The Mysterious Massacre at Pleasance, Re-Visited - Red Dead Redemption 2

welcome back to another red dead mystery revisited i wasn't initially planning on making more but people were asking so i thought i'd make a compromise i will likely do a few of these depending on whether or not the video that i initially did on the subject holds up if i don't feel as if it was as good as i can make it or if it misses out key information then i may just revisit it such as in today's video because we are revisiting the mysterious ghost town of pleasants whilst exploring the state of lemoyne you may come across an abandoned town just west of blue water marsh the town named pleasants was established in august of 1883 and yet only by 1899 is already abandoned in fact it appears to have been abandoned for quite some time so the question is what happened here at pleasants fortunately there are some clues laying around that can help yield the answers on the doors to a barn we can find the words stay out plague written in white paint and on another house in the town you can find the words unclean sinners and ill with sin written on the walls and door so you would be forgiven for believing that it was a plague that fell the town of pleasants however things aren't that simple outside the church at the center of the town you can find ten graves each of these graves is unique with individual markings however they all registered death on the same date the 17th of september 1883 only a month after the town was established each individual grave here is also marked with a gruesome cause of death either murder gunshot or knife which means that on the 17th of september 1883 pleasance was the site of a massacre that destroyed the prospects of this town before they could ever have been realized however what's this about a plague in the town being ill with sin how can that be when the graves remember the fallen of this town so fondly we also have the collapsed frame of a building that appears to be burnt up and an old school house that appears to be burnt up and then a tree fell on it in other words for a town named pleasants it doesn't appear to be very pleasant now that we've got a general idea of what this place is all about let's try to figure out what happened here perhaps the easiest place to start is with the barn that says stay out plague the locals of pleasants maybe came down with some form of sickness that couldn't be described or treated and this barn is likely the or at least a source hence why there's a warning to stay out of it it could also be a mass grave for infected residents many believe this is a zombie plague or something along those lines mostly due to supposed similarities with the walking dead and it could be a reference to that i don't know however what we know is there was some definition of the word plague occurring at pleasants now on to the messages ill with sin and unclean sinners maybe some people believed the residence of pleasants to be sinful and maybe they saw the plague that struck the town so quickly after it was formed a reckoning for those sins that or is simply referencing those who carried out the massacre and tainted this place with their sins i'm not so sure if the residents were sinful considering the messages on the graves imply that the residents of pleasants were kind devoted loving and gone too soon with others saying may they find peace in heaven it's all down to interpretation i know but somebody saw fit to put these graves there though i could only find that particular detail on the graves of children so maybe in its brief existence the town of pleasants was something of a sinful society after all it was only set up the month prior to the massacre which means it was likely a breakaway community from elsewhere maybe because they weren't accepted where they were and whatever they were doing when they got here very clearly quite quickly got them killed as for the killers killing an entire town which appears to have been accomplished here would require more than one person carrying out the act and considering some were stabbed and others were shot i think this was likely done by either a posse or a gang didn't have to be particularly massive but it was on some level an organized assault on the town of pleasants this could have been done for a couple of reasons maybe the people of pleasants were up to something dubious to the point where it needed to be stopped at all costs or they were so dedicated to an independent lifestyle that they were completely unprotected by the law and therefore fell victim to a particularly ruthless gang of outlaws of which this region has an abundance and being weakened with a plague on top of the fact that they were independent would make them an incredibly easy target however that particular theory does unfortunately leave a lot of blanks in video games inconsequential discoveries like this are often designed to make you think because more often than not they are references to something which brings us to a theory popularized by content creator strange man and that is the theory that the residents of pleasants were satanists now i've jumped in at the deep end here so i'm gonna pull back and explain the theory goes that the town of pleasants in red dead redemption 2 is a reference to an abandoned town in ohio that's now known as hell town and i will not lie upon some research hell town and pleasants do share a lot of striking similarities but what is the story of hell town originally hell town was known as boston village ohio up until 1974 the village of boston was relatively uneventful until president gerald ford signed a bill that gave the federal government's national park service jurisdiction to expropriate land for the establishment of national parks boston was the site of one of these expropriations with the national park service buying the properties of its long-term residents the people left the village and the buildings were boarded up with no trespassing signs however the government fell behind on its plan to turn boston ohio into a national park and so ever since the village has remained neglected and today it's little more than a ghost town in 1985 the national park service acquired the local crushy dump upon rangers visiting the site they became ill and covered in rashes soon discovering that the dump was highly polluted with toxic chemicals improperly disposed of and so as you can imagine boston village ohio now known as hell town became subject to various rumors one theory was that the infamous crescey dump mutated the local wildlife another theory was that hell town's presbyterian church was built by satanists and is complete with upside down crosses there's also an abandoned school bus that is said to be host to ghosts of course all of these theories have been refuted pretty conclusively however there are some similarities to pleasants here allow me to explain pleasance's church has no christian cross on it and therefore is not immediately identified as christian considering there is no haunted school bus because red dead is set a hundred years prior instead we have a school house and it definitely gives off eerie vibes and now finally hell town's most popular rumored mutant was a giant python known as the peninsula python well just south of pleasants in red dead redemption 2 you can find a giant snake laying lifeless in the tree and just like how the same spell that allegedly created this python also made rangers unwell it says stay out plague on the barn in pleasants because something was making the people of pleasants unwell too so combined the hell town theory about satanists building a church the references to sinners in pleasants and the fact that the village is built next to a crossroads which is in folklore a popular meeting spot with the devil then i can definitely see where this satanist argument is coming from however i really don't think the people of pleasants were satanists i think this theory would probably go a little bit more full circle upon this research i do believe that pleasants may in fact be a north to hell town the residents are simply just remembered too fondly by somebody who buried them as christians which makes me think that in red dead law the rumor is the residents of pleasants were satanists and somebody acted on that rumor and just like with hell town in the real world it just isn't the case but it would explain why they were massacred and then they were given christian burials and remembered fondly that or they were killed because somebody wanted the land and they could get away with that rather than buying the properties up like the us government did for boston ohio but just like with boston ohio wound up doing nothing with the site however there is a giant snake ah however there is a giant snake in a tree just south of pleasants that could poke a hole in my theory that these people weren't satanists and were just believed to be by the wrong people as some rumors in this hell-town easter egg may have been true maybe it's worth noting that snakes can get pretty large without the assistance of a chemical spillage but where is the fun in that so were the people of pleasant satanists and were they killed for that or were they just mistaken for satanists and killed or could there be a more reasonable explanation let me know your thoughts down in the comments section it's also probably worth mentioning that at this point in history satanism was usually used as an accusation by various christian groups towards perceived ideological opponents rather than a self-identified religion and while that entire theory is pretty cool and it could be correct it may also just not be but if there's one part of this link that i do subscribe to it's the idea that somebody wanted the residence of pleasants off this land which is kind of obvious because somebody killed them all but 16 years later the place has just been left behind anything could have happened maybe pleasants were struck by a plague and to prevent the spread somebody killed everyone in the town which would explain the gunshot victims but not the knife wound victims and it definitely wouldn't explain why somebody went through all the effort to bury them that one doesn't really make any sense but that's the thing about this place nothing really does not particularly anyway so i started to think a little bit more outside the box what if they were weakened by a sickness and then they were preyed on the killers are unknown and there's nothing to suggest it was the lemoine raiders who may have been active in the area at the time or the night folk who may not have even been active in the area at that time so i started to look at the theories that i could find online and one of them led me to the aberdeen pig farm the theory goes that bray aberdeen uses a gun and tammy aberdeen uses a knife therefore they must be the killers however i doubt this is the case i do understand where this theory is coming from the placement of the aberdeen pig farm's masquerade is slap bang in the middle between the aberdeen pig farm and pleasants so maybe it is somewhat logical to think the aberdeens killed the people of pleasants in order to cover up their murderous pastime and the people of pleasants could have easily stumbled upon this pretty quick and it's also clear considering the state of some of the bodies in the mass grave that the aberdeens have been at this for quite a while but timing really throws this little known theory under hence why i don't wish to clog up too much of the video talking about it see pleasance was both established in 1883 and the massacre occurred a month later this is a picture of the aberdeen family in 1878 only five years prior you can see quite clearly that bray has a lot more than five years of growing up to do and tammy has even further being a toddler so unless pleasants was massacred by children i just really doubt that this has any connection whatsoever don't get me wrong bray aberdeen is a proven murderous monster of a man as he's huge and as a kid in the picture you can see that he is not the smallest of characters however i don't see a 10 year old bray aberdeen a man who will openly admit that he keeps his dead mother in the [ __ ] cupboard being smart enough to single-handedly massacre an entire town and then get away with it especially when such an act will be detached completely from their future modus operandi in their own murderous killings unless the aberdeen siblings parents also have their own twisted and dark secrets which wouldn't be the most shocking thing ever considering their kids grow up to be incestuous serial killers but nothing implies that in the slightest so i do have my doubts so to shoot that theory out of the sky i'm sorry i do not think the aberdeen pig farm being in close proximity to what happened at pleasants in september of 1883 is relevant in the slightest another theory i've seen is that agnes dowd the ghost lady of blue water marsh which can be found very close by at night was somehow responsible for the death that occurred in pleasants now the reason why this theory exists is because on agnes dowd's grave it says that she tragically took her own life and others however i believe that references different killings considering this occurred on the 4th of september 1883 not the 17th and yes this is confirmed to be the ghost lady's identity because it's her name in the game files now she probably didn't miraculously come back from the dead two weeks after her own demise just to end an entire town's existence and based on the voice lines you can hear her saying in the bayou as a ghost it's more likely that if she was going to be killing anyone it would be her own family which appeared to live at shady bell at the time considering this is where she's buried the process of elimination is really narrowing down the options here sorry that's a really bad pun you can also find plentiful moonshine bottles around the house that is marked ill with sin and unclean sinners so maybe there was some moonshine operation that occurred either around the time of pleasants or at some point after it in this area i think that could have been put there by anyone but what we want to know is what happened to the people of pleasants well it's obvious that somebody wanted them off this land and killed them to get the land or at the very least to vacate the town so that any future plans could be realized here however they weren't in a similar way to boston township ohio and maybe that particular someone is right under our noses between the two burnt out buildings we can find a blue barrel branded with the name cornwall kerosene and tar leviticus cornwall is a ruthless robber baron who has no regard for other people so he would not hesitate to murder a town if he felt like it would further his own goals i find it interesting that this barrel can be found between the two burnt out buildings here at pleasants because this would not be the first time his barrels were found at the site of a fire if we head to the burnt downtown of limpany you can find these barrels simply in abundance does this mean that cornwall had lymphany burnt down maybe but i start to find it interesting when pleasants has a similar discovery on a smaller scale would leviticus corn will have a town burnt down or have a town massacre to further his own goals i would believe so there are plenty of examples of leviticus cornwall using underhanded tactics and outright nefarious deeds to get his own way for example he murders the independent owner of an oil derrick in the heartlands obviously not directly he has him killed he doesn't get his own hands dirty he may or may not have had a hand in hiring people to poach bison and make it look like it was native americans in order to help make an argument in removing the native americans from land that he's interested in he has a private army of hired guns that he hires to hunt down the vandaling and these enforcers could very easily massacre a town and have it covered up in a way where there's no liability for cornwall kerosene and tar cornwall is unscrupulous and will utilize any means at his disposal to achieve his goals he has no regard for the law and is indifferent to those that he hurts so could he have an entire town killed on the prospect of land and then later discover that it's not worth his while and feel nothing absolutely even if that land is ridden with plague as presence appears to have been sure because he has no regard for anyone's lives but his own perhaps a sickness would even have aided cornwall in making this as easy and quiet as possible but what was this plague well inside the schoolhouse we can find a bottle this bottle is labeled quick neutralizing cordial for rheumatism and cholera relief considering the murky waters of the bayou nearby i would not be surprised if cholera struck the town even if the water drank was drawn from a well maybe not the most interesting of explanations but it certainly is one that being said cholera untreated can kill you very quickly so it would make more sense to wait it out and keep your hands clean than just go in guns blazing and kill everyone unless these people weren't the infected and the infected are actually in a mass grave in the barn as for unclean sins and ill with sin maybe they were written on this house after the town was massacred out of the unfounded belief of the few that much like with hell town the residents of pleasants were satanists or devil worshippers i hear there's a difference that i'm not familiar with it but in reality they weren't and plenty of people knew that too hence why they're lovingly remembered on their graves alternatively the residents of this house were the ones that were infected with cholera and by the rest of the town they were considered to be unclean sinners and were therefore ill with their sins and then the rest of the town were massacred in a completely unrelated event which may or may not have something to do with leviticus cornwall wanting this land for his own purposes and then in the end doing nothing with it which is a decent little call back to hell town which this may or may not be a reference to i believe there are some connections between this hell town ohio and pleasants in game but i don't think that that immediately means that the residents of pleasants were somehow satanists or devil worshippers i believe this is an easter egg thrown in with a bit of world building to set up the destructive path of leviticus cornwall for those who'd care to look for it and the hint is so subtle that it may mean something or it may mean nothing but the truth is this one is just too open-ended to ever be officially solved i have my theory others have other theories i'd love to hear your theory down in the comments section i'm aware there may be possibilities that i haven't touched down on on the top of my head maybe somebody perceived the town of pleasants as responsible for the death of agnes dowd and exacted revenge or maybe the town was simply cursed by a more supernatural force that explains a lot of the issues away but honestly i like the theory that the town just had an unlucky run being struck first by a plague and then falling victim to leviticus cornwall who at times can be a bit of an immoral opportunist but under no circumstance does that mean that i am correct or anybody else's so let me know your thoughts thank you all for watching this video i hope you enjoyed be sure to go ahead leave a like subscribe share the channel with your friends and all that wonderful stuff that would be super fantastic and if you feel like it please do whack on the notification button it really helps and with any luck i'll be seeing you all very soon with another video at some point but until next time please take care and good bye [Music] you

Channel: Fizhy

Views: 424,069

Keywords: Fishy Yarpster, Gaming, Gameplay, Banter, PC gaming, Fizhy, Fishy, RDR2, Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar Games, Rockstar, Red Dead 2, Pleasance RDR2, RDR2 Pleasance, RDR, Fizhy RDR2, Fizhy Red Dead

Id: kqu6GZ0CdC0

Length: 19min 7sec (1147 seconds)

Published: Thu May 12 2022