December 30, 2025 • 33 mins
Join Ben, Noel, Casey and returning guest Christopher Hassiotis as they continue exploring the strange life and times of George Washington in the second part of this two-part series. Listen in to learn more about Washington's weird hair routine, his bizarre, lifelong medical issues, and his family's troubling history in early America.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, fellow Ridiculous Historians, We're back. We couldn't leave you
without a dope podcast. The step two this is step two,
Step two.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is uh.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is the second part of our exploration of the
very weird life of George Washington. UH. And Nola was
remembering this.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Our pal, none other than Casey Pegram is on here
with with our returning friend of the show, Christopher Hasiotis,
and I think, dude, I think this is one of
the ones where after we recorded this, we both went
to Casey and like desperately sought his validation.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Oh love that guy.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
We're talking about George Washington's weird hair routine. We're all O,
it has to come up, I has to we I
think we also talk about the fact that there was,
as you said our intro to part one, there was
a real man behind the myth here, and he had
(01:07):
a lot of medical issues that plagued him throughout his
life that were frankly bizarre, like bizzarre.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Why don't we hear all about it? Let's roll the tape.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Ridiculous Histories a production of iHeartRadio. Don't call it a comeback,
(01:47):
Friends and Neighbors, or actually, go ahead, and please do so,
because this is part two of our continuing series on
weird George Washington Facts. Welcome to the show. My name
is Ben, my name is Noel, joined with our super
producer Casey Pegram and our returning a special guest. It's
an immense privilege to have you on the show anytime.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Christopher hassiotis what a delight to be here. Thank you,
and Ben, you've got your groove back, my friend. You're glowing,
You're absolutely glowing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
It's all the hemp, very versatile crop, very versatile crop.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes. Is that shirt you're wearing woven from hemp?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yes, yes it is, And as are my shoes and my.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Coat undergarments. Is that what you're gonna say, undergarments?
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, traded in the Mythral. I did I.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Finally upgraded from mithral to Hemp. So this is, as
we mentioned, part two of a two part series. If
you have not checked out part one of our George
Washington Facts, it's okay, don't stress out.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, just hit pause, you know, and shake your fists
at the podcast gods that list the shows in first
chronological order, and just scroll back and listen to the
show from two days ago.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, that's such a bummer when they listen them in
that reverse order.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
You know, I believe that the iHeartRadio app you can
swap things around and point them in the other direction
and start from start from earlier, and go tours later.
That's crazy talk. Who would ever do that?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
What a time to be alive.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
The industry is a morphing thing.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So we set up the basic gist of George Washington's
life in our earlier episode, and now, what do you say, gentlemen,
should we dive straight into the weird stuff?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, there's a whole bunch of strangeness to get into.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I say, let's dive down that Washington hole.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Was it the muddy hole? The muddy hole, the muddy hole,
Washington's money. Let's dive down Washington's muddy Hole.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It sounds like the worst ride at the presidential theme
park of my dreams.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Oh yeah, that's the one where there's never a line.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, Lincoln's spooky log Cabin. I think, man if I
had a lot of extra time, we could just come
up with the rides and for every single president that's
out there.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Weird glitching robot, Lincoln's spewing sparks.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
In the Ford theater.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
The taft bathtub you've got to escape taft tub, taft tub.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
That's full of old beans.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Full of old beings. Yeah, and then we get we
get weird because we would have the most fun. I
think with more obscure presidents like Pierce.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Do you think he's the most obscure?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Uh? He You know that's a matter of personal opinion,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
That's why I'm asking you maybe personally.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Oh, you're asking me personally.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
We're here, just you and me, and uh, well, I
guess no one in Casey and millions and millions of listeners.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, who is the most obscure president? I have great
fascination with those lists that come out every so often
of ranking presidents from best to worst. And they usually
don't do every single president. They usually do maybe the
top five best ones and the bottom five worst ones.
And I gotta say the bottom five are usually the
(05:04):
same couple of dudes.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, you've got the obscure ones. You've got your peer
cre Millard Fillmore. You know William McKinley, who was very
popular at the time but just kind of was forgotten,
even though he was killed and was involved in a
lot of different things. So one who's constantly at the
bottom of the list is Andrew Johnson. He's the one
who kind of after Lincoln's asassination, he took over, but
he didn't manage the situation well. He let the country fester.
(05:27):
Things were not handled well. Reconstruction was not handled in
a way that maybe looked towards future generations. But I
think a lot of Americans would be hard pressed to
name Andrew Johnson. And I gotta tell you, I think
it's because his name's a little generic.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
It is it is. It's a real uh, it's real
John Doe.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, it's just not as memorable if he had some
sort of villainous name, or if he had some sort
of name. But you know, I mean, maybe it's better
that his name is a little more kind of milk
toast and banal, because honestly, that's how some of the
things that fall apart in politics do. So it's just
sort of through no specific malice, through no ill will,
it just sort of the banality of things kind of
(06:07):
things fall apart.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
All right, So we're talking about bad presidents, where's our
boy g. Dub fallows, that's true. This is an episode
about George Washington.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Oh, I do want to point out, did you know
that Andrew Johnson never went to school?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Is this sort of like I never learned to read
and I somehow managed to become president. Turns out I was.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Bad at it.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I think the closest he got to a formal education
was when his wife taught him the basics like basic
mathematics and writing and so.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So he is one of the worst regarded presidents. So
maybe we can draw some conclusions that an intellectual curiosity
and education, these are things that are important for a president.
That the desire to learn, the admission that maybe other
people have more information than you and that you should
rely on them for information like that, that's a thing
a president should espouse to aspire to.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, I think that's solid and I don't think that's
a controversial point at all. We know that George Washington
had no problem learning from other people, and he took
advice pretty well. Segue, well done, expertly played, my friends.
I know that means you have to go first, especially
(07:16):
the part where you say.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Segwe I just see you guys know Ben's doing this
really sweet move where he's drawing his forefinger and thumb
together from them touching each other to a part in
the same cadence as he's saying, segwe it's a slow
parting of the Red Sea.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
We actually made this a two part episode because we
wanted to spend some time really focusing on that hand gesture.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
And really trying to up our vamp game.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
And whenever Christopher Haciotis joins us in the tank here,
it's just magic.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Sparks fly.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, but well that's true. Sparks did fly earlier. Noel,
you were electrocuted slightly by your headphones.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
He flew ready to make a saying that's my fault.
You do have a bit of an electric person saying
I'm not not saying that.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Is this is this part of us? Are you still
a little weirded out by the mic situation? Is this
part of a revenge scheme?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Now? What happens is I'm wearing wool socks and before
you guys came in here, I was just running back
and forwards on the rock. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Classic, we just call that. A hasiotis at the office.
You got zapped, so I will go first. This is
a little bit stranger. This is not a social activity
of George Washington, nor is it a political activity. This
is a medical fact about the guy. He was one
(08:29):
of the sickliest presidents in US history. Over the span
of his life, he suffered from diphtheria, tuberculosis, smallpox, dysentery, malaria,
kintsi which was tonslitis, carbuncle, pneumonia, and epigletitis. In fact,
he was so afflicted that people started speculating this may
(08:52):
have played a role in his infertility, because Washington did
not have issue, as they would say in the world
of aristocracy. It's well known that he had no children
of his own. In two thousand and seven, a man
named John k Amery at the University of Washington School
of Medicine proposed that it wasn't for lack of trying. Instead,
(09:13):
he said, Washington may quite possibly have been infertile, and
Armory list a number of possible reasons for this infertility,
including an infection caused by tuberculosis. We have a quote
here wherein he says classic studies of soldiers with tuberculosis
ploisi during World War Two demonstrated that two thirds developed
(09:35):
chronic organ tuberculosis within five years of their initial infection.
Infection of the epididymus or testes is seen in twenty
percent of these individuals and frequently results in infertility.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Dude, I just made a horrible mistake. I googled images
of carbuncles.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Not good.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I'm guessing you are not seeing the image of the
cute little monster from the Final Fantasy Video Games?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Is that his name?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
There was one called carbuncle?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Interesting?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Please please Ridiculous Historians correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
These are disgusting, puss filled boils that cover one's body
when it afflicted with them.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It's not a carbohydrate loving uncle.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Nope, No, this is something we will not be posting
photos of on Ridiculous Histories.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Will that be too hasty?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I'm gonna I'm not even a regular host here, but
can I put this to a vote? Do I get
a full vote? I'm gonna take I'm taking a triple vote,
and I'm voting no photos of carbuncles on Ridiculous Historians
three against two.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I support that.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I see the gentleman to my left.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
I you know, but I'm just saying, if you you know,
if you want to gross yourself out.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Just google carbuncles if.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You would have a really disturbing the more, you know,
a moment with the star flying over your head as
you throw up a little bit in your mouth. Carbuncle.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Do you think the fact that George Washington didn't have
children kind of cemented his legacy? You know, that he
didn't have kids who could kind of tarnish the Washington. Yeah,
he was he was alone. You set things in motion
and he stepped back, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Quite possibly. I mean, that's that's a very good point,
I would say.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
And it's so rare for people to do that at
that level, because I mean, they have all these idiot
sons that beyond screw it all up for him.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
You're not talking about Ben Stiller, are you.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
I'm talking about that. One of the things that I
know you hate is nepotism.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
The Adams Is.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
The Bushes, the Roosevelts.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Look, well, those guys are like distant cousins. You can't
really I mean they came from a big, big family.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I know. But name recognition is still key now I will.
I totally see your point there, Christopher. Just like a
Justice Kennedy is not related to the former president Kennedy. True, right,
So there shouldn't be any law barring them from occupying
positions of power. You know what I mean. I'm just
saying that it's very strange to explain to someone from
(11:54):
another country or another culture that this is purportedly a maritimeocracy,
and then say in the same breath that despite being
a meritocracy, through some amazing coincidence, the most qualified people
for a job happened to be related to each other
pretty often. But that just further underlines the point that
(12:18):
you make with Washington. Perhaps he was a safe figure
to mythologize. While he did not have children, one thing
that he did have was a non consensual workforce.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
That's true. One of the things I wanted to talk
about was Washington's slaveholding. It's not really a happy topic
because we're talking about enslaved people, but it's a fact
of life at the time, especially for landowners, and Washington
had control over hundreds of slaves, more than three hundred people.
Washington gets a lot of credit for quote unquote freeing
(12:57):
his slaves in his will. That's one thing that people
who defend the practice of enslaving others when it comes
to Washington, who is rightly revered as one of the
fathers of our country and who put a lot of
great systems in motion, but that doesn't change the fact
that he ran this giant plantation, and a plantation of
that size in what's sort of the South at the
(13:20):
time was run essentially on the free labor of enslaved Africans,
and at the time of his death, Washington owned more
than three hundred slaves. He inherited his first slave at eleven,
when his father passed away. So you had this young man,
George Washington, who was born into a life of maintaining
(13:42):
control over other human beings. When he passed in seventeen
ninety nine, he had one hundred and twenty three slaves
who were legally his, and then there were one hundred
and ninety three that he also controlled that were known
as dower slaves. And what that means is they were
technically legally owned by his wife, Martha. Now Martha married
George when she was twenty five. She was a widow
(14:03):
at the time, and she had taken on slaves both
from her own family and from her ex husband who
passed away. So it's really really interesting and it can
be kind of fascinating to look at the legal structure
of slavery until you remember that we're talking about actual
human beings. But the way that slavery and the legality
(14:25):
of who owns what was structured in the seventeen hundreds
is it's just to me, it's so odd that you
can be talking about a human being in this way.
So the one hundred and twenty three slaves that Washington
himself had, they were matched with one hundred and ninety three,
which were legally Martha's but as a married couple, were
legally controlled by George. And there's all this strange legally
(14:48):
is that when George or Martha dies, certain segments of
the Washingtonian slaves are passed to a grandchild or a cousin,
and it all depends on this sort of weird patriarchal
but then also matrilineal lignage of ownership of another person.
But there is one enslaved person that I want to
talk about, and that's Ony Judge. Now, Ony Judge is
(15:10):
one of the most well known enslaved people involved in
in Washington, and that's because she escaped. She was able
to tell her story to abolitionist newspapers at the time
and got her account out there. Now, what makes this
such a strange bit of history is that Ony Judge
was a slave that Washington pursued until the end of
(15:31):
his life. She got away. And if you listened to
the episode from last week, Noel talked about how Washington's
thoughts on slavery were somewhat liberal and they evolved over time.
And that's true. He did grow to oppose the idea
of slavery, the idea of holding other people in bondage,
but he never freed his own slaves. He still kept
(15:51):
them enslaved. He used their free labor, and he built
his fortune and his empire, whether it was a large
fortune or not, on the labor of others. So let's
talk about Onnie Judge. She was born in seventeen seventy three.
She probably came into the Washington family when she was
around ten or eleven and was purchased as a playmate,
it's thought for one of the family members. Now, Oni
(16:13):
has her own interesting history. Her father was a British businessman.
He was white, but he never acknowledged paternity, and so
she was able to be sold into slavery, and that's
where she comes in Now. In seventeen ninety six, Oni
learned that she was going to be gifted to Washington's granddaughter.
(16:34):
And when we talk about the granddaughters of Washington, basically
we're talking about the children of Martha Washington and kind
of her her folks, because as we just mentioned, George
himself never had any kids. And so in seventeen ninety six,
only learns that she's going to be gifted presented as
a wedding present to these new newlyweds. So she escapes
(16:55):
in May of seventeen ninety six, she flies the coup.
For a couple of years, she's free, but a couple
years later she's spotted in New Hampshire, and this whole
time the Washington family is after her. They've lost property.
Despite the fact that Washington had mixed feelings about slavery,
it seems like from the historical record that a lot
of his family, including Martha, did not have mixed feelings,
(17:17):
and they felt pretty strongly that enslaved Africans were their
property and were owned wholly by them. So they took
out ads in local papers advertising a reward for the
return of Onnie, and a couple years later she's spotted
in New Hampshire, and Washington reaches out to a friend
of his in New Hampshire and asks him to abduct
Onie to return this person back to Mount Vernon, And
(17:40):
so you know, he's encouraging kidnapping. At the time, he
probably saw it as a return of property. But the
thing about Washington and his slaveholding is it wasn't as straightforward.
It wasn't wholly villainous as it's easy to paint, but
it's also wasn't wholly by the books. Washington was pretty
eager to skirt some of the laws when it came
(18:02):
to slavery. When he was president, he was living in Philadelphia,
which at the time was the capital of the United States.
In Pennsylvania had certain laws for slaveholders and citizens of
Pennsylvania because at the time different states had their own citizenship.
Washington argued, though, that he was a citizen of Virginia
so that he didn't have to abide by some of
(18:23):
the slavery laws of Pennsylvania. He also would rotate his
slaves between the home in Pennsylvania and Virginia for periods
of time of less than six months, just moving them
around like property so that they would not qualify or
meet certain criteria under Pennsylvania law. So this is a
(18:43):
man who saw financial assets, who pursued them as they escaped,
and until his death he tried to get Onie back. Thankfully,
Onie was never returned. She was captured at one point,
and she tried to negotiate with Washington. She said she
sent message saying, look, I will willingly be returned to
(19:06):
enslavement with your family if you promise that upon your
death and the death of Martha, I am free. And
Washington didn't even negotiate. He said, I'm not even going
to consider these demands because doing so would set a
bad precedent, and this is not you don't negotiate with property. Essentially. Wow, yeah,
and I wish there were a happy ending to this story.
(19:29):
There's also not a sad ending to the story. Oni.
Eventually she stayed in New Hampshire. She was not returned
to the Washington family. She married a sailor named Jack Stains.
Over their married life, they had three kids, who then
had their own children. But the fact of the matter
is that throughout the rest of her life, even though
she had escaped enslavement by the Washington family, she lived
(19:51):
as a fugitive under the Fugitive Slave Act, which Washington
signed into law, and until her dying day in eighteen
forty eight, she lived as a as a fugitive. There
was always, always, always a chance that she could be
taken back to Virginia.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
It's terrifying way to live. I can't imagine.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
So, no, not a happy ending at all.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Huh No. And it's you know, I don't I don't
want to tarnish the legacy of a great American, but
we also don't need to look back and over mythologize someone.
I think it's more accurate to look at history as
it was, to look at the man as he was,
and to acknowledge that this was part of a complicated
life and he had complicated feelings. And as America has
(20:32):
evolved and continues to evolve, so too did Washington, just
just not at the pace that that it would be
nice to acknowledge. You know again, people say that he
freed all of his slaves in his will. The fact
of the matter is that after he died, of those
more than three hundred slaves that he had control over,
only one, a man named William Lee, was set free.
(20:56):
Martha dragged things out. For a lot of the other
hundreds of slaves, they were still enslaved for decades. Eventually
some of them gained their freedom. But again we're talking five, ten,
fifteen years. So despite George Washington's will and his desire
to set his slaves free, which I might add, is
(21:17):
after he's left this earth and after he has to
deal with the ramifications of what that means, he's still
throughout his life benefited from their free labor. It still
took years and years and years for the people that
he enslaved to find their freedom.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
And we would be remiss if we did not point
out these facts. You know, I think it is It
is an unpleasant and disturbing part of the story. But
I believe that same disturbing aspect is what makes it
crucial that we not just us on the show, not
(21:52):
just us listening, but we as a country remember what happened.
I've got to say, Christopher, I feel that I feel
it would be weird for us to end on such
a very serious, somber note. What what do you think
(22:13):
you're you're the guest today, what do you think about
us exploring one more strange George Washington fact.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean again, it's a man contains multitudes,
and there's a lot to George Washington, and he's one
of the foundational characters of our country and there's so
much to know about him. So yeah, like, let's turn
to Noel. No, let's can you can you dig us
out of this slavery hole?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, muddy hole?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeah, yeah, only our original idea of the muddy hole
is much more whimsical.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, I'm not so, you know now I'm not as
on board as it was with finding this guy a
cool middle name.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
No, no, So we all know the classic Washingtonian look,
the profile, you know, with the appears to be a
powdered wig of some sort.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
That's what they all wore at the time.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Peruke, Well done, Christ except for Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Benjamin Franklin just had kind of a broad top and
a bit of a greasy ponytail in the back. The
ponytail was the height of fashion at the time. But
here's the thing, and again, that profile. You you probably
know it well from those dollar bills, you were least thing.
That's not a profile and dollar bill, it's a profile.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
In the quarter. But on the dollar bill.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
It's it's a three quarter kind of and then you
know you've got your creepy pyramid eye. But that's a
whole other thing.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
We did a whole episode on that on our other
show Stuff they Don't want you to Know, and actually
took it on the road, so we know the creepy
pyramid eye. Well, the eye of Horace, I believe, right, Ben,
that's one interpretation. That's right, that's true. Listening to the
show to to find out more. But no, it turns
out that that weird peruke looking do that Washington was
supporting was not, in fact a wig. Those were his
(23:56):
natural hairs, and he went to great lengths to quaff
them as such. Just well, no, it didn't grow like
that he had that would be nice. He had quite
a regiment when it came to his keeping up his appearances,
so let me get me run through some of them
real quick. That his hair actually was more of kind
(24:17):
of a reddish brown. And here's the thing too, about
that particular haird of the time, it was a really
big deal. People liked to show as much forehead as possible.
That was like a sign of strength or something.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Intelligence.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Intelligence you had.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Like you know, a big, big, broad forehead. So in
order to do that, the reason they bound their hair
back in those ponytails was because it literally pulled, you know,
tightened it up and pulled the.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Brow up so you'd have more brow on display.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
And the thought of the Klingons.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Exactly or else they would have loved face lifts. Can
you imagine, Yeah, Founding father facelifts. That's a reality show
waiting to happen right there, at least a spoof reality.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Sounds like a website too, it's Founding fathers facelifts dot.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Com and hard to say ten times fast fizz.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
But his hair was quite in fashion. It was kind
of a tough hairdo right.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Very much so. Yeah, and it wasn't a wig.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
But he powdered it as in the same way that
these perukes would be powdered. But there's the crazy part
about it. In order to do this, you know, this stuff,
it would be a couple of different potential types of powder.
Could be anything from talcum powder to other kind of
crushed up earth minerals that were a little more expensive,
which is more likely what he would have used.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Would they have done chalk? You think shock is.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Another possibility the bones of the British.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
That would be cool.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
I have nothing to confirm or deny that possibly asbestos.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Yeah, But here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
When he was doing it, in order to keep it
from you know, going up his quite sizable schnause and
you know, down his throat, he wore like a weird
cone on his face, like a like a rolled up
paper cone that he would hold over his face while
applying this powder. And he applied the power plaster of
(26:08):
Paris was another option route.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
What happened if it rained?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Oh man, there's so many questions. What we're going to
get to that. So in order to apply this stuff,
he would use almost like a makeup brush made of
silk strips that were bound together in a bunch. So
he would dip this into the powder and then just
douse himself with it, you know, and when his face
would be covered up, and he'd also be wearing something
called a powder robe, and that would keep it off
(26:32):
of his clothes.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I feel like you need a whole powder room. Otherwise,
Christopher huss powder everywhere, and I guess that is a thing.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
So you're thinking of the powder room more like Dexter's
kill room. It's just covered in plow rumors by friend.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Oh man, we're we're on a roll here.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
But what a mess, right, an absolute mess.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
You know, you're totally right, my friend, because even though
he was wearing his powder robe, what was to keep
this powder from just dusting every surface, you know, in
the vicinity.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
And he's wearing this weird sort of it looks almost
like a plague mask thing to cover his heath exactly.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
So it's a very odd situation to walk in on,
and he's doing it to himself, presumably, that's everything I've
read says he would this was his morning routine.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
So he would powder.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
The hell out of his hair that was already dulled
up in this dew, and then he would curl the
sides up into these kind of winglets, this little like
a little kind of they'd stick out, you know, like
little ridges, a little shelves on the side. In order
to do that, he'd use palmade, you know, get it
all nice and greasy, and it would hold its shape. So, yeah,
(27:36):
he got his hair so saturated with his powder that
it didn't look like it was just kind of dusted.
I mean, it was just white as the driven snow.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Here's the thing too.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
This is a question that was raised in this fantastic
article that had really great company illustrations by Wendy McNaughton
for National Geographic, that has these really great cartoons showing
him what it must have looked like for him to
be doing this.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I cannot recommend this highly enough.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
It's called George Washington's Oh So Mysterious Hair.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
No will you? Will you post that on the ridiculous
Historian space.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Under the carbuncles? That's a callback.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
It's a callback, and that is going to remain a
carbuncle free zone if I have anything to do with it.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Ben. But here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
A question that she raises in this article is, well,
how the hell did he keep this off his clothes?
In all of these portraits of him, he looks so pristine,
and you would think that this stuff would just be
flaking off.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Everything flaking off. I mean, you're wearing these tight clothes
made of wool in with the American South, are you not.
I would be sweating buckets and just have white powder
dripping down down.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah, it does seem like it would be very gross.
And there is one portrait by Adolph Ulrich Wertmueller, who
depicts him with some kind of little dandruffy flakes on
one show on one lapel like that of humanity, Touch
of humanity. So there you go. He had a weird
hair routine.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
So and the lesson is that the portraits are not
always a accurate representation of what someone might really look like. Well,
that's true.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
And at the end of the day, I mean, you're
sort of beholden to the person that's paying you to
paint their portrait.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
So listeners, please do not run into the National Portrait
Gallery and throw a little flex of white paint on
anything that you think would be more historically accurate.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
And there we have it. George Washington, first President of
the United States, whiskey, tycoon, dabbler and hemp, a freemason,
extraordinary slave owner, and a man with very, very strict
priorities regarding his hair.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
It's very true.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
No middle name, no middle name.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
What else? What were some of the little trivia bits
from the top.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Well, he's got his you know, his terrific title in
the military that he will forever and always be Supreme Commander.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
General of the Armies of the United States. Did you
mention the carbuncles that he's crusted with, but.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Krusty, sickly man.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
They're not clear on how how inundated he was with carbuncles.
We can only hope that it was.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
If these Google images have anything to say about it,
it was a real nightmare.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I gotta say, Ben, you mentioned him as one of
the sickliest presidents and listed out a litany of maladies
he'd been inflicted with. But if he survived all those things,
I'd say he's pretty strong, and maybe we should wrap
up by talking about these somewhat ridiculous way in which
he died. He did have all these maladies, but in
seventeen ninety nine, back in December, what historians think really
(30:33):
killed him is a doctor medical malpractice. Yes, a doctor
who basically overbled him, drained him too much.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
And we already know that blood letting was a very
stupid remedy.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And he was he was too blood let Yeah, yeah,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
We have the specifics here too. It was a guy
named all Ben Rawlins who all in all, after four
rounds of blood letting, removed something like five pints of
blood from the president.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
That doctor Albin.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I know, I know, I'm glad that blood letting is
not a common practice in medical centers today.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Do you think he got in trouble?
Speaker 1 (31:13):
I don't know. It's a it's a good question because
I think there have been some other presidents who died
as a result of well intentioned medical intervention.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Well, that's why they call it practicing medicine.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
That's why they call it practicing medicine. Indeed, And on
that note, we hope you enjoyed our two part series,
A Weird George Washington Facts, which does count technically until
we do another one as our Washington episode in a
bizarre series of circumstances. Christopher, thank you so much for
(31:45):
dropping by. It is always an immense pleasure.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I'm happy to count myself among the two of you
as practicing podcasters.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
We do our best to keep our podcasting chops sharp,
well practiced.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Thank you, sir, and thank you to our super producer,
Casey Pegram. Thank you to Alexilliams who composed our track.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Thank you to Gabe, our delightful research associate, and of course,
thank you to our wonderful guest Christopher Hasciotis and dear
friend for as always lighting up the room, sparking up
our lives, giving Ben his groove back after you took
it away.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Truly, truly, truly, this is something that sparks joy.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Oh boy. Well, if you want to continue the conversation,
if you want to check out some of the things
that we have mentioned other than carbuncles, you can visit
us on the internet. We're on Instagram, We're on Facebook,
We're on Twitter, that's the other one. You can find
our favorite partner show your fellow Ridiculous Historians on our
Facebook community page Ridiculous Historians. If you want to see
(32:40):
some pictures of very strange misadventures, I will be having shortly.
Follow me on Instagram. I'm at Ben Bowen.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
And i am at Embryonic Insider.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Find me over at Haciotis Hassiotis.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Christopher will be having some incredible adventures in podcasting coming
down the pikes in the near future.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I will keep you all super updated.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Please do. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Oh, fellow Ridiculous Historians, We're back. We couldn't leave you
without a dope podcast. The step two this is step two,
Step two.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is uh.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is the second part of our exploration of the
very weird life of George Washington. UH. And Nola was
remembering this.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Our pal, none other than Casey Pegram is on here
with with our returning friend of the show, Christopher Hasiotis,
and I think, dude, I think this is one of
the ones where after we recorded this, we both went
to Casey and like desperately sought his validation.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Oh love that guy.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
We're talking about George Washington's weird hair routine. We're all O,
it has to come up, I has to we I
think we also talk about the fact that there was,
as you said our intro to part one, there was
a real man behind the myth here, and he had
(01:07):
a lot of medical issues that plagued him throughout his
life that were frankly bizarre, like bizzarre.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Why don't we hear all about it? Let's roll the tape.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Ridiculous Histories a production of iHeartRadio. Don't call it a comeback,
(01:47):
Friends and Neighbors, or actually, go ahead, and please do so,
because this is part two of our continuing series on
weird George Washington Facts. Welcome to the show. My name
is Ben, my name is Noel, joined with our super
producer Casey Pegram and our returning a special guest. It's
an immense privilege to have you on the show anytime.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Christopher hassiotis what a delight to be here. Thank you,
and Ben, you've got your groove back, my friend. You're glowing,
You're absolutely glowing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
It's all the hemp, very versatile crop, very versatile crop.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes. Is that shirt you're wearing woven from hemp?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yes, yes it is, And as are my shoes and my.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Coat undergarments. Is that what you're gonna say, undergarments?
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, traded in the Mythral. I did I.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Finally upgraded from mithral to Hemp. So this is, as
we mentioned, part two of a two part series. If
you have not checked out part one of our George
Washington Facts, it's okay, don't stress out.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, just hit pause, you know, and shake your fists
at the podcast gods that list the shows in first
chronological order, and just scroll back and listen to the
show from two days ago.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, that's such a bummer when they listen them in
that reverse order.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
You know, I believe that the iHeartRadio app you can
swap things around and point them in the other direction
and start from start from earlier, and go tours later.
That's crazy talk. Who would ever do that?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
What a time to be alive.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
The industry is a morphing thing.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So we set up the basic gist of George Washington's
life in our earlier episode, and now, what do you say, gentlemen,
should we dive straight into the weird stuff?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, there's a whole bunch of strangeness to get into.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I say, let's dive down that Washington hole.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Was it the muddy hole? The muddy hole, the muddy hole,
Washington's money. Let's dive down Washington's muddy Hole.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It sounds like the worst ride at the presidential theme
park of my dreams.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Oh yeah, that's the one where there's never a line.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, Lincoln's spooky log Cabin. I think, man if I
had a lot of extra time, we could just come
up with the rides and for every single president that's
out there.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Weird glitching robot, Lincoln's spewing sparks.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
In the Ford theater.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
The taft bathtub you've got to escape taft tub, taft tub.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
That's full of old beans.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Full of old beings. Yeah, and then we get we
get weird because we would have the most fun. I
think with more obscure presidents like Pierce.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Do you think he's the most obscure?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Uh? He You know that's a matter of personal opinion,
isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
That's why I'm asking you maybe personally.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Oh, you're asking me personally.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
We're here, just you and me, and uh, well, I
guess no one in Casey and millions and millions of listeners.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, who is the most obscure president? I have great
fascination with those lists that come out every so often
of ranking presidents from best to worst. And they usually
don't do every single president. They usually do maybe the
top five best ones and the bottom five worst ones.
And I gotta say the bottom five are usually the
(05:04):
same couple of dudes.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, you've got the obscure ones. You've got your peer
cre Millard Fillmore. You know William McKinley, who was very
popular at the time but just kind of was forgotten,
even though he was killed and was involved in a
lot of different things. So one who's constantly at the
bottom of the list is Andrew Johnson. He's the one
who kind of after Lincoln's asassination, he took over, but
he didn't manage the situation well. He let the country fester.
(05:27):
Things were not handled well. Reconstruction was not handled in
a way that maybe looked towards future generations. But I
think a lot of Americans would be hard pressed to
name Andrew Johnson. And I gotta tell you, I think
it's because his name's a little generic.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
It is it is. It's a real uh, it's real
John Doe.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, it's just not as memorable if he had some
sort of villainous name, or if he had some sort
of name. But you know, I mean, maybe it's better
that his name is a little more kind of milk
toast and banal, because honestly, that's how some of the
things that fall apart in politics do. So it's just
sort of through no specific malice, through no ill will,
it just sort of the banality of things kind of
(06:07):
things fall apart.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
All right, So we're talking about bad presidents, where's our
boy g. Dub fallows, that's true. This is an episode
about George Washington.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Oh, I do want to point out, did you know
that Andrew Johnson never went to school?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Is this sort of like I never learned to read
and I somehow managed to become president. Turns out I was.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Bad at it.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I think the closest he got to a formal education
was when his wife taught him the basics like basic
mathematics and writing and so.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So he is one of the worst regarded presidents. So
maybe we can draw some conclusions that an intellectual curiosity
and education, these are things that are important for a president.
That the desire to learn, the admission that maybe other
people have more information than you and that you should
rely on them for information like that, that's a thing
a president should espouse to aspire to.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, I think that's solid and I don't think that's
a controversial point at all. We know that George Washington
had no problem learning from other people, and he took
advice pretty well. Segue, well done, expertly played, my friends.
I know that means you have to go first, especially
(07:16):
the part where you say.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Segwe I just see you guys know Ben's doing this
really sweet move where he's drawing his forefinger and thumb
together from them touching each other to a part in
the same cadence as he's saying, segwe it's a slow
parting of the Red Sea.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
We actually made this a two part episode because we
wanted to spend some time really focusing on that hand gesture.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
And really trying to up our vamp game.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
And whenever Christopher Haciotis joins us in the tank here,
it's just magic.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Sparks fly.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, but well that's true. Sparks did fly earlier. Noel,
you were electrocuted slightly by your headphones.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
He flew ready to make a saying that's my fault.
You do have a bit of an electric person saying
I'm not not saying that.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Is this is this part of us? Are you still
a little weirded out by the mic situation? Is this
part of a revenge scheme?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Now? What happens is I'm wearing wool socks and before
you guys came in here, I was just running back
and forwards on the rock. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Classic, we just call that. A hasiotis at the office.
You got zapped, so I will go first. This is
a little bit stranger. This is not a social activity
of George Washington, nor is it a political activity. This
is a medical fact about the guy. He was one
(08:29):
of the sickliest presidents in US history. Over the span
of his life, he suffered from diphtheria, tuberculosis, smallpox, dysentery, malaria,
kintsi which was tonslitis, carbuncle, pneumonia, and epigletitis. In fact,
he was so afflicted that people started speculating this may
(08:52):
have played a role in his infertility, because Washington did
not have issue, as they would say in the world
of aristocracy. It's well known that he had no children
of his own. In two thousand and seven, a man
named John k Amery at the University of Washington School
of Medicine proposed that it wasn't for lack of trying. Instead,
(09:13):
he said, Washington may quite possibly have been infertile, and
Armory list a number of possible reasons for this infertility,
including an infection caused by tuberculosis. We have a quote
here wherein he says classic studies of soldiers with tuberculosis
ploisi during World War Two demonstrated that two thirds developed
(09:35):
chronic organ tuberculosis within five years of their initial infection.
Infection of the epididymus or testes is seen in twenty
percent of these individuals and frequently results in infertility.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Dude, I just made a horrible mistake. I googled images
of carbuncles.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Not good.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I'm guessing you are not seeing the image of the
cute little monster from the Final Fantasy Video Games?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Is that his name?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
There was one called carbuncle?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Interesting?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Please please Ridiculous Historians correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
These are disgusting, puss filled boils that cover one's body
when it afflicted with them.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It's not a carbohydrate loving uncle.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Nope, No, this is something we will not be posting
photos of on Ridiculous Histories.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Will that be too hasty?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I'm gonna I'm not even a regular host here, but
can I put this to a vote? Do I get
a full vote? I'm gonna take I'm taking a triple vote,
and I'm voting no photos of carbuncles on Ridiculous Historians
three against two.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I support that.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I see the gentleman to my left.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
I you know, but I'm just saying, if you you know,
if you want to gross yourself out.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Just google carbuncles if.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You would have a really disturbing the more, you know,
a moment with the star flying over your head as
you throw up a little bit in your mouth. Carbuncle.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Do you think the fact that George Washington didn't have
children kind of cemented his legacy? You know, that he
didn't have kids who could kind of tarnish the Washington. Yeah,
he was he was alone. You set things in motion
and he stepped back, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Quite possibly. I mean, that's that's a very good point,
I would say.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
And it's so rare for people to do that at
that level, because I mean, they have all these idiot
sons that beyond screw it all up for him.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
You're not talking about Ben Stiller, are you.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
I'm talking about that. One of the things that I
know you hate is nepotism.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
The Adams Is.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
The Bushes, the Roosevelts.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Look, well, those guys are like distant cousins. You can't
really I mean they came from a big, big family.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I know. But name recognition is still key now I will.
I totally see your point there, Christopher. Just like a
Justice Kennedy is not related to the former president Kennedy. True, right,
So there shouldn't be any law barring them from occupying
positions of power. You know what I mean. I'm just
saying that it's very strange to explain to someone from
(11:54):
another country or another culture that this is purportedly a maritimeocracy,
and then say in the same breath that despite being
a meritocracy, through some amazing coincidence, the most qualified people
for a job happened to be related to each other
pretty often. But that just further underlines the point that
(12:18):
you make with Washington. Perhaps he was a safe figure
to mythologize. While he did not have children, one thing
that he did have was a non consensual workforce.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
That's true. One of the things I wanted to talk
about was Washington's slaveholding. It's not really a happy topic
because we're talking about enslaved people, but it's a fact
of life at the time, especially for landowners, and Washington
had control over hundreds of slaves, more than three hundred people.
Washington gets a lot of credit for quote unquote freeing
(12:57):
his slaves in his will. That's one thing that people
who defend the practice of enslaving others when it comes
to Washington, who is rightly revered as one of the
fathers of our country and who put a lot of
great systems in motion, but that doesn't change the fact
that he ran this giant plantation, and a plantation of
that size in what's sort of the South at the
(13:20):
time was run essentially on the free labor of enslaved Africans,
and at the time of his death, Washington owned more
than three hundred slaves. He inherited his first slave at eleven,
when his father passed away. So you had this young man,
George Washington, who was born into a life of maintaining
(13:42):
control over other human beings. When he passed in seventeen
ninety nine, he had one hundred and twenty three slaves
who were legally his, and then there were one hundred
and ninety three that he also controlled that were known
as dower slaves. And what that means is they were
technically legally owned by his wife, Martha. Now Martha married
George when she was twenty five. She was a widow
(14:03):
at the time, and she had taken on slaves both
from her own family and from her ex husband who
passed away. So it's really really interesting and it can
be kind of fascinating to look at the legal structure
of slavery until you remember that we're talking about actual
human beings. But the way that slavery and the legality
(14:25):
of who owns what was structured in the seventeen hundreds
is it's just to me, it's so odd that you
can be talking about a human being in this way.
So the one hundred and twenty three slaves that Washington
himself had, they were matched with one hundred and ninety three,
which were legally Martha's but as a married couple, were
legally controlled by George. And there's all this strange legally
(14:48):
is that when George or Martha dies, certain segments of
the Washingtonian slaves are passed to a grandchild or a cousin,
and it all depends on this sort of weird patriarchal
but then also matrilineal lignage of ownership of another person.
But there is one enslaved person that I want to
talk about, and that's Ony Judge. Now, Ony Judge is
(15:10):
one of the most well known enslaved people involved in
in Washington, and that's because she escaped. She was able
to tell her story to abolitionist newspapers at the time
and got her account out there. Now, what makes this
such a strange bit of history is that Ony Judge
was a slave that Washington pursued until the end of
(15:31):
his life. She got away. And if you listened to
the episode from last week, Noel talked about how Washington's
thoughts on slavery were somewhat liberal and they evolved over time.
And that's true. He did grow to oppose the idea
of slavery, the idea of holding other people in bondage,
but he never freed his own slaves. He still kept
(15:51):
them enslaved. He used their free labor, and he built
his fortune and his empire, whether it was a large
fortune or not, on the labor of others. So let's
talk about Onnie Judge. She was born in seventeen seventy three.
She probably came into the Washington family when she was
around ten or eleven and was purchased as a playmate,
it's thought for one of the family members. Now, Oni
(16:13):
has her own interesting history. Her father was a British businessman.
He was white, but he never acknowledged paternity, and so
she was able to be sold into slavery, and that's
where she comes in Now. In seventeen ninety six, Oni
learned that she was going to be gifted to Washington's granddaughter.
(16:34):
And when we talk about the granddaughters of Washington, basically
we're talking about the children of Martha Washington and kind
of her her folks, because as we just mentioned, George
himself never had any kids. And so in seventeen ninety six,
only learns that she's going to be gifted presented as
a wedding present to these new newlyweds. So she escapes
(16:55):
in May of seventeen ninety six, she flies the coup.
For a couple of years, she's free, but a couple
years later she's spotted in New Hampshire, and this whole
time the Washington family is after her. They've lost property.
Despite the fact that Washington had mixed feelings about slavery,
it seems like from the historical record that a lot
of his family, including Martha, did not have mixed feelings,
(17:17):
and they felt pretty strongly that enslaved Africans were their
property and were owned wholly by them. So they took
out ads in local papers advertising a reward for the
return of Onnie, and a couple years later she's spotted
in New Hampshire, and Washington reaches out to a friend
of his in New Hampshire and asks him to abduct
Onie to return this person back to Mount Vernon, And
(17:40):
so you know, he's encouraging kidnapping. At the time, he
probably saw it as a return of property. But the
thing about Washington and his slaveholding is it wasn't as straightforward.
It wasn't wholly villainous as it's easy to paint, but
it's also wasn't wholly by the books. Washington was pretty
eager to skirt some of the laws when it came
(18:02):
to slavery. When he was president, he was living in Philadelphia,
which at the time was the capital of the United States.
In Pennsylvania had certain laws for slaveholders and citizens of
Pennsylvania because at the time different states had their own citizenship.
Washington argued, though, that he was a citizen of Virginia
so that he didn't have to abide by some of
(18:23):
the slavery laws of Pennsylvania. He also would rotate his
slaves between the home in Pennsylvania and Virginia for periods
of time of less than six months, just moving them
around like property so that they would not qualify or
meet certain criteria under Pennsylvania law. So this is a
(18:43):
man who saw financial assets, who pursued them as they escaped,
and until his death he tried to get Onie back. Thankfully,
Onie was never returned. She was captured at one point,
and she tried to negotiate with Washington. She said she
sent message saying, look, I will willingly be returned to
(19:06):
enslavement with your family if you promise that upon your
death and the death of Martha, I am free. And
Washington didn't even negotiate. He said, I'm not even going
to consider these demands because doing so would set a
bad precedent, and this is not you don't negotiate with property. Essentially. Wow, yeah,
and I wish there were a happy ending to this story.
(19:29):
There's also not a sad ending to the story. Oni.
Eventually she stayed in New Hampshire. She was not returned
to the Washington family. She married a sailor named Jack Stains.
Over their married life, they had three kids, who then
had their own children. But the fact of the matter
is that throughout the rest of her life, even though
she had escaped enslavement by the Washington family, she lived
(19:51):
as a fugitive under the Fugitive Slave Act, which Washington
signed into law, and until her dying day in eighteen
forty eight, she lived as a as a fugitive. There
was always, always, always a chance that she could be
taken back to Virginia.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
It's terrifying way to live. I can't imagine.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
So, no, not a happy ending at all.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Huh No. And it's you know, I don't I don't
want to tarnish the legacy of a great American, but
we also don't need to look back and over mythologize someone.
I think it's more accurate to look at history as
it was, to look at the man as he was,
and to acknowledge that this was part of a complicated
life and he had complicated feelings. And as America has
(20:32):
evolved and continues to evolve, so too did Washington, just
just not at the pace that that it would be
nice to acknowledge. You know again, people say that he
freed all of his slaves in his will. The fact
of the matter is that after he died, of those
more than three hundred slaves that he had control over,
only one, a man named William Lee, was set free.
(20:56):
Martha dragged things out. For a lot of the other
hundreds of slaves, they were still enslaved for decades. Eventually
some of them gained their freedom. But again we're talking five, ten,
fifteen years. So despite George Washington's will and his desire
to set his slaves free, which I might add, is
(21:17):
after he's left this earth and after he has to
deal with the ramifications of what that means, he's still
throughout his life benefited from their free labor. It still
took years and years and years for the people that
he enslaved to find their freedom.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
And we would be remiss if we did not point
out these facts. You know, I think it is It
is an unpleasant and disturbing part of the story. But
I believe that same disturbing aspect is what makes it
crucial that we not just us on the show, not
(21:52):
just us listening, but we as a country remember what happened.
I've got to say, Christopher, I feel that I feel
it would be weird for us to end on such
a very serious, somber note. What what do you think
(22:13):
you're you're the guest today, what do you think about
us exploring one more strange George Washington fact.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean again, it's a man contains multitudes,
and there's a lot to George Washington, and he's one
of the foundational characters of our country and there's so
much to know about him. So yeah, like, let's turn
to Noel. No, let's can you can you dig us
out of this slavery hole?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, muddy hole?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeah, yeah, only our original idea of the muddy hole
is much more whimsical.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yeah, I'm not so, you know now I'm not as
on board as it was with finding this guy a
cool middle name.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
No, no, So we all know the classic Washingtonian look,
the profile, you know, with the appears to be a
powdered wig of some sort.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
That's what they all wore at the time.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Peruke, Well done, Christ except for Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Benjamin Franklin just had kind of a broad top and
a bit of a greasy ponytail in the back. The
ponytail was the height of fashion at the time. But
here's the thing, and again, that profile. You you probably
know it well from those dollar bills, you were least thing.
That's not a profile and dollar bill, it's a profile.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
In the quarter. But on the dollar bill.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
It's it's a three quarter kind of and then you
know you've got your creepy pyramid eye. But that's a
whole other thing.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
We did a whole episode on that on our other
show Stuff they Don't want you to Know, and actually
took it on the road, so we know the creepy
pyramid eye. Well, the eye of Horace, I believe, right, Ben,
that's one interpretation. That's right, that's true. Listening to the
show to to find out more. But no, it turns
out that that weird peruke looking do that Washington was
supporting was not, in fact a wig. Those were his
(23:56):
natural hairs, and he went to great lengths to quaff
them as such. Just well, no, it didn't grow like
that he had that would be nice. He had quite
a regiment when it came to his keeping up his appearances,
so let me get me run through some of them
real quick. That his hair actually was more of kind
(24:17):
of a reddish brown. And here's the thing too, about
that particular haird of the time, it was a really
big deal. People liked to show as much forehead as possible.
That was like a sign of strength or something.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Intelligence.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Intelligence you had.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Like you know, a big, big, broad forehead. So in
order to do that, the reason they bound their hair
back in those ponytails was because it literally pulled, you know,
tightened it up and pulled the.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Brow up so you'd have more brow on display.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
And the thought of the Klingons.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Exactly or else they would have loved face lifts. Can
you imagine, Yeah, Founding father facelifts. That's a reality show
waiting to happen right there, at least a spoof reality.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Sounds like a website too, it's Founding fathers facelifts dot.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Com and hard to say ten times fast fizz.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
But his hair was quite in fashion. It was kind
of a tough hairdo right.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Very much so. Yeah, and it wasn't a wig.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
But he powdered it as in the same way that
these perukes would be powdered. But there's the crazy part
about it. In order to do this, you know, this stuff,
it would be a couple of different potential types of powder.
Could be anything from talcum powder to other kind of
crushed up earth minerals that were a little more expensive,
which is more likely what he would have used.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Would they have done chalk? You think shock is.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Another possibility the bones of the British.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
That would be cool.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
I have nothing to confirm or deny that possibly asbestos.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Yeah, But here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
When he was doing it, in order to keep it
from you know, going up his quite sizable schnause and
you know, down his throat, he wore like a weird
cone on his face, like a like a rolled up
paper cone that he would hold over his face while
applying this powder. And he applied the power plaster of
(26:08):
Paris was another option route.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
What happened if it rained?
Speaker 4 (26:10):
Oh man, there's so many questions. What we're going to
get to that. So in order to apply this stuff,
he would use almost like a makeup brush made of
silk strips that were bound together in a bunch. So
he would dip this into the powder and then just
douse himself with it, you know, and when his face
would be covered up, and he'd also be wearing something
called a powder robe, and that would keep it off
(26:32):
of his clothes.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I feel like you need a whole powder room. Otherwise,
Christopher huss powder everywhere, and I guess that is a thing.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
So you're thinking of the powder room more like Dexter's
kill room. It's just covered in plow rumors by friend.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Oh man, we're we're on a roll here.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
But what a mess, right, an absolute mess.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
You know, you're totally right, my friend, because even though
he was wearing his powder robe, what was to keep
this powder from just dusting every surface, you know, in
the vicinity.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
And he's wearing this weird sort of it looks almost
like a plague mask thing to cover his heath exactly.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
So it's a very odd situation to walk in on,
and he's doing it to himself, presumably, that's everything I've
read says he would this was his morning routine.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
So he would powder.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
The hell out of his hair that was already dulled
up in this dew, and then he would curl the
sides up into these kind of winglets, this little like
a little kind of they'd stick out, you know, like
little ridges, a little shelves on the side. In order
to do that, he'd use palmade, you know, get it
all nice and greasy, and it would hold its shape. So, yeah,
(27:36):
he got his hair so saturated with his powder that
it didn't look like it was just kind of dusted.
I mean, it was just white as the driven snow.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Here's the thing too.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
This is a question that was raised in this fantastic
article that had really great company illustrations by Wendy McNaughton
for National Geographic, that has these really great cartoons showing
him what it must have looked like for him to
be doing this.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I cannot recommend this highly enough.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
It's called George Washington's Oh So Mysterious Hair.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
No will you? Will you post that on the ridiculous
Historian space.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Under the carbuncles? That's a callback.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
It's a callback, and that is going to remain a
carbuncle free zone if I have anything to do with it.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Ben. But here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
A question that she raises in this article is, well,
how the hell did he keep this off his clothes?
In all of these portraits of him, he looks so pristine,
and you would think that this stuff would just be
flaking off.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Everything flaking off. I mean, you're wearing these tight clothes
made of wool in with the American South, are you not.
I would be sweating buckets and just have white powder
dripping down down.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah, it does seem like it would be very gross.
And there is one portrait by Adolph Ulrich Wertmueller, who
depicts him with some kind of little dandruffy flakes on
one show on one lapel like that of humanity, Touch
of humanity. So there you go. He had a weird
hair routine.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
So and the lesson is that the portraits are not
always a accurate representation of what someone might really look like. Well,
that's true.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
And at the end of the day, I mean, you're
sort of beholden to the person that's paying you to
paint their portrait.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
So listeners, please do not run into the National Portrait
Gallery and throw a little flex of white paint on
anything that you think would be more historically accurate.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
And there we have it. George Washington, first President of
the United States, whiskey, tycoon, dabbler and hemp, a freemason,
extraordinary slave owner, and a man with very, very strict
priorities regarding his hair.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
It's very true.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
No middle name, no middle name.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
What else? What were some of the little trivia bits
from the top.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Well, he's got his you know, his terrific title in
the military that he will forever and always be Supreme Commander.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
General of the Armies of the United States. Did you
mention the carbuncles that he's crusted with, but.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Krusty, sickly man.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
They're not clear on how how inundated he was with carbuncles.
We can only hope that it was.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
If these Google images have anything to say about it,
it was a real nightmare.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I gotta say, Ben, you mentioned him as one of
the sickliest presidents and listed out a litany of maladies
he'd been inflicted with. But if he survived all those things,
I'd say he's pretty strong, and maybe we should wrap
up by talking about these somewhat ridiculous way in which
he died. He did have all these maladies, but in
seventeen ninety nine, back in December, what historians think really
(30:33):
killed him is a doctor medical malpractice. Yes, a doctor
who basically overbled him, drained him too much.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
And we already know that blood letting was a very
stupid remedy.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And he was he was too blood let Yeah, yeah,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
We have the specifics here too. It was a guy
named all Ben Rawlins who all in all, after four
rounds of blood letting, removed something like five pints of
blood from the president.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
That doctor Albin.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I know, I know, I'm glad that blood letting is
not a common practice in medical centers today.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Do you think he got in trouble?
Speaker 1 (31:13):
I don't know. It's a it's a good question because
I think there have been some other presidents who died
as a result of well intentioned medical intervention.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Well, that's why they call it practicing medicine.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
That's why they call it practicing medicine. Indeed, And on
that note, we hope you enjoyed our two part series,
A Weird George Washington Facts, which does count technically until
we do another one as our Washington episode in a
bizarre series of circumstances. Christopher, thank you so much for
(31:45):
dropping by. It is always an immense pleasure.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I'm happy to count myself among the two of you
as practicing podcasters.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
We do our best to keep our podcasting chops sharp,
well practiced.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Thank you, sir, and thank you to our super producer,
Casey Pegram. Thank you to Alexilliams who composed our track.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Thank you to Gabe, our delightful research associate, and of course,
thank you to our wonderful guest Christopher Hasciotis and dear
friend for as always lighting up the room, sparking up
our lives, giving Ben his groove back after you took
it away.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Truly, truly, truly, this is something that sparks joy.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Oh boy. Well, if you want to continue the conversation,
if you want to check out some of the things
that we have mentioned other than carbuncles, you can visit
us on the internet. We're on Instagram, We're on Facebook,
We're on Twitter, that's the other one. You can find
our favorite partner show your fellow Ridiculous Historians on our
Facebook community page Ridiculous Historians. If you want to see
(32:40):
some pictures of very strange misadventures, I will be having shortly.
Follow me on Instagram. I'm at Ben Bowen.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
And i am at Embryonic Insider.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Find me over at Haciotis Hassiotis.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Christopher will be having some incredible adventures in podcasting coming
down the pikes in the near future.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I will keep you all super updated.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Please do. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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