Today's tour features two individuals who lived life against the grain, although the causes they fought for couldn't have been more different.
Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeart Radio 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. There is perhaps no greater stain on American history than that of the slave trade. For over two hundred years, millions of African men, women, and children were kidnapped from their homes and enslaved, forced to work on plantations, picking crops like cotton and tobacco for white owners who did not see them as people. To those in power, especially in the Southern States, enslave people were simply property. It was a dark and tumultuous time, a time when the country was still new and finding its place in the larger world. Yet, despite slavery's wide acceptance, an abolitionist movement brewed among those who opposed its barbaric treatment of our fellow human beings. People like Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman spoke out against the horrors of slavery, as did many allies, such as author Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Quincy Adams. Yet there was one abolitionist who did much to further the cause. But despite his theatrical approach to ending slavery, few people have heard of him today. So let's change that. His name was Benjamin Leigh, and he was a white man born in Copford, England, in sixteen eighty two. His parents were Quakers and they instilled a strong moral compass in him from a young age. When he was in his mid thirties, Benjamin moved to Barbados to work as a merchant. His time there gave him a firsthand look at the injustices of the world, namely the enslavement of black people, and it, in fear created him. He grew more impassioned after a harrowing experience watching an enslaveman take his own life to spare himself another lashing from his owner. From that point forward, Benjamin let everyone else know what he thought of slavery, which didn't quite endear him to the people profiting from it on the island. He left Barbados in seventeen thirty one and settled down in Pennsylvania, where he continued to advocate against the slave trade. It wasn't something yet codified in Quaker philosophy. Quakers themselves had been prominent slave traders early on, although abolition had become an increasingly popular cause among them informally. His vocal admonition of it, though, cemented Benjamin as one of the more progressive minds of his time. And he didn't just talk the talk either. He saw everyone as equal, and Benjamin was so against slavery that he made his own clothes too, so as not to purchase anything that might have been manufactured using slave labor. He also wrote hundreds of essays and pamphlets on a handful of issues, including slavery, as well as a book published by Benjamin Franklin. In addition to his work toward abolition, he was also anti capital punishment and believe the existing prison system needed serious reform. But perhaps most importantly, Benjamin Lagh was an activist. He did not rely on his words to get his message across. In order to get people to hear him, to really hear him, he knew he had to go bigger, partly because he was a four foot tall man with a hunchback and extremely long arms. People did not take him seriously due to his looks. They were just not going to listen to him, so he had to make them. In one act of defiance, he stood outside a Quaker meeting house in the dead of winter with nothing on but his shirt, a pair of pants, and a single shoe. He shoved one of his bare feet in the snow and waited there in the cold. When someone asked him why he was doing this or encouraged him to put on warmer clothing, Benjamin informed them that enslaved people didn't have the luxury of warm coats and shoes in the winter. They were still forced to work outside dressed much like he was right then. He also didn't hesitate to hit slaveholders where they lived. Benjamin once asked a six year old neighbor boy to come to his home and spend time with him there for several hours. When it got late, the boy's parents ran outside in a panic looking for him. After a short while, Benjamin emerged and told them that the boy was fine, he'd been with him the whole time, but their desperation and sadness were the same desperation and sadness felt by the parents of the young black girl the couple had enslaved when she had been ripped from their arms. And finally, in perhaps his most impressive and ostentatious demonstration, Benjamin wore a soldier's uniform and delivered a speech against slavery in front of his fellow Quakers at the yearly meeting in Philadelphia. He held in his hand a Bible and read out loud, Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures. When his speech was over, Benjamin withdrew his sword and drove it through the front cover of the Bible, which bled and sprayed red liquid all over self and his audience. It wasn't real blood, though he had hollowed out the middle of the book and placed a bladder full of pokeberry juice inside. The stunt shocked all in attendance, and Benjamin was forced to leave the meeting. Rather than walk away, though he lay down outside the door of the venue so that when people left they had to step over him and see his bloody corpse in all its glory. It may have been appalling and offensive at the time, but it worked. Thanks to Benjamin's advocacy, Philadelphia Quakers expelled all slaveholders from their ranks. Benjamin Lay was, by eighteenth century standards, a strange and garish person. He wasn't afraid to go against the grain or to make people feel uncomfortable. He even convinced Ben Franklin to free his enslaved people in the event of his death. Benjamin Lay was a hero and an ally, but above all else, despite his small stature, he was someone that you could look up to and a role model for people everywhere for all time. Curious, yes, but also incredibly noble. Money changes people. Too much can make them more selfish, too little can make them desperate, And for those with a lot of it, money can transform them into strange individuals who spend it in peculiar ways. For example, a Canadian dentist named Michael Zook spent over thirty one dollars in two thousand eleven to purchase a tooth. But not just any tooth. It was a molar that had been plucked from the mouth of the legendary beatle John Lennon. His reason for procuring such a morbid item he wanted to clone the late musician. But a few of these eccentric elites can hold a candle to Ida Mayfield Wood, who made quite a stir in nineteen thirties New York City. Ida was born in eighteen thirty eight and came to New York at the age of nineteen to start a new chapter in her life. She hoped to take her rightful place at the top of society, where she felt she belonged. She was young, but knew exactly who she was and what she wanted from life. Ida's father had been the owner of a sugar plantation back home in Louisiana, while her mother had been an English aristocrat distantly related to the Earls of Crawford. In order to maintain her status in a man's world, though, she realized that she needed a man to help her navigate it. She found what she needed in Benjamin Wood, a thirty seven year old newspaper owner and Confederate sympathizer from Kentucky. There was just one problem. He was already married. Ida didn't mind, though, she continued to pursue Benjamin and the two began a long lasting affair. They even had a daughter together named Emma, and when Benjamin's wife suddenly passed away in eighteen sixty seven, he and Ida were finally able to tie the nut. He was just what she needed. Ida worked her way up to the head of the New York upper class, had found herself mentioned in all the papers. She even snagged a visit with Abraham Lincoln shortly after he won the election. But what did bliss was not in the cards. Literally. Benjamin had a nasty gambling habit, which made Ida worried about her future. She certainly didn't want him throwing away all of their money, so she made a deal with him. He was free to gamble as much as he wanted under two conditions. First, she got half of all of his winnings no matter what, and second, he was responsible for paying back all of his debts and losses. With those rules in place, Benjamin continued to gamble, and he lost often, but not to loan sharks or betting houses. He lost to his wife, who was now even wealthier than when she'd married him. Ida also bought a majority stake in her own husband's newspaper. Benjamin eventually died in nineteen hundred, leaving behind a lot of money and a rich newspaper owning widow. Ida sold the paper shortly thereafter for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and she kept selling. In nineteen o seven, she got rid of almost everything she owned, as if she was purging herself of her old life, and once it was all gone, she withdrew one million dollars from her bank account in a single transaction and moved herself into a two room suite at the Herald Square Hotel. After that, she stopped going out. She stopped dining with other rich New York socialites and celebrities, instead becoming a recluse. But she wasn't alone. Her sister Mary and her own daughter Emma, both lived in the suite with her. No guests were ever permitted through the door, nor was any hotel staff. Their only interaction with people on the outside occurred when they would pay one of the bellhops to bring them food and supplies once per day, things like bacon and eggs, coffee, cigars, and petroleum jelly for Ida to slather all over her face. She claimed that it helped keep her skin moist and young looking. As far as the hotel staff knew, the women had just enough money to stay there, but were otherwise broke. Sadly, Ida outlived Emma, with her daughter passing in at seventy one years old. The two sisters remained in the room for the next few years until Mary suddenly took a turn for the worse. In nineteen thirty one, Ida, afraid for her sister, left the hotel room for the first time in fourteen years and called out for help. A doctor came, but it was too late. Mary was already deceased, and after looking around at the room, he was shocked that Ida hadn't gone with her. It was a mess. The room was cluttered with their belongings, as well as cans and boxes of old food. There were stacks of newspapers, dirt, debris. Over a decade of filth had built up due to their isolated lifestyle. With Mary gone, a lawyer stepped in to assist Ida in the next phase of her life. Clearly, she could no longer remain inside her room, but as he helped her, he discovered the truth about her situation. She was rich, very rich. She still owned about a hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in railroad stocks, with countless dividend checks gone uncashed. There was almost a million dollars in cash and expensive jewelry hidden everywhere in the place. Once news got out about Ida and her money, relatives from all over, people who had never seen her or spoken to her in her entire life, came out of the woodwork to stake their claim. It was the Great Depression, after all. Her late husband's cousins, nephews, and even his son showed up with their hands out, as did people claiming to be related to her mother and father from Louisiana. Except Ida hadn't really come from Louisiana, her father hadn't owned a plantation, and as far as anyone knew, her mother wasn't related to the Earls of Crawford. Ida had been born in Oldham, England, to poor parents who had emigrated to the United States when she was a young girl. She didn't want to be poor any longer. She believed that she deserved better, so she invented a new identity, one that helped her capture the attention of Benjamin Wood, and the rest, as they say, was history. Sadly, the adventure was over for her. The ninety four year old Ida was declared incompetent and remove from her room, no doubt, in a desperate bid by the others to get their hands on her money, but by the time she died of bronchial pneumonia in nineteen thirty two, only a handful of people were able to legally claim her riches for themselves. Ida Wood's lasting legacy wasn't one of generosity or love, nor was it monetary. It was a legacy she had built for herself using her own wits and fortitude, or, as the kids might say today, she faked it until she made it. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,