineteen o five and nineteen fifteen, Charlie worked on as
many as seventeen contract jobs. Sometimes they were cities, other
times they were groups of farmers looking for a little help.
And then San Diego called. They were in the middle
of a big drought, and after hearing about Charlie's services,
(03:03):
they decided to give the rainmaker a try. They asked
him to fill their depleted reservoir, and he agreed. The
city council met and voted on the project and agreed
to pay him ten thousand dollars if he could deliver
on his promise. The first thing he did was build
another of his towers about sixty miles to the east
of the city, right on the edge of the Moraina River.
(03:26):
I'm not sure how moving his chemicals twenty feet higher
was supposed to help a process that involves sending fumes
into the clouds to agitate them and create rain, but
Charlie insisted on it. That was January one of nineteen sixteen.
Four days later, the rain arrived. The local newspaper reported
on a light sprinkle that day, but it was certainly
(03:48):
not enough to fill the local reservoir. But it rained
the next day as well, and the next after that.
In fact, it wasn't stopping. The ranges seemed to keep coming,
pouring from the sky day night. In those first five days,
the city recorded at least seventeen inches of rain. It
was wonderful, but also a bit troubling. The rain had
(04:09):
filled the San Diego River and it was beginning to
spill over into the land around it. Reports of flooding
and mud slides began to pour in, as was the
news that homes were being swept away. It was still
raining on January when the reservoirs dam broke. A torrent
of water at least forty ft high, crashed down from
(04:31):
the hills towards the city, destroying buildings and taking lives
along the way. It was pure and utter destruction, all
because of the rain. The January nineteen sixteen rain storm
brought thirty inches of rain into San Diego, but it
was also a disaster for Charlie. The city was so
upset over the destruction his rain had caused that they
(04:53):
refused to pay him. The resulting legal battle took two
decades to fizzle out, but Charlie never saw a dime
or it. He did well elsewhere for a while. He
apparently signed a contract in nine up in Canada and
received offers from Cuba, but when the Great Depression arrived,
cities no longer had the funds to pay for something
(05:14):
as frivolous as rainmaking. He eventually closed up shop and
went back to selling sewing machines. Charlie Hadfield never wrote
his recipe down. He repeated it dozens and dozens of times,
and we have accounts from witnesses about what he did
with his mixture or what it smelled like, but never
what the ingredients were. So when Charlie died in nineteen
(05:37):
fifty eight, he took his secret formula with him to
the grave. His recipe might be forgotten, but the catastrophe
he delivered certainly hasn't been. San Diego still remembers Hatfield's flood,
although folks are still divided on how it all really happened. Either.
Charlie Hatfield was the miracle worker he claimed to be,
(05:59):
or he simply manage to arrive at the perfect time
for an extraordinary act of God. I'll let you decide
which option to believe. When Catherine the Great, the longest
(06:23):
reigning Empress of Russia, passed away in seventeen ninety six,
her son Paul the First, ascended to the throne. That's
how things are done in a monarchy, after all, But
that doesn't mean the people had to like it. Granted,
the people of Russia had gotten used to Catherine, so
Paul seemed like a small, cheap replacement for something so
powerful and irreplaceable, which might explain why the conspiracies began
(06:47):
almost immediately. Five years later, he was assassinated and his
son Alexander the First took the throne. Now there's been
debate for decades about that situation about whether or not
Alexander had played a part in his father's death. Certainly,
there isn't enough proof to make a solid case for it,
but there's wiggle room in there for sure. Most of
(07:10):
the reports from Alexander's life say that he was very
remorseful about his father's death. Maybe it was guilt or
maybe it was just grief. We'll never know, but It's
important to keep that in mind when I tell you
the rest of the story, because the next twenty four
years were a roller coaster ride for him, and it
didn't end well. There were victories, such as the eighteen
(07:34):
twelve defeat of Napoleon, who had tried to invade Russia
and marched to Moscow, only to be turned back, but
he was plagued by attempts on his life and even
a botched kidnapping plot. By the end of his life,
he was incredibly distrusting of the people around him and
wanted to escape at all. In eight he had his chance.
(07:55):
His wife had been ill for some time, and they
decided to take a journey to the southern city of
tagg and Rock on the coast of the Sea of Azov.
Along the way, he caught a cold and eventually died
of typhus. His wife passed away while his body was
being returned, and the throne passed on to his brother Nicholas.
And that's the story we're all told. But there are
(08:17):
rumors of something more bizarre. It said that Alexander, haunted
by remorse for his father's assassination and driven by a
desire to get out of the Spotlight hadn't died after all,
but had actually stepped down from his position as emperor
so he could remove himself from society. It would mean
two things, though, first that his confid in St. Petersburg
(08:39):
was empty, and second, the real Alexander lived on for
many years elsewhere in Russia. It's a fantastic tale, but
there might actually be some truth to it. In eighteen
thirty six, someone in the mountains outside of perm claimed
to see a man who looked exactly like the former emperor.
(09:00):
He lived as a hermit in the area, and locals
referred to him as Father Kuzmich. One tale in particular
spoke of how a student of this monk had the
chance to visit the city, where she had an opportunity
to see a portrait of Emperor Alexander. Upon returning to
her teacher, she told him that he was the spitting
image of the dead ruler. Was Father Kuzmich really Alexander
(09:24):
the first in a sort of self imposed exile. We'll
never know for sure, but it's certainly fun to imagine
it being true that a ruler as powerful as Alexander
could simply step aside, fabricate his own death and then
live out the rest of his life helping others in
the mountains as a monk. Well, it's intriguing at the
very least. Father Kuzmitch passed away in eighteen sixty four
(09:50):
after a long life of serving and teaching. Over a
century later, in nineteen eighty four, he was canonized by
the Russian Orthodox Church. Whether he was an emperor or
a hermit, the people of Russia have refused to forget him.
And the coffin of Alexander, Well, it seems that it's
been opened back up on more than one occasion. The
(10:12):
most significant of those events took place in It said
that the Soviet authorities were looking for valuables and had
opened a number of tombs to see what they could
find inside. When they reached the tomb of Alexander, they
found the royal seals on his coffin still intact. Breaking
it open, they peered inside, hoping for some lost treasure
(10:33):
or priceless jewelry that might be used to raise money. Instead,
they found something much less precious, lumps of lead weights.
Alexander's body. Assuming it had been there in the first place,
it was nowhere to be found. I hope you've enjoyed
(10:58):
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 Mankey 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
(11:21):
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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