June 6, 2023 • 49 mins
Today Benjamin Franklin is known as one of the founding fathers of the US, and there’s no doubt that he played a tremendously influential role in the creation of the country. But Franklin, known then and now as a bit of an eccentric. But what about his darker side?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, we're back with a classic for today. You know,
in the interest of full disclosure, I often refer to
this as one of my favorite titles of any episode.
Was Benjamin Franklin a serial killer?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yes? End of episode. Well, okay, it's more complicated than that.
Lots going on with this fella.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
He was a lot of things, an inventor, a statesman,
a bit of a perv.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
You know, and possibly a serial killer. You be the judge.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Let's find out. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies,
history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back
now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noble.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
They call me Ben. We are joined, of course, as
always with our long suffering super producer Paul Decant. Most importantly,
you are you, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. You guys, I'm gonna set us
up with a with a pretty much gimme question. Have
you ever been to d.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
C d C Comics. I know it was a place.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, well I went to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, yeah, hold on one.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I was there on the day of the Donald Trump
inauguration and that town was on fire and felt like
a third world country.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
It was very strange.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Have you ever been to Philadelphia?
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Yes, yeah, I've seen the Liberty Bell, my friends.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That's what everyone says.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Is it as true?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I thought, that's literally my Philadelphia story too, That's all.
That's why I said that.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So is is it impressive in person?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
It's definitely a bell with a crack in a big
old crack yep.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
So uh, mass this because today, folks, our episode centers
on the formation of the United States in a way,
the founding Fathers in a way, and eccentricity in a
very real way. We're exploring the strange life and the
(02:18):
unknown facets of Benjamin Franklin. But who is Benjamin Franklin?
First off, since we already know so much about Hamilton.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Oh, how do you? I haven't been able to get tickets.
I don't know jack about Hamilton.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
That soundtrack never stops at my house. You can get
the soundtrack, yeah, you can spotify baby. So Benjamin Franklin
was born on January eleventh, seventeen oh six, in a
house in Milk Street in Boston. Milk Street, Yes, yes,
very very white. Milky Street in Boston. Over the course
of two marriages, his father, Josiah Franklin, had seventeen children,
(02:57):
how irresponsible.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
And Benjamin, who was a child of the second marriage,
was the fifteenth kid and the youngest son.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Wow, I bet he got his ass kicked.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Oh oh yeah, just wait yeah. Unlike some founding fathers,
Benjamin Franklin was born and what would later become the
United States, but at the time this area was known
as the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His father, Josiah was a
soap and candlemaker, and he was raised Presbyterian. Although his
father intended Ben to serve in the church since he
(03:32):
was the youngest son, Benjamin Franklin was not, as you
might imagine, super into this idea.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Yeah, that's a story that occurs a lot. Father has
aspirations for the oldest or the youngest a lot of
times to become essentially the father, like to continue on
the life of the father.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Right to follow in the footsteps. Right. At age ten,
Benjamin became an apprentice at his father's shop, and Franklin,
the elder, was very concerned that ben might decide to
become a sailor like one of his older brothers, a
guy named Josiah Junior. So Franklin the elder had Ben
join one of his other older brothers, because again there's
(04:15):
a whole litter of these, these guys as an indentured
apprentice at the printing press. And what does this mean exactly?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
An indentured apprentice.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, isn't it sort of like an indentured servant, but
you get like work experience.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
It's like being an intern kind Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, that's a great description though, because it means that
Benjamin couldn't earn wages that he could keep until he
was twenty one. And go into your earlier question about
ass kicking. It turns out Ben's brother, James was a nightmare.
He was abusive, he was resentful, I think physically abusive.
(04:56):
And part of it, pro Franklin historians will tell you
is because James was very mad that Benjamin was already
better at printing than he was.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Probably better at like everything. It's Benjamin Franklin we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
I mean, if you know anything about him, you know
he was a jack of all trades, a renaissance man.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Oh yes, it's very true. And then pretty soon after
all of this was going down, James the brother founded
this thing called the New England Current. It was the
second newspaper in America. And Ben was still, you know,
doing his indentured workitude thing, and he was relegated to
setting letters, which is a laborious task takes forever. It's
(05:37):
very difficult and it's mostly just time consuming and exacting.
Then he had to sell papers door to door. But
he wanted to actually get in on writing stuff that
went into the paper rather than just doing the mechanical
labor of making it happen.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
And his brother hated that idea.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Yeah, he was not into it either. So he, like
a lot of writers or aspiring writers, came up with
a pseudonym Silence do good or dogged good, Silence de good.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I think that sounds like the name of, like the
real life name of of a superhero character, like a
Marvel character from the you know, seventies.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
Yeah, yeah, maybe it was Selence do go perhaps, perhaps,
but Silence if we go with Silence had a backstory, right.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, So Silence is allegedly a widow, and Silence had
strong objections to arbitrary government and the unlimited power welded
by these arbitrary governments.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Eventually, Benjamin Franklin gets an opportunity to travel to the
United Kingdom. Being like almost anyone his age, he says
his Times version of hell yes yeah, and travels to England.
He returns from London into what will later become the
United States and found his own print shop.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
So Franklin continued to work in Philadelphia as a printer,
also an inventor and an activist. And Ben, I just
want to real quickly aside, We did an episode in
our podcast other podcast side podcast, Ridiculous History, about how
Ben Franklin invented a phonetic alphabets, and a lot of
(07:26):
that was rooted in his love of type setting and
fascination with the written language and how you know it
was different than the spoken language.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
So that was a big foundation for his.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Work absolutely, and eventually by seventeen seventy five he is
elected to represent the state of Pennsylvania in the Second
Continental Congress. We're skipping over a lot of his early
life here because we want to get to the strange stuff.
But we should at least talk about the Revolutionary War.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Oh yeah, which which happened almost immediately after that. A
year later, in seventeen seventy six, Franklin is appointed as
a member of the Committee of Five. And these are
the people you may have heard about early on in
your childhood education. These are the people that drafted the
Declaration of Independence, the people who really, I mean, if
you want to say founding fathers, you gotta throw them
(08:16):
in there, because they made the.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Document, which was another thing that I saw in Philadelphia.
It's all coming back to me, flooding back Independence Hall.
You can go and see that storied document preserved in glass,
and you're not supposed to even touch the glass.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
So go to Philadelphia. A tour of the United States
before it was and as it became.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
You should work for the Pennsylvania Tourism Boy.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, that's Math's secret life. So this was a difficult
time for Franklin because he was temporarily disabled by gout.
He was unable to attend most meetings of the Committee
as a consequence, but he reportedly made several small, crucial
changes to the draft of the Declaration that was sent
to him by Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Very nice. So he's like the editor that makes those
last little changes, and then the other writers are like,
oh darn.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
You, yeah, you know I think that's accurate in many ways.
This this time is when you'll also hear one of
his most famous real quotes, as opposed to all the
fake stuff you can find on the internet. He says
at the signing, John Hancock said they all have to
hang together, and then Benjamin Franklin reportedly said, yes.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we
shall all hang separately.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Let's hang together like we're doing right now.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
That's the way I like to picture it. I like
to picture like after they signed, John Hancock was doing
the version of you know what, let's go get a drink.
We should all hang out more often. We should hang together.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Can either hang together or hang alone.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
But most assuredly we will be hanged.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I think that's now not quite right.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I'm pretty sure that's what he's saying here.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Well, be that as it may. Benjamin Franklin was never
a soldier. In the lead up to the war and
the push for independence, often functioned as a diplomat. In
December of seventeen seventy six, he was dispatched to France
as Commissioner for the United States, which was, you know,
a diplomatic role. There he remained in France until seventeen
(10:23):
eighty five. Who's there for quite a while?
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yeah, nine years. He loved it there.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, and his long suffering wife was not too pleased,
but you know, agreed with him that he was doing
important stuff, you know what I mean. It's like the
most extreme version of I know, I'm staying late at
work tonight, hunt, but I'm making.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Moves in France.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
In France, I'm making moves in France.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
He was a bit of a heel though, wasn't he.
I mean he was he was a ladies man.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
He probably wasn't the most faithful, doting husband that there
ever could be, right.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And that's good foreshadowing there Noel in France. He made
vital progress in garnering support for the US, even if
it's only because they really hated England, they really hated Britain.
He secured a critical military alliance at seventeen seventy eight.
He also negotiated the Treaty of Paris, And we cannot
(11:18):
emphasize this enough. Without French support, the Revolutionary War could
have had vastly different results.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I'd venture to say definitely would have different results without
the military might of France.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So what happens afterward.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
So we discussed it. In seventeen eighty five, Franklin returns
to Philadelphia, That's when he left France. In seventeen eighty
seven he became a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention. And
this is this is one of those things that Benjamin Franklin,
because of his positions that he's held up to this point,
he gets this as kind of an honorary position. You,
(11:58):
Benjamin Franklin, are appointed to the Philadelphia Convention.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Sort of like an emeritus position.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
You know, Yeah, you've been around, you've done enough stuff,
you can be a.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Part of this.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
And he was, you know, a living legend at this time, right,
And he also became a staunch abolitionist, eventually leading abolitionist
movements in Philadelphia. But it wasn't all trumpets and angel
farts and happy endings, because Franklin struggled with obesity and
(12:29):
gout throughout his middle age and especially his later years.
In fact, he was rarely seen in public after seventeen
eighty seven, sort.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Of a Marlon Brando kind of figure.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
But without island of Doctor Moreau and more gout and
perhaps more couts. Yes, he died from what is known
as a pluretic attack. That's the inflammation of the membranes
or ploure that surround the lungs in line the chess
cavity at his home in Philadelphia on April seventeenth, seventeen,
age eighty four.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
And today, Benjamin Franklin is remembered as the only founding
father who is a signatory of all four of the
major documents of the founding of the United States. We're
talking the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France,
the Treaty of Paris, as well as the official United
States Constitution. That's a pretty big deal. You know.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
The thing about the Constitution is, for something that gets
brought up so often in discourse today, I'm always surprised
by how few people have actually read it.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Is there a Constitution app? I feel like if somebody
puts out an official Constitution app, a lot more people
will read it. Or maybe a game.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
If they gamify the Constitution. There are also a lot
of a lot of organizations that will send you a
free pocket constitution. You know, if you ever want to
look like an incredible nerd in front of your friends just.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
At the bar, actually particle two.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Which you know, any listeners out there that have a
pocket constitution, we mean you no harm?
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Oh, no, good on you. I think it's actually a
really cool thing.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Well, I have one. I just don't want to take
it out.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
You know, whip it out.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah I don't. I mean, hopefully I'm not ever going
to be in a situation where I have to take
out the Constitution and say, you know, pardon me, officer.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Yeah, the pen is my hero. Then the gun.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I don't think that'll end well.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
But not only was he an incredible politician and statesmanough
I don't believe he ever officially held elected office, did he.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
He did serve in a position was very much like
the governor of Philadelphia, but he was not, you know,
a senator.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Right, And I think a lot of people, because he's
on you know, the Big Bill, the hundred, the hundo,
people assume that he, you know, had some sort of
elected capacity.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Never president as we know, yea exactly, or vice president.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Hugely innovative, though an event a sort of a Willy
Wonka type figure, only you know, with functional stuff, not
just stuff that gives you diabetes.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Oh yeah, he invented and improved a lot of things
that were massively important at the time and continue to
be in a way. Bifocals, being able to see up
close with your glasses as well as far away, depending
on how your eyes are functioning. The flexible catheter. Now
you may say to yourself, wow, these catheters that are
(15:27):
so flexible are terribly annoying and hurt and it stinks
using these catheters.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
But just imagine if they were.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Glass or just stiff thing as they couldn't move. Nope,
I can't imagine it. Thank you, Ben Franklin. Again, as
a person who's never used a catheter besides on my dog,
that's a whole other story we can get into later. Also,
the glass harmonica. I'm not sure how important that one
(15:55):
truly is. I'm sure some music historian could explain and.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
To us it has a booky story. Oh yeah, a
grizzly rumor about it.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
The glass harmonica, which would be really interesting to you
guys as musicians if you've ever seen it. It's a
series essentially of nested glass bowls that rotate and such
that you can wet your finger and slide it across
you know, how you hear the sound when you slide
a finger around a rim of glass and it makes
(16:23):
that into a musical instrument. So it's got a noise
that would sometimes be described as eerie, sometimes as irritating.
But the weird part is then it fell out of
favor because, as you know, all glass can take well,
the vast majority of glass contained lead at the time,
(16:45):
and so there was this urban legend or this rumor
that using a glass harmonica would be very bad for
your health, could drive you crazy. Yeah, it could be
lead poisoning. So it well, it fell to the wayside.
But this guy, as as we had said, was so
(17:05):
prolific that, you know, you just got to accept, if
you're the Tony Stark of your time, that not everything
is going to be the Iron Man suit, you know,
not every invention.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Yeah, he even had his own stove, the Franklin Stove YEP.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Which is sort of the portable cast eye. I say portable,
I mean just very heavy. But it's the kind of
like old timey cast iron stove that you think of
maybe being in a cabin that you're renting in the
mountains or something like that. It as a oven type
door where the fire would be and a stove pipe
on top to ventilate the smoke and it would heat.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It was basically like a space.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Heater and also known as the Pennsylvania Fireplace, which sounds
like euphemism or something. One thing that's I don't want
to speak for everybody. For me, it's personally admirable. This
this following note about Franklin's inventions. Of all the mentions
he made, and we just listed a few quickly, he
(18:02):
refused to patent a single one because his argument was
that he living in the time he lived, was already
benefiting from so many other inventions by earlier people, and
he felt it was only fair and just that he
provided the same benefits in turn. You know what I mean, Like,
he's not giving somebody money every time he uses something
(18:25):
that has wheels, so why should he charge someone just
for wanting a catheter that is flexible.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
I yeah, I completely agree with your thoughts, man. I
think that is extremely admirable. He went open source in
the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I was about to say, like our Duena, the company
that makes those little microprocessors that you can use to
program robotics for using in like maker type competitions and stuff,
they open source all their stuff. You can get the
schematics for those, and there are third parties that improve
upon them or make different versions of them.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And that's par for the course. I think that's pretty cool,
forward thinking fellow that Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Yeah, and it's mirroring today's Tony Stark Ellen Musk who's
doing some of that same stuff with Tesla.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And you know, that's a very admirable thing. But there
are also quite a few strange aspects to the life
of Benjamin Franklin. There are myths, rumors, and legends about
this America's most eccentric founding father. We found some that
are amusing and some that are, you know, pretty out there.
(19:30):
A true story. He made up around two hundred terms
for getting wasted.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Wow, two hundred words for getting wasted. This is a
known thing. This is true.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, yeah, because why am I not?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Why am I only using like three of them?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Well, maybe because you don't have a copy of The
Drinker's Dictionary, published in seventeen thirty seven, with a list
of over two hundred alternative terms for drunkenness that Ben
Franklin had overheard in taverns over the years. In his
newspaper the Pennsylvania Gazette.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Ah phrases such as he's drank more than he has bled,
He's bungy bungy, he sees the bears pissed in the brook.
These are just the bees too loaded his cot Oh,
he is chapfallen, Chap.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Falling, He's biggie bewitched, block and block boozy, bousd been
at the Barbados.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
At the Barbados. Yeah, these are great, you guys, maybe
we should take a take a page from his life
and start making up our own terms. Although I guess
we already do that on this show. Mister is right
in and let let us know which of those was
your favorite that we should use.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
He's had a thump over the head with Samson's jawbone.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yep, see, I feel like if somebody can say that
they're describing someone else who's drunk. If I were drunk
and I was trying to say I've had a thump
over the head with Samson's jawbone, I feel like I
would stumbling.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Though. You know that Benjamin Bowland he owes no man
a farthing.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
And to go back to my characterization of him as
sort of a Willy Wonka esque figure.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
He's wamble cropped.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Wamble crop wamble cropped is the winner for me. And
also when he wasn't, when he wasn't compiling these very
humorous things, he was, as as Matt Nole mentioned earlier,
a bit of a lothario, A bit of a ladies
man lothario right, a man who behaves selfishly and irresponsibly
(21:39):
in his sexual relationships with women, particularly so sort of
a don Juan.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
And that's your new word for the day.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Is a pewey Herman style.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It will be now. So he was notorious for sleeping
around whenever the opportunity presented itself. He had a child
out of wedlock, and you know what, to his credit,
which was unusual at the time, he admitted to whomever
the mother was that it probably was his kid, and
he said he would take care of the kid. And
he never revealed the mom's identity.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
He also, as Noel pointed out, abandoned his wife for
years and lived the high high life of hedonism in France.
In his own correspondence, Benjamin Franklin laments his uncontrollable libido.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Yeah, he was a sex addict, which one of the
first yep.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
The next one was David d'covney.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Yeah. Well, and you know there are even tales of
him outright hitting on his friend's wives and is the
you know, the marriages of his friends, just just in
casual conversation with you know, the men present.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Like my, you are a saucy lass, all.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Right, dude, bend ben getting a bungy. Oh god, he's
eating a toad and a half for breakfast.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
That's another one. So he had several, you know, views
we would consider eccentric, if not controversial today as well.
He was a huge proponent of air baths. That's where
you you just sit around naked regardless of the temperature.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
He just hanged on.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
He just hanged on.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
That's all.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
That's always sunny thing. I just love it. That's one
of my favorite expressions for being nude.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Never does he hanged on? Really, I remember that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
And he also we talked about this a little bit.
But they're reinventing of the alphabet, coming up with the
phonetic stuff. That's that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, that's that's right, Matt. He did he did attempt that.
It didn't catch on.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
No, we're not here to talk about his drunken revelry
and inventing. Are we we're talking, We're here to talk
about some some darkness.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
There is some darkness within this one.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
And we'll explore it after a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
There is a massive amount of conspiracies out there about
the Founding Fathers. They range all over the place. But
we really should just do Have we done a Founding
Father's conspiracies?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
We think we have not yet. And that's something that
Paul brought up when we asked if we asked if
there was an episode that he thinks we should do
in the future.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
Oh yeah, all right, Paul, Well, guess what. We're gonna
get to that one, and we're gonna start with this
one because there are several specific conspiracy theories surrounding mister
Benjamin Franklin. And the first one is one that is
common to several other Founding Fathers, including mister George Washington,
(24:48):
was that Franklin was a member of the Freemasons, the
Illuminati of the Bavarian sort, or you know, some other
secret society. And here's the crazy thing. It's partially true.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, Like Matt said, Benjamin Franklin, like many Founding fathers,
was definitely a Freemason.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
In seventeen thirty one, Franklin joined the Masonic Lodge of
Saint John in Philadelphia. Then in thirty two he helped
create the bylaws of his lodge. Then two years later
he became a grand master. That same year, seventeen thirty four,
Franklin also published the first Masonic book printed in America
(25:31):
that was called The Constitutions of the Freemasons.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
So it's very interesting to me because he's a fairly
young man. Well, I guess at the time, twenty something
isn't that young. But when he joined the lodge for
the first time and he grew in the ranks very
quickly and then started writing inside that world of freemasonry,
you know, and then just to get up there to
(25:55):
become the grand master of the Nine Sisters Lodge in Paris,
that's that's pretty big, right.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
He remained an active member for over sixty years until
seventeen ninety when he passed away, and when he was
serving as America's diplomat to France. As Matt said, he
became a grand master. So what about the Illuminati we
have a series on the Illuminati. If you have not
heard it yet or watch the videos, we invite you
(26:23):
to check them out. The Illuminati historically will refer to
the Bavarian Illuminati as formed by a fellow named Adam
Wi Shopped in May of seventeen seventy six. Again, yeah,
I know, all right, right, this is the closest thing
there is to a quote unquote verified Illuminati, and they
(26:48):
would have been around on the continent while Franklin was
in Europe. But there's no solid proof that ben and
Adam came into direct contact. Now that does not mean
it didn't happen, and it is. It's true that Franklin's
philosophical viewpoint probably would have jibbed why Shop like they
would have been feeling it. Yeah, they would have hit
it off. It's more possible those still not proven, that
(27:11):
Franklin could have encountered ideas or concepts in Europe they
came from Bishop's group or inspired that group. But back
to the actual Illuminati membership thing. If Benjamin Franklin was
active in this regard, the guy probably would have talked
about it.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Why Well, that's because mister Benjamin Franklin, well, he was
in this other little secret society. It's one called espionage,
one where there are a lot of secrets. But here's
the problem. Ben wasn't very good at it.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, Benjamin Franklin was a shitty spy.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Yeah, And I would venture to say it's because of
the lifestyle that he kept, that he was used to,
and there was a lot of revelry I'm assuming in
Franklin's life, in the truth serum that he would take
on his own I'm assuming didn't.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Help, right, right, I believe you're referring to alcohol.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yes, yes, So.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
According to a CIA piece that was published internally and
later declassified called quote British Penetration of America's first diplomatic mission,
Benjamin Franklin was just terrible at this. Like, he was
very good at making connections, very persuasive, and a brilliant thinker,
(28:35):
but not the most talented when it came to security.
One of his closest acquaintances blew up his spycraft operation
continually as he was sending clandestine cries for support to France.
The mole was a guy named Edward Bancroft, who who
knew Ben Franklin from the United States, was one of
(28:56):
his most trusted friends. Franklin trusted him so much he
made the guy his secretary at the US Commission to France,
which means Bancroft had access to everything. And furthermore, the
British Empire paid him one thousand pounds a year for
his assistance, which was nothing to sneeze at. No, that's
(29:16):
smack a donkey money. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yep, I'm gonna steal that.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
You've got smack a donkey money. So, as Commissioner of France,
Franklin was running all kinds of clandestine operations with Tacit.
French aid. They were at the very least turning, turning
their eyes away, but in most cases they were attempting
to help when they could. But what kind of stuff
were they doing.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
We're talking about procuring weapons, all kinds of different supplies
for the war effort or the in preparation of war,
the money for the American Army, just straight up giving
money to the American Army. Sabotaging the Portsmouth Royal Navy dockyard.
Sabotage is a big thing. And if you know, you
can prove prove that there's money coming for in a
(30:02):
clandestine way to do something like that, it's not good
for your cause. And of course they negotiated a secret
treaty between the United States or America and France. But
here's the thing. While all that's going on, Britain pretty
much knew everything that was happening. Minute by minute. They're like, Okay,
this is about to happen. Okay, this is about to happen,
(30:24):
this is going down. Here's where this money is going.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Right, Yeah, exactly. There was no OPSEEC or operational security.
The public had access to the estate. Sensitive papers, documents
were strewn everywhere. Apparently, secret conversations were held, sometimes as
loud arguments in public places.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Again, it's that sauce, it's that's us.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, it's like the way our president takes meetings at
you know, this is his club, surrounded by diners.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, that was controversial.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Leader.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, you're talking about mar A Lago.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Meetings, right, Yes, yes, I'm saying like that doesn't doesn't
It seems historical president would would make that.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
A teachable moment.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Oh, there you go.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
There's one more macabb's story here. All right, so far
we have Freemasonry, true Illuminati, difficult to prove spi noaje spycraft. True,
but he was bad at it, like really bad at it.
But there's one more story here, one more conspiracy, and
(31:26):
it's macabre and it's grizzly and it's graphic. Forget the
idea of skeletons in the closet. What about bodies in
the basement.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
You're saying bodies in a basement that Benjamin Franklin like
of a home that Benjamin Franklin owned?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Was it a murder dungeon? So yeah, okay, so maybe not,
maybe not.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
A full fledged murder dungeon, but definitely we'll start off
with a creepy house. So for almost twenty years leading
up to the signing of that fable Declaration of Independence,
Franklin lived in London at thirty six Craven Street.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
He just has a talent for choosing terrible street names.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Just creepy street names. Cravens. I don't know why that
sounds creepy to me. Milk streets creepy too.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Thirty six Craven the street right off Milk Street.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yes, wes crey Elm Street was one block over. So
in seventeen seventy six, as we mentioned earlier, he came
back to the States. Let's do a little fast forward
action to several centuries to nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Why not that house was in quite horrible disrepair.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
So there was like a preservation organization called the Friends
of Vegement Franklin House, who decided to make some innovations
to the four story townhouse. It was on the verge
of collapse, just total structural damage caused by time and inattention,
so extensive work had to be done.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
It's like on the foundation, like you know, pulling out
the studs.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
They had to do some repairs to make it safe
enough for construction crews to go back and do repairs.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
And it's this historical thing, so you have to be
very careful about what you're preserving as you're doing this.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
And by this time, this was the last structure around
in which Benjamin Franklin actually lived.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
Yeah, so hugely important. It's this, it's this piece of history.
And can you imagine being there working on this team,
trying to make sure everything is functional so that you
can work on it, and then also you know, trying
to get the house to a place where you can
have people come in and use it as a museum
or something, and then you stumble upon this windowless secret
(33:40):
room below the house's garden.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
There was a murder dungeon.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
Yeah, so this group, the friends of Benjamin Franklin house,
found this thing, and they discovered something in there. Fifteen
bodies in the basement.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Bet they weren't feeling so friendly then, were they would?
Speaker 4 (33:59):
I would not be.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
I imagine there might have been somebody in the group who said, look, technically,
I'm a friend of Benjamin Franklin's house, not Benjamin Franklin.
Here's what they found. The room, or this pit was
about a meter wide and a meter deep. All in all,
there were over twelve hundred pieces of human bones hidden inside.
Experts believe five of the skeletons came from children. The
(34:23):
oldest skeleton was that of an elderly male, and the
youngest was a baby, like a not quite an infant.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
Baby.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Bones were disturbed and damaged, showing limbs that have been
cut or completely hewn through. Some of the skulls showed
evidence of trepanation, which is a let's call it a
controversial medical procedure wherein the back base of the skull
is drilled to ostensibly well in hopes of relieving pressure
(34:59):
or you know, letting the demon imens. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Yeah, And some of them even had the tops, the
entire top of the skull removed.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yes, exactly. And these were not ancient skeletons from some
ill fated massacre of the past, you know, some ancient
Roman army or invading force. These were contemporary roughly with Franklin,
meaning they most likely died and passed from the mortal
veil while he was alive.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
So was this guy, Benjamin Franklin a serial killer?
Speaker 1 (35:33):
We'll find out after a word from our sponsor. Really,
and we're back. For people with anti Masonic leanings, this
is often This discovery of bodies is often presented as
evidence that Franklin either condoned or participated in a series
(35:56):
of murders, because these take place over time. You know,
it's clearly on his property, and you know, people who
hate Freemasons would naturally jump to that conclusion. As morbidly
fascinating as this sounds, it's likely not true. I don't
know if that's a letdown to you guys, or if
it's a if it's a relief.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
It certainly would make me judge him a little bit
just for not being very good at hiding bodies.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
He's a smart man.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
If he was really wanted to be a murderer, you
think he'd be more creative and not put them all
in one place.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
That's a really good point. He probably invents some sort
of machine.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
Right, Yeah, or at least not put him in his
own house. I mean that alone is insane.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
So sure, it is possible that Franklin was killing people
for one reason or another. But given his prolific confessional
nature in the way he loved to talk about himself
and what he was doing and what he thought, so
experts likely would have learned something more about this before
the discovery the nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
Especially given his pensiant for you know, eating a toad
and a half at breakfast time, and you know his
inability to keep his espionage under wraps.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Are you saying he ate the baby?
Speaker 4 (37:14):
No, that that was another one that was the same.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
You're still on the drinking expressions.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Because we we've we've already discussed and learned that he
couldn't keep uh things that are hugely important but not
as important as I am a murderer. He was unable
to keep his espionage actions under wraps. If he was
a murderer, you'd think something would slip out at some
(37:39):
point in one of these debaucherous nights, and maybe just no,
but maybe he did and nobody reported it, but because
of his stature and his power, But I highly doubt.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
That, you know what, the only counterpoint we would have
for that is that he kept the secret of his
illegitimate son's identity. But that's the only thing we could
find that he really kept secret. And then also I
think so was total and a half a reference to
belching or something by somebody drinks a lot. Anyway, that's
(38:09):
a different episode, right, So, yeah, could he have kept
his secret? I don't know. I don't know. So where
did these bodies come from? If Benjamin Franklin is not
some sort of super elite evil James Bond spymaster serial killer.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Historians trace the bones to the activities of one of
Franklin's proteges, whose name was William Heuston.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
And this man was known as the.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Father of hematology and was a pupil of the famous
anatomist William Hunter. But these two men had irreconcilable differences.
Houston appears to have started his own secret underground anatomy school,
because that's the thing that you do.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Sure, it's like fight club, but with corpses.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Yeah yeah, And.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
We're gonna yeah, and we're gonna get into like why
there would be all those bodies and you how you
could even do that, How you could start an amateur
school of anatomy.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
And yours whoa whoa amateur?
Speaker 3 (39:15):
I mean yes, But this guy Houston started this underground
school at his mother in law's house, a woman by
the name of Margaret Stevenson, which you know, if I
was his mother in law and I found out that
he was doing that, I might be a little miffed.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I might get awkward at Sunday supper.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
And this is interesting because here's where the strings start
to connect. Stevenson was the landlord of the house on
Craven Street where Franklin lived for years and years. And
notice how Nol calls this an underground anatomy school. That's
because the school was most likely illegal, or at the
very very least in an incredibly gray area of the law.
(39:58):
And that leads us to the store worry of when Matt,
I know you love this story. It's the story of
resurrection men.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. So today, if you go to
your school bookstore and you're in college, you're gonna find
your anatomy text books and you're gonna see inside them
all sorts of super helpful information about how the human
body functions, what each tiny little bit can do, what
the cells do, the what your muscles and your bone
(40:27):
structure and everything, how your lungs function. Well, here's the thing.
People had to go into the human body to find
out how all of that stuff works and to make
the illustrations of the venus system going throughout your body
and your respiratory system. And for a long time, the
(40:50):
let's see, let's say, the practice or the knowledge of
anatomy was considered almost a dark art because of the
grizzly stuff you had to do to gain the knowledge.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
The desecration of the dead, you know, one of the
oldest taboos in many cultures. So cadavers were so difficult
to legally obtain that anatomists, even well respected and promising
ones like Houston Hunter, had to resort to other means,
by which, yes, ladies and gentlemen, we mean grave robbing.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Sort of like Mary Shelley's character doctor Victor Frankenstein who
dug up bodies for scientific research and did horrible, terrible
things to them and reanimated them. This idea of the
resurrection man, it's sort of an interesting hyperbole because they're
being dug up, but they are in fact still dead,
(41:43):
and that's a very important part of this kind of experimentation.
It's this behavior is not moral per se, certainly more
moral than doing it on somebody who's alive, right, killing
somebody for the purposes of doing these things.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Right, vivisection, right, So it's still not as bad as
vivia section. But people were strongly against those very controversial
So these anatomists would have to go digging for graves themselves,
or they could hire shadowy individuals known as resurrection men,
which is a little bit of false advertising, because they
(42:16):
were just digging them up. They were not, as we said,
bringing them back to life.
Speaker 4 (42:20):
Well, they were giving them new life in the form
of a textbook. They became a textbook.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
That's saying they made the textbooks out of the bodies.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
No, I'm saying they gave new life to these bodies
by turning them into knowledge.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
By immortalizing them. In the field of medicine, that's the
Henrietta Lax argument, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (42:40):
Yes, it is so.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Thirty six Craven Street, it turns out, was a fantastic
location for an illegal anatomy school. Resurrection men could deliver
bodies stolen from graveyards to the times wharf at the
bottom of the street, very close to the house, or
there was a weekly public execution at the gallows that
was on the other side of the garden wall. Jeez,
(43:02):
just you know, hey, toss them over this way and
to avoid scrutiny. To go back to that question about
why they didn't dispose of the bodies in a better way.
To avoid scrutiny, Houston would just discard the bodies on
the property when he was done. No need in his mind,
apparently to rebury them in original or respectful graves.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
I have a question.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
We were talking about how this was in a gray area,
all of this, and how it was difficult to legally
obtain corpses to work on. Was there statute at the
time that expressly prohibited this kind of behavior, like were
bodies buried protected? Were there certain cemeteries that had certain laws?
Would you be more likely to be able to get
(43:44):
a good one in like a less prestigious cemetery. Like
I was wondering, was this a universal thing or was
it sort of a case by case base.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Right, Yeah, that's a good question. There was inequality even
in death. A lot of cemeteries were separated along religious line,
so you know there would be a Jewish cemetary separate
from say a Catholic or Protestant cemetary. The one of
the things that was fascinating is course of our research
we found a mental floss a Mental Floss article that
(44:15):
said originally it was illegal. It was for all intents
and purposes illegal to take a body. But there wasn't
a statute there was. It was more like a very
complex series of hoops you would have to jump through
to legally procure a body for dissection. And that's why
these anatomy classes and diction exhibitions were so crowded all
(44:40):
the time. So you think about every historical film we
see where there's the really steep angled circular room, it's like.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
It's literally like a theater. It's probably where the term
operating theater came from, right.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Who could call? I bet you're right. So it was
it was much much, much faster and less expensive too, unfortunately,
steal the bodies of the poor and the disadvantaged.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Yeah, and for the people who were advantaged and wealthy.
There was technology that was coming out that you could
set up essentially traps around your gravesite and with your
coffin that would shoot projectiles out at people that tried
to open your coffin. There was all kinds of you know,
I mean, it's it's in practice. Yeah, in practice, it
(45:32):
doesn't look as awesome as it sounds. It would be
essentially like a bolt of like if you had a
crossbow or something that would fire out.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Like a booby trap in an ancient tomb or something.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
Right, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
So that's why resurrection men travel in groups.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Well that's a rough, rough industry to intern in, isn't it. Oh,
Because if you die trying to rob the grave.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
Then you just become the product.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Oh wow, yeah, Oh that's spooky. Well, the good news
is that it turns out Benjamin Franklin most likely was
not some sort of bloodthirsty original version of the American Psycho.
The same year he left to return to America, heuston
(46:18):
the anatomist accidentally cut himself while dissecting a rotting corpse
and died of infection. Or did Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Find him in the basement with some bodies and Benjamin
Franklin himself put a stop to it, and then he
became He became Benjamin Franklin, the serial killer hunter.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
I mean, I would watch it.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
You're saying you don't think Ben Franklin like co signed
on this.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I think he had to to a degree because he
was living in the same house. And it's as difficult
as it is for us to say that he would
be a serial killer, I would argue it's equally difficult
to say that he was somehow completely clueless.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Right, Yeah, the spell alone, there we go. Yeah, you'd
know something was up, something was rotten in the cellar.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Who are these strange men stopping by the house with
corpse sized bags? You know? I just for a fellow,
who is that clever and that intelligent. I have a
hard time believing that this wouldn't occur to him. But
there ends our examination today of the dark side of
one of America's most eccentric founding fathers. But not our show.
(47:35):
We will return very soon, and we'd like you to
tune in as we delve into a strange question. Could
a thought be alive?
Speaker 2 (47:44):
A thought like a T H O T.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Add a couple more letters and you'll get there.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Got it like a thinky brain thought?
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Not that thought over there, that that train over there.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
There we go. In the meantime, you can find us
on the internet. We're all over the place.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
Yes, yes, you can find myself, Noel, Ben and Paul
on stuff they don't want you to know. Dot Com.
That's our website. You can find every episode we've ever
produced there. You can even find videos. There's all kinds
of stuff. It's a treasure trove. If you don't want
to do that, you can go to Twitter. You can
tweet at us. We are Conspiracy Stuff. Also on Facebook
Conspiracy Stuff, and on Instagram we're Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
And do check out our new Facebook community page. Here's
where it gets crazy. This is where you can learn
firsthand what your fellow listeners are thinking about and hint, hint,
wink wink, nudge nudge cough cough, maybe get some insight
into upcoming episodes before they hit the airwaves.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
That's right, and we'll also be mining that sucker for
any and all ideas you've got, so throw them in there,
and we're listening and watching, and that's the end of
this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions
about this episode, you can get into content with us
in a number of different ways. One of the best
is to give us a call. Our number is one
eight three three st d WYTK. If you don't want
(49:09):
to do that, you can send us a good old
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Speaker 1 (49:11):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Okay, we're back with a classic for today. You know,
in the interest of full disclosure, I often refer to
this as one of my favorite titles of any episode.
Was Benjamin Franklin a serial killer?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yes? End of episode. Well, okay, it's more complicated than that.
Lots going on with this fella.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
He was a lot of things, an inventor, a statesman,
a bit of a perv.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
You know, and possibly a serial killer. You be the judge.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Let's find out. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies,
history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back
now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noble.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
They call me Ben. We are joined, of course, as
always with our long suffering super producer Paul Decant. Most importantly,
you are you, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. You guys, I'm gonna set us
up with a with a pretty much gimme question. Have
you ever been to d.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
C d C Comics. I know it was a place.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, well I went to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, yeah, hold on one.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I was there on the day of the Donald Trump
inauguration and that town was on fire and felt like
a third world country.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
It was very strange.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Have you ever been to Philadelphia?
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Yes, yeah, I've seen the Liberty Bell, my friends.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That's what everyone says.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Is it as true?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I thought, that's literally my Philadelphia story too, That's all.
That's why I said that.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So is is it impressive in person?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
It's definitely a bell with a crack in a big
old crack yep.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
So uh, mass this because today, folks, our episode centers
on the formation of the United States in a way,
the founding Fathers in a way, and eccentricity in a
very real way. We're exploring the strange life and the
(02:18):
unknown facets of Benjamin Franklin. But who is Benjamin Franklin?
First off, since we already know so much about Hamilton.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Oh, how do you? I haven't been able to get tickets.
I don't know jack about Hamilton.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
That soundtrack never stops at my house. You can get
the soundtrack, yeah, you can spotify baby. So Benjamin Franklin
was born on January eleventh, seventeen oh six, in a
house in Milk Street in Boston. Milk Street, Yes, yes,
very very white. Milky Street in Boston. Over the course
of two marriages, his father, Josiah Franklin, had seventeen children,
(02:57):
how irresponsible.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
And Benjamin, who was a child of the second marriage,
was the fifteenth kid and the youngest son.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Wow, I bet he got his ass kicked.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Oh oh yeah, just wait yeah. Unlike some founding fathers,
Benjamin Franklin was born and what would later become the
United States, but at the time this area was known
as the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His father, Josiah was a
soap and candlemaker, and he was raised Presbyterian. Although his
father intended Ben to serve in the church since he
(03:32):
was the youngest son, Benjamin Franklin was not, as you
might imagine, super into this idea.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Yeah, that's a story that occurs a lot. Father has
aspirations for the oldest or the youngest a lot of
times to become essentially the father, like to continue on
the life of the father.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Right to follow in the footsteps. Right. At age ten,
Benjamin became an apprentice at his father's shop, and Franklin,
the elder, was very concerned that ben might decide to
become a sailor like one of his older brothers, a
guy named Josiah Junior. So Franklin the elder had Ben
join one of his other older brothers, because again there's
(04:15):
a whole litter of these, these guys as an indentured
apprentice at the printing press. And what does this mean exactly?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
An indentured apprentice.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, isn't it sort of like an indentured servant, but
you get like work experience.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
It's like being an intern kind Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, that's a great description though, because it means that
Benjamin couldn't earn wages that he could keep until he
was twenty one. And go into your earlier question about
ass kicking. It turns out Ben's brother, James was a nightmare.
He was abusive, he was resentful, I think physically abusive.
(04:56):
And part of it, pro Franklin historians will tell you
is because James was very mad that Benjamin was already
better at printing than he was.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Probably better at like everything. It's Benjamin Franklin we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
I mean, if you know anything about him, you know
he was a jack of all trades, a renaissance man.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Oh yes, it's very true. And then pretty soon after
all of this was going down, James the brother founded
this thing called the New England Current. It was the
second newspaper in America. And Ben was still, you know,
doing his indentured workitude thing, and he was relegated to
setting letters, which is a laborious task takes forever. It's
(05:37):
very difficult and it's mostly just time consuming and exacting.
Then he had to sell papers door to door. But
he wanted to actually get in on writing stuff that
went into the paper rather than just doing the mechanical
labor of making it happen.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
And his brother hated that idea.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Yeah, he was not into it either. So he, like
a lot of writers or aspiring writers, came up with
a pseudonym Silence do good or dogged good, Silence de good.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I think that sounds like the name of, like the
real life name of of a superhero character, like a
Marvel character from the you know, seventies.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
Yeah, yeah, maybe it was Selence do go perhaps, perhaps,
but Silence if we go with Silence had a backstory, right.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, So Silence is allegedly a widow, and Silence had
strong objections to arbitrary government and the unlimited power welded
by these arbitrary governments.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Eventually, Benjamin Franklin gets an opportunity to travel to the
United Kingdom. Being like almost anyone his age, he says
his Times version of hell yes yeah, and travels to England.
He returns from London into what will later become the
United States and found his own print shop.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
So Franklin continued to work in Philadelphia as a printer,
also an inventor and an activist. And Ben, I just
want to real quickly aside, We did an episode in
our podcast other podcast side podcast, Ridiculous History, about how
Ben Franklin invented a phonetic alphabets, and a lot of
(07:26):
that was rooted in his love of type setting and
fascination with the written language and how you know it
was different than the spoken language.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
So that was a big foundation for his.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Work absolutely, and eventually by seventeen seventy five he is
elected to represent the state of Pennsylvania in the Second
Continental Congress. We're skipping over a lot of his early
life here because we want to get to the strange stuff.
But we should at least talk about the Revolutionary War.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Oh yeah, which which happened almost immediately after that. A
year later, in seventeen seventy six, Franklin is appointed as
a member of the Committee of Five. And these are
the people you may have heard about early on in
your childhood education. These are the people that drafted the
Declaration of Independence, the people who really, I mean, if
you want to say founding fathers, you gotta throw them
(08:16):
in there, because they made the.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Document, which was another thing that I saw in Philadelphia.
It's all coming back to me, flooding back Independence Hall.
You can go and see that storied document preserved in glass,
and you're not supposed to even touch the glass.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
So go to Philadelphia. A tour of the United States
before it was and as it became.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
You should work for the Pennsylvania Tourism Boy.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, that's Math's secret life. So this was a difficult
time for Franklin because he was temporarily disabled by gout.
He was unable to attend most meetings of the Committee
as a consequence, but he reportedly made several small, crucial
changes to the draft of the Declaration that was sent
to him by Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Very nice. So he's like the editor that makes those
last little changes, and then the other writers are like,
oh darn.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
You, yeah, you know I think that's accurate in many ways.
This this time is when you'll also hear one of
his most famous real quotes, as opposed to all the
fake stuff you can find on the internet. He says
at the signing, John Hancock said they all have to
hang together, and then Benjamin Franklin reportedly said, yes.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we
shall all hang separately.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Let's hang together like we're doing right now.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
That's the way I like to picture it. I like
to picture like after they signed, John Hancock was doing
the version of you know what, let's go get a drink.
We should all hang out more often. We should hang together.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Can either hang together or hang alone.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
But most assuredly we will be hanged.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I think that's now not quite right.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I'm pretty sure that's what he's saying here.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Well, be that as it may. Benjamin Franklin was never
a soldier. In the lead up to the war and
the push for independence, often functioned as a diplomat. In
December of seventeen seventy six, he was dispatched to France
as Commissioner for the United States, which was, you know,
a diplomatic role. There he remained in France until seventeen
(10:23):
eighty five. Who's there for quite a while?
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yeah, nine years. He loved it there.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, and his long suffering wife was not too pleased,
but you know, agreed with him that he was doing
important stuff, you know what I mean. It's like the
most extreme version of I know, I'm staying late at
work tonight, hunt, but I'm making.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Moves in France.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
In France, I'm making moves in France.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
He was a bit of a heel though, wasn't he.
I mean he was he was a ladies man.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
He probably wasn't the most faithful, doting husband that there
ever could be, right.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And that's good foreshadowing there Noel in France. He made
vital progress in garnering support for the US, even if
it's only because they really hated England, they really hated Britain.
He secured a critical military alliance at seventeen seventy eight.
He also negotiated the Treaty of Paris, And we cannot
(11:18):
emphasize this enough. Without French support, the Revolutionary War could
have had vastly different results.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I'd venture to say definitely would have different results without
the military might of France.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So what happens afterward.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
So we discussed it. In seventeen eighty five, Franklin returns
to Philadelphia, That's when he left France. In seventeen eighty
seven he became a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention. And
this is this is one of those things that Benjamin Franklin,
because of his positions that he's held up to this point,
he gets this as kind of an honorary position. You,
(11:58):
Benjamin Franklin, are appointed to the Philadelphia Convention.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Sort of like an emeritus position.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
You know, Yeah, you've been around, you've done enough stuff,
you can be a.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Part of this.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
And he was, you know, a living legend at this time, right,
And he also became a staunch abolitionist, eventually leading abolitionist
movements in Philadelphia. But it wasn't all trumpets and angel
farts and happy endings, because Franklin struggled with obesity and
(12:29):
gout throughout his middle age and especially his later years.
In fact, he was rarely seen in public after seventeen
eighty seven, sort.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Of a Marlon Brando kind of figure.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
But without island of Doctor Moreau and more gout and
perhaps more couts. Yes, he died from what is known
as a pluretic attack. That's the inflammation of the membranes
or ploure that surround the lungs in line the chess
cavity at his home in Philadelphia on April seventeenth, seventeen,
age eighty four.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
And today, Benjamin Franklin is remembered as the only founding
father who is a signatory of all four of the
major documents of the founding of the United States. We're
talking the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France,
the Treaty of Paris, as well as the official United
States Constitution. That's a pretty big deal. You know.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
The thing about the Constitution is, for something that gets
brought up so often in discourse today, I'm always surprised
by how few people have actually read it.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Is there a Constitution app? I feel like if somebody
puts out an official Constitution app, a lot more people
will read it. Or maybe a game.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
If they gamify the Constitution. There are also a lot
of a lot of organizations that will send you a
free pocket constitution. You know, if you ever want to
look like an incredible nerd in front of your friends just.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
At the bar, actually particle two.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Which you know, any listeners out there that have a
pocket constitution, we mean you no harm?
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Oh, no, good on you. I think it's actually a
really cool thing.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Well, I have one. I just don't want to take
it out.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
You know, whip it out.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah I don't. I mean, hopefully I'm not ever going
to be in a situation where I have to take
out the Constitution and say, you know, pardon me, officer.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Yeah, the pen is my hero. Then the gun.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I don't think that'll end well.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
But not only was he an incredible politician and statesmanough
I don't believe he ever officially held elected office, did he.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
He did serve in a position was very much like
the governor of Philadelphia, but he was not, you know,
a senator.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Right, And I think a lot of people, because he's
on you know, the Big Bill, the hundred, the hundo,
people assume that he, you know, had some sort of
elected capacity.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Never president as we know, yea exactly, or vice president.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Hugely innovative, though an event a sort of a Willy
Wonka type figure, only you know, with functional stuff, not
just stuff that gives you diabetes.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Oh yeah, he invented and improved a lot of things
that were massively important at the time and continue to
be in a way. Bifocals, being able to see up
close with your glasses as well as far away, depending
on how your eyes are functioning. The flexible catheter. Now
you may say to yourself, wow, these catheters that are
(15:27):
so flexible are terribly annoying and hurt and it stinks
using these catheters.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
But just imagine if they were.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Glass or just stiff thing as they couldn't move. Nope,
I can't imagine it. Thank you, Ben Franklin. Again, as
a person who's never used a catheter besides on my dog,
that's a whole other story we can get into later. Also,
the glass harmonica. I'm not sure how important that one
(15:55):
truly is. I'm sure some music historian could explain and.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
To us it has a booky story. Oh yeah, a
grizzly rumor about it.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
The glass harmonica, which would be really interesting to you
guys as musicians if you've ever seen it. It's a
series essentially of nested glass bowls that rotate and such
that you can wet your finger and slide it across
you know, how you hear the sound when you slide
a finger around a rim of glass and it makes
(16:23):
that into a musical instrument. So it's got a noise
that would sometimes be described as eerie, sometimes as irritating.
But the weird part is then it fell out of
favor because, as you know, all glass can take well,
the vast majority of glass contained lead at the time,
(16:45):
and so there was this urban legend or this rumor
that using a glass harmonica would be very bad for
your health, could drive you crazy. Yeah, it could be
lead poisoning. So it well, it fell to the wayside.
But this guy, as as we had said, was so
(17:05):
prolific that, you know, you just got to accept, if
you're the Tony Stark of your time, that not everything
is going to be the Iron Man suit, you know,
not every invention.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Yeah, he even had his own stove, the Franklin Stove YEP.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Which is sort of the portable cast eye. I say portable,
I mean just very heavy. But it's the kind of
like old timey cast iron stove that you think of
maybe being in a cabin that you're renting in the
mountains or something like that. It as a oven type
door where the fire would be and a stove pipe
on top to ventilate the smoke and it would heat.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It was basically like a space.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Heater and also known as the Pennsylvania Fireplace, which sounds
like euphemism or something. One thing that's I don't want
to speak for everybody. For me, it's personally admirable. This
this following note about Franklin's inventions. Of all the mentions
he made, and we just listed a few quickly, he
(18:02):
refused to patent a single one because his argument was
that he living in the time he lived, was already
benefiting from so many other inventions by earlier people, and
he felt it was only fair and just that he
provided the same benefits in turn. You know what I mean, Like,
he's not giving somebody money every time he uses something
(18:25):
that has wheels, so why should he charge someone just
for wanting a catheter that is flexible.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
I yeah, I completely agree with your thoughts, man. I
think that is extremely admirable. He went open source in
the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I was about to say, like our Duena, the company
that makes those little microprocessors that you can use to
program robotics for using in like maker type competitions and stuff,
they open source all their stuff. You can get the
schematics for those, and there are third parties that improve
upon them or make different versions of them.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And that's par for the course. I think that's pretty cool,
forward thinking fellow that Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Yeah, and it's mirroring today's Tony Stark Ellen Musk who's
doing some of that same stuff with Tesla.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And you know, that's a very admirable thing. But there
are also quite a few strange aspects to the life
of Benjamin Franklin. There are myths, rumors, and legends about
this America's most eccentric founding father. We found some that
are amusing and some that are, you know, pretty out there.
(19:30):
A true story. He made up around two hundred terms
for getting wasted.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Wow, two hundred words for getting wasted. This is a
known thing. This is true.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, yeah, because why am I not?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Why am I only using like three of them?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Well, maybe because you don't have a copy of The
Drinker's Dictionary, published in seventeen thirty seven, with a list
of over two hundred alternative terms for drunkenness that Ben
Franklin had overheard in taverns over the years. In his
newspaper the Pennsylvania Gazette.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Ah phrases such as he's drank more than he has bled,
He's bungy bungy, he sees the bears pissed in the brook.
These are just the bees too loaded his cot Oh,
he is chapfallen, Chap.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Falling, He's biggie bewitched, block and block boozy, bousd been
at the Barbados.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
At the Barbados. Yeah, these are great, you guys, maybe
we should take a take a page from his life
and start making up our own terms. Although I guess
we already do that on this show. Mister is right
in and let let us know which of those was
your favorite that we should use.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
He's had a thump over the head with Samson's jawbone.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yep, see, I feel like if somebody can say that
they're describing someone else who's drunk. If I were drunk
and I was trying to say I've had a thump
over the head with Samson's jawbone, I feel like I
would stumbling.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Though. You know that Benjamin Bowland he owes no man
a farthing.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
And to go back to my characterization of him as
sort of a Willy Wonka esque figure.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
He's wamble cropped.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Wamble crop wamble cropped is the winner for me. And
also when he wasn't, when he wasn't compiling these very
humorous things, he was, as as Matt Nole mentioned earlier,
a bit of a lothario, A bit of a ladies
man lothario right, a man who behaves selfishly and irresponsibly
(21:39):
in his sexual relationships with women, particularly so sort of
a don Juan.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
And that's your new word for the day.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Is a pewey Herman style.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It will be now. So he was notorious for sleeping
around whenever the opportunity presented itself. He had a child
out of wedlock, and you know what, to his credit,
which was unusual at the time, he admitted to whomever
the mother was that it probably was his kid, and
he said he would take care of the kid. And
he never revealed the mom's identity.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
He also, as Noel pointed out, abandoned his wife for
years and lived the high high life of hedonism in France.
In his own correspondence, Benjamin Franklin laments his uncontrollable libido.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Yeah, he was a sex addict, which one of the
first yep.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
The next one was David d'covney.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Yeah. Well, and you know there are even tales of
him outright hitting on his friend's wives and is the
you know, the marriages of his friends, just just in
casual conversation with you know, the men present.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Like my, you are a saucy lass, all.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Right, dude, bend ben getting a bungy. Oh god, he's
eating a toad and a half for breakfast.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
That's another one. So he had several, you know, views
we would consider eccentric, if not controversial today as well.
He was a huge proponent of air baths. That's where
you you just sit around naked regardless of the temperature.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
He just hanged on.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
He just hanged on.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
That's all.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
That's always sunny thing. I just love it. That's one
of my favorite expressions for being nude.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Never does he hanged on? Really, I remember that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
And he also we talked about this a little bit.
But they're reinventing of the alphabet, coming up with the
phonetic stuff. That's that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, that's that's right, Matt. He did he did attempt that.
It didn't catch on.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
No, we're not here to talk about his drunken revelry
and inventing. Are we we're talking, We're here to talk
about some some darkness.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
There is some darkness within this one.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
And we'll explore it after a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
There is a massive amount of conspiracies out there about
the Founding Fathers. They range all over the place. But
we really should just do Have we done a Founding
Father's conspiracies?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
We think we have not yet. And that's something that
Paul brought up when we asked if we asked if
there was an episode that he thinks we should do
in the future.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
Oh yeah, all right, Paul, Well, guess what. We're gonna
get to that one, and we're gonna start with this
one because there are several specific conspiracy theories surrounding mister
Benjamin Franklin. And the first one is one that is
common to several other Founding Fathers, including mister George Washington,
(24:48):
was that Franklin was a member of the Freemasons, the
Illuminati of the Bavarian sort, or you know, some other
secret society. And here's the crazy thing. It's partially true.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, Like Matt said, Benjamin Franklin, like many Founding fathers,
was definitely a Freemason.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
In seventeen thirty one, Franklin joined the Masonic Lodge of
Saint John in Philadelphia. Then in thirty two he helped
create the bylaws of his lodge. Then two years later
he became a grand master. That same year, seventeen thirty four,
Franklin also published the first Masonic book printed in America
(25:31):
that was called The Constitutions of the Freemasons.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
So it's very interesting to me because he's a fairly
young man. Well, I guess at the time, twenty something
isn't that young. But when he joined the lodge for
the first time and he grew in the ranks very
quickly and then started writing inside that world of freemasonry,
you know, and then just to get up there to
(25:55):
become the grand master of the Nine Sisters Lodge in Paris,
that's that's pretty big, right.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
He remained an active member for over sixty years until
seventeen ninety when he passed away, and when he was
serving as America's diplomat to France. As Matt said, he
became a grand master. So what about the Illuminati we
have a series on the Illuminati. If you have not
heard it yet or watch the videos, we invite you
(26:23):
to check them out. The Illuminati historically will refer to
the Bavarian Illuminati as formed by a fellow named Adam
Wi Shopped in May of seventeen seventy six. Again, yeah,
I know, all right, right, this is the closest thing
there is to a quote unquote verified Illuminati, and they
(26:48):
would have been around on the continent while Franklin was
in Europe. But there's no solid proof that ben and
Adam came into direct contact. Now that does not mean
it didn't happen, and it is. It's true that Franklin's
philosophical viewpoint probably would have jibbed why Shop like they
would have been feeling it. Yeah, they would have hit
it off. It's more possible those still not proven, that
(27:11):
Franklin could have encountered ideas or concepts in Europe they
came from Bishop's group or inspired that group. But back
to the actual Illuminati membership thing. If Benjamin Franklin was
active in this regard, the guy probably would have talked
about it.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Why Well, that's because mister Benjamin Franklin, well, he was
in this other little secret society. It's one called espionage,
one where there are a lot of secrets. But here's
the problem. Ben wasn't very good at it.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, Benjamin Franklin was a shitty spy.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Yeah, And I would venture to say it's because of
the lifestyle that he kept, that he was used to,
and there was a lot of revelry I'm assuming in
Franklin's life, in the truth serum that he would take
on his own I'm assuming didn't.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Help, right, right, I believe you're referring to alcohol.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yes, yes, So.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
According to a CIA piece that was published internally and
later declassified called quote British Penetration of America's first diplomatic mission,
Benjamin Franklin was just terrible at this. Like, he was
very good at making connections, very persuasive, and a brilliant thinker,
(28:35):
but not the most talented when it came to security.
One of his closest acquaintances blew up his spycraft operation
continually as he was sending clandestine cries for support to France.
The mole was a guy named Edward Bancroft, who who
knew Ben Franklin from the United States, was one of
(28:56):
his most trusted friends. Franklin trusted him so much he
made the guy his secretary at the US Commission to France,
which means Bancroft had access to everything. And furthermore, the
British Empire paid him one thousand pounds a year for
his assistance, which was nothing to sneeze at. No, that's
(29:16):
smack a donkey money. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yep, I'm gonna steal that.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
You've got smack a donkey money. So, as Commissioner of France,
Franklin was running all kinds of clandestine operations with Tacit.
French aid. They were at the very least turning, turning
their eyes away, but in most cases they were attempting
to help when they could. But what kind of stuff
were they doing.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
We're talking about procuring weapons, all kinds of different supplies
for the war effort or the in preparation of war,
the money for the American Army, just straight up giving
money to the American Army. Sabotaging the Portsmouth Royal Navy dockyard.
Sabotage is a big thing. And if you know, you
can prove prove that there's money coming for in a
(30:02):
clandestine way to do something like that, it's not good
for your cause. And of course they negotiated a secret
treaty between the United States or America and France. But
here's the thing. While all that's going on, Britain pretty
much knew everything that was happening. Minute by minute. They're like, Okay,
this is about to happen. Okay, this is about to happen,
(30:24):
this is going down. Here's where this money is going.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Right, Yeah, exactly. There was no OPSEEC or operational security.
The public had access to the estate. Sensitive papers, documents
were strewn everywhere. Apparently, secret conversations were held, sometimes as
loud arguments in public places.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Again, it's that sauce, it's that's us.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah, it's like the way our president takes meetings at
you know, this is his club, surrounded by diners.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, that was controversial.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Leader.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, you're talking about mar A Lago.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Meetings, right, Yes, yes, I'm saying like that doesn't doesn't
It seems historical president would would make that.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
A teachable moment.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Oh, there you go.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
There's one more macabb's story here. All right, so far
we have Freemasonry, true Illuminati, difficult to prove spi noaje spycraft. True,
but he was bad at it, like really bad at it.
But there's one more story here, one more conspiracy, and
(31:26):
it's macabre and it's grizzly and it's graphic. Forget the
idea of skeletons in the closet. What about bodies in
the basement.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
You're saying bodies in a basement that Benjamin Franklin like
of a home that Benjamin Franklin owned?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Was it a murder dungeon? So yeah, okay, so maybe not,
maybe not.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
A full fledged murder dungeon, but definitely we'll start off
with a creepy house. So for almost twenty years leading
up to the signing of that fable Declaration of Independence,
Franklin lived in London at thirty six Craven Street.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
He just has a talent for choosing terrible street names.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Just creepy street names. Cravens. I don't know why that
sounds creepy to me. Milk streets creepy too.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Thirty six Craven the street right off Milk Street.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yes, wes crey Elm Street was one block over. So
in seventeen seventy six, as we mentioned earlier, he came
back to the States. Let's do a little fast forward
action to several centuries to nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Why not that house was in quite horrible disrepair.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
So there was like a preservation organization called the Friends
of Vegement Franklin House, who decided to make some innovations
to the four story townhouse. It was on the verge
of collapse, just total structural damage caused by time and inattention,
so extensive work had to be done.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
It's like on the foundation, like you know, pulling out
the studs.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
They had to do some repairs to make it safe
enough for construction crews to go back and do repairs.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
And it's this historical thing, so you have to be
very careful about what you're preserving as you're doing this.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
And by this time, this was the last structure around
in which Benjamin Franklin actually lived.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
Yeah, so hugely important. It's this, it's this piece of history.
And can you imagine being there working on this team,
trying to make sure everything is functional so that you
can work on it, and then also you know, trying
to get the house to a place where you can
have people come in and use it as a museum
or something, and then you stumble upon this windowless secret
(33:40):
room below the house's garden.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
There was a murder dungeon.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
Yeah, so this group, the friends of Benjamin Franklin house,
found this thing, and they discovered something in there. Fifteen
bodies in the basement.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Bet they weren't feeling so friendly then, were they would?
Speaker 4 (33:59):
I would not be.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
I imagine there might have been somebody in the group who said, look, technically,
I'm a friend of Benjamin Franklin's house, not Benjamin Franklin.
Here's what they found. The room, or this pit was
about a meter wide and a meter deep. All in all,
there were over twelve hundred pieces of human bones hidden inside.
Experts believe five of the skeletons came from children. The
(34:23):
oldest skeleton was that of an elderly male, and the
youngest was a baby, like a not quite an infant.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
Baby.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Bones were disturbed and damaged, showing limbs that have been
cut or completely hewn through. Some of the skulls showed
evidence of trepanation, which is a let's call it a
controversial medical procedure wherein the back base of the skull
is drilled to ostensibly well in hopes of relieving pressure
(34:59):
or you know, letting the demon imens. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Yeah, And some of them even had the tops, the
entire top of the skull removed.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yes, exactly. And these were not ancient skeletons from some
ill fated massacre of the past, you know, some ancient
Roman army or invading force. These were contemporary roughly with Franklin,
meaning they most likely died and passed from the mortal
veil while he was alive.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
So was this guy, Benjamin Franklin a serial killer?
Speaker 1 (35:33):
We'll find out after a word from our sponsor. Really,
and we're back. For people with anti Masonic leanings, this
is often This discovery of bodies is often presented as
evidence that Franklin either condoned or participated in a series
(35:56):
of murders, because these take place over time. You know,
it's clearly on his property, and you know, people who
hate Freemasons would naturally jump to that conclusion. As morbidly
fascinating as this sounds, it's likely not true. I don't
know if that's a letdown to you guys, or if
it's a if it's a relief.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
It certainly would make me judge him a little bit
just for not being very good at hiding bodies.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
He's a smart man.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
If he was really wanted to be a murderer, you
think he'd be more creative and not put them all
in one place.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
That's a really good point. He probably invents some sort
of machine.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
Right, Yeah, or at least not put him in his
own house. I mean that alone is insane.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
So sure, it is possible that Franklin was killing people
for one reason or another. But given his prolific confessional
nature in the way he loved to talk about himself
and what he was doing and what he thought, so
experts likely would have learned something more about this before
the discovery the nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
Especially given his pensiant for you know, eating a toad
and a half at breakfast time, and you know his
inability to keep his espionage under wraps.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Are you saying he ate the baby?
Speaker 4 (37:14):
No, that that was another one that was the same.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
You're still on the drinking expressions.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Because we we've we've already discussed and learned that he
couldn't keep uh things that are hugely important but not
as important as I am a murderer. He was unable
to keep his espionage actions under wraps. If he was
a murderer, you'd think something would slip out at some
(37:39):
point in one of these debaucherous nights, and maybe just no,
but maybe he did and nobody reported it, but because
of his stature and his power, But I highly doubt.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
That, you know what, the only counterpoint we would have
for that is that he kept the secret of his
illegitimate son's identity. But that's the only thing we could
find that he really kept secret. And then also I
think so was total and a half a reference to
belching or something by somebody drinks a lot. Anyway, that's
(38:09):
a different episode, right, So, yeah, could he have kept
his secret? I don't know. I don't know. So where
did these bodies come from? If Benjamin Franklin is not
some sort of super elite evil James Bond spymaster serial killer.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Historians trace the bones to the activities of one of
Franklin's proteges, whose name was William Heuston.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
And this man was known as the.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Father of hematology and was a pupil of the famous
anatomist William Hunter. But these two men had irreconcilable differences.
Houston appears to have started his own secret underground anatomy school,
because that's the thing that you do.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Sure, it's like fight club, but with corpses.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Yeah yeah, And.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
We're gonna yeah, and we're gonna get into like why
there would be all those bodies and you how you
could even do that, How you could start an amateur
school of anatomy.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
And yours whoa whoa amateur?
Speaker 3 (39:15):
I mean yes, But this guy Houston started this underground
school at his mother in law's house, a woman by
the name of Margaret Stevenson, which you know, if I
was his mother in law and I found out that
he was doing that, I might be a little miffed.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I might get awkward at Sunday supper.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
And this is interesting because here's where the strings start
to connect. Stevenson was the landlord of the house on
Craven Street where Franklin lived for years and years. And
notice how Nol calls this an underground anatomy school. That's
because the school was most likely illegal, or at the
very very least in an incredibly gray area of the law.
(39:58):
And that leads us to the store worry of when Matt,
I know you love this story. It's the story of
resurrection men.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. So today, if you go to
your school bookstore and you're in college, you're gonna find
your anatomy text books and you're gonna see inside them
all sorts of super helpful information about how the human
body functions, what each tiny little bit can do, what
the cells do, the what your muscles and your bone
(40:27):
structure and everything, how your lungs function. Well, here's the thing.
People had to go into the human body to find
out how all of that stuff works and to make
the illustrations of the venus system going throughout your body
and your respiratory system. And for a long time, the
(40:50):
let's see, let's say, the practice or the knowledge of
anatomy was considered almost a dark art because of the
grizzly stuff you had to do to gain the knowledge.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
The desecration of the dead, you know, one of the
oldest taboos in many cultures. So cadavers were so difficult
to legally obtain that anatomists, even well respected and promising
ones like Houston Hunter, had to resort to other means,
by which, yes, ladies and gentlemen, we mean grave robbing.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Sort of like Mary Shelley's character doctor Victor Frankenstein who
dug up bodies for scientific research and did horrible, terrible
things to them and reanimated them. This idea of the
resurrection man, it's sort of an interesting hyperbole because they're
being dug up, but they are in fact still dead,
(41:43):
and that's a very important part of this kind of experimentation.
It's this behavior is not moral per se, certainly more
moral than doing it on somebody who's alive, right, killing
somebody for the purposes of doing these things.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Right, vivisection, right, So it's still not as bad as
vivia section. But people were strongly against those very controversial
So these anatomists would have to go digging for graves themselves,
or they could hire shadowy individuals known as resurrection men,
which is a little bit of false advertising, because they
(42:16):
were just digging them up. They were not, as we said,
bringing them back to life.
Speaker 4 (42:20):
Well, they were giving them new life in the form
of a textbook. They became a textbook.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
That's saying they made the textbooks out of the bodies.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
No, I'm saying they gave new life to these bodies
by turning them into knowledge.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
By immortalizing them. In the field of medicine, that's the
Henrietta Lax argument, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (42:40):
Yes, it is so.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Thirty six Craven Street, it turns out, was a fantastic
location for an illegal anatomy school. Resurrection men could deliver
bodies stolen from graveyards to the times wharf at the
bottom of the street, very close to the house, or
there was a weekly public execution at the gallows that
was on the other side of the garden wall. Jeez,
(43:02):
just you know, hey, toss them over this way and
to avoid scrutiny. To go back to that question about
why they didn't dispose of the bodies in a better way.
To avoid scrutiny, Houston would just discard the bodies on
the property when he was done. No need in his mind,
apparently to rebury them in original or respectful graves.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
I have a question.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
We were talking about how this was in a gray area,
all of this, and how it was difficult to legally
obtain corpses to work on. Was there statute at the
time that expressly prohibited this kind of behavior, like were
bodies buried protected? Were there certain cemeteries that had certain laws?
Would you be more likely to be able to get
(43:44):
a good one in like a less prestigious cemetery. Like
I was wondering, was this a universal thing or was
it sort of a case by case base.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Right, Yeah, that's a good question. There was inequality even
in death. A lot of cemeteries were separated along religious line,
so you know there would be a Jewish cemetary separate
from say a Catholic or Protestant cemetary. The one of
the things that was fascinating is course of our research
we found a mental floss a Mental Floss article that
(44:15):
said originally it was illegal. It was for all intents
and purposes illegal to take a body. But there wasn't
a statute there was. It was more like a very
complex series of hoops you would have to jump through
to legally procure a body for dissection. And that's why
these anatomy classes and diction exhibitions were so crowded all
(44:40):
the time. So you think about every historical film we
see where there's the really steep angled circular room, it's like.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
It's literally like a theater. It's probably where the term
operating theater came from, right.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Who could call? I bet you're right. So it was
it was much much, much faster and less expensive too, unfortunately,
steal the bodies of the poor and the disadvantaged.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Yeah, and for the people who were advantaged and wealthy.
There was technology that was coming out that you could
set up essentially traps around your gravesite and with your
coffin that would shoot projectiles out at people that tried
to open your coffin. There was all kinds of you know,
I mean, it's it's in practice. Yeah, in practice, it
(45:32):
doesn't look as awesome as it sounds. It would be
essentially like a bolt of like if you had a
crossbow or something that would fire out.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Like a booby trap in an ancient tomb or something.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
Right, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
So that's why resurrection men travel in groups.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Well that's a rough, rough industry to intern in, isn't it. Oh,
Because if you die trying to rob the grave.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
Then you just become the product.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Oh wow, yeah, Oh that's spooky. Well, the good news
is that it turns out Benjamin Franklin most likely was
not some sort of bloodthirsty original version of the American Psycho.
The same year he left to return to America, heuston
(46:18):
the anatomist accidentally cut himself while dissecting a rotting corpse
and died of infection. Or did Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
Find him in the basement with some bodies and Benjamin
Franklin himself put a stop to it, and then he
became He became Benjamin Franklin, the serial killer hunter.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
I mean, I would watch it.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
You're saying you don't think Ben Franklin like co signed
on this.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I think he had to to a degree because he
was living in the same house. And it's as difficult
as it is for us to say that he would
be a serial killer, I would argue it's equally difficult
to say that he was somehow completely clueless.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Right, Yeah, the spell alone, there we go. Yeah, you'd
know something was up, something was rotten in the cellar.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Who are these strange men stopping by the house with
corpse sized bags? You know? I just for a fellow,
who is that clever and that intelligent. I have a
hard time believing that this wouldn't occur to him. But
there ends our examination today of the dark side of
one of America's most eccentric founding fathers. But not our show.
(47:35):
We will return very soon, and we'd like you to
tune in as we delve into a strange question. Could
a thought be alive?
Speaker 2 (47:44):
A thought like a T H O T.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Add a couple more letters and you'll get there.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Got it like a thinky brain thought?
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Not that thought over there, that that train over there.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
There we go. In the meantime, you can find us
on the internet. We're all over the place.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
Yes, yes, you can find myself, Noel, Ben and Paul
on stuff they don't want you to know. Dot Com.
That's our website. You can find every episode we've ever
produced there. You can even find videos. There's all kinds
of stuff. It's a treasure trove. If you don't want
to do that, you can go to Twitter. You can
tweet at us. We are Conspiracy Stuff. Also on Facebook
Conspiracy Stuff, and on Instagram we're Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
And do check out our new Facebook community page. Here's
where it gets crazy. This is where you can learn
firsthand what your fellow listeners are thinking about and hint, hint,
wink wink, nudge nudge cough cough, maybe get some insight
into upcoming episodes before they hit the airwaves.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
That's right, and we'll also be mining that sucker for
any and all ideas you've got, so throw them in there,
and we're listening and watching, and that's the end of
this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions
about this episode, you can get into content with us
in a number of different ways. One of the best
is to give us a call. Our number is one
eight three three st d WYTK. If you don't want
(49:09):
to do that, you can send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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