Historium Unearthia: Unearthing History's Lost and Untold Stories

In the heart of southeast Utah, water and gravity have sculpted one forgotten national park into a rugged landscape. Rich in human history and natural beauty, this vast and untamed terrain is also an epicenter of legend and lore. Have you ever heard of Canyonlands National Park?

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Credit:

For this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Bill Bentenson, Butch Cassidy's great nephew and author of the book Butch Cassidy, My Uncle; David Weatherly, author, explorer, and investigator of strange phenomenon; and Clyde Denis, a professor at the University of New Hampshire who has explored, researched, and written extensively on the history and terrain of Canyonlands.

Sources:

Canyonlands; National Park Service; Retrieved October 2018.

Canyonlands National Park; Canyonlands Natural History Association; Retrieved October 2018.

Closing the road to Chesler Park: Why access to Canyonlands National Park remains limited; Denis, C.L.; Utah Historical Quarterly. 84: 328-346; 2016.

Canyonlands: The Story Behind the Scenery; Johnson, David; KC Publications; June 1, 1997.

Park History: Canyonlands National Park; National Parks Traveler; Retrieved October 2018.

Butch Cassidy, My Uncle; Bentenson, Bill; High Plains Press; May 1, 2012.

Lost Landscapes: Utah's Ghosts, Mysterious Creatures, and Aliens; Dunning, Linda; Cedar Fort; June 1, 2007.

Hypothesis: The pinnacles of the Chesler Park/graben region of Canyonlands National Park result from paleostream induration and inverted topographical relief; Denis, C.L.; In MacLean; J.S., Biek, R.F., and Huntoon, J.E editors; Geology of Utah's Far South: Utah Geological Association Publication 43, p. 25-38; 2014.

The origins of Chesler Park: determining late 19th century snowfall records and occupations of inscription writers in Canyonlands N.P.; Denis, C.L.; Canyon Legacy 69, 2-9; 2010.

"So full of artless jealousy is guilt, it spills itself in fearing to be spilt," wrote Shakespeare in his famous play Hamlet. Perhaps, in the spectrum of human emotions, there is no deeper feeling than guilt.

This strong emotional reaction manifests when we believe—or when we come to realize—that we've done something wrong or violated some universal moral standard. Guilt, and its handmaiden, shame, can paralyze us—or it can ruminate into mania. It is said that Micah Rood knew this kind of madness.

When a farmer supposedly murders a traveling salesman in his orchard, under the original tree, the apples soon bleed with guilt—confessing to a sin their caretaker could not.

On Christmas night in 1843, a horrific crime rattled Staten Island. Within days, suspicion attached itself to one woman. Decades before Lizzie Borden gained notoriety, this young woman was accused of a horrific crime and dubbed the "Witch of Staten Island." Have you ever heard of Polly Bodine?

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Credit:

For this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Patricia Salmon, a professor of history and author of the book Murder and Mayhem on Staten Island. She previously served as the history curator at the Staten Island Museum and on the Board of Directors of the Tottenville Historical Society and the Preservation League of Staten Island. I also spoke with Maxine Friedman, the chief curator at Historic Richmond Town – Staten Island's historical society.

Sources:

Murder and Mayhem on Staten Island; Salmon, Patricia; The History Press; October 8, 2013.

The Staten Island Mystery of 1843; Clemens; Will M.; The Era Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly; Volume 14; July 1904.

The Witch of Staten Island; Undine; Strange Company; October 7, 2013.

The Anti-Rent Era in New York Law and Politics, 1839-1865; McCurdy, Charles W.; The University of North Carolina Press; June 19, 2003.

Staten Island's Very Own Lizzie Borden; Matteo, Thomas; SILive.com; August 9, 2011.

Edgar Allan Poe and the Witch of Staten Island; Boroughs of the Dead; Retrieved September 2018.

City Lore: The Witch of Staten Island; Rasenberger, Jim; The New York Times; October 29, 2000.

Poe's Contributions to The Columbia Spy; Doings of Gotham; Poe, Edgar Allan; The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore; Retrieved October 2018.

Before Chatty Cathy made us flinch, the Wizard of Menlo Park not only perfected the lightbulb, he also gave us a creepy humanoid with a nightmarish shrill. Have you ever heard of Thomas Edison's talking dolls?

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Credit:

For this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Paul Israel, the director and general editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers University and Patrick Feaster, a three-time Grammy nominee and specialist in the history, culture, and preservation of early sound media, including Edison's recordings.

Sources:

Origins of Sound Recording: Edison's Path to the Phonograph; Feaster, Patrick; Thomas Edison National Historic Park; Retrieved September 2018.

Edison Talking Doll Recordings, 1888-1890; National Park Service; Retrieved September 2018.

Edison: A Life of Invention; Israel, Paul; John Wiley & Sons; February 11, 2000.

Thomas Edison's Greatest Inventions; Bellis, Mary; ThoughtCo.; September 24, 2018.

Thomas Edison's Creepiest Invention: The Talking Doll; Hartzman, Mark; Weird Historian; May 10, 2017.

Listen to the creepy voices of Thomas Edison's talking dolls; Starr, Michelle; C/NET; May 5, 2015.

Hear Edison Talking Doll Sound Recordings; Thomas Edison National Historic Park; Retrieved September 2018.

In 1921, a white mob entered an affluent district known as Black Wall Street. They opened fire into crowds of innocent people, burned homes and businesses to the ground, and forced countless others to flee. For decades, the attack was hidden from textbooks and even oral histories. Have you ever heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre? DOWNLOAD NOW Credit: For this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Hannibal Johnson, an author, attorney, consultant, and college professor who writes and lectures about the history of the Greenwood District. His books include: Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District and Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District. I also spoke with Michelle Place, the Executive Director of the Tulsa Historical Society & Museum. She served on the Race Riot Commission, which was organized to review the details of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Sources: Images of America: Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District; Johnson, Hannibal B.; Arcadia Publishing; January 27, 2014. Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District; Johnson, Hannibal B.; Eakin Press; September 1, 1998. Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921; Ellsworth, Dr. Scott and Franklin, John Hope; Louisiana State University Press; January 1, 1992. Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921; Brophy, Alfred; Oxford University Press; February 14, 2003. Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy; Hirsch, James S.; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; May 13, 2013. Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921; February 28, 2001. My Life and An Era: The Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin; Franklin, Buck Colbert; LSU Press; October 1, 1997. 1921 Tulsa Race Riot; Tulsa Historical Society and Museum; Retrieved August 2018. Tulsa Race Riot; Greenwood Cultural Center; Retrieved September 2018. The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921; Carlson, I. Marc; Retrieved September 2018. Tulsa Race Riot Overview; Oklahoma State University Library; Accessed September 2018. Tulsa Race Riot; Oklahoma Historical Society; Retrieved September 2018. Meet The Last Surviving Witness To The Tulsa Race Riot Of 1921; Gilles, Nellie; NPR; May 31, 2018. Hal Singer Short Doc; Sutherland Media; Vimeo; Accessed September 2018.

In the Late Middle Ages, the Kingdom of Hungary rose from the ashes, leaving behind a dismal episode in Hungarian history. The mid-15th century soon marked the nation's Golden Age. At the height of its prosperity, a revered ruler, hailed the Raven King, commanded an eminent presence on the European stage. But, in the end, it wasn't his conquests or his castles or his culture-forward mentality that made him so remarkable. His legacy may be better defined by his unorthodox relationship with Dracula and his magnificent library. Have you ever heard of Matthias Corvinus? DOWNLOAD NOW Credit: It was an honor to speak with Joe Hajdu, and an urban and cultural geographer and author of the book Budapest: A History of Grandeur and Catastrophe, and Dr. Katalin Szende, an associate professor in the Department of Medieval Studies at Hungary's Central European University. Their brilliant insight brought the Raven King back to life, even if for just a moment. Sources: Budapest: A History of Grandeur and Catastrophe; Hajdu, Joe; Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.; July 31, 2015. The Names in the Family of King Matthias Corvinus; Pop, Ioan-Aurel; Eötvös Loránd University; Retrieved August 2018. Bloody Bibliophile Matthias Corvinus; Book Review; The Telegraph; May 25, 2008. Marcus Tanner: 'Did you know that Dracula's best friend was a warrior bookworm?'; O'Brien, Murrough; The Independent; April 20, 2008. Matthias Corvinus of Hungary; New World Encyclopedia; Retrieved August 2018. Bibliotheca Corviniana: The library of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary; Csapodi, Csaba; Irish University Press; 1969. Matthias Corvinus and His Time: Europe in Transition from the Middle Ages to Modern Times between Vienna and Constantinople; Simon, Alexandru, et al; Austrian Academy of Sciences Press; December 7, 2011. The Raven King: Matthias Corvinus and the Fate of His Lost Library; Tanner, Marcus; Yale University Press; July 1, 2008. Once the Greatest Army in Europe – The Black Army of Hungary; Gaskill, Matthew; War History Online; May 31, 2018. Will to Survive: A History of Hungary; Cartledge, Bryan; Oxford University Press; April 19, 2011.

Slow as molasses in January is a common American idiom for something that is painfully slow. The history of this expression dates to the turn of the twentieth century and to one very specific event. On an unseasonably warm winter day in 1919, only a few weeks into the new year, Boston, Massachusetts suffered one of history's strangest disasters. Have you ever heard of the Great Boston Molasses Flood? DOWNLOAD NOW Credit: For this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Stephen Puleo, historian, public speaker, and author of Dark Tide, and Nicole Sharp, an aerospace engineer turned science communicator who runs a Tumblr blog on fluid dynamics. Sources: Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919; Puleo, Stephen; Beacon Press; 2004; Reprinted 100th Anniversary Edition, January 2019. Incredible physics behind the deadly 1919 Boston Molasses Flood; Ouellette, Jennifer; NewScientist; November 24, 2016. The Great Molasses Flood of 1919; Andrews, Evan; History; January 13, 2017. The Great Molasses Flood; Stanly, Robert; New England Today; January 15, 2018. Remembering Boston's Great Molasses Flood of 1919; Trex, Ethan; Mental Floss; January 15, 2018. Eric Postpischil's Molasses Disaster Pages; Mason, John; Yankee Magazine; August 27, 2015. Great Molasses Flood of 1919: Why This Deluge of Goo Was So Deadly; Choi, Charles; LiveScience; November 21, 2016.

A series of unexpected events in 1811 and 1812 caused some strange phenomena and gave birth to countless legends. Sand volcanoes. The Mississippi running backward. Miles-long chasms opening in the earth. But only some of these weird occurrences are the truth. Have you ever heard of the New Madrid earthquakes? DOWNLOAD NOW Credit: For this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jeff Grunwald, administrator of the New Madrid Historical Museum, and Seth Stein, a seismologist and geophysicist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and author of several papers and books on the New Madrid earthquakes. Sources: The 10 Deadliest Earthquakes in US History; Mason, Betsy; Wired; November 21, 2008. Strange Happenings During the Earthquakes; City of New Madrid; Retrieved July 2018. Summary of 1811-1812 New Madrid Earthquakes Sequence; United States Geological Survey; Retrieved July 2018. Disaster Deferred: How New Science is Changing our View of Earthquake Hazards in the Midwest; Stein, Seth; Columbia University Press; 2010. Teaching about New Madrid earthquakes: science and hazards; Stein, Seth; Illinois State University; 2011. The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-1812; Soddalter, Rod; Missouri Life; February 7, 2018. The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes; Bolton Valencius, Conevery; University of Chicago Press; September 25, 2013.

In 1892, Charles C. Willoughby became the first archaeologist to excavate sites in Maine that contained powdered red ochre and artifacts in clusters that he interpreted as graves. His discovery led to an assumption that would later be proven wrong. Have you ever heard of the myth of the Red Paint People? DOWNLOAD NOW Credit: For this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking Dr. Bonnie Newsom, an indigenous archaeologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Maine, and Julia Gray, owner of Riverside Museum Solutions and the former director of collections and research at the Abbe Museum. I also want to acknowledge Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko, director of Abbe Museum, who is leading the effort in the emerging practice of decolonization. Located in Bar Harbor, Maine, the Abbe Museum was founded in 1926 and first opened to the public in 1928 as a private museum at Sieur de Monts Spring in Lafayette National Park (Acadia National Park). Although most museums in the U.S. have yet to embrace decolonization, the Abbe has worked closely with indigenous peoples of Maine, specifically the Wabanaki, sharing authority for the documentation and interpretation of Native culture. Sources: Who Were the Red Paint People?; Cole-Will, Rebecca; Abbe Museum; 2002. Antiquities of the New England Indians; Willoughby, Charles C.; Cambridge University Press; July 1937. A Report on the Archaeology of Maine; Moorehead, Warren; The Andover Press; 1922. The Lost Red Paint People of Maine; Smith, Walter Brown; Lafayette National Park Museum; 1930. Ochre - The Oldest Known Natural Pigment in the World; Hirst, K. Kris; ThoughtCo.; April 15, 2017. Tools of the Archaeologist; Johnston, Grahame; Archaeology Expert; December 15, 2016. Why is ochre found in some graves?; The National Museum of Denmark; Retrieved June 2018.

More than a century before the United States was even formed, some African slaves escaped forced servitude and formed the first free black community in the nation. The enclave was founded and led by an extraordinary military commander who has never received proper acknowledgment in history books. He gave the lost hope, the fledgling refuge, and the enemy a run for their money. Have you ever heard of Francisco Menendez? DOWNLOAD NOW Credit: For this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jane Landers, a historian of Colonial Latin America and the Atlantic World specializing in the history of Africans and their descendants in those worlds, and Diana Reigelsperger, a professor of history at Seminole State College and member of the Speaker's Series at the Florida Humanities Council. Sources: Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose: A Free Black Town in Spanish Colonial Florida; Landers, Jane; The American Historical Review; Vol. 95, No. 1 (Feb., 1990), pp. 9-30. Leadership and Authority in Maroon Settlements in Spanish America and Brazil; Landers, Jane; 2005. Africa and the Americas: Interconnections During the Slave Trade; Curto, José C. and Soulodre-LaFrance, Renée; Africa World Press, Inc.; 2005. Fort Mose: America's First Community of Free Blacks; Schwarb, Amy Wimmer; Visit Florida; Retrieved June 2018. Fort Mose Site Florida; American Latino Heritage; National Parks Service; Retrieved June 2018.