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Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Midnight release Parties Book themed Halloween costumes Author tour events People have always found ways to pay homage to their favorite works of fiction. Sometimes they even travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to see the place that inspired their favorite works. Or in the case of one 18th century protagonist, her untimely death. In the late 1800s, a family of mourners gathered around a headstone at Trinity Church graveyard in New York City. A mother wept as her teenage daughter laid a small bundle of flowers on the long gray stone slab that marked the grave. The stone was already decorated with other small bouquets and cards, gifts from other mourners. The family commented on how nice it was that so many people had come to pay their respects. In fact, this was the most visited grave at Trinity Church. Well, wishers from all over the country came to visit the burial plot. Not because the person lying beneath the stone slab was a political hero or an industrial pioneer. No, she was the protagonist of a novel called A Tale of Truth. The book was written by Susanna Rowson and published in 1791. It was a bit melodramatic, but a tearjerker all the same. It followed 16 year old Charlotte Temple, who was seduced by a villainous playboy named Lord Montraville. He brought her to America, then abandoned her to marry another woman and fight with the British in the Revolutionary War. Penniless and alone, Charlotte soon learned that she was pregnant. Her father arrived in New York hoping to find and save Charlotte, only to learn that he was too late. She had died shortly after childbirth and Americans loved the novel. At the time, the US was a brand new nation, as wide eyed and vulnerable as Charlotte herself. Something about her ordeal after being betrayed by a powerful Englishman resonated with them. Charlotte became the best selling novel in the US for more than 50 years until the release of Uncle Tom's cabin in 1852. Now, here's the kicker. The author, Susanna Rowson, always said that the book was based on a real person, even though multiple historians in the 1800s disputed that fact. Then one day in the 1850s, visitors to the Trinity Church in New York City noticed a simple, weathered grave in the corner of the churchyard with the name Charlotte Temple etched into the stone. One of the visitors asked the nearest groundskeeper if the grave belonged to the Charlotte Temple, and the groundskeeper said yes, that it was in fact, her tomb. Word spread like wildfire that the real Charlotte Temple was buried there at Trinity Church. And soon, Charlotte's grave became a tourist attraction. Groundskeepers were peppered with questions about Charlotte, but they knew nothing about her as a person. At one point, Charlotte's grave was the most popular site in Trinity Church. Even more than the graves of founding fathers like Alexander Hamilton and James Monroe, Charlotte's headstone remained an attraction until the book fell out of popularity in the 20th century. But even today, those who know its history stop by to see the grave while visiting the church. Except there's just one problem with Charlotte's grave. In 2008, the Trinity Archives team received permission to lift the stone slab and see if there was a burial vault underneath. But all they found was packed dirt. So they inserted a scope into the ground to find any remains that might be resting in the plot. And again, they came up empty. Soon, the team was able to conclude that nobody, and especially not Charlotte Temple, was buried beneath the gravestone. That probably that the grave was a hoax. Which makes sense. It was first noticed in the 1850s, not long after the current Trinity Church was rebuilt. And it's made from the exact same brownstone as the new building. One archivist suspects that Charlotte's grave was crafted by one of the stonecutters. Maybe he intended for the gravestone to be a small tribute to the book he loved. But archivist Catherine Hurwitz has another theory. In the 1840s, tourism as a business was just beginning, and a lot of New York residents were looking to profit from this budding industry. Hurwitz wonders if the grave was created by someone looking to sell tourism maps with Charlotte's grave listed as an attraction. Given how popular the site became, the hoax clearly worked. We'll likely never know who planted the fake grave that drew so many unsuspecting fans. But for the time being, Trinity Church intends on keeping the grave where it's at. It might be a work of fiction, but just like Charlotte Temple, it's a good story worth keeping around.