Employee of the Month

There's some very creative thinking on display for today's tour through the Cabinet.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Menkey'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. When you meet someone for the first time,
one question they'll inevitably ask you is what do you do?
As if the job you perform for eight hours a
day is all that defines you, it doesn't matter if
you're also a spouse, a parent, a dungeon master, or

(00:50):
a glassblower. All they care about is what you get
paid to do for a living. The thing is, we
are so much more than our occupations. We as human
beings contain multitudes. We have passions and talents and people
we love who fulfill us and enrich our lives. Well.
Elizabeth Sagrew didn't have any of those things. She was

(01:11):
born in Ireland in the mid seventeen hundreds, and from
what little is known about her, she had a heck
of a temper. Her husband, a farmer, died suddenly, leaving
her to raise her two small children alone. Without a
single set to her name, Elizabeth was evicted from her home.
It's not clear why she chose to move to the
town of ross Common, one hundred and eighties six miles away,

(01:33):
but she and her children walked all the way there
to start their lives over. Her youngest sadly did not
make the trip. He succumbed to starvation and exposure, and
was most likely buried along the road. Elizabeth and her
older child Patrick, moved into a tiny house in ross Common.
They resorted to panhandling and rubbaging through trash to get by. Occasionally,

(01:55):
they'd also steal what they could from unsuspecting neighbors. The
Sagrew's develop upd quite the reputation around town. For one,
Elizabeth's bad temper made her prone to violent outbursts. Patrick
bore the brunt of these. In around sevent seventy five,
he left home for good to serve in the British Army.
He traveled to North America to serve the Crown. He

(02:15):
wrote to his mother about his travels over the years,
but his departure only sent Elizabeth spiraling inward. She got
angrier and spent much of her time in her home.
Occasionally she would take in a lodger, earning a few
pennies for a night's day. One night, a man appeared
at her doorstep, asking for room and board. He was
finally dressed and carried with him a small purse full

(02:36):
of gold coins. Elizabeth let him in as she had
done for others, allowing him to use her bed while
she slept elsewhere. But this time she took note of
the coin purse he had with him, and how all
that gold could do wonders for her. She could finally
afford proper food, maybe even a better house. The more
she thought about it, the darker her thoughts grew. That night,

(02:59):
as the man sled, she approached the bed with a
knife in her hand and stabbed him. She then relieved
his body of the gold coins. As she went through
his pockets, however, she came across some identification papers that
he was also carrying. Elizabeth read them carefully. The man
she had killed was none other than Patrick Segrew, her
eldest son. Filled with grief over the loss of her

(03:21):
only son, she fled into the nights and confessed her
crimes for all to hear. She was arrested, tried and
sentenced to death for her crimes. Alongside a rogue's gallery
of twenty other criminals. There were thieves and vandals, including
children who had gone around knocking down fence posts for fun.
Elizabeth Lady Betty, as she had come to be known,

(03:42):
would be hanged. A large crowd gathered around the gallows
to watch her pay for her crime. There was just
one problem. The hangman was homesick. With no one else
willing to take on the job, and a restless crowd
waiting to see some executions, Betty volunteered to do the
deed one I one. She sent the other twenty four
prisoners ahead of her to their deaths as she released

(04:04):
the trap door below them. Her performance that day left
an impression on the authorities. In fact, she had inadvertently
auditioned to be the regular hangman's replacement, as he eventually
died from his illness. Lady Betty lived the rest of
her life in jail. She had a garden she tended
each day, and she covered her walls and charcoal sketches
that she drew of the people she killed. Her life

(04:27):
was difficult and tragic from beginning to end, and she
died in prison in eighteen oh seven, and was buried
in an unmarked grave. The story surrounding her death is
questionable as well. According to some she died of natural causes. However,
the prevailing theory is that she was killed by another
prisoner who hit her with a rock. Elizabeth Segrew never

(04:48):
got her happy ending, but she did eventually find peace.
It's just a shame so many people had to die
for her to get there. When British Commander Robert Ross

(05:12):
marched his army into Washington, d c. The night of
August eighteen fourteen, he wasn't expecting a ghost town. You see,
President Madison and all of his government officials had already
vacated the city in preparation for the invasion. With no
one to stop him, Ross saw his opportunity for British
vengeance and ordered the burning of the White House and

(05:32):
the Capitol Building, which at that time housed the Congressional
Library in the North Wing. It had no chance against
British rockets and gunpowder, creating a blaze that claimed three
thousand books and maps. One of the few pieces to
survive was and Accounts and Receipts book from eighteen ten,
taken as a souvenir by Sir George Cockburn. When the

(05:53):
war finally ended in February of eighteen fifteen, President Madison
returned to d C, but found the city a bit
lacking in amenities. The White House and the Capitol Building
lay in ruins, and the books within nothing but ash.
And that's when former President Thomas Jefferson returned to action.
A veteran of this kind of quandary, if you will.

(06:13):
That's because in seventeen seventy, when Thomas Jefferson was just
twenty seven years old, his family home burned down, taking
with it the collection of books he had already amassed
at his young age. Naturally it was the books Jefferson
lamented losing the most. So when more books were lost
to flames in eighteen fourteen in d C, this time
with Jefferson in a position to help, that's exactly what

(06:36):
he did, offering his six thousand five volumes to the
nation for any price they deemed fair. Problem solved, right, well,
not necessarily, after all, this is politics, and nothing ever
comes easy. Before Congress could accept Jefferson's offer and make
a deal, they first had to pass a bill that
allowed them to do so. And in a tune eerily

(06:58):
familiar to the modern ear. This bill did not pass unanimously,
not even close. In fact, some Federalists didn't even want
the books, one of whom claimed that they contained too
much of Jefferson's and I quote infidel philosophy. So when
the time came to vote, there was only one thing
that counted a majority along party lines. But they got it.

(07:21):
With Congress out of the way, the US was clear
to repair the damage. They paid Jefferson twenty three thousand,
nine and fifty dollars for his collection, roughly half a
million dollars today. Now, before you go accusing Jefferson of
cashing in on the situation for a quick payday, remember
that Jefferson offered to sell for and I quote whatever
valuation they deemed fair. Besides, he had his own bills

(07:45):
to pay to. Over half of that sum was used
to pay off debts to William Short, who funded Jefferson's
nail manufactory, and to John Barnes, who covered Jefferson's kind
donation to a friend in need. By May of eighteen five,
team just two months after the conclusion of the war,
Jefferson's books were packed up in their original cases that

(08:06):
they were shelved in at Monticello, loaded into ten wagons,
and carted off to their new home in the capital.
But the story still doesn't end there. In fact, you
could say that there was still more fuel to throw
on the fire. On Christmas Eve of eighteen fifty one,
the library burned down yet again, this time at no
fault of the British, but rather a faulty chimney flew.

(08:27):
The fire destroyed nearly two thirds of the then fifty
five thousand volumes, and yes, that included most of what
Jefferson provided in eighteen fifteen. Not all is lost, though,
Remember the account book taken by Sir George Cockburn as
a souvenir in nineteen forty, It was gifted back to
the United States Government and restored to its rightful place

(08:48):
in the new and improved Library of Congress, now in
its own building. There it sits alongside over one hundred
million other books, all hoping that that old adage of
third times a charm holds true. And in case you're wondering,
despite the new building being built in it has indeed
been recently updated with modern fire prevention measures, including a

(09:12):
sprinkler system because you know, just in case. 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

(09:35):
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.
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