Mercy Brown and Black Aggie

In tonight’s episode, we’ll be travelling back to the 19th century to explore the sometimes bizarre ways people have reacted in the face of illness, loss, and grief – reactions that remain haunting to this very day. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Jenna Olivan and I'm Jen Lee.
And we'd like to welcome you tobeneath your bed, a podcast
where we drag out all thosefears that lurk beneath our beds
from the paranormal to truecrime, to the simply strange
along the way, we'll be drinkingcocktails and sharing stories
from our Appalachianupbringings.
In tonight's episode, we'll betraveling back to the 19th

(00:22):
century to explore the sometimesbizarre ways people have reacted
in the face of illness, loss,and grief reactions that remain
haunting to this very day.

(00:45):
Hey Jen, it's it's going allright.
It's all right.
It's been a long week.
Once again.
It's Friday zooming.
How do you feel about all thezoom meetings?
Oh gosh.
Yeah, the zooming is gettingold, you know, I guess it's
preferable to being actually inthe office, but it's getting old
for sure.
How's it going for you afterhaving about four or five

(01:05):
meetings have had as many as sixmeetings in a day, it just gets
exhausting.
But I think that's justsomething that we all share.
It's a special type of fatigue.
It is last week.
I don't know if I told you, butI was in a meeting and I was
looking, busted that day anyway.
And instead of wearing leggings,cause I know a lot of people

(01:26):
like, Oh, I'm wearing blackleggings and I'll just put a
nice shirt on.
Well, I had a particular meetingI wanted to look halfway
respectable for.
So I went and I put on a niceshirt and I came back, started
the meeting and then towards theend, probably the last five
minutes, my phone rings and Iget up to answer it, forgetting

(01:48):
that I have plaid pajama bottomson.
I mean, you cannot mistake thatthey were, did they have, do
they, do they have, uh, thefrozen characters on them?
No, no they didn't.
I actually, I would prefer thefrozen characters to like this
lumberjack.
Oh, I was going to say, what dothese look like?
They look like a lumberjack, alumberjack shirt, but pants.

(02:11):
So I was hoping that nobody sawit.
So after we got off the zoommeeting, I was trying to use the
camera and trying to see if Ican replicate what I did and
thinking, you know, hopefullynobody saw me well, you know, I
do it.
I do.
I dislike.
I, I did in the meeting and Icould see myself.

(02:31):
So I was still thinking, I wasstill thinking, okay, maybe,
maybe no one saw it.
So I, yeah.
I mean, it was embarrassing.
So I call someone who is on themeeting that I'm friends with.
And I said, did you happen tosee that I was working at the
jump in?
Did you happen to see I waswearing my, my pajama bottoms?

(02:54):
And she's like, yes I did.
And she was trying to make mefeel better saying, well, you
know, I got mine on.
And again, they were like, theywere black leggings or capris.
It's like, no, that's, that'snot the same thing.
So yeah, that's one of mystories.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
I love it.
I just want to remind you thoughthat you have a pair of leggings
that I gave you.
And I believe that they, they'renot black, they're green and I
think they have pink kangarooson them.
So I, I think you should wearthose next week.
It's peacocks.
It's not Kingery okay.
Why would I thinking cake?

Speaker 1 (03:25):
So what are you, what are you having to drink tonight?
I'm here

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Having, um, what's called a tin Lizzie and um, but
it's, it's kinda my take on itmostly because I didn't have
sham bores.
So I had to substitute creme toCassie's.
Um, so I threw some vodka in mycocktail shaker and I threw in
some Saint Germain, some cremede Cassius and some ice and then
shook it up, poured it in my, mynice little glass here and then
topped it off with Prosecco.

(03:49):
It should have a, a lemongarnish, but I didn't have a
lemon either.
So that's what I'm drinking.
Sounds good.
It is good.
What do you have?

Speaker 1 (03:56):
I'm having a Berry smash.
So it has strawberries in it.
Blueberries vodka.
Of course it has lime juice andtopped off with some ginger
beer.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Oh, that sounds really good.
I mean, did you, you modeled the,

Speaker 1 (04:14):
You have to muddle the fruit sounds so good.
It's really good.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
You're really good at making those drinks that have a
lot of ingredients.
You like, you're just good atputting them together.
No, it's a lot of fun

Speaker 1 (04:26):
And doing is that I've been doubling up on the
alcohol or the cocktail.
I make two instead of one.
So I don't, we don't have tostop recording.
I don't have to go downstairs.
So last week I kind of got aheadof myself and before I knew it,
I was a little lightheaded andit made editing a real, um, real
disaster.
After that, trying to find her,

Speaker 2 (04:47):
I heard the tape that you edited and I was really sad
to hear that you took out thepart where you said, Oh my God,
John, I think that was the bestpart.
You took it out.
I'm so unhappy.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
I might've left it in, but it was all the
meandering that followed that Ifelt like I should remove it.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Well, I don't know.
I feel like that's, you know, doall podcasters drink.
I feel like it's part of whatyou're supposed to do.
And you know, but I'm feeling alittle pressure.
Like every week I have to comeup with a drink to try to outdo
yours or at least live up toyours.
And the podcasting gig doesn'twork out for us.
At least we will we'll know alot of drinks.
We can be bartenders orsomething.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
There's something really fun and relaxing going
through, you know, really hardstressful week and then mixing a
drink, surprise in each other,hopping on here.
And you know, we kind of do thisfor a hobby anyway, with
cocktails and making our ownsimple syrup.
And so we've been doing thisfor, for a while before.
It was cool,

Speaker 2 (05:40):
But anyway, I'm so excited.
Yeah.
I look forward to these Fridaynights when we talk about scary,
creepy stuff.
Um, we're both totally into thatand it's dark right now.
I'm looking out.
I can't see, there could be somepoint somebody outside on my
deck looking at me and Iwouldn't know it.
So hopefully there isn't,there's someone waiting

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Beneath your bed

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Beneath my desk right now.
There's probably a cat beneathmy bed.
At least you have a husband.
That's true, but he's in theother room.
I mean, what could he do ifsomebody broke in and tried to
ravish me?
So anyway, that's neither herenor there.

(06:21):
This is not a story aboutdeflowering, but I am going to
tell, I'm going to ask you, I'mgoing to tell a story, but
before I get to it, I kind ofhave some something I want you
to, I want you to kind of goalong with me and imagine
something.
So I'm going to ask you toimagine that you are living in a
time of a terrible disease,sweeping the land.
It's a terrible deadly disease,and it's like an out of control

(06:45):
bonfire.
That's just catching from personto person.
Um, you don't know who's goingto get sick and you're really
scared.
Can, can you imagine anythinglike that?

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Just like present day COVID in the U S

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Well, a little bit more than that.
Imagine, imagine that thisdisease with COVID, at least you
might get it and do reallypoorly and maybe die, or you
might be okay with this diseasethat I'm talking about getting
it is a virtual death sentence.
So you're probably going to dieif you get it.
And there is no doctor file treeto tell you what you can expect

(07:22):
or what you should do, that youshould mask up and social
distance and all of that goodstuff.
There's no CDC to makerecommendations.
Um, you're pretty much on yourown and against this invisible
fo that, that you don't knowwhat to do with.
So can you imagine that, likewhat would you do?
What do you think you'd do?
How would you react?

Speaker 1 (07:42):
You think I would react, trying to do what I'm
doing now is just staying holedup in the house as much as I,
you know, as much as I can, but

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Even in modern day, it's difficult

Speaker 1 (07:53):
To do that.
So I can only imagine years agowhat it was like trying to avoid
getting sick, maybe in a morerural area.
Maybe it was possible if youdidn't, if you weren't around
that many people, but otherwise,you know, you had to go
somewhere, you had to physicallybe somewhere to work you had to.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Right.
Yeah.
And I really can't imagine.
I think I would just be sofrightened.
You know what I mean?
It's scary enough right now inthe wake of COVID, but at least
we have some modern medicine,some modern knowledge of germs
and how they work and all ofthat.
Well, the disease I'm talkingabout people, you know, you may
have guessed already the diseaseI'm talking to any guesses by

(08:31):
the way, tuberculosis.
Yes.
Why did you guys tuberculosis

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Either that, or it was the, it was the flu of 1918.
And I thought maybe in 1918 itwould be too obvious.
So

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, that was a good guess.
Yeah.
Tuberculosis or the other nameof it.
You may have heard hisconsumption.
So especially in the 19thcentury and earlier people
people talked about it asconsumption, um, because it was,
it was a disease that literallyseemed to consume you, you know,
you'd be really pale andfatigued and, um, it was just,
I'll talk, I'll talk more aboutit later, but it was just a
really awful, awful thing tohave.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
I had never heard that term used before.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Really.
It used to be considered like avery romantic illness to like
all the poets were dying ofconsumption.
Um, you know, in Puccini's operaLabo, I'm like the heroin Mimi
is dying of consumption and it'sjust so poetic and romantic
because of course like the deathof a beautiful woman is the most
posed it as the most romanticthing there is.
But I, from all accounts, it wasnot a beautiful way to go.

(09:32):
So we're going to talk, we'll betalking about tuberculosis
tonight, but we're also going tobe talking about vampires, which
are like one of my faves.
I really like vampire.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
I used to be terrified of them when I was
child.
Where are you?

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Like, where did you, did you see movies on TV or,

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yeah, I think I saw I'm sure I saw a movie.
I didn't read about it.
I saw a movie and also this isridiculous, but which is, which
is okay from the wizard of Oz.
Oh, I was afraid of the flyingmonkeys.
They were terrifying to me.
Pretty scary too, but the, whichis what got me.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, she was pretty creepy, but Glenda was

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Good.
Glenda was hot back in the day.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Just thinking that in her voice was like so, so high
and in her beautiful pink dress.
Well, that's that's yet again,another podcast about how hot
Glenda was.
So we'll move on.
I can't think of any othertransition for that.
So we're gonna be talking aboutvampires, but very curious for
my vampirism.

(10:29):
Um, and I'm going to tell youthe story tonight of mercy
Brown.
So I'm going to start just witha really bare bones version of
the story taken from Wikipedia.
But I first heard about thisstory, Oh God, I don't know.
20, 20 years ago I was workingfor a little new England travel
magazine and my state happenedto be Rhode Island that I was
covering.
So I did a press trip and stuffup there.

(10:50):
And I got this little book ofghost stories of like Rhode
Island, new England ghoststories.
And there was this tale in thereabout mercy Brown.
And, but there's a story.
I was just thinking about itrecently.
Um, and I remember like vampiremercy, Brown, like gravestone.
And so I thought I have to lookthis up.
So I look the story up onWikipedia.
So I'm just going to start withthat version.

(11:10):
So in the 1880s, there was afamily living in a little tiny
town in Southeast Rhode Islandcalled Exiter and there was the
mom and some children.
And then the father, well, mercyBrown, who we're going to be
talking about.
I believe she was the youngest,the youngest of the family, but
her mother, whose name was MaryEliza.

(11:31):
They have these great 19thcentury new England names.
So she dies in 1884 oftuberculosis.
And just two years later,Mercy's older sister, whose name
was Mary olive.
She dies also of tuberculosis.
So by 1891, just five yearslater, poor mercy, both her and
her brother Edwin are reallysick with this disease.

(11:54):
Um, her brother ed, when he's24, I think around this time,
Mercy's 19.
So he he's about five yearsolder than her.
He and his wife.
They decided to go out toColorado and he's going to take
the rescuer.
This is one of the things thatpeople believe would actually
sometimes cure TB, you know,getting fresh mountain air and
just living in a healthyenvironment.

(12:14):
It was thought to be verybracing and that you could
overcome it.
So they went out there with highhopes that, that he would get
better.
He didn't, and I believe whilehe was out there, mercy died.
So she sadly died in, um, in1892.
So Edwin and his wife, they comeback, they take the train cross
country in, come back to theirlittle village of Exeter.

(12:35):
And their father is really theonly person left at home.
And he's just feeling absolutelyat his wit's end.
He doesn't know what to do.
So as some, some stories go, hewas convinced to have the bodies
of his wife and his twodaughters zoomed.
Um, so they decided to do thisbecause there was a folk belief

(12:56):
in new England at that time thatwith TV, it was not just a
physical illness, but it wasalso kind of a spiritual
illness.
And that those who had diedparticularly of TB would kind of
turn into these vampires andthey would be feasting on the
blood and the flesh of theliving and taking their vital
part of their vital energies.

(13:18):
And so as a result, they woulddie of TB as well.
They never really explainwhether it's, you know, whether
they come as spirits or if theyactually come out of the grave
or talk about that.
I'd like to know more aboutthat.
So they dig up Mary olive andthe mom, and they're looking
pretty and busted, I think isthe word, you know, their, their

(13:38):
corpses.
They're not looking too hot.
So they then exume mercy.
And when they open up thecasket, like she looks, you know
, she looks really good.
She for a corpse, right.
She looks kind of rosy and youknow, she's not decomposed or at
least not overly.
So, so she almost looks likeshe's alive, but keep in mind.

(13:58):
So she died in January andthey're doing the excavations in
March.
I think it's same st.
Patrick's day.
I don't know why it justhappened to be March 17th.
And so she hadn't been in thegrave that long and it was also
cold.
So that probably preserved herbody, but they thought like,
okay, so we need to cut out herheart, obviously.
Cause that's what you do.
Right.
So they cut out her heart andthey decide that if they find

(14:19):
evidence of blood in her heartor in her liver, some sources
say they also cut out her liver.
If they find blood, then clearlyshe's a vampire and she must,
her heart must be destroyed.
So they decided mercy was thevampire in.
And it was she who was, who waskilling her, her brother.
It also, when you're talkingabout this, it sounds really

(14:41):
wacky.
But again, if you think aboutwhat's going on today and
people, the disregard forscience and, you know, we can go
to church and have

Speaker 1 (14:52):
A massive ceremony and not wear a mask, you know,
Jesus will save us.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah.
Or we can drink hand sanitizeror bleach.
Right.
That's going to protect us oryeah.
You know, crazy, crazy ideas.
I think when people

Speaker 1 (15:07):
We'll get scared, they want to have some type of
control and in a bizarre way, atleast then I think that was a
way of having some control.
And even now I think with, youknow, really rabid conspiracy
theorist, I'm a little bit of aconspiracy theorist, but I think
that's trying to find somesemblance of

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Control.
No, I think that it's a reallytrue in a strange way because I
get so angry about everythingthat's going on now.
Right.
And people denying what's goingon and the president even
touting these ridiculous curesor whatever.
But I guess it's, I don't know areminder that human nature is
always human nature maybe wherewe don't change as a species

(15:48):
that much so, but the mercystory would actually, it doesn't
pour mercy, like what she wentthrough.
Well, I guess what her dead bodywent through, but it didn't stop
with just taking out our heartand her liver.
So they burned them and thenthey took the ashes and they mix
it with water and they make atonic.
And so Edward poor Edward hasgiven, or Edwin, Edwin has given

(16:10):
this tonic to drink with thebelief that this is going to
cure him.
It's a weird kind of thinking,but it's almost to me like
vaccine thinking.
Right.
Which I mean, we all know to becorrect, but you take a little
bit of like this bad thing andingest it and somehow that's
going to do okay.
Or protect you.
So whatever, whatever the beliefthat's what they did, but it
didn't work prize to hear that.

(16:32):
And Edwin died just a few monthslater.
So that's the story of mercyBrown.
Um, at least according toWikipedia, one interesting side
note is that, um, it's, somepeople have suggested that Bram
Stoker, you know, who wrote thenovel Dracula that he based his
character of Lucy Western raw onmercy, which if that's true,
that's really interesting.

(16:53):
I'm actually taking this vampirecourse through the Rosenbach
museum in Philadelphia.
And I have class on Tuesday.
Um, and I think I'm going to askthat question, like, did he,
you're taking what I'm taking aclass on vampire literature.
It meets every month for thenext five months, I guess.
Um, so we're, we're doingDracula this Tuesday and then

(17:14):
we're doing like the folklore ofempires and we're doing
actually, this is cool.
So the last one we're doingCarmella by Sheridan[inaudible],
which is a lesbian vampire storyfrom the 19th century.
It's awesome.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
I was just going to say that I didn't even know you
were taking this course and Ididn't even know there would be
such a course.
Are there, how many people inyour class?

Speaker 2 (17:36):
25.
So, um, I signed up, you couldsign up for, you should do it.
You can sign up for just, um,one of the, I think they're five
courses in all.
So you can sign up for one oryou can sign up for all five.
I

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Wonder what the breakdown would be, you know,
along gender lines.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
I wonder too.
I've been, so the Rosenbachmuseum there, I mentioned there
in Philly, they have a lot of,um, like literary manuscripts,
especially from like early 20thcentury, late 19th, century 70,
where they have Bram.
Stoker's like his notes that hecompiled and writing Dracula, um
, like his plot outline and allthese really cool things.
But anyway, they've been doingthese things.

(18:12):
They're free.
They're called Sundays withDracula.
And so every Sunday they, theydo like a zoom is a zoom thing.
You get the link and you talkabout a new, like a different
chapter of the novel and thecourse you have to pay for it,
but it's, it's not much.
And it supports the museum,which is awesome.
So I'd really recommend it

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Fascination with so many people with vampires,
especially, was it true?
Blooded didn't really watch itthat much, but what was that on
for a good seven, eight yearsmaybe.
And people were really intothat.
I don't know if you remember it.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
It was that the sh was it Charmaine Harris?
I think she wrote those.
Is it set in Louisiana?
Is that the one I'm thinkingabout

Speaker 1 (18:51):
It is and what always got me more so than the vampires
were the werewolves, becausebefore they turned into a
werewolf, they would take theirpants off.
Oh, why?
I guess it was sexy.
I have no idea.
It was ridiculous.
So,

Speaker 2 (19:05):
I mean, I want to know more like, did they take
their underwear like that way?
Were they just men or were therewomen too?
I remember the men

Speaker 1 (19:14):
And as I said, I didn't watch it that much.
And my wife was really, reallyinto it.
So I would give her a reallyhard time about, yeah, there was
one where a Wolf I remember inparticular was this really
handsome guy.
And I'm like, you just want towatch this for this, this dude
to take his pants off.
I ruined it.
I think I ruined it,

Speaker 2 (19:32):
But I think you're right.
I think like we're, people arejust so fascinated with vampires
and they are kind of sexy.
You know, I think that this, orthey've been portrayed that way
in lots of ways.
And they're so mysterious andthis idea of kind of immortal
life and, you know, feasting onblood.
It's just, it's just, I don'tknow, timeless, I guess, but
anyway, back to mercy.

(19:53):
So, um, I was really interestedin this story and I thought
there has to be more surelythere's more than this poor
little Wikipedia article.
So I found this book by a guynamed Michael Bell.
It's called food for the dead onthe trail of new England's
vampires.
I thought it was going to bekind of like, I don't know what
I was expecting, but I wasn'texpecting that Michael Bell is
actually a folklorist, he's anacademic.

(20:15):
And he's writing actually reallyseriously about new England
vampires of which mercy Brown.
Some people say that she has thedistinction of being the last
person to be zoomed as a vampirein new England.
So to me, that's, that's funny.
And in the sense that, you know,first of all, who knew there
were all these vampires roamingaround new England.
So I was reading Bell's book andI've read a few chapters of it.

(20:37):
And he talks about, he goes intosome of the folklore, but he
also interviews some of thepeople and he interviews people
who were connected to the familyin some way.
So he interviews this namedLouis Everett pack.
And this is back in the eightiesand Peck is a descendant of
mercy Brown.
And he also, he still lives inExiter where mercy lived.
He's a farmer.
He's like this old salty newEngland guy.

(20:59):
And he can really tell a story.
So he talks to pack.
And one of the things Peck tellshim that I haven't read anywhere
else is that when they dug upmercy, they found that she had
actually turned over in hergrave.
I know isn't that creepy?
So Belle asks PAC like, Hey,what do you think about this?
And he's like, well, you know,it could have been that she
wasn't quite dead when they puther in the coffin.
So that's, that's awful.

(21:19):
I hope that that really didn'thappen cause that's horrifying.
But the other thing that Pecktalks about, which is really
interesting.
He remembers that as a kid, theyused to have church picnics and
like family gatherings andthings at this church adjacent
to which there is the graveyardwhere mercy is buried.
She was buried somewheredifferent after she was exude.
So he can remember his mom andhis grandmother telling him and

(21:42):
the other kids like, Hey,whatever you do, like don't play
on those rocks over therebecause something bad happened
over there.
And apparently the rocks arewhere they took out her heart
and her liver and burned themthat those rocks are still
standing.
But Picasso says, he says tobell, he says, you know, years
ago you didn't have medicines.
You didn't have nothing.
And you had to figure outeverything on your own.

(22:03):
They were self-independentpeople, everybody that lived
here.
And I thought that was reallyinteresting.
Like he seems to have some, somesympathy and understanding for
these people who did somethingthat looks so horrific on the
surface.
But if you, you know, kind ofwhat you were saying before,
they were really just trying tosave a life.
You know, they were trying tohave some control over a
situation that was really,really difficult.

(22:25):
Bill also asks Peck.
If he believes that mercy was avampire and if Peck believes in
vampires and he says, well, Ibelieve my mother, I believe the
family did what they did.
Do I believe in vampires?
No, no.
I don't believe in that.
I'm not sure they did, but theyhad to come for an answer and it
turned out that maybe that wasthe answer.

(22:45):
And some of them old peopleprobably died with that in their
mind that they did the rightthing.
I wasn't quite sure what to makeof that.
Like, you know exactly what hemeant, except maybe like, even
though Edwin died, they feltlike they had done what they had
to do.
I don't know if they needed toanswer.
Yeah.
Like whether it was a goodanswer about answer and pick.
Also one of the things bill askshim, he's like, well, when did

(23:07):
they start calling it vampire?
Because it seemed like a lot of,a lot of the people at that time
who were actually doing thesekinds of practices, they didn't
use that word.
It was outsiders who used thatword.
And in Peck says that.
He said, I don't even know.
He said, my grandmother, mymother never mentioned the word.
And he said, he'd never used ornever heard anybody mentioned

(23:27):
the word vampire in relation tothis until people started
writing articles about it, likein the 20th century.
So I thought that wasinteresting that it was, it was
really outsiders, like, sopeople in the cities who heard
about this strange practice thatuse the word vampire.
So in Michael Bell's book, he,he shares an article from the
Providence journal.

(23:48):
And I had mentioned earlier thatthey exude mercy and her family,
family members on March 17th.
Well, this article appears twodays later on March 19th, um, of
the same year.
And it's on the front page.
And what I'm going to read toyou is in all caps, as it
appears in the newspaper.
So here it goes, exude thebodies testing, a horrible

(24:09):
superstition in the town ofExeter bodies of dead relatives
taken from their graves.
They had all died ofconsumption.
And the belief was that liveflesh and blood would be found
that fed upon the bodies of theliving.
So like when you hear that, whatdo you think?

Speaker 1 (24:23):
I think of immediately the national
Inquirer.
I think of page six.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just, it's so salacious.
And so kind of accusatory lookat these, look at these crazy,
you know, country people andwhat they're doing.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
I don't think I ever shared with you how I got into,
I was really into Bigfoot or toYeti never shared that with you.
No, I've never heard that.
Well, my uncle, he owned this,um, country store and he used to
go up there and work with mycousin, just hanging out with
them.
There's hardly anybody that evercome in, but they had all these
magazines and they had onemagazine.

(25:02):
It wasn't the national Enquirer,cause it wasn't even that
classy.
I mean, it was in black andwhite and the headline was
something to the effect of aYeti.
Yeti comes down and I think evenuse rape or sexually assaults
this Chinese man.
And at that time, I, I don'tknow.

(25:22):
I just became really big intotwo Bigfoot.
Anyway, I digress

Speaker 2 (25:29):
W we're going to have to do, do one on big foot, big
foot seems to be really popular.
Do people where your family wasfrom?
Did they believe like that bigfoot could be in the woods?
No, not really.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Really.
It was just a running joke.
Okay.
It was a Bigfoot because at thetime my cousin became fascinated
with it as well.
And my brother, so, you know, itjust became a big joke.
It's still a running joke today.
We always talk about, did theytry to scare you?
Yeah, we would try to scare eachother.
And we would talk about Getty,your big foot being in the
woods.

(26:00):
And you're surrounded, you're inthis holler and this cold town
and you're surrounded bynothing, but, but woods in the
mountains.
So it can get pretty creepy outthere.
Pretty scary, real quick.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
My brother, he used to go camping with this family
in West Virginia, way up in themountains.
And I think they used to tell,you know, tall tales about big
foot and stuff there too.
Um, all right.
So I want to back up from themercy story for just a minute
and talk about the elephant inthe room, which of course is
tuberculosis because it playssuch a, such a, you know, it
looms really large in thisstory.

(26:34):
And Belle writes in his book,you know, he says, if you set
out to invent a bafflingdisease, you could hardly do
better than tuberculosis.
And he goes on to talk about howit was really hard to diagnose.
Um, it was often confused withother diseases and it was just,
it was not well understood.
It was actually Robert Koch, um,German bacteriologist who
discovered the microbe thatcauses TB.

(26:56):
He discovered in 1882, which,you know, that's 10 years before
mercy is dead.
But the thing is that science ingerm theory and all of that, it
didn't really kind of penetrate,I think, into popular culture.
You know, certainly like maybeif you were educated, you would
know something about it, but theregular person kind of living
out in the country reallywouldn't have known a lot about

(27:16):
that.
But, um, TB, it was an awfulillness to have, and it was, you
know, you would cough, therewould be like these racking
coughs, um, where you justcouldn't catch your breath.
And over time, like first he'dbe coughing up sputum and mucus.
And then as the D as the diseasegot worse, it's like your lungs
would almost, for lack of abetter term, they would almost

(27:38):
kind of start to digestthemselves and you would be
coughing up like all this blood.
Um, and it could, it would justlook really, really, as you can
imagine, really awful, theperson would be very pale,
although towards the end, um,they said in the, like in the
last, I guess days, weeks of thedisease, you could appear
flushed.
But, but mostly before that youwere very pale, a be very tired.

(28:00):
Like you couldn't, you couldn'tget out of bed, you couldn't do
anything.
I mean, just like the constantcoughing would wear you out.
So obviously the disease wasbad, but kind of keep in mind.
Um, bill talks about, you know,medicine was also kind of scary
during this time.
And he, he has this quote from asurgeon that I think is really
interesting from 1840.
I mean, that's a good 50 yearsbefore mercy is dying of this

(28:21):
disease, but I think it stilltells you something about how
some people may have felt aboutmedicine during this time.
So the surgeon says medicine washeroic and it was murderous.
I did not know anything aboutit, but I had enough common
sense to see that physicianskilled their patients.
The medicine was no exactscience that it proceeded
empirically and that it waspreferable to put one's

(28:43):
confidence in to nature and notin the dangerous skill of
physicians in the 19th century.
It's like, there was thisculture of like folk medicine
that had grown up too.
And I think people really,especially country people really
believed in that a whole lotmore than, um, than they
believed in, you know, likegoing to the doctor.
I don't know.
Did any of you ever hear peopletalk about that where you were

(29:03):
from?

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yeah, I did.
I heard, you know, differentremedies that were, you know,
ridiculous.
I also own a few of the there'sa series of books is called
FOXFIRE.
I believe I sent you one.
I can't remember if it was, wasit on folklore or was it on, I
think

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Before I know there was something about probably
cause you know, that I'm morebeen in like morbid stuff, but
there was something about maybeghosts and like burying rituals
and things like that.
I'm going to have to dig it out.
Paints.
Yeah.
The one you sent me,

Speaker 1 (29:33):
I think I have one of the books from Fox fire that
covers that topic about fullmedicine remedies.
And you know, if you'rebleeding, you know, tie a string
around, I guess, close to wherethe wound is.
And then I think you read apassage or you know, something
from job.

(29:53):
If I remember correctly, I thinkit was job kind of makes sense.
I think there was something elseI heard of, Oh gosh, I'm trying
to think of drinking water withminnows in it.
That's yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
That's I wonder what that was supposed to cure.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
I'll have to ask my mom because she was the one who
did it.
She was made to do it.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
My mom used to eat ants off of a tree and I asked
her why she's like, well, theywere delicious.
They taste like fried chicken.
I'm like, mom,

Speaker 1 (30:23):
At least her parents didn't tell her to do it.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Well, I don't know.
Maybe the minnows helped, youknow,

Speaker 1 (30:29):
I'd rather eat the I'd much rather eat the ants
then.
Um,

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Like they're in the water and you're going to
swallow them down.
And before, you know, I don'tknow.
They're kind of little aren'tthey?

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Yeah, but it's like dirty, funky water.
I'll take the answer.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
I take the minnows.
My mammo used to talk about somefolk medicine stuff too.
And there was something aboutlike, if you had a ward, my
cousin Stacey used to get wartsand she'd say something about
like tying, I think it was alsohad to do with the string and
like you put it under a rock andthe Moonlight or something like
that.
And then she had this, thisblack SAB that she called her
drawn SAF.

(31:05):
And so if I got, um, do you havethat too?
So like if I got a cut, I wouldgo to mammals and she would put
her drawing salve on it and abandaid and it was supposed to
draw out the infection or maybeit, you know, I don't know what
was in it.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
It actually works because they call it black
salve.
Interesting.
And you know, my grandmother andmy family used it quite a bit.
If you had a splinter, it woulddraw that out.
If you had a boil, it wouldbring a boil to the head.
And I tried to find it and youcan't really find it anymore.
Probably has some reallycaustic, harmful chemical in it.

(31:39):
So that's probably why I can'tfind it, but there is something
that's called PRID and it'ssupposed to be similar, but it
does not work like the black SABdid that blocks out what was in
it, you know, I'm sure we could,we could find out

Speaker 2 (31:53):
It would be interesting.
We should do an episode on folkmedicine.
There's this drugstore, it'skind of like a hippie drug store
where I'm from like one time Iwent in and I saw this pretty
purse and then like somebodypointed out to me, it had like a
big marijuana leaf.
Then I was like, Oh, I thoughtit was just a pretty flower.
But, but anyway, they have a lotof weird stuff there.

(32:14):
So I'm going to next.
How old were you?
I was like a couple of yearsago.
I thought you were going to saylike, Hey, I was like a few
years ago.
I don't know.
Two or three.
Yeah.
So anyway, getting back totuberculosis and the field, I
think we were talking about folkmedicine, but you know, new
England, like out in thecountry, like they have this
rich tradition of folk medicine.

(32:34):
So I think, you know, it madesense for people to turn to, to
that, I guess, but getting backto tuberculosis and just what an
awful disease it was.
So it was just really prevalenttoo.
So in the 18 hundreds, I thinkby 1,801 out of every 250 people
in the Eastern United States wasdying, like actively dying of
TB.

(32:55):
And it accounted for 25% of alldeaths.
I mean, I don't know of anyillness that the counts, I mean
maybe cancer, but I don't know,25%.
And it remained the leadingcause of death throughout the
19th century.
Well, into the 20th, I don'tremember if I've ever told you
this, but my own grandmother, mymom's mom died of TB in 1951.

(33:17):
So my mom was nine at the time.
And you know, I've never, neverknown her.
I've always felt really close toher, but I think that's one of
the reasons why I find thedisease just so, so fascinating.
And just so

Speaker 1 (33:29):
For it to be around so long before it could be
effectively treated.
I mean, that's a long time.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
It is a long time.
And you know, I don't thinkcertainly the death rates were
like in 1951, weren't what theywere in the 19th century.
But you know, this was also anAppalachia.
So I kind of wonder, and this issomething I want to find out is
like why to somebody in 1951dive TB, you know?
Cause I think it wasn't, itwasn't the same illness, you
know, it was the same illness,but it wasn't prevalent.

(33:56):
So, um, the, the kind of TB thatmercy had, they called it, the
galloping consumption.
They thought it was actually, Iguess, a different form of the
disease, but really because it wit seemed to come on so fast
that, you know, like she went,she was okay, and then she
seemed to go downhill.
But in fact it wasn't really adifferent form of the disease.
It was just the fact that shewas diagnosed kind of too late,

(34:18):
kind of like getting a stagefour diagnosis versus a, a stage
one if we're talking aboutcancer nowadays.
So, you know, she had probablybeen sick for quite a long time,
considering her mother diedabout five years before she did.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
I wonder if they dug up men too, during that time, if
it was mostly reserved forwomen,

Speaker 2 (34:37):
That is a great question.
And actually one that I wish Iknew the answer to if I find
that out, because I haven'tfinished this book yet, but if I
find out I will report back andlet you know, one of the things
that I thought was interestingis they had all kinds of
explanations for why a personmight get TB.
Cause there's always been thistendency to blame the sick,

(34:57):
right?
It must've been something youdid that, you know, that that's
what you're sick.
So they said, if you've gotconsumption, it might've been
because you were having too muchsex or you were indulging in too
much rich food and drink.
They even said that a passionfor dancing could, could maybe
lead to consumption.
So it was kind of acquainted,um, at least in some circles

(35:18):
with this, you were living thisimmoral lifestyle or you just,
weren't a straight and narrowkind of person.
So you got sick.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
It sounds like very Baptist or Pentecostal.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
It does like very puritanical.
Doesn't it like?
And it's interesting that yousay that because mercy, um, when
she was exude and later buried afew, I guess later that day or a
day or so later, she wasactually buried in the Baptist
church yard.
Um, which is where she is today.
And the church, the church isstill there.
Does she have a headstone?
She does actually.

(35:49):
She does have a headstone.
I've seen a picture of it.
I haven't gone there, but if weever do a new England road trip,
I think we should go, we shouldgo and take a look at it.
And apparently it's, it's beenkind of popular.
So you remember the old guy Iwas telling you about Everett
Peck, who was interviewed theold farmer back in the eighties.
So he told Belle that onHalloween night, he actually
goes out and hangs out by hergravestone to protect her from

(36:12):
people who would come and, youknow, vandalize it and things
like that because it is kind ofa, it's become kind of a tourist
destination bell.
Um, he also talks in his bookabout this other, this other
book by Paul Barber, which Ijust added to my Amazon
wishlist, but he wrote this bookon vampires and he talks about
the sheer terror that promptedpeople to seek and find vampires

(36:32):
as their friends and neighborswere dying in clusters by
agencies.
They did not understand.
So again, like, they're justtrying to, they're just trying
to solve a problem.
Well, I want to talk about justa couple more people that Bella
mentioned in his, in his book,cause they have slightly
different takes on the story.
Um, one is this gentleman namedOliver Stedman, um, who was in
his nineties when billinterviewed him around 1981.

(36:57):
And he was apparently thistreasure trove of Rhode Island
lore and you know, local historyat first bell tries to get him
talking and he doesn't reallywant to talk about it.
He says, it's too gruesome.
But finally, you know, he kindof like a good folklorist.
He gets them going.
And so Steadman says thosepeople back up at Exeter, then
you didn't get around the sameas we do.

(37:18):
Now.
It wasn't too much populated upthere.
So they got away with that.
All right.
But yeah, they really believethat in later he brings up the
word vampire, which is notablebecause most people did not
really use the term vampire.
So the people who werepracticing this thing of
exhuming bodies and looking forblood in the heart and all of

(37:38):
that, they didn't call itvampirism.
But people from the outside,like people from the cities kind
of saw it in that way.
And it seems like it was areally shameful thing to, you
know, nobody knows for sure howmany people were exude, you
know, under the belief that theywere a vampire, but bell thinks
that I think he found one sourcethat said there were at least 10

(37:59):
and maybe a lot more.
And like I said, I haven'tfinished the book.
So I don't know if he's going tocome up with a total number, but
apparently people were kind ofashamed of it.
I mean, it's nothing you want togo around announcing like, Hey,
I just dug up my, my deaddaughter and it turns out she's
a vampire, you know?
So people kept it pretty hushhush, and it it's really not in
the historical record.
You know, he looks for other, um, sources trying to find out

(38:21):
some of this stuff

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Crazy to think that there could have been a lot more
of that going on.
It wasn't recorded.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
And that makes me, it really does make me wonder if
they were men, if they werechildren, just how widespread
and or was it like only gearedtowards women?
So in an unattributed, um,article called the vampire
tradition, bell quotes fromthis, and it says that until a
score of years ago, this guestssleep belief was so firmly held
in Western Rhode Island thatoccasionally the dead was

(38:50):
disinterred and the heart andsoul associated parts of the
cadaver removed to be burned asthe dwelling place and the shape
of the vampire, because nobodycared to spread the view that
such an evil power had appearedin the family, then the least
noise made about the performancethe better.
Um, so again, that kind of goesalong with what I said, that it
wasn't, wasn't often found inthe historical record.

(39:10):
Um, but that's the story ofmercy Brown, who seems like she
may have been the tip of theiceberg.
There may have been a lot ofother people who sadly suffered
the same fate as she did.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
It's just fascinating how there's so many parallels to
today and what's going on andyou listen to some of it and
you're like, Oh my gosh, it'sjust so crazy.
But what's going on today is

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Can you tell me in your family, um, you have tell
you have some, um, like somewritten family history about the
1918 influenza epidemic.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Oh yeah.
I have some that was written bymy grandmother because she was
an infant at the time.
She was 10 months old and hermother and her aunt passed away
and her, her grandmother wascarrying her on her hip and
trying to tend to people as theywere dying.
And with some kind of miracle,my grandmother being baby, she

(40:02):
did not get sick, but in heraccount of it, people died very,
very quickly.
Once it onset it, just peopleseem to die in a matter of days.
So it came a point in time wherethere was hardly enough people
to bury everyone.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
It reminds me of what stories I've heard of the black
plague, you know, when theywould just throw the dead bodies
outside of the house.
And these carts would just cartthem away into this common
grave.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
You have people, you know, they had to have
refrigerator trucks in New Yorkcity because there's no place to
put the dead.
So there's just so many similar.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah.
So many parallels there was thecemetery and I forget what it's
called.
I think it's on Staten Islandmaybe, but I don't know, March,
just, you know, kind of when thecoronavirus thing really started
blowing up, um, I read anarticle about it.
And so people who, um, who couldnot be buried fast enough were
actually buried in kind of in anorderly fashion, but it was
still basically a mass grave,but they're, they're buried in

(40:58):
such a way that if the familieswant to, you know, take them in,
bury them in their own, um, adifferent location, I guess
there'll be able to find them,but you know, this is like still
happening.
And I, you know, I guess likewhen, when you're in times like
that, like you just lose theniceties of civilization.
You don't have, you don't havethe time to have all those
funeral rights that we're usedto, but yeah, the parallels are

(41:19):
really, they're really amazing.
Um, and I think it's a reminderthat, you know, when we're faced
with things like that, we, weall, we all just want to find
something that works like wewant to live.
We want the people we love tolive in.
That's just human nature.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
So I'm going to tell you the story of black Aggie.
Yay.
Marianne Hooper Adams was alsoknown as Clover Adams to her
friends and she was a wealthysocialite.
And she was also the wife ofauthor, Henry Adams, who was in
turn also the great grandson ofpresident John Adams and the

(41:58):
grandson of president JohnQuincy Adams Clover was
interesting person.
She had taken up photographywhen she was 40 and she became
really good in it.
She was kind of renowned at thattime, but in two short years,
she died through suicide bydrinking potassium cyanide.
It was reported that shestruggled with depression and

(42:20):
became increasingly depressedafter the passing of her father.
And this is what they felt ledto her taking her life through
suicide.
And if I remember correctly,which is an interesting link to
mercy Brown is that her mom haddied earlier.
I don't know when, but she haddied earlier from tuberculosis.
Henry Adams was reportedly griefstricken so much that he later

(42:45):
traveled to Japan.
And there've been all sorts ofreports that after her death,
that he wouldn't speak of hername.
He wouldn't write about her.
This proves not to be true lateron.
So when he returns to the U S heenlists or commissions, I'm a
sculptor named Augustus SaintGolden's to create a statue to

(43:06):
Mark her grave and thesculpture, it has no name or
date or inscriptions.
And that was done at the requestof her husband, Henry and a 2000
article in the American artjournal.
He asked a sculpture to quotedesign an ideal figure,
embodying ideas, similar to theBuddhist concept of Nirvana
release from the cycles of lifeand death, desire and pain and

(43:30):
extinction of passions leadingto the inner quietude.
Her headstone was replaced bythis enormous hooded sculpture
that looks in androgynous.
It's beautiful.
And it's frightening at the sametime.
As I was saying before inpopular accounts, Adams never
spoke of her death.
However, in 2010, when settlingan estate, there was a find of

(43:53):
13 letters written by HenryAdams.
And he had written a letter to afriend one month after her
death.
And I'm just going to read aportion of the letter.
Even now, I cannot quite get ridof the feeling that Clover must
sooner or later come back.
And that I better wait for herto decide everything for me.
The only advice I have for youis to get all the fun that you

(44:13):
can out of life.
The only moments of the pastthat I regret are those when I
was not actively happy, that'sso poignant.
It really is all of these thingsthat happen 150 years ago.
They are still the strugglesthat people face today, the same
feelings, the same hardships.
Yeah.
You

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Can feel everything that he's feeling in that
letter.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
So the sculpture remains and rock Creek cemetery
in Washington, DC.
So now to the story of FelixAgnes, and this is where black
Aggie comes in because ofFelix's last name.
And Felix was born in France in1839.
And he was, um, an extremelyinteresting person as well.

(44:59):
He had been a seaman.
He had also been a soldierbefore immigrating to the U S
and he later volunteered as aarmy Sergeant for the union
during the civil war, by the endof the war, he left as a
Brigadier general later, hebecame the publisher of the
Baltimore American and launchedthe evening Baltimore star.

(45:19):
And he married any Fulton whosefather was also a owner of a
Baltimore newspaper with Felix.
He had purchased a family plotand drew a Ridge cemetery in
Pikesville, Maryland.
And he found a dealer that saidthat he had been given
permission to create a duplicateof the other famous statue that
Henry Adams had erected for hiswife Clover.

(45:43):
So when the famous copy waserected, what Agnes didn't know
was that the dealer reallyhadn't been given permission to
replicate the original famousstatue.
Agnes, his mother.
She was the first to be buriedthere.
He was buried in 1925 and hiswife was also buried there as
well.
So a lot of folklore started tosurround the sculpture that is

(46:06):
still associated with it to thisday.
So some of the rumors includethat the eyes of the statue with
glow red and Moonlight

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Shiver, by the way, and made it shiver, go up my
spine

Speaker 1 (46:19):
Bumped against it in the middle of the night, it
would scare you.
So I could see all of this cameabout.
And some people said that therewas a witch buried underneath
the sculpture.
Some other things that were saidthat pregnant women are more
than to stay far away becausethey could miscarry.
If you sat in her lap atmidnight, you would soon die
afterward and reportedly, if yousat in her lap at night, you

(46:43):
would soon lose your virginityif you had it.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
So I imagine there were a lot of people wanting to
sit in her lap at night.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
It became an attraction for fraternities that
were hazing pledges.
So they would be required to sitin her lap all night long, all
night.
And another crazy story is that1962, a Watchman discovered one
of Aggie's arms had been cut offduring the night.
And the missing arm was laterfound in the trunk of a sheet

(47:10):
metal workers car, along with asaw the

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Very wild who would do that.
Why did he do it?
Well, he told the judge thatblack

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Maggie had cut off her own arm in a fit of grief
and a given it to them.
It makes perfect sense.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
It does.
Yeah.
What was he?
I really want to know what hewas smoking or drinking.
I want someone who knows

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Why he would do something like that.
Apparently the judge didn'tbelieve him and the man went to
jail.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Of course.
Yeah.
If the judge had believed himthat that would be a whole other
story.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
I think the frat boys would have done something like
this, but it didn't make anymention of who this person was
or

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Terrified to solve this.
You know, the statute soundsbeautiful, but creepy, like, you
know, you're in this graveyardin the middle of the night.
I mean, I would be scaredshitless, you know, let alone to
stall off an arm.
So according

Speaker 1 (48:02):
Two, a 2012 Washington post article by John
Kelly, the Agnes familybelieving the statute to be
approved by st.
Galton's believing that heapproved the replica.
And then later they discoveredthat the replica wasn't
approved, they donated it to theSmithsonian and it just lingered

(48:26):
in storage for like 30 years.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Yeah.
Like they didn't put it ondisplay or no.
And it

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Sounds like one of the reasons why, I guess the
family donated to theSmithsonian is that, you know,
there was just so much vandalismand things associated with it
that, you know, maybe theythought that would be a good
resting place for it.
I'm not sure, but I, I know Iwouldn't want to family grave
plot to have people running allover it and desecrating that

(48:57):
basically the final interestingfact about this statue is that
in 1987, the general servicesadministration moved it to the
courtyard of the national courtsbuilding.
Yeah.
Which is on the East side ofLafayette square.
And I think it's kind of tuckedaway.

(49:18):
You have to look, it

Speaker 2 (49:19):
You'll find it.
I need to sit in his lap.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
Are people still do that?
You'd probably be arrested bythe secret service.
No.
So I got all of this informationfrom a article, a couple of
articles in the Washington post.
One was cloaked in mystery byPaul Richard.
There was another called blackAggie from Baltimore to
Washington.
And it was published in theWashington post by John Kelly

(49:47):
was author.
And that was in 2012.
And then of course you can goonline and you can find all
these different things.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
So the original black Aggie, I guess, is it still in
the it's in the cemetery inBaltimore, right.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Originally?
No.
The original sculpture remainsin rock Creek, cemetery in
Washington, DC, the replica thathad been a Druid cemetery in
Pikesville.
That's the one where all thelegends surrounded it.
And that's the one that wasdonated by the family to the
Smithsonian.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
It'd be interesting to take a little trip and see
both though, wouldn't it.
And just see like, you know, howsimilar look and yeah.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
No, I mean, I would assume that it looked like they
were similar in size from what Icould see and it's a beautiful
sculpture, but it's alsofrightening.
I mean, if you saw it at night,it would definitely scary.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
I want to see it.
I liked what you said about, um,Henry Adams, you know, he, his
influence, he was influenced byBuddhism.
And what did he talk about?
Like kind of the end of passionsso that, you know, going into
this quietude of Nirvana, like,that's just such a, cause it
sounds like his, you know,Clover, she really suffered, you
know, is anyone who knowsanything about mental illness

(51:03):
would understand, like, youknow, all of these strong,
strong passions and, you know,and then unhappiness.
And just like the piece of thatI love, I love the way I love
that.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
It's beautifully written.
As people say over and overagain, you know, enjoy the
moment, enjoy your life.
Try to be happy as you can be.
It's very hard to do right now.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
I think it's a hard, I don't know.
I think it's something Istruggle with all the time,
because I don't know just whatdoes that even mean to be happy?
You know, what does that mean toyou?

Speaker 1 (51:33):
When I think in relation to the letter is to
slow down and try to enjoyyourself and try to enjoy the
class.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
No, I think that's key.
And I think it's, for me, Ithink happiness is it's about
the small moments and it's aboutnoticing, you know, noticing the
small things, like the way thecream looks into your coffee
when you stir it up or, youknow, talking with a friend or
it's those little things.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
I was just going to add that there's a beer named
after black Aggie and there'salso a band or a singer called
black Aggie.
So if you go on YouTube, theband or the singer will come,
we'll have to get the beers intime.
Oh.
And the, there was one morething that was said about the
statue is that if you sit infront of it with a mirror and
repeated black Aggie, she wouldscratch her face.

(52:20):
And what does it sound like toyou?
Do you remember another legendthat is similar to that?

Speaker 2 (52:24):
I'm forgetting the word, but you, you the name, but
you stand in front of the, Oh,don't tell me, don't tell me
what is it?
Tell me, because I can't thinkof it.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Bloody Mary, Mary bloody Mary.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Okay.
It was like, I thought it wasthree.
And you had already said itthree times.
So I think five times, I'll sayit two more times, then

Speaker 1 (52:46):
That was scared.
The Holy fuck out of me.
You ever do then?
Oh yeah.
At sleepovers we would do stufflike that all the time.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Something really bad supposed to happen.
If you do that, right?
Like you're you die?
Or she comes

Speaker 1 (52:58):
For you growing up.
What the legend was is that shewouldn't scratch your face.
She would come out on the mirrorand she would stab you did.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
It's funny that we're talking about bloody Mary,
because when I was making mydrink tonight, you know, I did
the tin Lizzie, but I kind ofswitched it around and I was
like, maybe I should call it thebloody mercy.
But I didn't.
I felt like it was, it was notvery nice to poor mercy Brown,
but Brian, I did toast to her.
We didn't toast her

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Earlier.
We can make a cocktail, call itmercy

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Brown.
We could, we could also do ablack Aggie cocktail.
Um, that reminds me that leansback to everything leads back.
Right?
It's all circular to JerryFalwell's black drink.
Maybe he was drinking a blackAggie.
It all connects.
That explains his disgustingbehavior.
He's disgusting on so manylevels.
Disgusting.

(53:46):
That's pretty cool.
Serendipity.
I love these stories.
They're just, um, and I love allthe history cause they're all,
you know, I think our motivationwas to tell creepy, you know,
scary stories.
But I think part of what'shappening is that we're telling
a lot of, you know, likehistorical details are seeping
in and that stuff is justendlessly fascinating.
And, and it seems like one ofthe things we're finding is

(54:06):
we're talking about human natureand how it really hasn't.
It doesn't really change whetherwe're talking about grief or
we're talking about fear.
We're all, we're all the same.
Yes.
For better, for worse.
And sometimes I think it's forus, but I don't want to close
out on, on such a negative closeout on Henry Adams note, write
his note that the only regretshe had were the moments he

(54:27):
wasn't happy strive for that.
Let's give a toast right now toClover Clover.
She's a woman I would like tohave known.
I imagine her is reallybeautiful with like flaming red
hair, her just that

Speaker 3 (54:39):
She was full of passions.
And sadly, partly thatpassionate nature that led to
her undoing.
I like passionate people, evenif they bring ruin down upon
themselves.
So here's the Clover to Clover.
I'll drink.
Thank you to everyone wholistens to the best thing you
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(55:02):
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