April 6, 2021 • 42 mins
As the French and Indian War escalated, the residents of Windham, Connecticut lived in constant fear of possible attacks, crop-ruining weather, disease and more. One late night in the summer of 1754, a loud, continual noise roused the entire town as people feared they may be under siege. It wasn't until near dawn that the noises died down, and a small scouting party discovered the culprits of the cacophony -- a massive population of desperate bullfrogs, screaming at each other for territory in the last dregs of a nearby dried-out pond. Although the townsfolk became the laughingstock of the area after the story came out, they leaned into the image -- and you can see traces of the story in the modern day.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. No first question today, have
you ever been to like a weird themed town? You
know how some small towns have like they're they're big
specific events like we're the best funnel cake place, stuff
like that. Yeah, there was one time I went to
this weird town in the seaside of England and they
(00:50):
had everyone was really nice for a while, but then
they lured me into this giant wicker contraption and set
it on fire and I barely escaped with my life.
Does that country that didn't happen to me? Um? Now,
I don't know the themes town, maybe like a Mayfair
type situation, like some sort of old timey recreation thing,
(01:12):
or what do we tell like Helen Georgia. Maybe I've
been to Helen Georgia. It looks like a tiny German village.
It does, and it's it's a well worth the trip
if the weather is nice and you're out that way. Oh,
I'm Ben. There's our super producer Casey Pegrove and our
guest producer Andrew Howards. When I think of theme towns,
I tend to think of some of the same stuff
(01:33):
you mentioned, all like a big holiday celebration that people
have specific to that town. But then it could also
just be a theme that they're really into. Like let's
say I'm just making up an example here. Let's say
that several centuries ago town was saved by like a
little drummer boy, and you go there centuries later and
(01:55):
you see all these statues of little drummer boys, and
then things are named after the drummer, like it's Little
Drummer Boy Avenue or Little Drummer Boy Lane. Uh. Today's
episode is kind of in that same vein. But we're
knocking out two missions with one stone today because my friends,
I think we are finally back on our state by
(02:18):
state episode. Horse. Oh my goodness, Ben, that's exciting. By
the way, I'm Noel, and yeah, I just wanted to
point out a few really quick before we hop right
into today's theme town. Uh. There are lots of them.
It's a thing like Pella, Iowa, for example, is all
about the Tulip Time Festival, and Mount Airy, North Carolina
is basically a recreation of the Andy Griffith Show with
(02:41):
a Mayburry courthouse you can visit and and and all
that stuff. And then New Glaris, Wisconsin is themed after
like Switzerland. It's sort of like in the same way
that Helen is a small German village, New Glaris is
a tiny Swiss village, Ben, do you know about any
other weird towns with themes? I'm so glad you asked. Yeah,
shout out to lily Dale, New York, which is just
(03:04):
home to so many psychics and outsiders go to lily
Dell just to hang out with the psychics. And of
course the villages in Florida. Uh, no one living there
could be under nineteen and at least one member of
every house has to be over fifty five. But perhaps
one of the weirdest ones knowl is uh Thames Town, China,
(03:28):
which is located in song Jiang. It is a simulated
British city with everything amazing. Do they have fish and chips?
They have fish and choke certain newspaper. Well, now, Ben,
while all those towns sound amazing, we're not talking about
any of those towns today. I just wanted to establish
a legacy of themes towns. Today's town definitely fits amongst
(03:50):
those ranks, but has a much more Shelly say, amphibious theme. Yes,
that's correct. If you are driving through a tiny town
called Willomantic over in eastern Connecticut, you might notice things
are getting a little froggy in more ways than one.
There are lots of local businesses that are named after frogs.
(04:12):
You'll see frogs on logos, You'll see different statues of
frogs and main street and even the local graph heads.
Graffiti artists are spraying frogs around on the you know,
the local building walls. It's weird because there's a burrow
of Willimantic called Wyndham, and if you go to Wyndham
(04:34):
you will see this frog stuff turned up even further
turned Like if Willomantic main Street is an eight, windhom
is apparently and eleven. That's right. I mean you literally
have the city center featuring a bridge that's uh, that's
surrounded by these columns, each of which has an eleven
foot tall frog statue that's sort of gazing off into
(04:58):
the middle distance. So you might ask yourself why all
the frogs? Well, we're here to tell you. The New
York Times has a fabulous profile of exactly why all
the frogs? In an article from August nineteen six by
Robert A. Hamilton's, the title of which is the Frogs
and Spools of Wyndham Bridge, and he's referring to that
(05:18):
pretty odd Bridge situation that we just described. The story,
as it turns out, begins on June of seventeen fifty four,
when the residents of Wyndham were awakened by a bit
of a tumult, a bit of a hubbub in the
night um and all of them rushed from their homes
to see what all the fuss was about. Some of
(05:39):
them were really freaked out, running around screaming for their lives.
Even some were even armed and firing their weapons into
the night, which seems really dangerous with those other people around, ben,
what's going on? Why are they freaking out like this? Well,
they were freaking out because they thought it was yet
a another attack from either French or Native American forces,
(06:01):
which was something very much in the cards in the
seventeen fifties. But it turned out when dawn came, they
discovered the noise was not created by humans at all,
but instead by bull frogs fighting over the last dregs
of water that were in this pond that dried up
over the droughts, so awkward, little awkward. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(06:24):
it's not not exactly the proudest moment maybe, but Wyndham
took it and ran with it. Because sure other towns
in the area had their fun, you know, in pubs,
making light of the people who were terrified of bull
frogs in Wyndham. But Wyndham did something really interesting. They
(06:44):
doubled down. They didn't bury this story. They decided to
lean into it and they said, look, we're gonna put
the frog on the town seal. We're gonna go all
in on this frog thing. And that's been the case
ever since. But if if you look the history, uh,
they were not being necessarily alarmist. They weren't flying off
(07:06):
the handle. If you were someone living in Wyndham in
the decades leading up to this time, you would have
freaked out too, because you would have had some reasonable
assumptions that people were coming to kill you, right, absolutely,
not only people, but like just life, like the the
the elements, you know, the Nate, the gods. Perhaps it
(07:26):
seemed as though, um, this tiny, tiny town population of
only a thousand was really kind of in some ways cursed.
It would seem in the summer of seventeen fifty four. Uh,
this would have been considered a frontier town. But like
you said, been the French and Indian War um had
(07:46):
broken out in May of that year. Uh, and that
was really threatening these these homesteaders. And also a drought
was threatening the crops that they had worked so hard
to cultivate. And Connecticut resident in general, we're living in
a constant state of anxiety as this French and Indian
War kind of really stirred things up. You know, they
(08:09):
were constantly living in fear of attacks, you know, from
the tree line surrounding their homesteads, and really kind of
that paranoia was certainly part of everyday life. But Wyndom
had it even worse because they were threatened by a
lot of natural phenomena as well that kind of doubled
their anxiety and their sort of fear of absolute annihilation. Yes,
(08:33):
we're talking about the ever present threat of disease, drought.
You know, these are agricultural communities, so people are at
the mercy of the weather. And of course, uh, different
contingents of people fighting in the French and Indian War
could easily overwhelmed this small town. And there were so
(08:54):
many rumors that were circulating in the area. The game
of telephone was in full swing. You might not be
able to prove that there were atrocities just up the way,
but you couldn't prove that they weren't happening either. So
this is a really fearful time, kind of like the
residents of the Tune from our Mad gas Er episode.
(09:15):
We're also terrified about ongoing conflicts or the horrors of war,
and so all of this, all of this is happening.
If you're the average resident of Wyndham, you are at
least a couple of times a day thinking is this
going to be the day that someone attacks our our
(09:36):
little community. So it's not a surprise that in the
dark of night June seventeen fifty four, they start hearing
a ruckus and a rumble, louder and louder and louder.
Who is it? They're thinking, who is coming to kill us?
Because this happens like really late, shortly after midnight, and
(09:56):
at first people had no idea what it could be.
And I think a lot of people have different guests too.
So according to the reports that we've read, the first
person to hear the noise was a servant of a
local parson, which I believe just means like a preacher,
(10:18):
right like in Frosty the Snowman, And pretend isn't that
he is Parson Brown? Remember that I think that means
the preacher anyway. Um. This guy's name was pomp and
he was the first to hear the noise when he
was coming home around midnight after hanging out with a
with a lady lady friend of his at a nearby farmhouse,
and he walked down the street when he neared the
(10:41):
part of the town called Wyndham Green. Um, he began
to hear this really bizarre noise that absolutely terrified him,
and it was echoing no, not cool, not cool. Well,
I would be freaked out too. The bull frogs make
really scary sounds. Um. But it seemed to come from
everywhere all at once, so this almost could have had
(11:02):
the feeling of some sort of like supernatural event too,
especially in the dark of night. Um. He ran home
and awakened his master, Parson White, who then you know,
doubled down on what he heard as well and sounded
the alarm, waking up everybody nearby who hadn't already been
awakened by the sound and the screaming of of the servant,
(11:24):
and the noise continued to, you know, just kind of
increase at this fever pitch, and many folks thought that
it was some sort of Native American chant, of some
sort a war cry perhaps, and that they were coming
to descend upon them. They would all be dead by dawn. Yeah,
this pomp and circumstance quickly got out of control. Other
(11:49):
people said, no, this isn't a spell. Uh, these are
the war whoops. These are actually the war cries of
all called me Native American forces. And then other people said, no, no,
I know a little bit about the native populations. They're
actually just yelling gin and rum. It's still bad because
(12:12):
they're coming for us. And then some maybe more religious
folks thought that what they were hearing what appeared to
sound like this cacophonous roars, were instead trumpets of the
biblical judgment day. But one guy stepped in and said, hey,
it can't really be the day of Judgment because you know,
it's like just after midnight, it's not even dawn. Uh.
(12:34):
Some people thought that they could hear noises being called
out in this pandemonium, especially two of the town's military leaders,
Colonel Dyer and elder Kin, And luckily, unluckily for the town,
Dire and Elderkin were actually you know, they were they
were in the community at the time. So their children
(12:56):
just crying, you know, where are my parents. Their men
who are like grabbing all the weapons they can. There
are women who are shrieking all the while this mournful
sound is creating a end of Days kind of soundtrack.
And then you know, this army kind of gets together
on the green and people have whatever they could grab, pitchforks, knives,
(13:16):
old swords, a few had guns. Uh. And then this
is when people started calling for Colonel Dyer and elder
Kin to take charge. Basically, right, that's exactly right. And
John Adams had some things to say about one of
these folks, this lawyer by the name of Elaphilett Dire,
who referred to as long winded and tedious but an honest,
(13:40):
worthy man. Uh. And he was the leader of the
town's militia. Then the militia sprung into action. Um. Then
you had this guy, Jedediah Elderkin, who was another lawyer,
presumably also long winded and tedious but also hopefully honest
and we're worthy. But we don't know that for a fact,
as John Adams did not opine on Jedediah Elderkin. I
(14:02):
love that name, by the way, Jedediah. It's hard to
say a lot of d sounds in this dude's name.
So he, along with Dire, were apparently planning to colonize
the Susquehanna Valley. By the way, Jedediah Elderkin and Dire
had actually planned to extend their colony into the Susquehanna Valley,
(14:23):
but the residents of Wyndham, who referred to themselves as
window mites, which I love, decided this was a bad
idea because they thought it would anger in their minds.
The Native Americans that lived around this area missed opportunity
to call themselves the windhammer or the wind jammers. Perhaps
we'll work on that, um, But it makes sense they
(14:44):
were already living in fear of these attacks. They didn't
want to a further upset the apple cart. So we're
back to, you know, the night of the quote unquote attack, UM,
and these folks are understandably freaked out there hearing things
they're they're you know, playing into the sounds that they're hearing.
I mean, your ears can absolutely play tricks on you,
especially when your mind is unsettled in such a way.
(15:05):
So they're waiting around, hiding, you know, like you said, Ben,
presumably arming themselves with whatever they had around um and waiting,
you know, for what they believed was going to be
a painful death. And they were firing into the darkness
throughout most of the night, those who had muskets, and
(15:25):
they noticed that as dawn approached, the sounds began to
die and they began to fade out. Uh. And then
eventually a group of brave, courageous men formed a scouting
party and they ventured out to the place where the
sound came from, as near as they could tell. And
(15:45):
that's when they saw, not very far away at all,
about a hundred yards into the woods, local pond that
had almost dried up. And this is this is kind
of a sad part. Across the bed of the dry pond,
they found dozens and dozens of dead bullfrogs. The story grew.
You'll hear some accounts say hundreds of dead bull frogs,
(16:08):
and then swore people say thousands. Uh. But anyway, it
was a lot of frogs, and the scouting party realized
it was these frogs fighting, you know, for the last
bits of water in the pond that had generated this
noise that scared everyone so and interesting fun fact, the
pond belonged to dire And so what they realized was
(16:32):
what the I'm sticking with wind hammers. What the wind
hammers had heard were the first the battle cries and
then later the death knells of these poor thirsty bull frogs.
That was the whole, the whole thing. And oh, the
scouting party was just three guys. How did the townspeople
(16:53):
take it when they heard about this, Well, let's just
say they felt a little little bit silly. I don't
want to impart my own interpretations too much on them,
but there there is a sense of kind of humiliation,
of of feeling as though they overreacted. Again, this is
from from various reports. We've got some journal entries. Actually
(17:15):
we're gonna read in just a second. They'll give you
a little bit more of a sense of how this
was received. Uh. But um, they they weren't had somewhere angry.
Some decided to make light of the situation. That's probably
what I would have done. And that's ultimately it seems
like the direction they chose to go as a as
a town. Yeah, some you know, just we're like, we're
(17:37):
never gonna talk about this again. Uh. And it didn't.
You know, this town was so small again, only a
thousand residents. They didn't even have their own newspaper. But
word of mouth is a thing in and of itself,
especially around this time, you know, when that was one
of the only ways for stories like this to spread
and kind of a frontier situation. Um. And the story
did spread, and the wind Hammy's became kind of a
(17:59):
laughing stuff. Yeah, it's something that people joked a lot about.
And remember, as we said, Elderkin and I are both lawyers,
So lawyers in particular in this region of the Northeast
start to harass their colleagues with this story. You know, like, hey,
watch out, dire door. I checked. There aren't new frogs
(18:21):
in there. Um. And people have more healthy approach to
like some folks just threw up their hands and laughed
at it. We know that Reverend Styles of Woodstock wrote
about this to his nephew who was a law student,
and just an excerpt of the letter Here he says,
if the late tragical tidings of Windham deserve credit as
(18:43):
doubtless they do, it would then concern the gentlemen of
your Jurisprutian, which is a word I didn't know as
a thing, order to be fortified against the dreadful crooks
Torrian legiance, allegiance terrible is the very wreck of matter
and the crash of worlds. Antiquity relates that the elephant
fee is the mouse. A Hebrew trembles at the prowing
of the cock, but pre WinCE is it that the
(19:04):
croaking of a buffalo should so sad rise a lawyer,
bell shadow rise, Holy cow. I'm sorry, Ben, I'm gonna
need to unpack this. We've got some new words. There's
some new terms. So if the late tragical tidings from
Wyndom deserve credit as doubt as they do, it will
then concern the gentleman of your juris Prussian, order to
(19:27):
be fortified against the dreadful crooks of tarian legions. Okay,
so they're basically just mocking them and and sort of
acting as though frogs are some sort of terrifying force.
Was that kind of the idea Yeah, they're they're saying, Um,
it's funny because it's it's like a fake warning to
(19:49):
his nephew, like, Hey, you know you're going to be
a lawyer now, so get ready for frogs watch out
for that. Yeah, I gotta Ben, I'm going to aren't
trying to figure out how to incorporate belshaz eyes into
the regular conversation. And there's one more little snippet here
at the bottom, dire fuli Allah made of these audacious,
(20:10):
long winded croakers things unattempted yet in prosal rhyme. What
does the word Torrian mean here? Ben Torrian terrors in
chimeras dire Obviously that's referenced to die or the lawyer
and the militia leader. But what we've we've heard Torannian
is that the reference to the frogs genus or something
like that. It's an interesting question because it's weird because
(20:34):
he spells it Torreon and the first paragraph, and then
Rannion in the second, So maybe some of that is
just his handwriting. I was always under the impression that
Torrian meant things relating to the sign of right. Yeah,
I just googled it and got the same don't see
(20:54):
any froggy connections there at all. Um, well, any etymological
experts out there, let us know what you think or
if this is something that's come up before. Obviously, one
last sentence here, second time Trannian terrors and chimeras dire
I hope, sir, from the Dire Full now that's the
Now they're making fun of dire and making his name
(21:16):
into an adjective, right, and the from the dire Full
reports from the frog Pond you'll gain some instruction as
well as from the report of my Lord Cook. So
he's like the fun uncle. That's the That's what this
letter is is meant to convey to his nephews, like
frogs lawyers, you're gonna be one of those, watch out, bro.
(21:38):
But instead he used Belle shazarries, which I think we
both love. I hope you love it too. And so
as this, as this continues, we should mention the only
fatalities that night were frogs, which is regrettable, but still
nobody in the town was even injured, I believe, but
but not like due to stomping from townspeople. It was
(21:59):
literally because they were thirsty, right, and they're malnourished in
some way right, Yeah, exactly, it's because they couldn't survive
the drought. Uh So, as the years go on, and
I think partially because nobody was seriously injured, future generations
talk about these jokes. They circulate in the area, and
eventually the wind to Mikes, the winds Hammers get kind
(22:24):
of proud of this. You know, this is before HP Lovecraft,
so the association of small New England towns with amphibians
is still not seen as a sinister thing. Uh And
now it's like it's immortalized and not just letters but
a lot of poems and songs from the times. Uh
(22:44):
and we we have a few here. We know that
the story even went all the way across the pond
to Europe and people were talking about that's right. It
really became Yeah, I don't know, like good natured ribbing,
good natured ribbety that for sure. I'm sorry, But bull
frogs crow bull frogs do croak and ribboning would have
(23:05):
been an easier sound to pick out, I think in
the night, whereas you know, croak and a chorus, like
a comphony of croaks that kind of coalesced together into
this like huge drone. A lot less a lot more
sinister rather than just a few errant ribbts, Right, But
it did kind of become sort of a pop cultural phenomenon. Right.
(23:25):
There were songs and poems that were, you know, committed
to print and circulated in the nineteenth century. One example,
in eighteen fifty one, UM was the Ballad of the
Bull Frog Fight, A ballad of the olden time, um,
And it starts off with a dire, full story, Must
I tell should I at length relate at once a
(23:45):
luckless town? Befell in wooden nutmeg state? I guess that's
the reference to Connecticut, ben, I guess, so yeah. I
always thought it was the Constitution. Maybe maybe it's the
wooden nutmegs. They so, yeah, you're you're right. There were
we know there were at least two other ballads that
were written about what came to be called the Great
(24:06):
Windham Frog Fight. There was an operetta, which I thought
was awesome, called the Frogs of Old Windham from a
tight uh. And then after the American Revolution occurred, the
Windham Bank even started issuing bank notes with an image
of a frog standing over the body of another frog.
(24:26):
Of course, long time listeners you'll recall that during this
period in history, it was a lot easier for banks
to just decide they were going to make their own
bank notes essentially coupons, right, exactly right, But no, what
about Windham to date? Yeah, we sort of set the
stage without a little bit with their you know, froggy
regalia and these giant sculptures on top of those pillars,
(24:51):
you know, on either side of that bridge. But the
what we would refer to as the Willamantic section of
Windham um became ultimate a ly a factory town that
made goods, you know, like silk and cotton thread, and
it became quite a boomtown as the American Thread Company
located its headquarters on the banks of the Willimantic River,
(25:13):
and that became Connecticut's largest employer. Connecticut being a relatively
small state and and this being a really incredibly small town.
That's pretty cool. Um. So today you do have those
eleven foot frogs on these giant spools of thread that
kind of combine the two things the town is most
known for. And they actually you know, are set up
(25:35):
almost to look like you know, froggy centurions guarding the
thread City crossing or this frog bridge. Yeah, and you
can see pictures of these frog sculptures pretty easily online.
I'm not gonna lie. They weird me out just a
little bit because the frog's eyes are these large, almost
(25:58):
copperesque looking spheres that are blank, and they've got some
curly cue stylization on them. Uh, it looks like it
looks kind of sci fi, like from an alien civilization.
But you can definitely go see these. And if you
want to see the site of the bloody bullfrog battle itself,
(26:19):
you'll need to be a little bit careful because it's
now privately owned. It's along a state highway. The town
made a marker indicating where the pond existed in the
nineteen twenties, but they moved it because underbrush was growing
over it. Because now that sign is on the spot
(26:39):
where all the village people gathered back in seventeen fifty
four convinced it was the end of the world. Oh
and no, some of those frogs there are sculptures around
the town even have names. There's Willie and Manny after Willimantic. Correct,
we've got Swift Deep, presently named after the fans of
(27:01):
Taylor Swift. No, I'm kidding. It's actually reportedly named after
the Algonquin meaning of william Antic itself, which is land
of the swift running water, which immediately makes me think
of the scene in Wayne's World where Alice Cooper explains
that Milwaukee comes from the Algonquin word Milliwoauke, which means
(27:23):
the good land. M hm hm. There was a frog
parade in two thousand five and Windham wait with actual frogs, well,
actual fiberglass frogs, so actual frogs asterix. They were painted.
It's similar to that thing we have in Atlanta where
different artists had painted these cow sculptures to remember that. Yes,
(27:47):
so they painted these frogs and they paraded them through
the town and then they were displayed for a while
before they were auctioned off for charity. So if you
go to Windom today, which uh seems to be a
lovely place to visit, then you will see these various
frogs laying around. But no, Andrew, fellow, ridiculous historians. If
(28:13):
you spend some time in Wyndom and you make friends
with the locals and you chat them up, you might
meet some history buffs who have a different theory about
why those bullfrogs were screaming in the first place. Ha ha,
Ben the twists in the story, Why were the frogs
(28:37):
making so much noise? We know they were a little
bit thirsty and they were trying to get to that
last little bit of water in the pond and that
lowered pond. But what was going on that led to that.
Susan Z. Harrick, an assistant professor in residence at the
University of Connecticut's Biology Department, actually grew up in Wyndom,
and she has a theory about what insided the original
(29:01):
incident with the frogs that caused all of that chaos.
So the story or the legend, I guess, I don't know.
It's it's it's a little more than a legend. But
initially it claims that the frogs were fighting for this
little bit of water remaining in that pond. But Herrick,
who herself is an expert in frog behavior, thinks that
(29:22):
the frogs were actually getting it on. They were they
were making sweet love, presumably in the last remaining splashes
of that that lowered pond. M h. Yeah. The noises
are what Herrick calls advertisement calls that tells other males
(29:44):
about the male making the call. So it's kind of
like it's kind of like if you had a song
and you were like, I'm in great shape, I'm young,
this is my spot of the pond. Also, if you're listening,
I'm single, ladies, so be more like I've got a
(30:04):
dad body, I've got an okay job, I'm kind of
a professional nerd, and I've got a little bit of water.
Come on, ladies, let's go so the So imagine then
these kinds of songs, they're being dozens and dozens of
them at minimum right shouted over each other. And this
(30:26):
could easily explain the situation. But Herrick has found that
oddly enough, it looks like usually instead of shouting over
each other, neighboring frogs would take turns. One person would
say their song, which I won't reveal on air, but
you know, right to me, other species of frogs will
just crowd together with a little less strategy. They'll figure
(30:49):
out where females of their species may be, and they'll
just all run up there shouting. Eric has this awesome line, Um,
I really appreciated this. If you're listening to Susan Eric,
she said, it's like a singles bar scene in human society,
but for frog Yeah, and I don't know. I feel
like we all know how that usually turns out. It
(31:13):
makes me think of like the two dudes from Night
at the Roxbury who are like both simultaneously trying to
hit on one woman and they end up just kind
of banging against her repeatedly until she just freaks out
and runs away. You know that that seems like if
I was inundated, You know, if I was a female
frog and I was being inundated by all these calls,
I might just be like, yo, I don't think I
(31:33):
wanted anything to do with any of y'all because you
clearly have no restraint and um, it's kind of gross.
So that's just my two cents there, and there's Herrick
follows this a little bit further because as she was researching,
she learned that if things get particularly bad, some frogs
(31:54):
will switch mating strategies that they, you know, they're species,
ordinarily wouldn't use. So she believes that as the shoreline
of this pond shrink and the males became increasingly desperate,
they were losing their territory, uh their yards. Essentially, we're
getting smaller and smaller. And then it was just too
many dudes on the dance floor, too many males and
(32:17):
too small a pond. They gave up on having any
territory at all. They were just trying to find love.
They weren't coordinating their calls, all of which leads Herrick
to believe that's how this pandemonium occurred. They just started
screaming desperately, and then the noise became so loud that
(32:37):
it woke the members of the village. I do have
a theory about the noise though, because when you think
about it, in modern society, we're always surrounded with some
kind of noise, especially if you live anywhere near other people,
and the natural world is pretty loud too, But if
you live in the forest for a while, you learn
to recognize those sounds. So I'm wondering how loud this
(33:01):
actually was, you know what I mean, like, how loud
it would be a modern church. Was it just the
fact that they didn't have TVs on at night or podcast?
You know? But I've got to say that, and I
think you've probably been in the situation to taking a
nice stroll in the woods and you pass by like
a patch where there are clearly some frogs going nuts
and just a handful of them can raise quite a ruckist.
(33:24):
So I would imagine, you know, under these conditions where
they're really trying to compete for a lady's attention, could
get really out of hand volume wise, especially reverberating through
like a town square, you know, whether where there's the
po presumably some sort of stone to reinforce the pond.
I'm I'm guessing maybe not might have been more rudimentary
(33:45):
than that, but yeah, I could imagine it would get
pretty out of hand pretty quickly. Yeah, you know, I
think there's also a good point to be made about
the the weather at the time. Apparently the muggy air
also helped the rokes spread. But you're right, you make
a good point. Desperation can drive these frogs to some
(34:06):
pretty uh superhuman croaks, you know what I mean, Like
someone who is panicking when their kid is under a
car and they're able to use that what do you
call it, hysterical strength to lift the car. Maybe these croaks,
maybe these frogs were croaking as a life and death matter,
which as we learned it was, it was very much
so uh And I don't know what that being said,
(34:30):
this is cool. I love it when towns have something
like this. Don't you don't you feel like if you
go through a place like Hell in Georgia, don't you
like that idea like, oh, we're back in a copy
of Bavaria. I do like it, and I want to
know why. I assume initially there's some real German heritage
in a in a town like that. It turns out
(34:51):
that in Helen that's not the case at all. They
did it almost exclusively for tourists attraction purposes. It's not
like it has some sort of history of like German immigrants.
Unless I'm completely mistaken, but I could swear that I've
that I looked this up thinking that that was what
was up, and then realized, oh no, this is actually
just like some developers that decided they wanted to, you know,
(35:11):
make something a trap, sort of like south of the Border,
you know what I mean. That's literally what it is.
But despite this actually being a real part of the
town's legacy, one of the people behind that frog bridge
that we talked about really did hope that these statues
would stir up some kind of almost folkloric urban legends
surrounding the town. Right. A woman named Margaret p Reich,
(35:35):
who's the executive director of the Windham Regional Planning Agency
and one of the uh, the chief like boosters behind
this frog bridge idea. She said that someone came back
from Serbia with a travel guide that talked about these
bridges featuring images of dragons and sculptures of dragons that
(35:55):
are supposed to wag their tails when a virgin walks by.
Uh she said, and quiz quoted in the New York
Times article, We'd like to create a similar urban legend,
but with frogs and probably not involving virgins. Okay, but
that's not how that's not how urban legends work. Not
quite so much. But I I applaud the idea. Who
(36:17):
doesn't love a good urban legend. So let's let's make
a let's make our own urban legend. Right now, Let's
say that if you are looking for love, just like
those frogs of old, then which you want to do
is go to Wyndham Green on night in in summer.
Will make it very It can be summer, it can
(36:38):
be either June or July. Right, and then let's see,
you know, let's say you you have to ask one
of the frogs for help. Right, it could be manny
windy whomever. And then you mentioned this off air, maybe
maybe there's a certain way you walk. Yeah, like what
is it? What do you call win winter winter? Sian?
(36:58):
That's so, what is that backwards? Doesn't that just like
walking backwards? It's walking counter counter exactly, that's right. Uh.
And then what happens you you'll be blessed with your
your true love's desire. Yes, if you hear the crow,
if you hear the croak, you gotta hear the croak. Um.
But Ben, I love that, and I think let's enter
(37:19):
that into the lexicon of urban legends. And so so
that's how these things start. Um. But one thing that's interesting,
and it ties back into another recent episode we did
is the Windham Bank. It was chartered in eighteen thirty two,
uh and was built in what is now known as
Windham Center. Um. It was a little slow to develop,
(37:40):
and as we know, a lot of these frontier banks
did issue their own currency. We did episode recently on
the Leopard colonies that had their own currency, and then
in the past we had done episodes on different kind
of scripts that were issued that would lose their value
completely if they were taken too far outside of their
you know, place of issue. So the bank notes that
(38:01):
the Windham Bank issued, which are very rare and are
actually unlisted. And you'll recall Ben mentioned earlier, the Windham
Bank and those bank notes, the script that they issued
um featuring a frog kind of lording over the dead
body of another frog. Why why that imagery band that's
very Uh, that didn't quite that's not quite the spirit
(38:22):
of the frog fight post Revolutionary War. Yeah, I guess
that's true. But there's actually a poem by the great
Wyndham poet, Reverend Theron Brown, that kind of exemplifies this
whole frog you know, phenomenon um, and it goes like this,
I pause to nurse the quaint remembrance. Here the bank
(38:46):
and I were born the self same year. The mind.
It's notes between whose figures poked two frogs so lifelike
that they almost quote the original green backs of the
native race that long anticipated salmon chase. They blossomed like
pond lilies from the mud, memento of a war that
(39:10):
shed no blood. And then everybody's like stepping there, Oh
my god. I love that though, because at the end
of the day, you know this, there's a lot more,
a lot worse ways this could have gone. Uh, nobody
lost their lives and ultimately the town of Wyndham went
on to prosper So there you go, happy ending. Yes, yes,
this also marks one more step in our journey to
(39:32):
have an episode about every state in the United States.
So thanks as always to our super producers Casey and
Andrew Thinks. Also especially to our research associate Gabelusier who
helped us hunt these frogs in Connecticut. Yes, indeed, and
huge thanks to Alex Williams who composed this very theme
(39:53):
that you're hearing right now. Super muster, Casey Pegrum, guest
producer Andrew A how call me Ishmael Poward, and Christopher
Haciotes here in spirit do to be here corporeally in
the very near future? That's right, that's right, No spoilers,
but everyone acts surprised. Also big thanks to our own
(40:13):
croaker in the dark, Jonathan Strickland, a k. The quizter.
I always wonder if he listens to the end of
these to know the nicknames him at the end. We
should wrap it up before he shows up though for real. Indeed,
if you want to check us out other places on
the Internet, you can find us. We are on Facebook.
We're on Instagram at Ridiculous History. You can find you know,
(40:35):
just google that and all the things will come up.
We do recommend that you join our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians,
where you can get in on the conversation around each
new episode and you know, make some friends along the way,
because after all, it's about the friends we made along
the way. We're working on getting an email. I don't
know why that's what's going on with that, but apparently
our old email when we switched to a new provider
(40:56):
somehow bit the dust. So more on that soon, but
in the time that Facebook group is the best place
to get in touch with us. You can also find
us individually on social media's I am at how Now
Noel Brown pretty much exclusively on Instagram, I am at
the Frog King dot blogspot dot org. Um. If that
doesn't work out for you, please find me at ben
(41:17):
Bullan bo w l i N on Instagram where you
can see any number of strange adventures I get into
or come hang out with me on Twitter where I'm
at ben Bulan hs W and always looking forward to
hearing suggestions for new topics from you. Well that's that's
a ride, Nola. I've got you know, my cacophonous noise
(41:39):
for today as a leafblow as we record mid pandemic.
So I think it's I think it's time to call
this one. I think so, buddy. We'll see you next time. Books. Yeah.
(42:04):
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. No first question today, have
you ever been to like a weird themed town? You
know how some small towns have like they're they're big
specific events like we're the best funnel cake place, stuff
like that. Yeah, there was one time I went to
this weird town in the seaside of England and they
(00:50):
had everyone was really nice for a while, but then
they lured me into this giant wicker contraption and set
it on fire and I barely escaped with my life.
Does that country that didn't happen to me? Um? Now,
I don't know the themes town, maybe like a Mayfair
type situation, like some sort of old timey recreation thing,
(01:12):
or what do we tell like Helen Georgia. Maybe I've
been to Helen Georgia. It looks like a tiny German village.
It does, and it's it's a well worth the trip
if the weather is nice and you're out that way. Oh,
I'm Ben. There's our super producer Casey Pegrove and our
guest producer Andrew Howards. When I think of theme towns,
I tend to think of some of the same stuff
(01:33):
you mentioned, all like a big holiday celebration that people
have specific to that town. But then it could also
just be a theme that they're really into. Like let's
say I'm just making up an example here. Let's say
that several centuries ago town was saved by like a
little drummer boy, and you go there centuries later and
(01:55):
you see all these statues of little drummer boys, and
then things are named after the drummer, like it's Little
Drummer Boy Avenue or Little Drummer Boy Lane. Uh. Today's
episode is kind of in that same vein. But we're
knocking out two missions with one stone today because my friends,
I think we are finally back on our state by
(02:18):
state episode. Horse. Oh my goodness, Ben, that's exciting. By
the way, I'm Noel, and yeah, I just wanted to
point out a few really quick before we hop right
into today's theme town. Uh. There are lots of them.
It's a thing like Pella, Iowa, for example, is all
about the Tulip Time Festival, and Mount Airy, North Carolina
is basically a recreation of the Andy Griffith Show with
(02:41):
a Mayburry courthouse you can visit and and and all
that stuff. And then New Glaris, Wisconsin is themed after
like Switzerland. It's sort of like in the same way
that Helen is a small German village, New Glaris is
a tiny Swiss village, Ben, do you know about any
other weird towns with themes? I'm so glad you asked. Yeah,
shout out to lily Dale, New York, which is just
(03:04):
home to so many psychics and outsiders go to lily
Dell just to hang out with the psychics. And of
course the villages in Florida. Uh, no one living there
could be under nineteen and at least one member of
every house has to be over fifty five. But perhaps
one of the weirdest ones knowl is uh Thames Town, China,
(03:28):
which is located in song Jiang. It is a simulated
British city with everything amazing. Do they have fish and chips?
They have fish and choke certain newspaper. Well, now, Ben,
while all those towns sound amazing, we're not talking about
any of those towns today. I just wanted to establish
a legacy of themes towns. Today's town definitely fits amongst
(03:50):
those ranks, but has a much more Shelly say, amphibious theme. Yes,
that's correct. If you are driving through a tiny town
called Willomantic over in eastern Connecticut, you might notice things
are getting a little froggy in more ways than one.
There are lots of local businesses that are named after frogs.
(04:12):
You'll see frogs on logos, You'll see different statues of
frogs and main street and even the local graph heads.
Graffiti artists are spraying frogs around on the you know,
the local building walls. It's weird because there's a burrow
of Willimantic called Wyndham, and if you go to Wyndham
(04:34):
you will see this frog stuff turned up even further
turned Like if Willomantic main Street is an eight, windhom
is apparently and eleven. That's right. I mean you literally
have the city center featuring a bridge that's uh, that's
surrounded by these columns, each of which has an eleven
foot tall frog statue that's sort of gazing off into
(04:58):
the middle distance. So you might ask yourself why all
the frogs? Well, we're here to tell you. The New
York Times has a fabulous profile of exactly why all
the frogs? In an article from August nineteen six by
Robert A. Hamilton's, the title of which is the Frogs
and Spools of Wyndham Bridge, and he's referring to that
(05:18):
pretty odd Bridge situation that we just described. The story,
as it turns out, begins on June of seventeen fifty four,
when the residents of Wyndham were awakened by a bit
of a tumult, a bit of a hubbub in the
night um and all of them rushed from their homes
to see what all the fuss was about. Some of
(05:39):
them were really freaked out, running around screaming for their lives.
Even some were even armed and firing their weapons into
the night, which seems really dangerous with those other people around, ben,
what's going on? Why are they freaking out like this? Well,
they were freaking out because they thought it was yet
a another attack from either French or Native American forces,
(06:01):
which was something very much in the cards in the
seventeen fifties. But it turned out when dawn came, they
discovered the noise was not created by humans at all,
but instead by bull frogs fighting over the last dregs
of water that were in this pond that dried up
over the droughts, so awkward, little awkward. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(06:24):
it's not not exactly the proudest moment maybe, but Wyndham
took it and ran with it. Because sure other towns
in the area had their fun, you know, in pubs,
making light of the people who were terrified of bull
frogs in Wyndham. But Wyndham did something really interesting. They
(06:44):
doubled down. They didn't bury this story. They decided to
lean into it and they said, look, we're gonna put
the frog on the town seal. We're gonna go all
in on this frog thing. And that's been the case
ever since. But if if you look the history, uh,
they were not being necessarily alarmist. They weren't flying off
(07:06):
the handle. If you were someone living in Wyndham in
the decades leading up to this time, you would have
freaked out too, because you would have had some reasonable
assumptions that people were coming to kill you, right, absolutely,
not only people, but like just life, like the the
the elements, you know, the Nate, the gods. Perhaps it
(07:26):
seemed as though, um, this tiny, tiny town population of
only a thousand was really kind of in some ways cursed.
It would seem in the summer of seventeen fifty four. Uh,
this would have been considered a frontier town. But like
you said, been the French and Indian War um had
(07:46):
broken out in May of that year. Uh, and that
was really threatening these these homesteaders. And also a drought
was threatening the crops that they had worked so hard
to cultivate. And Connecticut resident in general, we're living in
a constant state of anxiety as this French and Indian
War kind of really stirred things up. You know, they
(08:09):
were constantly living in fear of attacks, you know, from
the tree line surrounding their homesteads, and really kind of
that paranoia was certainly part of everyday life. But Wyndom
had it even worse because they were threatened by a
lot of natural phenomena as well that kind of doubled
their anxiety and their sort of fear of absolute annihilation. Yes,
(08:33):
we're talking about the ever present threat of disease, drought.
You know, these are agricultural communities, so people are at
the mercy of the weather. And of course, uh, different
contingents of people fighting in the French and Indian War
could easily overwhelmed this small town. And there were so
(08:54):
many rumors that were circulating in the area. The game
of telephone was in full swing. You might not be
able to prove that there were atrocities just up the way,
but you couldn't prove that they weren't happening either. So
this is a really fearful time, kind of like the
residents of the Tune from our Mad gas Er episode.
(09:15):
We're also terrified about ongoing conflicts or the horrors of war,
and so all of this, all of this is happening.
If you're the average resident of Wyndham, you are at
least a couple of times a day thinking is this
going to be the day that someone attacks our our
(09:36):
little community. So it's not a surprise that in the
dark of night June seventeen fifty four, they start hearing
a ruckus and a rumble, louder and louder and louder.
Who is it? They're thinking, who is coming to kill us?
Because this happens like really late, shortly after midnight, and
(09:56):
at first people had no idea what it could be.
And I think a lot of people have different guests too.
So according to the reports that we've read, the first
person to hear the noise was a servant of a
local parson, which I believe just means like a preacher,
(10:18):
right like in Frosty the Snowman, And pretend isn't that
he is Parson Brown? Remember that I think that means
the preacher anyway. Um. This guy's name was pomp and
he was the first to hear the noise when he
was coming home around midnight after hanging out with a
with a lady lady friend of his at a nearby farmhouse,
and he walked down the street when he neared the
(10:41):
part of the town called Wyndham Green. Um, he began
to hear this really bizarre noise that absolutely terrified him,
and it was echoing no, not cool, not cool. Well,
I would be freaked out too. The bull frogs make
really scary sounds. Um. But it seemed to come from
everywhere all at once, so this almost could have had
(11:02):
the feeling of some sort of like supernatural event too,
especially in the dark of night. Um. He ran home
and awakened his master, Parson White, who then you know,
doubled down on what he heard as well and sounded
the alarm, waking up everybody nearby who hadn't already been
awakened by the sound and the screaming of of the servant,
(11:24):
and the noise continued to, you know, just kind of
increase at this fever pitch, and many folks thought that
it was some sort of Native American chant, of some
sort a war cry perhaps, and that they were coming
to descend upon them. They would all be dead by dawn. Yeah,
this pomp and circumstance quickly got out of control. Other
(11:49):
people said, no, this isn't a spell. Uh, these are
the war whoops. These are actually the war cries of
all called me Native American forces. And then other people said, no, no,
I know a little bit about the native populations. They're
actually just yelling gin and rum. It's still bad because
(12:12):
they're coming for us. And then some maybe more religious
folks thought that what they were hearing what appeared to
sound like this cacophonous roars, were instead trumpets of the
biblical judgment day. But one guy stepped in and said, hey,
it can't really be the day of Judgment because you know,
it's like just after midnight, it's not even dawn. Uh.
(12:34):
Some people thought that they could hear noises being called
out in this pandemonium, especially two of the town's military leaders,
Colonel Dyer and elder Kin, And luckily, unluckily for the town,
Dire and Elderkin were actually you know, they were they
were in the community at the time. So their children
(12:56):
just crying, you know, where are my parents. Their men
who are like grabbing all the weapons they can. There
are women who are shrieking all the while this mournful
sound is creating a end of Days kind of soundtrack.
And then you know, this army kind of gets together
on the green and people have whatever they could grab, pitchforks, knives,
(13:16):
old swords, a few had guns. Uh. And then this
is when people started calling for Colonel Dyer and elder
Kin to take charge. Basically, right, that's exactly right. And
John Adams had some things to say about one of
these folks, this lawyer by the name of Elaphilett Dire,
who referred to as long winded and tedious but an honest,
(13:40):
worthy man. Uh. And he was the leader of the
town's militia. Then the militia sprung into action. Um. Then
you had this guy, Jedediah Elderkin, who was another lawyer,
presumably also long winded and tedious but also hopefully honest
and we're worthy. But we don't know that for a fact,
as John Adams did not opine on Jedediah Elderkin. I
(14:02):
love that name, by the way, Jedediah. It's hard to
say a lot of d sounds in this dude's name.
So he, along with Dire, were apparently planning to colonize
the Susquehanna Valley. By the way, Jedediah Elderkin and Dire
had actually planned to extend their colony into the Susquehanna Valley,
(14:23):
but the residents of Wyndham, who referred to themselves as
window mites, which I love, decided this was a bad
idea because they thought it would anger in their minds.
The Native Americans that lived around this area missed opportunity
to call themselves the windhammer or the wind jammers. Perhaps
we'll work on that, um, But it makes sense they
(14:44):
were already living in fear of these attacks. They didn't
want to a further upset the apple cart. So we're
back to, you know, the night of the quote unquote attack, UM,
and these folks are understandably freaked out there hearing things
they're they're you know, playing into the sounds that they're hearing.
I mean, your ears can absolutely play tricks on you,
especially when your mind is unsettled in such a way.
(15:05):
So they're waiting around, hiding, you know, like you said, Ben,
presumably arming themselves with whatever they had around um and waiting,
you know, for what they believed was going to be
a painful death. And they were firing into the darkness
throughout most of the night, those who had muskets, and
(15:25):
they noticed that as dawn approached, the sounds began to
die and they began to fade out. Uh. And then
eventually a group of brave, courageous men formed a scouting
party and they ventured out to the place where the
sound came from, as near as they could tell. And
(15:45):
that's when they saw, not very far away at all,
about a hundred yards into the woods, local pond that
had almost dried up. And this is this is kind
of a sad part. Across the bed of the dry pond,
they found dozens and dozens of dead bullfrogs. The story grew.
You'll hear some accounts say hundreds of dead bull frogs,
(16:08):
and then swore people say thousands. Uh. But anyway, it
was a lot of frogs, and the scouting party realized
it was these frogs fighting, you know, for the last
bits of water in the pond that had generated this
noise that scared everyone so and interesting fun fact, the
pond belonged to dire And so what they realized was
(16:32):
what the I'm sticking with wind hammers. What the wind
hammers had heard were the first the battle cries and
then later the death knells of these poor thirsty bull frogs.
That was the whole, the whole thing. And oh, the
scouting party was just three guys. How did the townspeople
(16:53):
take it when they heard about this, Well, let's just
say they felt a little little bit silly. I don't
want to impart my own interpretations too much on them,
but there there is a sense of kind of humiliation,
of of feeling as though they overreacted. Again, this is
from from various reports. We've got some journal entries. Actually
(17:15):
we're gonna read in just a second. They'll give you
a little bit more of a sense of how this
was received. Uh. But um, they they weren't had somewhere angry.
Some decided to make light of the situation. That's probably
what I would have done. And that's ultimately it seems
like the direction they chose to go as a as
a town. Yeah, some you know, just we're like, we're
(17:37):
never gonna talk about this again. Uh. And it didn't.
You know, this town was so small again, only a
thousand residents. They didn't even have their own newspaper. But
word of mouth is a thing in and of itself,
especially around this time, you know, when that was one
of the only ways for stories like this to spread
and kind of a frontier situation. Um. And the story
did spread, and the wind Hammy's became kind of a
(17:59):
laughing stuff. Yeah, it's something that people joked a lot about.
And remember, as we said, Elderkin and I are both lawyers,
So lawyers in particular in this region of the Northeast
start to harass their colleagues with this story. You know, like, hey,
watch out, dire door. I checked. There aren't new frogs
(18:21):
in there. Um. And people have more healthy approach to
like some folks just threw up their hands and laughed
at it. We know that Reverend Styles of Woodstock wrote
about this to his nephew who was a law student,
and just an excerpt of the letter Here he says,
if the late tragical tidings of Windham deserve credit as
(18:43):
doubtless they do, it would then concern the gentlemen of
your Jurisprutian, which is a word I didn't know as
a thing, order to be fortified against the dreadful crooks
Torrian legiance, allegiance terrible is the very wreck of matter
and the crash of worlds. Antiquity relates that the elephant
fee is the mouse. A Hebrew trembles at the prowing
of the cock, but pre WinCE is it that the
(19:04):
croaking of a buffalo should so sad rise a lawyer,
bell shadow rise, Holy cow. I'm sorry, Ben, I'm gonna
need to unpack this. We've got some new words. There's
some new terms. So if the late tragical tidings from
Wyndom deserve credit as doubt as they do, it will
then concern the gentleman of your juris Prussian, order to
(19:27):
be fortified against the dreadful crooks of tarian legions. Okay,
so they're basically just mocking them and and sort of
acting as though frogs are some sort of terrifying force.
Was that kind of the idea Yeah, they're they're saying, Um,
it's funny because it's it's like a fake warning to
(19:49):
his nephew, like, Hey, you know you're going to be
a lawyer now, so get ready for frogs watch out
for that. Yeah, I gotta Ben, I'm going to aren't
trying to figure out how to incorporate belshaz eyes into
the regular conversation. And there's one more little snippet here
at the bottom, dire fuli Allah made of these audacious,
(20:10):
long winded croakers things unattempted yet in prosal rhyme. What
does the word Torrian mean here? Ben Torrian terrors in
chimeras dire Obviously that's referenced to die or the lawyer
and the militia leader. But what we've we've heard Torannian
is that the reference to the frogs genus or something
like that. It's an interesting question because it's weird because
(20:34):
he spells it Torreon and the first paragraph, and then
Rannion in the second, So maybe some of that is
just his handwriting. I was always under the impression that
Torrian meant things relating to the sign of right. Yeah,
I just googled it and got the same don't see
(20:54):
any froggy connections there at all. Um, well, any etymological
experts out there, let us know what you think or
if this is something that's come up before. Obviously, one
last sentence here, second time Trannian terrors and chimeras dire
I hope, sir, from the Dire Full now that's the
Now they're making fun of dire and making his name
(21:16):
into an adjective, right, and the from the dire Full
reports from the frog Pond you'll gain some instruction as
well as from the report of my Lord Cook. So
he's like the fun uncle. That's the That's what this
letter is is meant to convey to his nephews, like
frogs lawyers, you're gonna be one of those, watch out, bro.
(21:38):
But instead he used Belle shazarries, which I think we
both love. I hope you love it too. And so
as this, as this continues, we should mention the only
fatalities that night were frogs, which is regrettable, but still
nobody in the town was even injured, I believe, but
but not like due to stomping from townspeople. It was
(21:59):
literally because they were thirsty, right, and they're malnourished in
some way right, Yeah, exactly, it's because they couldn't survive
the drought. Uh So, as the years go on, and
I think partially because nobody was seriously injured, future generations
talk about these jokes. They circulate in the area, and
eventually the wind to Mikes, the winds Hammers get kind
(22:24):
of proud of this. You know, this is before HP Lovecraft,
so the association of small New England towns with amphibians
is still not seen as a sinister thing. Uh And
now it's like it's immortalized and not just letters but
a lot of poems and songs from the times. Uh
(22:44):
and we we have a few here. We know that
the story even went all the way across the pond
to Europe and people were talking about that's right. It
really became Yeah, I don't know, like good natured ribbing,
good natured ribbety that for sure. I'm sorry, But bull
frogs crow bull frogs do croak and ribboning would have
(23:05):
been an easier sound to pick out, I think in
the night, whereas you know, croak and a chorus, like
a comphony of croaks that kind of coalesced together into
this like huge drone. A lot less a lot more
sinister rather than just a few errant ribbts, Right, But
it did kind of become sort of a pop cultural phenomenon. Right.
(23:25):
There were songs and poems that were, you know, committed
to print and circulated in the nineteenth century. One example,
in eighteen fifty one, UM was the Ballad of the
Bull Frog Fight, A ballad of the olden time, um,
And it starts off with a dire, full story, Must
I tell should I at length relate at once a
(23:45):
luckless town? Befell in wooden nutmeg state? I guess that's
the reference to Connecticut, ben, I guess, so yeah. I
always thought it was the Constitution. Maybe maybe it's the
wooden nutmegs. They so, yeah, you're you're right. There were
we know there were at least two other ballads that
were written about what came to be called the Great
(24:06):
Windham Frog Fight. There was an operetta, which I thought
was awesome, called the Frogs of Old Windham from a
tight uh. And then after the American Revolution occurred, the
Windham Bank even started issuing bank notes with an image
of a frog standing over the body of another frog.
(24:26):
Of course, long time listeners you'll recall that during this
period in history, it was a lot easier for banks
to just decide they were going to make their own
bank notes essentially coupons, right, exactly right, But no, what
about Windham to date? Yeah, we sort of set the
stage without a little bit with their you know, froggy
regalia and these giant sculptures on top of those pillars,
(24:51):
you know, on either side of that bridge. But the
what we would refer to as the Willamantic section of
Windham um became ultimate a ly a factory town that
made goods, you know, like silk and cotton thread, and
it became quite a boomtown as the American Thread Company
located its headquarters on the banks of the Willimantic River,
(25:13):
and that became Connecticut's largest employer. Connecticut being a relatively
small state and and this being a really incredibly small town.
That's pretty cool. Um. So today you do have those
eleven foot frogs on these giant spools of thread that
kind of combine the two things the town is most
known for. And they actually you know, are set up
(25:35):
almost to look like you know, froggy centurions guarding the
thread City crossing or this frog bridge. Yeah, and you
can see pictures of these frog sculptures pretty easily online.
I'm not gonna lie. They weird me out just a
little bit because the frog's eyes are these large, almost
(25:58):
copperesque looking spheres that are blank, and they've got some
curly cue stylization on them. Uh, it looks like it
looks kind of sci fi, like from an alien civilization.
But you can definitely go see these. And if you
want to see the site of the bloody bullfrog battle itself,
(26:19):
you'll need to be a little bit careful because it's
now privately owned. It's along a state highway. The town
made a marker indicating where the pond existed in the
nineteen twenties, but they moved it because underbrush was growing
over it. Because now that sign is on the spot
(26:39):
where all the village people gathered back in seventeen fifty
four convinced it was the end of the world. Oh
and no, some of those frogs there are sculptures around
the town even have names. There's Willie and Manny after Willimantic. Correct,
we've got Swift Deep, presently named after the fans of
(27:01):
Taylor Swift. No, I'm kidding. It's actually reportedly named after
the Algonquin meaning of william Antic itself, which is land
of the swift running water, which immediately makes me think
of the scene in Wayne's World where Alice Cooper explains
that Milwaukee comes from the Algonquin word Milliwoauke, which means
(27:23):
the good land. M hm hm. There was a frog
parade in two thousand five and Windham wait with actual frogs, well,
actual fiberglass frogs, so actual frogs asterix. They were painted.
It's similar to that thing we have in Atlanta where
different artists had painted these cow sculptures to remember that. Yes,
(27:47):
so they painted these frogs and they paraded them through
the town and then they were displayed for a while
before they were auctioned off for charity. So if you
go to Windom today, which uh seems to be a
lovely place to visit, then you will see these various
frogs laying around. But no, Andrew, fellow, ridiculous historians. If
(28:13):
you spend some time in Wyndom and you make friends
with the locals and you chat them up, you might
meet some history buffs who have a different theory about
why those bullfrogs were screaming in the first place. Ha ha,
Ben the twists in the story, Why were the frogs
(28:37):
making so much noise? We know they were a little
bit thirsty and they were trying to get to that
last little bit of water in the pond and that
lowered pond. But what was going on that led to that.
Susan Z. Harrick, an assistant professor in residence at the
University of Connecticut's Biology Department, actually grew up in Wyndom,
and she has a theory about what insided the original
(29:01):
incident with the frogs that caused all of that chaos.
So the story or the legend, I guess, I don't know.
It's it's it's a little more than a legend. But
initially it claims that the frogs were fighting for this
little bit of water remaining in that pond. But Herrick,
who herself is an expert in frog behavior, thinks that
(29:22):
the frogs were actually getting it on. They were they
were making sweet love, presumably in the last remaining splashes
of that that lowered pond. M h. Yeah. The noises
are what Herrick calls advertisement calls that tells other males
(29:44):
about the male making the call. So it's kind of
like it's kind of like if you had a song
and you were like, I'm in great shape, I'm young,
this is my spot of the pond. Also, if you're listening,
I'm single, ladies, so be more like I've got a
(30:04):
dad body, I've got an okay job, I'm kind of
a professional nerd, and I've got a little bit of water.
Come on, ladies, let's go so the So imagine then
these kinds of songs, they're being dozens and dozens of
them at minimum right shouted over each other. And this
(30:26):
could easily explain the situation. But Herrick has found that
oddly enough, it looks like usually instead of shouting over
each other, neighboring frogs would take turns. One person would
say their song, which I won't reveal on air, but
you know, right to me, other species of frogs will
just crowd together with a little less strategy. They'll figure
(30:49):
out where females of their species may be, and they'll
just all run up there shouting. Eric has this awesome line, Um,
I really appreciated this. If you're listening to Susan Eric,
she said, it's like a singles bar scene in human society,
but for frog Yeah, and I don't know. I feel
like we all know how that usually turns out. It
(31:13):
makes me think of like the two dudes from Night
at the Roxbury who are like both simultaneously trying to
hit on one woman and they end up just kind
of banging against her repeatedly until she just freaks out
and runs away. You know that that seems like if
I was inundated, You know, if I was a female
frog and I was being inundated by all these calls,
I might just be like, yo, I don't think I
(31:33):
wanted anything to do with any of y'all because you
clearly have no restraint and um, it's kind of gross.
So that's just my two cents there, and there's Herrick
follows this a little bit further because as she was researching,
she learned that if things get particularly bad, some frogs
(31:54):
will switch mating strategies that they, you know, they're species,
ordinarily wouldn't use. So she believes that as the shoreline
of this pond shrink and the males became increasingly desperate,
they were losing their territory, uh their yards. Essentially, we're
getting smaller and smaller. And then it was just too
many dudes on the dance floor, too many males and
(32:17):
too small a pond. They gave up on having any
territory at all. They were just trying to find love.
They weren't coordinating their calls, all of which leads Herrick
to believe that's how this pandemonium occurred. They just started
screaming desperately, and then the noise became so loud that
(32:37):
it woke the members of the village. I do have
a theory about the noise though, because when you think
about it, in modern society, we're always surrounded with some
kind of noise, especially if you live anywhere near other people,
and the natural world is pretty loud too, But if
you live in the forest for a while, you learn
to recognize those sounds. So I'm wondering how loud this
(33:01):
actually was, you know what I mean, like, how loud
it would be a modern church. Was it just the
fact that they didn't have TVs on at night or podcast?
You know? But I've got to say that, and I
think you've probably been in the situation to taking a
nice stroll in the woods and you pass by like
a patch where there are clearly some frogs going nuts
and just a handful of them can raise quite a ruckist.
(33:24):
So I would imagine, you know, under these conditions where
they're really trying to compete for a lady's attention, could
get really out of hand volume wise, especially reverberating through
like a town square, you know, whether where there's the
po presumably some sort of stone to reinforce the pond.
I'm I'm guessing maybe not might have been more rudimentary
(33:45):
than that, but yeah, I could imagine it would get
pretty out of hand pretty quickly. Yeah, you know, I
think there's also a good point to be made about
the the weather at the time. Apparently the muggy air
also helped the rokes spread. But you're right, you make
a good point. Desperation can drive these frogs to some
(34:06):
pretty uh superhuman croaks, you know what I mean, Like
someone who is panicking when their kid is under a
car and they're able to use that what do you
call it, hysterical strength to lift the car. Maybe these croaks,
maybe these frogs were croaking as a life and death matter,
which as we learned it was, it was very much
so uh And I don't know what that being said,
(34:30):
this is cool. I love it when towns have something
like this. Don't you don't you feel like if you
go through a place like Hell in Georgia, don't you
like that idea like, oh, we're back in a copy
of Bavaria. I do like it, and I want to
know why. I assume initially there's some real German heritage
in a in a town like that. It turns out
(34:51):
that in Helen that's not the case at all. They
did it almost exclusively for tourists attraction purposes. It's not
like it has some sort of history of like German immigrants.
Unless I'm completely mistaken, but I could swear that I've
that I looked this up thinking that that was what
was up, and then realized, oh no, this is actually
just like some developers that decided they wanted to, you know,
(35:11):
make something a trap, sort of like south of the Border,
you know what I mean. That's literally what it is.
But despite this actually being a real part of the
town's legacy, one of the people behind that frog bridge
that we talked about really did hope that these statues
would stir up some kind of almost folkloric urban legends
surrounding the town. Right. A woman named Margaret p Reich,
(35:35):
who's the executive director of the Windham Regional Planning Agency
and one of the uh, the chief like boosters behind
this frog bridge idea. She said that someone came back
from Serbia with a travel guide that talked about these
bridges featuring images of dragons and sculptures of dragons that
(35:55):
are supposed to wag their tails when a virgin walks by.
Uh she said, and quiz quoted in the New York
Times article, We'd like to create a similar urban legend,
but with frogs and probably not involving virgins. Okay, but
that's not how that's not how urban legends work. Not
quite so much. But I I applaud the idea. Who
(36:17):
doesn't love a good urban legend. So let's let's make
a let's make our own urban legend. Right now, Let's
say that if you are looking for love, just like
those frogs of old, then which you want to do
is go to Wyndham Green on night in in summer.
Will make it very It can be summer, it can
(36:38):
be either June or July. Right, and then let's see,
you know, let's say you you have to ask one
of the frogs for help. Right, it could be manny
windy whomever. And then you mentioned this off air, maybe
maybe there's a certain way you walk. Yeah, like what
is it? What do you call win winter winter? Sian?
(36:58):
That's so, what is that backwards? Doesn't that just like
walking backwards? It's walking counter counter exactly, that's right. Uh.
And then what happens you you'll be blessed with your
your true love's desire. Yes, if you hear the crow,
if you hear the croak, you gotta hear the croak. Um.
But Ben, I love that, and I think let's enter
(37:19):
that into the lexicon of urban legends. And so so
that's how these things start. Um. But one thing that's interesting,
and it ties back into another recent episode we did
is the Windham Bank. It was chartered in eighteen thirty two,
uh and was built in what is now known as
Windham Center. Um. It was a little slow to develop,
(37:40):
and as we know, a lot of these frontier banks
did issue their own currency. We did episode recently on
the Leopard colonies that had their own currency, and then
in the past we had done episodes on different kind
of scripts that were issued that would lose their value
completely if they were taken too far outside of their
you know, place of issue. So the bank notes that
(38:01):
the Windham Bank issued, which are very rare and are
actually unlisted. And you'll recall Ben mentioned earlier, the Windham
Bank and those bank notes, the script that they issued
um featuring a frog kind of lording over the dead
body of another frog. Why why that imagery band that's
very Uh, that didn't quite that's not quite the spirit
(38:22):
of the frog fight post Revolutionary War. Yeah, I guess
that's true. But there's actually a poem by the great
Wyndham poet, Reverend Theron Brown, that kind of exemplifies this
whole frog you know, phenomenon um, and it goes like this,
I pause to nurse the quaint remembrance. Here the bank
(38:46):
and I were born the self same year. The mind.
It's notes between whose figures poked two frogs so lifelike
that they almost quote the original green backs of the
native race that long anticipated salmon chase. They blossomed like
pond lilies from the mud, memento of a war that
(39:10):
shed no blood. And then everybody's like stepping there, Oh
my god. I love that though, because at the end
of the day, you know this, there's a lot more,
a lot worse ways this could have gone. Uh, nobody
lost their lives and ultimately the town of Wyndham went
on to prosper So there you go, happy ending. Yes, yes,
this also marks one more step in our journey to
(39:32):
have an episode about every state in the United States.
So thanks as always to our super producers Casey and
Andrew Thinks. Also especially to our research associate Gabelusier who
helped us hunt these frogs in Connecticut. Yes, indeed, and
huge thanks to Alex Williams who composed this very theme
(39:53):
that you're hearing right now. Super muster, Casey Pegrum, guest
producer Andrew A how call me Ishmael Poward, and Christopher
Haciotes here in spirit do to be here corporeally in
the very near future? That's right, that's right, No spoilers,
but everyone acts surprised. Also big thanks to our own
(40:13):
croaker in the dark, Jonathan Strickland, a k. The quizter.
I always wonder if he listens to the end of
these to know the nicknames him at the end. We
should wrap it up before he shows up though for real. Indeed,
if you want to check us out other places on
the Internet, you can find us. We are on Facebook.
We're on Instagram at Ridiculous History. You can find you know,
(40:35):
just google that and all the things will come up.
We do recommend that you join our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians,
where you can get in on the conversation around each
new episode and you know, make some friends along the way,
because after all, it's about the friends we made along
the way. We're working on getting an email. I don't
know why that's what's going on with that, but apparently
our old email when we switched to a new provider
(40:56):
somehow bit the dust. So more on that soon, but
in the time that Facebook group is the best place
to get in touch with us. You can also find
us individually on social media's I am at how Now
Noel Brown pretty much exclusively on Instagram, I am at
the Frog King dot blogspot dot org. Um. If that
doesn't work out for you, please find me at ben
(41:17):
Bullan bo w l i N on Instagram where you
can see any number of strange adventures I get into
or come hang out with me on Twitter where I'm
at ben Bulan hs W and always looking forward to
hearing suggestions for new topics from you. Well that's that's
a ride, Nola. I've got you know, my cacophonous noise
(41:39):
for today as a leafblow as we record mid pandemic.
So I think it's I think it's time to call
this one. I think so, buddy. We'll see you next time. Books. Yeah.
(42:04):
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Noel Brown
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