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Kristen
Hey, Kristen, how's it tracking with Carvana Value Tracker? What else? Oh, it's tracking, in fact. Value surge alert. Trucks up 2.5%, vans down 1.7. Just as predicted. Mm. So we gonna. I don't know. Could sell. Could hold the power to always know our car's worth. Exhilarating, isn't it? Tracking Always know your car's worth with Carvana Value tracker. The missing child is Lucia Blix, 9 years old. Please let her come back home safely. Thursdays, the kidnappers plundit meticulously. If money is what it takes to get her back, we're gonna pay it. The secrets they hide. You can't talk about this. You can't write about it. Are the clues. The mother's hiding something. I know it's to find her. Tell me where she is. The stolen girl. New episodes Thursdays, stream on Hulu. Hello, and welcome to My Victorian Nightmare. I'm your host, Genevieve Manion, and I'm here to talk about mysterious deaths, morbid fascinations, disturbing stories, and otherwise spooky events from the Victorian era. Because to me, there's just something especially intriguing, creepy, and oddly comforting about horror and mayhem from the 19th century. So listener discretion is advised. Hello, friends, and welcome to this, my 39th episode. I hope that you had a beautiful week. I threw my neck out while sneezing on my birthday, which is something to look forward to if you have yet to reach your 40s. It was pretty depressing at first, but then it gave me a perfect excuse to do what I really wanted to do on my birthday, which was absolutely nothing. Not one thing. Apart from eating a pint of gelato and watching Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, which was so wonderful. If you haven't seen that one in a while. Ah, to me, it's Tim Burton's last really good movie. I just love Christopher Walken's pointy little creepy teeth and Tim Burton's large breasted, witchy ex wife floating in the flowery air. And that scene where the kid goes into the room with the iron maiden and she falls out of it. That's just as good as it gets. For me. The whole vibe is exactly where I wanted to spend my birthday. Don't worry, though. I have a fun birthday weekend planned, so I will be celebrating with friends. I just got exactly what I wanted for my birthday, and I couldn't be more delighted. But, hey, I just heard something, and I think it's gonna blow your mind. What if I told you that the Loch Ness Monster is the ghost of a dinosaur. You never considered that, did you? Me neither. I have nothing else to say about it though, until I see some hard data. This is obviously conjecture at best, but truly it would just explain so much today for you. Dear listener. I have a fabulous show planned. I have an insane hatchet murder, a brass burglar blown away by a buckshot, a demented opera singer stalker, a lamplight disaster, a gory game of cards, a nearly naked man frozen to death in a sinkhole, and my much, much more. All courtesy of the Illustrated Police News, Law Courts and Record, our very favorite sensationalized Nightmare Fuel tabloid from the 1800s. But first, some very quick Haunted Housekeeping. Thank you for rating the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you for leaving me comments and reviews on both of those platforms. They continue to mean so much to me and I love reading them. Thank you for reaching out on Instagram, my Victorian Nightmare and Blue sky at Victorian Nightmare. And if you'd like to listen to the show ad free, feel free to join my Patreon. You will find the link@myvictorianightmare.com where you will also find a link to my very super cool and ever so fashionable merch. Okay, before we get to the simply hideous articles, I have a brand new segment that I am very excited about that will thoroughly heebie your jeebies right at the top of the show. I've given it a working title which is With Their Own Eyes. I like it, but I want to see if you have any fun title ideas for this segment. Give me your thoughts in the Spotify comments. I was full of anxiety this week because of the horrors, so to make myself feel better I started researching terrifying, unexplained Victorian hauntings and I found so much comfort in reading the very creepy personal accounts of them. So I thought I would share one with you and share some more on episodes to come. This one is of the Brown lady of Raynham hall. On Christmas Eve 1835 in a manor house in England, the Townsend family had invited a number of guests to their home. A number of the guests stayed the night and several of them claimed to see a woman in an old brown dress floating down the hall at night. A man named Colonel Loftus said the specter had, quote, empty eye sockets dark in a glowing face. After this event, some of the house's staff permanently left the home. In 1836, Captain Frederick Marryat, a friend of Charles Dickens, actually stayed the night in the hall hoping to see this ghost, but mostly because he just wanted to prove that it was a hoax. He asked to stay in the most haunted room in the place, and this is what his daughter, Florence Marryat, wrote of his experience that he shared with her about that night. He took possession of the room in which the portrait of the apparition hung and in which she had often been seen and slept each night with a loaded revolver under his pillow. For two days, however, he saw nothing, and the third was to be the limit of his stay. On the third night, however, two young men, nephews of the baronet, knocked at his door as he was undressing to go to bed, and asked him to step over to their room, which was at the other end of the corridor, and give them his opinion on a new gun just arrived from London. My father was in his shirt and trousers, but as the hour was late and everybody had retired to rest except themselves, he prepared to accompany them as he was. As they were leaving the room, he caught up his revolver. In case you meet the Brown lady, he said, laughing. When the inspection of the gun was over, the young men in the same spirit declared they would accompany my father back again. In case you meet the Brown lady, they repeated, laughing also. The three gentlemen therefore returned in company. The corridor was long and dark, for the lights had been extinguished, but as they reached reached the middle of it, they saw the glimmer of a lamp coming towards them from the other end. Probably one of the young ladies going to visit the nurseries, whispered the young Townshend to my father. Now, the bedroom doors in that corridor faced each other, and each room had a double door with a space between, as is the case in many old fashioned houses. My father, as I have said, was in shirt and trousers only, and his native modesty made him feel uncomfortable. So he slipped within one of the outer doors, his friends following his example in order to conceal himself until the lady should have passed by. I have heard him describe how he watched her approaching nearer and nearer through the chink in the door, until, as she was close enough for him to distinguish the colors and style of her costume, he recognized the figure. Figure as the facsimile of the portrait of the brown Lady. He had his finger on the trigger of his revolver and was about to demand it to stop and give the reason for its presence there, when the figure halted all of its own accord before the door behind which he stood, and, holding the lighted lamp she carried to her features, grinned in a malicious and diabolical manner at him. This act so infuriated my father, who was anything but lamblike in disposition, that he sprang into the corridor with a bound and discharged the revolver right in her face, the figure at which for several minutes three men had been looking together and the bullet passed through the outer door of the room on the opposite side of the corridor and lodged in the panel of the inner one. My father never attempted again to interfere with the Brown lady of Raynham. According to a legend, the apparition is a woman named Dorothy Walpole who lived in a house in the late 1600s and early 1700s. It's said that her husband had a violent temper and locked her in the home when he believed her to be committing adultery. She never left and died in 1726 of smallpox. The sighting has never been explained, so let me know in the comments what you think I should call this spooky little segment. And if you find any Victorian ghost sighting personal accounts yourself, please share. They are not super easy to find. They're like little black pearls nestled in the Internet. And they are exactly what my prickly little anxiety disorder ordered. I hope you feel the same. At Capella University you can learn at your own pace with our Flexpath Learning format. Take one or two courses at a time and complete as many as you can in a 12 week billing session. With Flexpath, you can even finish the bachelor's degree you started in 22 months for $20,000. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella Eduardo fastest 25% of students. Cost varies by pace, transfer credits and other factors. Fees apply okay, let's begin. Our very first article is rather grisly and it is called Mother in Lawlessness, and it reads, Mrs. Nannie Klanner, an old lady of Germantown, Kentucky, has been in the habit of making two or three visits a week at the house of her son, Charles Weisert, at Louisville. The other day she made her customary stay, and long late in the afternoon expressed her desire to go home. Her son accordingly hitched up his horse, but upon entering the house to get her, he was horrified to see his aged mother stretched out at full length and motionless upon the floor, with her head cut and mangled in a sickening manner, the brains running out upon the floor. His wife was sitting on her prostrate fellow form, holding a large hatchet, with which she had done the murderous deed, and had only desisted as Mr. Weisart entered. As he advanced, she sprang up and aimed a blow at his head, which he avoided, and wrested the weapon from her. She then ran to the house of a neighbor, but was Arrested soon after, she declared that she didn't know the reason why she was arrested and when she was informed, asked if she had hurt her mother in law, stating at first that she had no difficulty with her, though afterward said that Ms. Klanner had not treated her with proper respect. On her way to the station she said that, quote, when her mother and two sisters were poisoned about 14 years ago, nothing hardly was said about it. And now she was arrested because she killed the old woman. End quote. Okay, so I did a little more digging here in hopes of finding out what happened after this. I also just wanted to confirm that it was true because it's a little too insane. And as I've mentioned before, the Illustrated Police News was often wont to conjure stories out of blood soaked nowhere. But yikes, this was true. And oh man. In the ORGONIAN From Wednesday, January 10, 1872, the choice of words in this follow up was will scar you for life. Very short blurb here. It says, Mrs. Weisert, who murdered her mother in law, Ms. Clouser, which is a different name than the Illustrated Police News printed. So one of them is wrong. I'm gonna guess it was the Illustrated Police news. I continue. Mrs. Weisert, who murdered her mother in law, Ms. Clouser, last Sunday by chopping her brains out with a hatchet. Today, at an examination in the county court, physicians thought the woman insane at the time she committed the deed with hysterical mania from physical derangement. She was admitted to bail in the sum of $3,000. End quote. Kind of crazy that she was released on bail. Especially because she was ruled insane by physicians. This kind of situation in most cases would be a fast track to an asylum, and this time likely without trial. I couldn't find any more info here about the outcome. I imagine it wasn't good for Mrs. Weishart. Okay. Our next article is called A Burglar Killed by a Trap Gun. Billy Healy's Tearful Christmas Present. A Body left for rats to Feed on. And it reads, On Sunday the 24th, a noted burglar and ex sent state prison bird named William H. Healy, better known as Billy the Burglar, came to a tragic death in Newark, New Jersey, about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Mr. George E. Parker visited his brass foundry in the rear of number 23 River street, opposite the Central street depot of the New Jersey Railroad. On entering, the first object which met his gaze was the dead body of a young man leaning against a bench near the door. Whether from horror or fright is not stated but Mr. Parker instantly started back, locked his place and proceeded to the police station. And reported the matter to the officer in charge, Captain Dwyer. Detectives Smith and Stainsby. Alderman Stainsby, the latter's brother, and Mr. Marsh proceeded at once with Parker to his factory. And soon recognized in the stiffened corpse the form of William Hewley. Sometime during the night or early in the morning, Healy had broken into the foundry by pushing in one of the door panels. He had gathered up in a workman's hickory shirt some 17 pieces of brass fittings worth in the aggregate about 2:50. And laid the plunder in one corner of the place. He next walked over to a bench in which was a drawer where was kept some fine fancy brass work. The instant he touched the drawer, he received a handful of buckshot of a coarse number into his left side. And probably dropped dead against the bench without a struggle. The shot tore downward into the groin. On his person was found an account book with Warner and Volk Hatters, with whom the deceased had sometimes been employed. Also his pardon from State Prison, dated July 10, 1867, and signed by Horace N. Congor, Secretary of State. The instrument of Death is a 7/8 inch rifle bore carbine similar to those used by the Confederate cavalry during the war. The stock and barrel measure only 28 inches. It was fixed on the wall at the far end of the bench and connected with the window and the drawer by a spring. Mr. Parker was held at the station house until the county physician, Dr. Dodd, could take action. After a preliminary examination, he ordered the release of Parker. Healy's body was left in the factory all last night. If any of it is left by the rats this morning, an inquest will be held. Why one was not ordered at once is not clear. While, of course there is no great regret that the community has been thus similarly rid of a noted pest. There is, however, a great deal of comment on the right of Mr. Parker to place a weapon in the manner described in his foundry. Had there been a fire in the place and a fireman been the first to break in, his fate would have been sealed, as was that of the burglar Healy. In justification of his course, Mr. Parker says the factory was repeatedly entered and robbed. And taking the cue from the New York guns gunsmith Agnisto. Quick side note. Yes, I absolutely tried to find some information about gunsmith Agnisto from New York. But I sadly came up empty handed. I continue. He took desperate measures to check the annoyance. Healy's history is brief. He was only 24 years of age and has Been twice in state prison for burglary and once in the county jail. His last visit to state prison was for entering a liquor store now kept by Mr. Jones on market street, formerly Corrigan's, the money drawer of which was cleaned out. His parents died when he was an infant. He leaves two brothers in Newark. Few harder cases were known to the authorities. End quote. Oof. Couldn't find more information on this situation or any other exploits of Billy the Burglar, sadly. But yeah, the dude just rigged a drawer in a factory with a gun that blew a man to pieces. And there's no indication here that any charges were filed against the factory owner. The common law principle of what's called castle doctrine generally allows the use of deadly force to protect yourself in your own home from an intruder. But I don't know if that applies to factories also. This obviously wasn't for self defense. That law is specifically regarding self defense. Interestingly, that law is named as such because, quote, the house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress as well for his defense against the injury and violence as for his repose, end quote. According to Sir Edward Coke, the Attorney General of England in the 17th century. It is also probably worth noting just how much folks didn't seem to care that this man was shot, which may have played the biggest role in the lack of prosecution execution even considered in this case. It's very sad actually. That poor guy, hard case as he was. Okay, this next one has a lot going on. It is enraging above all, enraging. But when I dug into it to get more info, I didn't find what I was looking for. But I found a fact that was much more harrowing than anything I thought I would find. And this article is called Ms. Nilsson's Demented Lover. She Still Treats him with Cruelty. Bush tries to Steal Another Embrace and it reads, Ms. Christine Nilsson's insane lover, Charles Bush has turned up again. He was sent to the penitentiary at Blackwell's Island. It will be remembered some time ago, but love laughs at locksmiths and prison bars too, for he was again arrested on the 22nd for repeating the offense. Ms. Nilson prosecuted him personally at the Essex Market Police Court on the first offense and he was sent to Blackwell's Island. His defense was that he was madly in love with her and could not resist making the attempt to tell her so. Bush was released from his imprisonment only on Wednesday the 20th, and on Friday he entered the Clarendon Hotel where Ms. Nilsson was stopping and made his way to her room. Number 21 on the third floor. Four or five waiters caught hold of him and ejected him before he obtained an entrance into her apartments. Bush says he walked about a square away from the hotel, then returned and succeeded in reaching Ms. Nilson's door again before he was observed. Then two waiters with white jackets on seized him, but he was too strong for them and shook them off, tearing their jackets nearly off their backs. He was, however, overpowered by others coming to their assistance and was given in charge of a policeman who took him from the station house to the Essex Market Court. Justice Scott was not sitting at the time. It being the hour of adjournment, the reporter found Bush in an adjoining room awaiting the report return of the justice. He had an old opera programme in his hands, upon which was printed a likeness of Ms. Nilson, and which he was intently studying with the most lover like fidelity. In answer to questions he stated that he loved Ms. Nelson and she loved him. I saw her for the first time, said he, in the Academy of Music, and fell deeply in love with her then and there, and shall continue to love her to my dying day. Bush is a very ordinary looking man, a German by birth and about 40 years of age. Okay, first of all, curse this reporter's 150-year-old skeleton. This man was a stalker. He wasn't a lover, demented or otherwise. And she wasn't being cruel by being clearly so terrified of this guy that she didn't even appear in court to have him locked up, which she did, by the way, in the asylum on Blackwell's Island. He was first locked up in Blackwell's Island Penitentiary and literally just left the prison to go directly to stalker. Thank goodness people stopped him from getting to her. If you recall, the asylum at Blackwell's island was where Nellie Bly was sent when she feigned insanity to be committed to the asylum on that island. She then did a damning expose on the place that shocked the world. So he was sent to a very bad place and that asylum wasn't shut down until 1894. I don't have any info on how long he was sent there for, but this article was written in 1872, so if he got a life sentence, he was there for at least 20 or so years. I speak about Nellie Bly and her unfair, fathomable bravery in episode 28, by the way. But back to this infuriating article. Luckily, Ms. Nilsson got this creep out of her hair. Christina Nilsson was an opera singer with a voice so exquisite that she was one of the Victorian era's most famous opera stars. She was also incredibly beautiful and when I looked to see if this guy was even a boyfriend or demented lover, no, he, he doesn't show up anywhere in her biography as ever having any kind of relationship with her. Christina married a very wealthy, very dashing gentleman with a luxuriant mustache named Auguste Rousseaud in Westminster Abbey that same year, 1872. So yeah, this guy was no lover of hers. But while I was looking into exactly who she was and her history, I came upon a rather horrific story in the Sioux City Journal from September 25, 1885. The headline is A Swedish Horror People Crushed to Death at a Nielsen Concert and it reads, quote, such immense crowds attended the concert given by Christina Nilsson at Stockholm Wednesday night that 17 persons were crushed to death. The accident occurred after the the concert and while Madame Nilsson was singing from the balcony of the Grand Hotel. The crowd numbered 30,000 at the time of the accident, end quote. It turns out that 20 people actually died and another 20 or so people were seriously injured. Christina, horrified and shocked, postponed all of her shows for the next few months after this. This poor woman led quite a harrowing and long career. 20 years and a fun note. It is believed that she was the inspiration for Christine, the opera singer in Phantom of the Opera. And the falling chandelier in this story was based on an actual event that didn't involve her. But in the Palaise Garnier, another opera house in France, a counterweight that held the chandelier up broke, fell through the ceiling and killed a woman below. It wasn't the chandelier that fell though. Contrary to how the story's often told, it was this event and the tragedy plagued and stalked opera singer Kristy Nilsson that is believed to have been the inspiration for Phantom of the Opera. Thought you enjoy those factoids, awful as they were. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra fee, full terms@mintmobile.com okay, this next one is quite intense. It is called A Life of Shoes. Shame quickly ended and it reads. An inquest was held in St. Louis on the 24th at City Hospital upon Annie Lee, alias Ada Forman, alias Julia woods, who was fearfully burned on Saturday and died in a few hours afterwards in a brothel upon North 7th Street. It seemed from the testimony that she was pouring oil from a can man into a lighted lamp when the contents blazed up, burning her face, head and limbs frightfully. Two or three inmates of the house heard the explosion and rushed into the room, but were not quick enough to prevent the injuries being fatal. The woman was a widow and had been in the house only four months. She came from Bethalto, Illinois, a small place not far from Alton. It is said that her friends live there and that she left a child with them when she entered upon a life of shame. The woman lived only a few hours after the accident. End quote. Ugh, I hate that second to last sentence. But as I have said before, it's always important to note the positive societal changes that can be proven while reading articles like this. I'm certain that when I read that sentence that she. She left a child with them when she entered upon a life of shame. Just about all of you felt the same way I did. Like how despicable that that sentence should even be in a story written about a woman who died so tragically. If I were a reader in this time, I may have reacted to that sentence the way that they intended me to react when they wrote it, which would have probably been, oh well, she was a whore who abandoned her child. We know that's despicable. Now that's a good sign. Bless her soul though. Oh God, what a way to die. Okay, let's have another heartbreaker. Don't worry, I've got a gory game of cards coming right up. But first, this one is particularly sad and rather dramatically written. It is called an affecting scene. An abandoned mother on her deathbed in Bellevue Hospital, New York, pleads for the salvation of her living little daughter from a life of shame. And it reads, a few evenings ago, while a reporter was at the Bellevue Hospital, a very affecting incident came under his observation. A little girl of scarcely eight summers, with large, beautiful black eyes, a wealth of dark hair, regular clear cut features and the crimson tint of health on her ruddy cheeks, entered Warden Brennan's office and in a soft musical voice asked to see her dying mamma. Her engaging manners and interesting appearance for one so young, enlisted the sympathy of all present. The kind hearted warden, who was familiar with her mother's history, at once hastened to obey the simple request of the child. Before doing so so, however, he briefly informed the reporters that the child's mother had been a patient at the hospital for about a month, having previously led an abandoned life and was brought from a house of ill fame, suffering from complication of disease. But she was past all earthly cure, and no medical skill could restore that neglected health. Yesterday her symptoms became worse, and it was apparent to the physicians that her stay on earth was but very brief. And so they informed her and bade her prepare for the final summons. Conscious of the short remaining moments of life, she summoned warden Brennan to her bedside and requested him to send for her baby girl, whom she loved as only a mother can love her offspring. She gave the warden directions to where the child was stopping, which was in the house of sin, from whence the mother had been taken. The warden, only too happy to obey the last sad bequest, despatched a messenger hastily for the child. The reporter, by request of the warden, accompanied him and the child to the ward in which the dying woman was lying. The little girl, on going to the bedside with childish and innocence, exclaimed, oh, mamma, you are not dying, and leave me alone. The pallid features of the once beautiful woman assumed a sweet smile as she tried to soothe her darling. But the effort was more than she could endure, and she fell back on her pillow, weeping. Piteously, she placed her emaciated arm about the child to avoid the temptations of sin and not follow in her footsteps. She then motioned the warden to her and in feeble voice extorted the promise from him that he would see that the friendless orphan should not go back to her former place of abode, but should be reared under the supervision by the sisters of charity. The warden promised to adhere sacredly to the request. As life's feeble rays flickered towards dissolution, the reporters and the other witnesses to the sorrowful scene with moistened eyes reluctantly left the side of the council on which the almost inanimate form of the wretched mother lay prostrate, who in her despairing moments combated with death and agony that she might plead for the salvation of her beloved offspring. End quote. Wow. All right, this is a very sad story, but it probably gets sadder. A likely situation that this poor girl would have found herself in would have been the church's Magdalene asylum laundries. These were essentially workhouses for fallen women, girls and orphans. They were required to work without pay for meager food, and these places operated like a penitentiary. They were required to laundry for paying institutions. The regimes these Women and girls would endure were, in many cases, worse than prisons. By 1877, these laundries were renamed as homes for wayward girls, with a rule requiring that the girls stay and work up to three full years. These women were also, of course, expected to accept religious instruction. Pray, beg for forgiveness for their wicked ways. These women and girls were shamed into the ground. A number of women and girls died trying to escape these places in New York, falling out of windows or jumping. I may do a deeper dive into these houses of horrors at another time, but for now, as promised, A gory game of cards. This article is called A Gory Game of Cards. One man fatally stabbed and others injured, and it reads, In St. Louis, about half past 9:00 Christmas night, Matt Daly went into Richard Morrish's Saloon, number 1909 O'Fallon street and engaged in a game of cards with some of Morrish's boarders. The players fell into disagreement about the count and with some angry words Daly went out, and after a few minutes he returned, backed by 15 or 20 men and evidently bent on a row. One of the crowd approached John Coston, who was standing at the bar, and without provocation or warning, stabbed him in the left arm, the left side and on the back of the head. At the same time, his companions amused themselves with breaking the clock, mirror and door decanters of whiskey jerks. They went out and stoned the building, one of the pebbles striking the man who had been cut upon the head and inflicting a severe wound. F.J. wilson, one of the leaders of the mob, also attacked a citizen named George Schulte, striking him upon the head with a rock and inflicting an ugly gash. Wilson was arrested and locked up, but his fellow rioters are at large. Dr. Alain attended the man who was stabbed and believes that the wounds are of a dangerous character. Goodness, these poor guys gives me so much anxiety. Imagine going to your local bar for your, like, friend's birthday drinks and this kind of insanity happens out of nowhere. You end up with a pebble and a head gash, suffering succotash. The only fight that I have ever, ever seen in a New York bar, and I have lived here for 25 years, was a fight that I got into with a guy. I was bartending in a bar way uptown Manhattan over 20 years ago, and a dude was getting, like, aggressive. He jumped over the bar to grab me and I cracked him with a bottle of Stoli. The bottle didn't break, but he went down hard. This bar had like really nice regulars. And they were kind enough to drag him out onto the street like squiggling around. We all waited to see if he was going to get up and try to come back into the bar. And he did get up. We saw him out the window. But he just walked home. Luckily. He must have thought it was all a dream. I know the guy was okay. One of his friends got into a fight with him the next day for pulling that stunt. He never came back. Who even was I in 2003? Goth bartender cracking dudes over the head with vodka bottles. And now I'm a goth eating a pint of coconut gelato on my couch, watching horror movies till 3am regularly. I have made it, so to speak. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Do you have a point of sale system you can trust or is it a real pos? You need Shopify for retail. From accepting payments to managing inventory, Shopify POS has everything you need to sell in person. Go to shopify.comsystem, all lowercase, to take your retail business to the next level. Today, that's shopify.com system. Okay. Oh. Oh, no. Let's now hear about a doctor freezing to death while having some kind of terrible episode brought on by some smallpox. That'll be nice. This article is called A doctor insane with smallpox freezes to death on an Iowa prairie. And it reads, from Iowa we have received a terrible tale of the fate of a German doctor named Gunkel, a practicing physician in Lansing of that state. Finding he was sick, probably from smallpox, and away from home and friends, he engaged a man to drive him from macgregor to Elkador, where he formerly lived. He had not proceeded far before the doctor seemed to think he was being pursued. Sizing the loose halters lying in the buggy box, he lashed the dashboard, urging the driver to let the horses go. For God's sake, they are after me. End quote. Opening a large pocket knife, he coolly informed the driver that his life depended on fast driving and silence. The poor driver was forced to the terrible conviction that he was alone with a maniac at the dead of night. I did like five takes of that last line, by the way, just so I could get it absolutely perfect. That is an amazing sentence. I continue. Obedience to the desperate man's commands was the only alternative. And with eyes straight ahead, he drove for dear life to Harding's Hotel at Bull's Head, six miles from McGregor. The driver here jumped out and asked the doctor to come in and have something to drink. Enraged at the delay, the madman Threw out the robe, cushion, etc. And then got out himself and tried to awaken the landlord. The driver, intent on saving his his life, hastily secured his robe and cushions and putting whip to his horses, returned to Macgregor. The doctor failed to arouse the landlord and starting out alone, evidently tried to foot it to Elgador. He was next day seen at National, 10 miles from Elgador, crazy and wild. But there were none humane enough to relieve or have him cared for alone by the side of the road. But he was seen the next day some nine miles from Alcador by several of its citizens, nearly all acquainted with him. Not one spoke to him, but all agree that he was crazy and that his face was very red. His friends were notified of his condition, but no effort was made to relieve him. He was reported near Windsor on Wednesday and farther west on Thursday and Friday. Was found in a sinkhole, nearly naked, badly frozen, and the snow red from the blood of his face that he had scratched and torn in his wild delirium. He was now conveyed to a stable in Wagner Township. Friday evening, Saturday, a physician from Alcador was procured who found him dying from his exposure and smallpox. During the night he expired with no one near him, alone in the stable, away from mother, brothers, sisters and friends to soothe him as he passed to the blank future beyond the waters from whence no traveler returns. Wow. End quote. I was gonna name this episode to the Blank beyond the Waters because there's just something so beautiful and desolate about it. But I thought it might come off as like kind of emo without context. So I didn't go for it. Oh, this poor man. In the 1800s, smallpox was still a big and ferocious killer. It would kill one in three people that it infected. The symptoms were gruesome. High fevers, vomiting, sores in the mouth. Fluid filled lesions would appear all over the body. Death could often come within two weeks of infection. If you did survive, you would be left with permanent scars from the lesions. You may be blind, and infertility was likely. In the 1800s, deaths from smallpox was in the hundreds of thousands in the United States alone. And when I found that article about the people killed in the crush, you know, during Christina Nilsson's performance. The article, article just below that one was called Smallpox in Philadelphia. And it said, the health officer reports 223 deaths from smallpox during the last week. That was 1872. The new remedy of sulfate, zinc and digitalis is reported being used with success. Those treatments were not remedy whatsoever for the condition. There was actually a vaccine created in 1796, but the production of this vaccine could not keep up with demand. It was not produced everywhere, and even if people could get the vaccine, it didn't always work. Over time, the effectiveness and access to this vaccine increased and ever since 1977 it has been eradicated. There hasn't been a single case since 1977. The original vaccine was created by a man named Dr. Edward Jenner. We should all be sending heartfelt gratitude in the direction toward his 227-year-old skeleton, which is buried in St. Mary the Virgin's churchyard in England. Thank you Dr. Jenner, for the millions, if not billions of lives that you saved. Okay, before we go, I have a little treat for you. I have been very sad that I haven't been able to continue my other podcast, Dark Poetry, because this one right here takes all of the brain cells that I can muster in a week. But I still love reading that creepy, eerie, bleak spine tingly poetry. And there was one that I wanted to share with you today because it's just so bone chilling and fun. I've actually mentioned it on this podcast before. It is called Dead Man's Hate by Robert Irvin Howard. It is a story about revenge of a hanged man with clammy, clammy hands. I hope you enjoy it. They hanged John Farrell in the in the dawn amid the marketplace at dusk, came Adam Brand to him and spat upon his face. Ho, neighbours all spake Adam Brand, see ye John Farrel's fate. Tis proven here a hempen noose is stronger than man's hate. For heard ye not John Farrel's vow to be avenged upon me. Come, let or death see how he hangs high on the gallows tree. Yet never a word. The people spoke in fear and wild surprise, for the grisly corpse raised up its head and stared with sightless eyes, and with strange motions slow and stiff, pointed at Adam Brand and clamored down the gibbet tree, the new noose within its hand. With gaping mouth stood Adam Brand like a statue carved of stone, till the dead man laid a clammy hand hard on his shoulder bone. Then Adam shrieked like a soul in hell. The red blood left his face, and he reeled away in a drunken run through the screaming marketplace, and close behind the dead man came with a face like a mummy's mask, and the dead joints cracked and the stiff legs creaked with their unwanted task. Men fled before the flying twain, or shrank with abated breath, and they saw on the face of Adam Brand the seal set there by death he reeled on buckling legs that failed. Yet on and on he fled. So through the shuddering marketplace the dying fled the dead. At the riverside fell Adam Brand With a scream that rent the skies. Across him fell John Ferrel's corpse, Nor ever the twain did rise. There was no wound on Adam Brand, but his brow was cold and damp, for the fear of death had blown out his life as a witch blows out a lamp. His lips were writhed in a horrid grin, like a fiend's on Satan's coals. And the men that looked on his face that day, his stare still haunts their souls. Such was the fate of Adam Brand, a strange, unearthly fate, for stronger than death or hempen noose are the fires of a dead man's hate if you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please rate it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Follow, share and leave me comments because I love to hear from you. Also, don't forget to let me know what you think I should call my new personal Ghost Story account segment and let me know if you would enjoy more spooky poetry from time to time. I just love reading it so much. Be kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares.