Best of the History Guy: Spooky History

foreign [Applause] on April 28 1908 an inferno consumed a farmhouse in Laporte Indiana officials were distressed to find in the basement the bodies of three children and the remains of what was assumed to be the owner of the house Bell source and gunnis but that was just the beginning of the grizzly discoveries on the guns Farm within a few days 11 more bodies had been discovered buried near the hog pits Belle gunnis called by the press the lady Bluebeard the Laporte ghoul the Mistress of murder Farms was accused of luring men to their deaths with Promises of love and prosperity and her own death has been a matter of speculation almost since the day it was announced a fascination that says much about us it is a grisly bit of American history that deserves to be remembered the woman who become belgunis was born in Norway on November 11 1859. her name was Paul's dead or starseth she left the country of her birth behind when she was 21. seek new opportunities in America Reynold adopted the name of Belle and married Norwegian immigrant mods dietlef Anton Sorensen in 1884. when the couple's house in Chicago burned to the ground they use the insurance money to open a confectionary store and when in what was supposed to be a string of very bad luck the unprofitable confectionary store burned to the ground they used the insurance money to purchase a house in a suburb of Chicago according to the LaPorte County Historical Society the sorensons were unable to have children together so they supported a series of foster children whose names were Caroline Axel Myrtle and Lucy other historians claim these children were Bell's own the historical record is unclear on the truth of the matter foster children or biological Carolyn and axel died in the sources household because of death for both officially was colitis or an infection in the colon but their symptoms could have been caused by poison rather than bacteria both children had life insurance policies for which Bel Sorensen was the beneficiary mad Sorensen also had a life insurance policy listing Bell as the beneficiary Bill claimed Sorensen's policy was too small to support the family if he perished so the couple purchased a larger one Mr Sorensen died coincidentally on the day the two policies overlapped one another bringing an estimated five thousand to eight thousand five hundred dollars to the combined policies to The Grieving Widow when questioned about her husband's death bell said that he had come home with a headache and she'd given him a medicinal powder to help his headache but when she checked on him later he was dead two different doctors examined Sorensen's body the family doctor said the men had died of a cerebral hemorrhage but again the symptoms of sorosis death look suspiciously like poisoning which was the conclusion of the other doctor but the family doctor's diagnosis was accepted by authorities because he had been treating mud Sorensen prior to his untimely death perhaps to avoid the accusatory stares of her neighbors who were having trouble believing this series of events she used the money from her husband's life insurance policy to purchase a farm in Laporte Indiana in 1901 for remitting foster children Myrtle and Lucy went with her as well as an adopted daughter named Jenny Olsen Bell met Peter gunnis a butcher and married him soon after the move to Indiana Gunna said two children from a previous marriage the youngest only an infant died shortly after Bell married her father eight months later gunnis also died Bell claimed a sausage grinder fell from a high shelf and struck the unfortunate man on the back of the head the coroner examined gunnison's corpse said he also showed symptoms of poisoning though the death was officially determined to be accidental twice widowed and still supporting a series of foster children Bell placed ads in Norwegian newspaper seeking a man to share her life on the farm with her she wrote wanted a woman who owns a beautifully located and valuable Farm in first class condition once a good and reliable man as partner in the same some little cash is required for which will be furnished first class security it's unclear just how many men responded to Bell's ad but the number is speculated to be between 14 and 40. Christian hilkman oh budsberg John Moe George Berry and EM will tell were all potential suitors who arrived at the LaPorte Indiana Farm with thousands of dollars of cash in their pockets and were never heard from again Bill hired a manual laborer named Ray lamphere to help on the farm during her search for a husband he would later claim that he and Bell had become lovers he apparently had aspirations to become Belle's husband himself and became unhinged by the arrival of Andrew helgeline of Aberdeen South Dakota one of Bell's final suitors she had written to huggling for months professing her love and desire for him to join his life with hers she wrote I long so to know you better and I place you higher in my affections than anyone on Earth we shall be so happy when you once get here and chillingly come prepared to stay forever she added don't trust the banks sell or mortgage The Ranch in stock and bring the money sewed in your clothes Bill fired lamphere who didn't take his dismissal well she told her neighbors that he had threatened her life and after he continued to show up on her property Lanford was arrested for trespassing on the farm he was later acquitted of the trespassing charges but Bell continued to express her fear of her former farmhand meanwhile she by all appearances Was preparing to settle down with helgeline helgeline and Baal were seen at a bank in town where huggling cash certificates for around 2 800 an amount that would equal approximately 78 thousand dollars today Helen was prepared to settle for a check from the banker leave some money in an account but Bell demanded the entire amount in cash it was the last time that anyone would see helgling alive when huggling's brother osley had not heard from his relative for some time he found the letters from Belle and wrote to her demanding to know his brother's whereabouts she simply told him that Andrew had laughed he didn't believe her and traveled Indiana seeking answers in the book Hell's princess the mystery of belgunis Butcher of Man author Harold Schechter notes that on April 27th Bell's children had told some of their friends that she had beaten them when they went in the basement after she expressively told them not to they had bruises that were proof of the truth of the story and evidence of their mother's temper around the same time Bell visited her lawyer in order to update her will she listed her children as beneficiaries for his state but curiously in the document Bell didn't list her adopted daughter Jenny Olson who was assumed to be living in California also in late April Witnesses said Bell purchased a can of kerosene the next day her Farmhouse burned a woman's corpse in the bodies of three children were found in the basement of the home curiously the body that was assumed to be Belle's corpse was missing its head but false teeth located near the remains were positively identified by the family's dentist it's belonging to Mrs gunnis the authorities believe that Belle gunnis had died in a tragic accident until Osler helgline arrived and asked that the farm be searched for his brother's body near the hog pins investigators uncovered the dismembered remains of an estimated 11 people including Andrew hegeline the coroner believed the deceased had been poisoned and then chopped into pieces the Press descended like flies upon the grizzly scene and curiosity Seekers weren't far behind an estimated 16 000 people per day visited the farm at the height of the media fuhrer the hotels were sold out in the towns nearby by the influx of visitors the atmosphere was described as festive with self-promoters selling food and drink to the tourists as well as alleged phonographs of the bodies that have been discovered some come the farm for souvenirs unknowingly destroying whatever evidence may still remain on the property the public Fascination wandered into the bazaar a Dr CP Bancroft of the medical Psychological Association speculated in a widely shared Associated Press article that Bell was doomed from birth to degenerate acts a conclusion based on his observation that she had a peculiarly shaped head and a very large frame with small feet one of the bodies was identified as 16 year old Jenny Olson the adopted girl who'd moved to LaPorte with Belle Bell had told her neighbors that Jenny was now living in California and attending school and had even said that she was planning to visit soon neighbors had worried about her after the fire with one quoted saying she'll be heartbroken it turns out she never left the farm disturbingly most of the corpses discovered on the farm were in such a terrible shape that identification was impossible since Bell was assumed to be deceased authorities arrested lamb fear the disgruntled farmhand for arson and murder the murder charges didn't stick but the arson did and lamphere spent a year in prison before dying of tuberculosis there's a supposed deathbed confession that has been attributed to lamphere when he admitted Bell poisoned her would-be suitors during dinner and then dismembered them afterwards he also said that he had a part in funding the decoy body for Bell to place in the basement to fake her own death however the accuracy of this confession has been thrown into doubt because of The Sensational nature of the case the Press were grasping at any and every lead to find the truth of the matter and may have concocted the confession to sell more papers the real truth of what happened to belgummus's farm has remained lost to history there has been some speculation that a woman named Esther Carlson who died awaiting trial for murder in Los Angeles in 1931 might have been belgunis she was accused by prosecutors of poisoning a man to steal his money which was of course the modus operandi of belgunis she was about the right age if belgunis had survived the fire and she had some superficial physical resemblance to belgunis but a further analysis of the records in their past showed that it couldn't be the same person in 2008 there was an attempt to scientifically answer the mystery surrounding belgunis and the body that had been located in The Farmhouse was exhumed scientifically tested was determined to be the right height for belgunis but DNA analyzes were inconclusive further attempts to test the DNA of saliva that she'd left on one of the envelopes that she'd mailed to one of her lovers also turned out to be inconclusive that DNA was simply too degraded to make a comparison and despite the best efforts of modern science they were still unable to answer the mystery surrounding belt gunness but of course part of the mystery of belganis is not just in the lure details of a crime and the trial of her lover and the question whether she died that day it's a question of why we are so fascinated with people like belgunis and are still fascinated by serial killers today Dr Scott a bond who wrote a book on fascination with serial killers summarized his ideas and findings in a 2017 issue of Psychology today he said like it or not from a sociological perspective serial killers are one of us they offer a safe outlet for our darkest ideas and feelings and urges that excite and tantalize us and they remind us that no matter our other flaws the rest of us are well okay why are we fascinated with serial killers Dr Bond suggests because surprisingly we need them [Music] historians tracked the tradition called Halloween or All Hallows Eve back to a Celtic Festival called Sawan or Summer's end it's a festival that recognizes that time when the season of life ends and the season of death begins and thus is thought to be that point where the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest it is it's a time of Celebration when people lit bonfires and wore costumes to ward off ghosts but also a time of remembrance the people that came before us created the history that the history guy talks about during the rest of the year but what we do with the people who created history or what's left of them after they die says an awful lot about Who We Are it shows what we value what we choose to honor what we do with Mortal remains says as much about the living as the Dead although the process intimately involves both it is history that deserves to be remembered in Egyptian mummies the placement of the body represents gender only males were mummified with their arms crossed women were modified with their arms at their sides how the dead are arranged has a special significance and shows the character of the deceased take for example the Curious burial of James Britain Britt Bailey he was born in North Carolina in 1779 was a veteran of the War of 1812 and a controversial figure who was prosecuted for forgery in Kentucky before moving further west he married two sisters not at the same time and had 11 children five with one and six with the other Bailey was a hard drinking settler with an indomitable Spirit Bailey claimed to have purchased land in what would later become Texas from the Spanish government and build a homestead we had painted all the buildings red but when Stephen Austin was settling the land for the Mexican Government they had no record of the Grant and Austin tried to evict Bailey Bailey refused to move on and was allowed to remain in his will Bailey specifically requested to be buried standing up and facing west probably to continue his trailblazing from Beyond the Grave he wanted his rifle in a jug of whiskey too according to oral tradition Bailey said I don't want it said there lies old Brett Bailey bury me so the world must say there stands Bailey and buried me with my face to the Setting Sun I have been all my life traveling Westward and I want to face that when I die Bailey's wife honored his request and buried him standing up with a rifle of powder and bullets but she refused to allow the whiskey so now Legend says that sometimes you'll see a light on the Texas Prairie at night and that is Britain Bailey's Lantern as he searches eternally for the whiskey that he was promised according to the stories if you see the light you shouldn't stop unless you have liquor for Brett Bailey's ghost others were more fortunate than having their burial request honored like Aurora shock of Indiana who asked her husband to bury her with her beloved 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible according to the Chicago Tribune Aurora's request was granted but the special burial required 16 plots to complete concrete 12 inches thick was poured around the car to preserve it from groundwater her casket was laid from the front to the back seat and after her husband died some years later he had a hole drilled in the concrete and his ashes poured into the grave so that they could ride off into eternity together who we are buried with also says something about our lives pure abelard and Eloise dargintoy have according to some one of the most tragic love stories in history in 12th century France they fell in love when abelard was tutoring Eloise and began a relationship that resulted in a child Eloise's uncle folbert was incensed by the affair and raged for abelard to be attacked and castrated abelard became a monk at the Abbey of sandini and Eloise gave up their child and became a nun they wrote an out famous series of letters to each other which survived to be published in 1616. though some have questioned the authenticity of the letters as they weren't published until hundreds of years after the Lover's death they preserved the story of what happened between abelard and Eloise as well as Eloise's rather radical for her time feminist views Ambler probably died of scurvy though the disease was not called that at the time and was buried at the oratory of the paraclete where Eloise was Abbas some historians believe Eloise was buried with AB with abelard when she died the legend says that when abalore's Crypt was opened to enter Eloise that his corpse opened his arms to receive her in Eternal embrace after the French Revolution the pair was moved to the Perla Chase Cemetery in Paris lovers are those seeking the type of Love That overcomes all obstacles sometimes leave letters on the spot marking abelard and Eloise's mortal remains in the hope of finding true love some historians question whether abelard and Eloise's remains were ever moved and we might never know the true story of their lives or what happened to them after they died but the location of their remains even though it might not actually be them still continue to inspire people today if you have made this lasting and concrete and impression as the post-death contribution of James Smithson Smithson was the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Macy a wealthy Widow and the Duke of Northumberland Hugh Smithson Percy a chemist and mineralogist misson published at least 27 scientific papers ranging from an improved method of making coffee to an analysis of a mineral which was named smithsonite in honor of him Smith and highly valued education and Science and in one of his papers wrote it is in his knowledge that men has found his greatness and his happiness no ignorance is probably without loss to him after his death in Genoa Italy in 1829 he directed that his fortune be used to establish a museum in the United States a country he had never visited which was to be called the Smithsonian Institution he described it as an establishment for the increase in diffusion of knowledge among men in 1904 smithson's remains were relocated to the United States from Genoa carried by Smithsonian Regent Alexander Graham Bell and the remained there today the museums and National view recorded more than 30 million visitors in 2017 is one of the most visited museums in the world attracting visitors from around the globe has become a symbol of learning and Enlightenment another famous figure whose body was the symbol for a movement and who oddly continued to travel the world after her death was Ava or Evita Peron the wife of Juan Peron a controversial Argentine president she was a vibrant and fiery speaker for the workers of Argentina whom she called the desk masados or shirtless ones rising from humble beginnings to become one of the most influential people in her country Evita maintained an image of style and grace and helped Advance the women's suffrage movement she was loved by some and virulently hated by others after her death from cervical cancer in 1952 historians believe nearly 3 million people watched her funeral procession and went to see her body displayed eight people died and thousands others were injured in the rush to see her body a massive Memorial to her larger than the Statue of Liberty was planned but before it could be constructed her husband was overthrown in a coup and forced into exile Evita's body was taken by the military and hidden to prevent it from becoming a symbol for her husband's supporters to Rally around according to the BBC Evita's remains were at various times in a van on the streets then concealed behind the screen at a movie theater and moved around various government offices finally she was buried in Milan Italy under a different name in an effort to conceal her location in 1971 avita's body was exhumed and taken to Spain where Juan Peron lived in Exile with his third wife they cleaned and prepared the body for presentation allowing it to sit in their own dining room for a while cleaning and grooming the body they discovered the corpse had been abused as the tip of one of aveda's fingers was missing and her face appeared to have been struck they labored to restore her legendary Beauty perone returned to power in Argentina in 1973 died in office in 1974 and was succeeded by his widow Isabel Peron his third wife who had Evita's body brought back to Argentina and allowed it to be displayed alongside perrone's body Evita was finally interred in Buenos Aires in 1976 more than two decades after her death today Evita's Mausoleum is heavily guarded to prevent any further desecration of her Remains the guards of Evita's tomb were there to keep people out but in a vampire fueled craze in America's New England in the 19th century measures were taken to keep the dead in their graves there was an outbreak of tuberculosis in some of the New England states during the early 1800s the disease was called consumption because it seemed to cause a wastinger consuming of the body because it was unknown that tuberculosis was a highly contagious disease the vampire Panic began after someone would die of the disease and then subsequently family members would also become ill and die based on superstitions carried over from the old world community members believed the deceased were coming back from the grave defeat upon the remaining family to prevent the supposed vampire's depredations they dug up the bodies of the recently deceased and would cut out the heart and burn it sometimes breathing in the fumes is an added preventative others would cut the limbs off and arrange them over the chest some would flip the corpses over to prevent them from climbing out of the grave what they did to the bodies seems gruesome but they believed that they were protecting the living in an interview with Smithsonian Magazine researcher Michael Bell says that examined over 80 different remains that were mangled to prevent the deceased from rising again he believes there are more to be discovered hidden beneath the ground accounts during the Roman Imperial period said that when a general would ride through the streets of Rome in the lavish parade that was called a Triumph that they would have a slave stand on the Chariot with him and as he rode through the adoring crowds the slave would whisper in his ear that he was but mortal and would one day die the purpose was to keep the general from becoming so convinced by the Adoration that he was a God that he would take his conquering Legions and use them to subdue Rome but it became a message for all of us that all triumphs are temporary the reminder that we will all one day die is called a Memento Mori and there are Macabre examples throughout history and art in literature in music I think that history itself is a Memento Moray a slave on our Chariot whispering in our ear and whether you want to take with you a bottle of whiskey or a classic car whether you're a politician or a scientist or an artist regardless of the trappings of wealth the one thing that is true of all of them is that it is all fleeting and we acknowledge that in the complex way that we humans deal with our mortal remains as the first century BC Roman poet Horus said pale death knocks with impartial foot on poor men's hovels and King's palaces [Music] long considered to be the most northern of the southern states and the most southern of the northern states West Virginia is a state known for its Scenic Vistas and Mountain views but it could be just as well known for its unique history for example it was in West Virginia that the United States built a bunker that was designed to protect the United States Congress in the case of nuclear war the more than one hundred thousand square foot facility built more than 700 feet below the Greenbrier hotel in Sulfur Springs West Virginia was completed in 1961 and remained active clear until the 1990s when the Washington Post revealed its existence and it was decommissioned and there is another piece of nearly forgotten American history that also occurred in Greenbrier County this one in the 1890s because the Curious story of one of the only known trials in history to include the testimony of a ghost deserves to be remembered West Virginia joined the union during the Civil War splitting from the rest of Virginia Which joined the Confederacy however the people living in what would become West Virginia desired separate statehood long before that fatal break there were differences in ethnicity and Views about what constituted appropriate Taxation and government representation among other issues about one-third of the population of Virginia lived in its Western counties when the Virginia legislature voted to secede from the Union in 1861 the overall vote was 88-55 of the 55 dissenters 29 of the representatives were from West Virginia in response to the vote and outraged at the result two conventions were held in Wheeling in which a separate pro-union government was elected the new governor was Francis H Pierpont and he made the new state capital of what was called the restored government of Virginia in Wheeling later moving it to Alexandria in April the following year a referendum was held both upholding the new government and putting forth a resolution to split from the rest of Virginia the vote was extremely popular with a final vote of 18 862 to 514. President Abraham Lincoln wrote to Pierpont advising make haste slowly things are improving by time draw up your Proclamation carefully and if you please let me see it before issuing the vote in the U.S Congress to allow statehood ran along party lines but the formation of West Virginia was approved there was some concern about slavery in the new state as Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation specifically only applied to those States in Rebellion against the Union but a senator named Wakeman Wiley one of the founders of West Virginia and a slave owner himself crafted an amendment creating gradual emancipation for the slaves within the proposed States counties that amendment was approved by the voters and statehood moved forward on April 20th 1863 Abraham Lincoln announced that West Virginia would become a state after a 60-day waiting period on June 20th the 35th state joined the union elbazona Hester was born in West Virginia in 1873 10 years after its formation not much is known about her life other than what survives the world tradition she was a bit of a free spirit for the time period having a child out of wedlock in 1895. the next year Zone amid a blacksmith by the name of Erasmus stribling shoe who is going by the name of Edward but people in the town called him trout she was more than a decade older than Zona they had a whirlwind courtship and married in November 1896. by all accounts the couple seemed to be happy and in love however zona's mother Mary Jane Robinson heaster reportedly had her doubts both about the man and the short courtship then in January the next year an 11 year old neighbor who helped Zone around the house discovered her body at the foot of the stairs in her home reports from the time described the scene the body was lying stretched out perfectly straight with feet together one hand Lying by the side and the other lying across the body the head was slightly inclined to one side he ran home to tell his mother who summoned the doctor police and Edward shu by the time the doctor george Knapp got to the house Shu had already taken his wife's body to a bedroom and dressed her for burial he was cradling on his head and shoulders in his arms and rocking with grief Nat made a brief examination and declared zona's death was due to an everlasting faint what more modern doctors call a heart attack According to some reports the doctor later changed the cause of death to complications due to pregnancy but Zona hadn't told anybody that she was pregnant and wasn't showing any signs of pregnancy at the time she dressed his deceased bride in a high-collared dress himself this was a break with tradition as women from the community would usually prepare a body for burial he placed her body in a coffin and zona's remains were transported to her mother Mary Jane heaster's home which was a few mile away on big Sewell Mountain oddly during the viewing of zona's body she did not leave his wife's side remaining close to her casket and grieving saving to keep mourners from viewing the body too closely but Mary heaster did not trust Trout's shoe and she did not believe that her daughter had simply dropped dead of a heart attack she began to pray that her daughter's Spirit would return and tell her how she died some four weeks after her daughter's funeral Mary said she began to have visions at night of zona's spirit four nights in a row Mary said her child appeared to her and claimed she had been abused by shoe Zona spirit said she was abusive she said he had choked her crushing her windpipe and breaking the top vertebrae in her neck Mary said one night is her daughter Spirit departed Zona turned her head completely around displaying the damage that had been done to her physical body at first no one believed Mary's ghostly tale thinking was simply a mother's grief but Mary convinced her neighbors and her brother of its truth and together they approached a lawyer named John Alfred Preston he didn't believe Mary right away but after Preston spoke to Dr Knapp who said that he had not closely examined zona's body and some of the neighbors described shu's strange Behavior at the visitation he obtained a warrant to exhume zona's body for an autopsy the body was exhumed on February 22nd 1897. Shu was required to attend the autopsy though he protested according to oral tradition he said but they will not be able to prove that I did it a later story printed by the Monroe Watchman newspaper said she sat whittling on a stick while his wife's body was examined it reported he seemed unconcerned until the doctor started working around her neck when she showed signs of extreme nervousness shockingly the story purportedly told by zona's ghost about her cause of death was confirmed the autopsy showed that her neck had been broken and her windpipe Crush showing that she had been strangled Edward trout shoe was arrested for his wife's murder the trial took place in June 1897. prosecutors didn't want Mary to speak about her ghostly Visions but the defense asked about them hoping to discredit her but Mary stuck to her story and insisted it was true and it was compelling judge J.W McWhorter who presided over the trial described Mary's testimony on the stand in a letter to a friend after the event the quarter wrote what Mary claimed her daughter told her on the third night of her appearance I told him supper was ready and he began to chide me because I had prepared no meat for supper and I reminded him that there was plenty there was bread and butter applesauce preserves and other things that made a very good supper and he flew mad and got up and came towards me when I raised up he sees each side of my head with his hands and by a sudden wrench dislocated my neck the judge went on to relate how Mary had kept a sheath that had been wadded around zona's neck in her coffin but it began to smell and when she washed it a red liquid oozed out and dyed the sheet the sheet was displayed in court and the judge said he was a decidedly reddish color mcquarter said that he had never been to zona's home and neither had Mary but zona's Spirit described the place in such detail that when he spoke to a friend about its location based on Mary's testimony alone they believed he had been there finally he wrote that Shu had been heard to say that he wanted to be married seven times in his life it was revealed during the trial that she had been married twice before his final marriage to Zona his first wife divorced him enlisted in the court documents that he had been abusive shu's second wife died under mysterious circumstances within a year of their nuptials one story said she had fallen through ice another suggests she died when she accidentally dropped a brick on her head as they built a chimney and it was revealed that between the two marriages Shu had spent two years in prison for stealing a horse Shu took the stand at his own defense during the proceedings a local newspaper of The Greenbrier independent reported he admitted that he had served a turn in the pan declared that he dearly loved his wife and appealed to the jury to look into his face and then say if he was guilty his testimony Manner and so forth made an unfavorable impression on the spectators he denied the circumstantial evidence arrayed against him but the jury was convinced otherwise the trial only lasted eight days until liberations went on for a little more than an hour judge mcwurther could not instruct the jury to ignore the testimony about the ghost because it had been brought up by the defense not the prosecution was found guilty the first degree murder most of the jury thought he deserved the death penalty but it was not unanimous so it was instead sentenced to life in prison following the trial in July a Lynch Mob formed to hang Shu but authorities heard about the mob and the sheriff was able to protect him by hiding him in the woods she was said to be so terrified of the mob that he was unable to tie his own shoes the sheriff confronted the mob and persuaded them to lay down their arms and go home four of them were later indicted for attempted lynching Shu was imprisoned at the state prison in Moundsville he died of an unknown epidemic that went through the prison population in March 1900 and was buried in an unmarked grave Mary Hester maintained throughout the rest of her life that she had been visited by her daughter's ghost she died in September 1916. of course people still argue whether Edward Chu was guilty but it's rather amazing that Zona shoe's actual cause of death was uncovered still it's hard to believe that as late as 1897 that a U.S jury took the testimony of a ghost his credible evidence although it was supported by a strong circumstantial case on U.S Highway 60 in front of Sam black church in West Virginia there's a sign commemorating Zone issue it reads in part interned in nearby cemetery is Zona Hester Shu her death was presumed to be natural until her spirit visited her mother to describe how she had been killed by her husband Edward the way we treat human remains is part of what defines a culture and many archaeologists think that the ceremonial treatment of human remains is one of the markers at the beginning of human civilization according to the property Environmental Research Council the United States puts as much steel into the making of coffins in a single year as it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge we pour more reinforced Concrete in the making of Burial Vaults in a year than it would take to build a two-lane highway from New York City to Detroit clearly we take the treatment of our mortal remains seriously but not always so the strange story of what happened to three famous people after they shuffled off their mortal coil illustrates the complex relationship we have with and reaction we have too human remains it is a Macabre bit of history that deserves to be remembered Oliver Cromwell Rose to prominence as a general on the period of English Civil Wars called the wars of the Three Kingdoms when Parliament decided to try the imprisoned King Charles the first Cromwell supported the trial thinking the only way to end the Civil Wars and was one of 59 members of the Court who signed the Kings death warrant however when the time of the execution came no officer wanted to sign the actual order to behead the king and be responsible for regicide it was Cromwell who signed the order Charles the first was executed by beheading on January 30th 1649. when the Wars ended with a parliamentary Victory a republic called the protectorate was created in 1653 Cromwell was made Lord protector the head of government for life but crumble only lived another five years dying with infection in September 1658 he was interred at Westminster Abbey with an elaborate funeral Fit For A King but the protectorate proved unable to rule successfully without him his third son Richard Cromwell was appointed Lord protector but he lacked his father's connections within both Parliament and the Army and rashley tried to extend the protectorate's power well he was never officially deposed Richard Cromwell was removed from power and in the confusing aftermath Parliament restored the monarchy inviting Charles's son Charles II to return after a promise of reforms creating a constitutional monarchy well the monarchy was restored in May 1660. Charles II was not officially crowned until April 1661. but the restoration of the monarchy created a difficult Legacy for Oliver Cromwell who had signed the death warrant for the previous King Charles the first as well as anyone who had participated in the trial understandably upset at both the execution of his father and the president that that execution set in terms of the divine right of kings Charles II and the new Parliament had 12 members of the court that had tried Charles the first tried for treason and executed but three of The ringleaders Cromwell John Bradshaw who had been the presiding judge at the trial and Henry Ireton who was cromwell's son-in-law who had also signed the death warrant were already deceased not content with merely hanging drawing and quartering the Dozen regic size Charles II also had the remains of Cromwell Bradshaw and Ireton disinterred and symbolically executed publicly hanging their corpses in January 1661. their heads were then removed and placed on spikes in front of Westminster Hall where having been embalmed they lasted for some time cromwell's severed had remained on a spike on the roof of Westminster Hall until the 1680s when it went missing by some accounts falling after the rotted Spike fell in a storm the head or at least what purported to meet cromwell's head reappeared in a museum for Curiosities in London in 1710. after the museum proprietor's death they had somehow ended up in the hands of a drunkard and purported descendant of the Cromwell family who had a habit of passing the thing around in bars it was taken from him in payment for a debt and in 1799 was sold to another pair who hoped to display it the exhibition of the head turned out to be a failure but the family of the owner kept possession of the head until 1815 when it was sold to a private collector named Wilkinson but then doubts were raised about the authenticity of the remains and at least one other Pretender arose finally in 1934 two scientists a eugenicist and an anthropologist compared the Wilkinson head to bust's portraits in the death mask of Oliver Cromwell and in a 104-page report it determined it with moral certainty to be cromwell's head the Wilkinson family which had possessed the head in a wooden box since 1815 had it interred at a secret location at Sydney success College in 1960 the head of the once proud lord protector buried with the honors of a king went from being a warning to villains to a curiosity to a collection before finding their final resting place more than 200 years after the General's death oddly it was also the English Civil War that affected the Mortal remains of Catherine Parr Queen consort and sixth wife of Henry VIII Catherine Parr had been twice widowed already when she caught the eye of King Henry VII in 1543 the 52 year old King had had his fifth wife Catherine Howard executed in 1542 he suffered from a number of issues with his health and become increasingly irascible 31 year old Parr had developed a romantic relationship with Thomas Seymour brother of the king's third wife Jane but when the king proposed she felt that she had to accept placing country above her personal concerns Henry and Catherine were married July 12 1543. she was a popular Queen and helped her reconcile Henry with his daughters Mary and Elizabeth and in 1544 acted as the king's Regent while Henry campaigned in France Henry died January 28 1547 leaving Catherine a large stipend as Queen Dowager but she renewed her relationship with Thomas Seymour and married him a mere five months after Henry's death move that alienated both Henry's daughter Lady Mary and King Edward in 1548 she became pregnant a surprise and she had not conceived a child in her first three marriages she and Thomas moved to an estate in gloucestershire called suddenly Castle accompanied by a ward Lady Jane Gray Catherine gave birth to a daughter who she named Mary on August 30th Catherine died six days later of an infection coming at the time usually called childbed fever she was entombed under the chapel of Sudley Castle it was said to be the first Protestant funeral held in English in England Lady Jane gray who would later briefly become Queen after the death of Edward was Chief Warner there is no record of what happened to her daughter after the age of two and she's generally assumed to have died in childhood her husband became implicated in a plot against the King was executed in March 1549 the remains of the queen consort wrapped in wax cloth and encased in a lead coffin under an obscure Chapel were nearly forgotten nearly a hundred years later the castle became a basis of royalist support for the English Civil War the castle changed hands in the fighting and the chapel was used by the parliamentarians as a slaughterhouse the castle was severely damaged in the war and in 1649 it was slighted that it's deliberately destroyed by the parliamentarians to prevent it being used as a military post the former Queen was now entombed underneath a forgotten ruin in May 1782 234 years after Queen Catherine was entombed as described in work by 19th century historian Agnes Strickland a group of Lady sightseers visiting the ruins of the chapel noticed a block of alabaster and dug beneath it less than a foot beneath the Earth they found the lead and coffin of Queen Catherine they opened holes in the coffin and found the remains to be in a remarkable state of preservation then they reburied the coffin coffin was uncovered again that summer by the person renting the land who investigated further to find that under the cloth the skin on the Queen's arm was still soft and white but merely opening the form-fitted coffin and exposing the remains to air meant that the remains who had not stay so preserved now that the location of the remains was known the coffin was opened again by curious sightseers in 1792 the coffin was opened by a group of what has been described as Ruffians and drunkards that did significant damage to the Remains by some accounts dismembering the corpse and taking all the Queen's hair as souvenirs in 1810 Sudley Castle was sold to the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos who had Catherine's remains removed to his family tomb by then the corpse which had remained so well preserved for over two centuries had decayed to nothing but a skeleton in the mid 19th century the house and Chapel restored in an ornate tomb with the marble Effigy was created for Catherine parr's remains she was moved to her final resting place the most ornate of the tombs of any of Henry's Six Wives in 1863. but by then all that was left of her remains was described as Brown dust but as strange as the story of Queen Catherine's remains is it is not nearly as peculiar as that of the Wyoming Outlaw George Parrott not a lot is known about the early life of George Parrott he was born in France in 1834 in his nickname big nose George was because he famously had a rather large nose which ironically resembled the beak of a parent there's no clear record of how or when he immigrated to the United States or what led him to the life he chose but by the 1870s he was part of a notorious gang of Outlaws in the American West the gang were Petty High women who robbed Freight wagons payrolls and stage coaches in the Wyoming Montana and Dakota territories in August 1878 parrot and his gang had hedged a plan to rob a Union Pacific train by sabotaging the track on an isolated stretch hoping to cause the train to derail a work crew found the damage and the plot was thwarted and Posse was put on The Outlaws Trail two lawmen a deputy sheriff and a Union Pacific detective tracked the game to their hideout with the gang ambushed and murdered the Lawman the following February the gang scored its most famous robbery capturing a wealthy Merchant they knew was carrying money to buy merchandise despite the merchant traveling with a military escort reports vary but parrot and his gang made off with as much as fourteen thousand dollars but that big score was George parrot's last in 1881 he was in a Montana bar and he had too much to drink and boasted about the murder of the two lawmen in 1878. realizing that a reward was involved someone contacted the law and parrot was arrested in Miles City parent had reason to be afraid it was taken by train to Rollins Wyoming to stand trial for the murders another gang member Charlie Burris called Dutch Charlie who had also participated in the ambush of the two lawmen had been pulled off the train in the town of carbon before he could get to Rollins to stand trial a group of Vigilantes demanded that he confessed and when he refused they lynched him from a telegraph Pole on his way to Rollins in 1881 parrot was also pulled off the train and threatened with hanging to save his life he admitted to the murders and gave details of the crime he was saved from lynching but when he reached Rollins he was quickly convicted and in April 1881 was sentenced to death by hanging desperate big nose George planned an escape he had managed to secretly cut through a bolt of his leg shackles and when a Jailer named Robert Rankin came to check on him at night he assaulted the Jailer beating him with the heavy leg chains but Rankin's wife heard the commotion and according to newspapers at the time quickly arrived on scene with a six shooter and held the prisoner until help arrived when the new spread through the town the parent had attacked Rankin a mob formed according to the Quincy Daily Herald on March 24th big nose George was taken by a party of men out of the jail at 10 55. there being no convenient trees a noose was thrown over the cross part of a telegraph pole the news was placed around his neck and George was forced to climb a 14-foot ladder his last words reportedly whirl I will jump boys and break my neck but it wasn't that clean George had managed to free his hands from the ropes that had been used to bind him as he hung on the Rope he grabbed the pole trying to hold himself up his legs were locked in irons it could not grip with them slowly his strength failed and he slipped down the pole until the news tightened and he slowly strangled it was a gruesome end for a bad man but what happened to his remains was even more bizarre than his demise with no one to claim the body George's remains were taken by two doctors Thomas McGee and John Osborne who decided to study the corpse to see if they could determine the physical characteristics that explained George's criminality during their efforts they saw it off the top of the skull to examine his brain this gold top was given to Dr McGee's teenage assistant it's not really clear what experiments were performed on the unfortunate remains of George of the large proboscis but at some point skin was removed from the cadaver and sent to Denver to be tanned sources differ on what all was made from the leather of big nose George some say gloves some claim a doctor's bag but there's certainty that part of George was used to make a pear two-tone shoes and as an added Macabre twist when Dr Osborne in 1892 became the first Democrat to be elected territorial governor of Wyoming he wore his big-nosed George skin shoes to the inaugural ball newspaper stories in the 1930s indicated that the Osborne Family still had the shoes but it was unclear would have become of the rest of George's remains in 1950 a crew digging a foundation in downtown Rollins uncovered a whiskey barrel that included some human bones in the bottom half of a skull some townspeople recall the story that the top of Georgia school had been given to Dr McGee's assistance in the time since the assistant Lillian Heath had attained a medical degree becoming the first licensed female doctor in the state of Wyoming Not only was Dr Heath still alive she still had the top of Georgia's skull which she had variously used as an ashtray a pencil holder and a door stop Lillian traveled to Rollins where the top of the skull was found to be a perfect fit with the part of the skull found in the barrel the lower part of the skull the shoes made from his skin and a death mask of the big-nosed Bandit are now on display in the Carbon County Museum in Rawlins Wyoming and the top of his coal and the manacles that he wore while being hanged are in display in the Union Pacific Museum in Omaha Nebraska while newspapers at the time say that the rest of Georgia's remains were interred the location of those bones has never been revealed the odd story of what happened to the human remains of Oliver Cromwell Catherine Parr and big nose George Parrott illustrates the complex relationship that humans have with human remains sometimes revered and sometimes are vile the reaction to the abuse of these famous corpses reveals the human fascination with the hereafter all three of these sets remains while treated differently upon death ended up becoming Curiosities and their story deserved to be remembered if for no other reason than how we humans treat our dead says much about the living I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short Snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that Thumbs Up Button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 243,555

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: PxRnXHAAaMc

Length: 48min 41sec (2921 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 17 2022