Without a Trace

Published Aug 20, 2020, 9:00 AM

Two individuals. Two amazing stories. And even more incredible: both of them are true. You're sure to enjoy their addition to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

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Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I Heart 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. Some soldiers only feel at home on the battlefield. They know peace when a weapon is in their hand and pointed at their enemy. Those who make it out of the military still carry a piece of it with them forever. It's etched onto them like a tattoo. For William, the battlefield was more than a home. It was everything. He was born in Wiltshire, England, in six twenty and couldn't wait to become soldier. At the age of just thirteen, he enlisted and fought for King Charles the First. By the time he turned twenty two, William had already become a seasoned fighter. In October of sixteen forty two, the young soldier joined fifteen thousand of his brothers to fight in the first battle of the English Civil War, known as the Battle of Edge Hill. The first day of fighting left hundreds dead, and wounded. After a chilly night of rest, both sides reconvened the next morning to continue the fray. Unfortunately, nobody felt like fighting any longer. The Battle of Edge Hill didn't bode well for the rest of the Civil War, which ended almost a decade later with King Charles's execution, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell would rule the new English Republic for the next eleven years. William, now thirty one, retired to a peaceful life until Cromwell's death in sixteen fifty eight. The age of the Republic was now over, and Charles's son, Charles the Second, had become king. Like his father. The new Charles led his kingdom for almost thirty years. His passing in sixteen eighty five, however, left the throne vacant, as he had not produced an air during his reign. Instead, his brother James the Second took his place. This put Parliament on edge. James was a Roman Catholic, and with him as king, there was a possibility of England rejoining with Rome. To prevent this from happening, Parliament asked William the Third, the Dutch Prince of Orange, to take the throne. He obliged, moving in and forcefully taking England, Ireland and Scotland away from James. But King James wasn't about to go down without a fight. He planned an invasion of Ireland as a way to reclaim what he felt was rightfully his. Meanwhile, William was ready. He joined William of Orange's forces to take on the former king. In March of sixteen eighty nine, King James marched into Ireland with France's help, which kicked off the Williamite War in Ireland. He managed to hold Ireland for a short time through several key battles, hoping to spin his victory into a takeover of England and Scotland as well, but William of Orange's army was too much for James, and William was there for all of it. For two and a half years, the seventy two year old soldier fought on behalf of the Republic and helped them win the war. And then another age of peace broke out and William retired again, but not for good. His services would be required again in seventeen o nine, during the War of the Spanish Succession. Spain and France were going to unite, which would have threatened England's power. In what would become his final and most important fight, William and one hundred sixty one thousand other troops gathered on the French border for the Battle of mal Paquet. He joined up with the Royal Scots Regiment and fought alongside one of the youngest participants he'd ever seen, the three week old son of one Private McMain, who fought with his baby on his back. The eighty nine year old Williams valiant efforts helped Great Britain defeat France and stop the Union. It seemed that the time had finally come for the octogenarian to hang up his uniform for good. As thanks for his service, William was made a sergeant and given a comfortable pension of two crowns per week, not a bad legacy for a man who literally spent his entire life fighting in wars. But it didn't stop there. William found love several years later. He married a much younger woman when he was one hundred and three. Their time together was short, though, as she passed away before him in the early seventeen thirties. He wouldn't grieve for long, though. The super soldier himself died not long after, at the ripe old age of one eleven. William Hesslin had cheated death for over one hundred years, but his time had come. He might have had more love for the battlefield than most, but no soldier can fight forever. Be careful what you put out into the world. A careless statement can spell disaster down the road. James was a humble shoemaker from the town of Leamington in Warwickshire, England. He owned a small shop in town and enjoyed a regular drink at his local pub. Unfortunately, James suffered from two bad habits. He liked to drink and he liked to gamble. The problem was that he only gambled when he drank. On the afternoon of September three, seventy three, James was in the pub with a few of his drinking buddies. He'd already had a few pints when he started bragging about what a great athlete he was. He bet that he could run from Leamington to Coventry and back again on the same day. It would be a round trip of forty miles, but James didn't care. He was ready to prove himself for the Grand prize of one sovereign a gold coin worth about one British pound. James headed out toward Coventry, with three men from the pub following behind him in a horse drawn cart. There was the unknown man that he had made the bet with, as well as a merchant named Barnum Wise and a photographer by the name of Hammerson Burns. James seemed to be doing pretty well for the first few miles. He was bright and alert, showing no signs of slowing down, not bad considering how drunk he had been when he started the contest. But he was also egged on by the three men behind him, who did their best to motivate him by poking fun. Then, without warning, James tripped over something in the road. He fell forward and shouted out. The men got out of their cart to check on their friend, but they couldn't see anything. James was gone. He hadn't left an imprint in the dirt where he had landed, because he had never landed in the first place. It was as though he had evaporated instantly. Burns, Wise and the unnamed third man searched the area for some time before accepting that James was gone and gone for good. They climbed into the carts and rode back the town, unsure of what they were going to tell everyone. The police heard their story, but they didn't buy it. Instead, they arrested the men for James's disappearance and possible murder. The trio were questioned again. The police conducted an investigation, talking to character witnesses and other people in town, hoping to find some kind of motivation for the killing. But the authorities couldn't find anything, and because the men had no prior records and were thought highly of in town, the charges were dropped and the men were released. Sadly, James Warson was never found, which makes sense seeing as how he had never existed in the first place. He was the main character of a short story written in eight by author and journalist Ambrose Beers. Throughout Beers's seventy two years on Earth, he produced almost two hundred fifty short stories and over a thousand other works. It's fair to say that he was prolific. He was also ahead of his time, so to speak. Beers had fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War fifty years and many published works later. In nineteen thirteen, he took a trip down through Louisiana in Texas on a tour of old Civil War battlegrounds before anding up in Mexico. While south of the border, Beers saw war once again during the Mexican Revolution as part of Poncho Villa's army. He didn't fight, though, he was merely an onlooker, watching VIA's rebellion overcome state forces during the Battle of Tierra Blanca. Afterward, he followed Villa for several months, eventually arriving in the city of Chihuahua. It was during his stop there in December of nineteen thirteen, when Beers wrote a letter to a colleague back home, Blanche Partington. He ended his letter with these words, as for me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination. It was the last thing he ever wrote. Just like his character of James Warson Ambrose, Beers disappeared and was never heard from again. Stories spread throughout Mexico as to what might have happened to him, but no one us the definitive answer. He simply vanished into thin air. And if that's not a case of foreshadowing coming true, I don't know what is. 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,

Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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