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Imperfect Stranger · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. People tend to be shaped by their surroundings.
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  Speaker 1: Their family, friends, and neighbors all contribute to their upbringing.
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  Speaker 1: The kinds of people they become depend on what they
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  Speaker 1: were taught and how they were treated in their past.
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  Speaker 1: But what happens when the past refuses to stay there?
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  Speaker 1: Casper's past wasn't quite known by those who knew him
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  Speaker 1: in Germany. Even Casper was hazy on the details himself.
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  Speaker 1: According to a letter he carried, Casper had been handed
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  Speaker 1: over to the letters author in eighteen twelve, when he
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  Speaker 1: was only a few months old. This anonymous person had
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  Speaker 1: allegedly educated Casper in all subjects, including reading and writing,
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  Speaker 1: as well as the Bible, all the while Casper had
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  Speaker 1: never left the person's house. He was the reward as
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  Speaker 1: well as a prisoner of sorts, now that he had
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  Speaker 1: come of age, though Casper had expressed interest in becoming
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  Speaker 1: a cavalryman like his birth father. The letter had been
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  Speaker 1: meant for one, Captain von Weisenegg, of the fourth Squadron
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  Speaker 1: of the sixth Cavalry Regiment. The request from Casper's former
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  Speaker 1: caretaker to the captain was to either enlist the young
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  Speaker 1: man or hang him his choice. Casper made his way
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  Speaker 1: to the captain's home with the help of a local cobbler.
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  Speaker 1: Though he'd been taught to read and write, Casper only
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  Speaker 1: answered the captain with one of three phrases. The first
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  Speaker 1: was I want to be a cavalryman as my father was.
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  Speaker 1: The second was simply horse horse. Difficult questions prompted the
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  Speaker 1: third response, don't know. Casper was six years old, but
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  Speaker 1: behaved and spoke like someone much younger. Sadly, the captain
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  Speaker 1: did not take him in, though he didn't hang him either. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: he was locked up in a tower in Nuremberg Castle
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  Speaker 1: for the crime of being poor. As word about the
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  Speaker 1: boys spread throughout town, so did speculation about his upbringing.
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  Speaker 1: Some thought that he had grown up in the forest,
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  Speaker 1: raised among the animals. The mayor of Nuremberg himself, though
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  Speaker 1: Yaka Friedrich Binder claimed that he learned the truth after
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  Speaker 1: visiting the young man in prison. This enigmatic young man
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  Speaker 1: hadn't been raised in a home by an obliging caretaker. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: he had been locked away in a dark cell only
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  Speaker 1: two meters long by one meter wide. His bed had
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  Speaker 1: been made of straw, and the only toys in his
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  Speaker 1: possession were a dog and two horses that had been
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  Speaker 1: whittled out of wood. During his time, he only ate
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  Speaker 1: rye bread and drink water, which were also the only
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  Speaker 1: food and drink he would accept while locked in the
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  Speaker 1: tower in Nuremberg Castle. Sometimes, though he claimed that water
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  Speaker 1: tasted bitter and would make him sleep, he'd wait up
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  Speaker 1: hours later to new straw in his bed, as well
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  Speaker 1: as trimmed nails and hair. He had no contact with
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  Speaker 1: another soul for years until just before he showed up
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  Speaker 1: in Nuremberg. It was a man, maybe the caretaker or
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  Speaker 1: perhaps another acquaintance of theirs, who had come to teach
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  Speaker 1: Casper how to talk and write his name. He had
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  Speaker 1: also taught him the phrases to recite to Captain von Wessnig.
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  Speaker 1: When the mayor's story about Casper broke out, it only
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  Speaker 1: added to his mystery. Those who had gotten a glimpse
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  Speaker 1: of him noticed he looked an awful lot like the
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  Speaker 1: Grand Duke of Baden. Rumors swirled about how the Nuremberg
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  Speaker 1: newcomer was none other than the Prince of Baden, originally
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  Speaker 1: thought to have died in eighteen twelve, only months after
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  Speaker 1: his birth. Casper celebrities soon led to his freedom. As
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  Speaker 1: well as being adopted by the town, he was provided
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  Speaker 1: with money for food and to further his education. Friedrich Dahmer,
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  Speaker 1: a local teacher and philosopher, took him under his wing
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  Speaker 1: and provided him with a home. Unfortunately, Casper's new life
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  Speaker 1: would be interrupted by a vision for his past. In
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  Speaker 1: October of eighteen twenty nine, the boy was discovered bleeding
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  Speaker 1: in Dahmer's basement. He had been slashed across the forehead.
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  Speaker 1: Casper claimed it was from a hooded stranger whose voice
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  Speaker 1: matched that of the man who had brought him to
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  Speaker 1: Nuremberg a year earlier. The incidents caused a stir in
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  Speaker 1: the town. People started to wonder if the House of
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  Speaker 1: Baden had tried to take him out instead. Skeptics didn't
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  Speaker 1: buy Casper's story, though, nor did they believe that he
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  Speaker 1: was the long lost descendant of the House of Baden.
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  Speaker 1: They figured that Casper had just been accused of line
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  Speaker 1: by Dahmer and then cut himself to Gardner sympathy and
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  Speaker 1: throw people off his trail. Three years later, Casper had
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  Speaker 1: gone through a few more caretakers and then moved to
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  Speaker 1: the town of Ansbach. He was now being looked after
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  Speaker 1: by schoolmaster Johann Meyer and financially supported by a separate
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  Speaker 1: wealthy patron, But that patron died in eighteen thirty three,
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  Speaker 1: which strained Casper's relationship with Meyer. Five days after that
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  Speaker 1: patron's death, Casper was stabbed in the chest. Just like before,
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  Speaker 1: the wound was inflicted by an unknown assailant. This time,
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  Speaker 1: though Casper had been given a small bag, it contained
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  Speaker 1: a note from the person who had allegedly attacked him.
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  Speaker 1: He told his story to the authorities, who conducted an
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  Speaker 1: investigation of their own. Sadly, Casper would never get to
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  Speaker 1: hear their findings. He died three days later. If he
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  Speaker 1: had survived, he would have heard how they didn't believe him,
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  Speaker 1: how the notes had been folded into a triangle shape,
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  Speaker 1: just like Casper used for all of his notes. He
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  Speaker 1: would have heard how the police thought that he stabbed
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  Speaker 1: himself and made up the story about the attacker as
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  Speaker 1: a pr stunt to get people to talk about him again.
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  Speaker 1: Casper was buried in on spot under a headstone with
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  Speaker 1: the inscription that reads, here lies Casper Houser riddle of
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  Speaker 1: his time. His birth was unknown, his death mysterious. Was
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  Speaker 1: he merely a traumatized young man, or a con man,
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  Speaker 1: or even a lost royal prince? No one knows for sure.
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  Speaker 1: But one thing is certain. He died as he lived,
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  Speaker 1: a complete and total enigma. Neither snow nor rain, nor heat,
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  Speaker 1: nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift
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  Speaker 1: completion of their appointed rounds. Though not an official motto,
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  Speaker 1: these words have stood as a testament to the dedication
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  Speaker 1: and nobility of the men and women of the United
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  Speaker 1: States Postal Service. Before the Post Office Department was formed,
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  Speaker 1: in individual colonies would handle their own mail deliveries. They
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  Speaker 1: would hire contractors on horseback to deliver mail along specified routes.
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  Speaker 1: Time was of the essence to these post writers, and
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  Speaker 1: with tensions between the Crown and the colonies growing stronger
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  Speaker 1: every day, their metal was about to be put to
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  Speaker 1: the test. War was on the horizon, and it would
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  Speaker 1: be a postmaster, not a soldier nor an army who
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  Speaker 1: would bring the colonies together again. It's the British. One
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  Speaker 1: such writer was Israel Bistle, born in seventeen fifty two.
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  Speaker 1: He lived with his family in Massachusetts, where he took
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  Speaker 1: a job as a post writer, delivering the mail. On
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  Speaker 1: the night of April eighteenth of seventeen seventy five, British
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  Speaker 1: troops marched from Lexington and conquered from Boston, not to
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  Speaker 1: bring war, but to arrest the rebels and take their supplies.
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  Speaker 1: Paul Revere sat out that night on his famous midnight ride,
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  Speaker 1: alerting the local militia men to prepare. Two lanterns were
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  Speaker 1: hung in Boston's Old North Church, letting patriots know the
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  Speaker 1: British had left Boston coming and made their way across
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  Speaker 1: the Charles River to Cambridge. By five o'clock the next morning,
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  Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War had begun. The American militia was told
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  Speaker 1: to disband, and both sides told their men to hold
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  Speaker 1: but a miscommunication resulted in a single shot being fired,
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  Speaker 1: a shot that changed the course of history. No one
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  Speaker 1: knew where it had come from, and it's easy to
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  Speaker 1: understand why if you've been to the farm where it happened,
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  Speaker 1: I have, and it's a wide open space with a
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  Speaker 1: few period buildings, some of which still have holes in
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  Speaker 1: their walls where musket balls ripped through. It must have
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  Speaker 1: been chaos and eight colonial fighters were killed in the skirmish.
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  Speaker 1: Word of the attacks needed to be brought to nearby towns,
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  Speaker 1: including Wooster and Marlborough. The job was given to post
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  Speaker 1: writer Israel Bissell, only twenty three years of age and
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  Speaker 1: about to embark on the most important ride of his life.
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  Speaker 1: He was given an important letter written by Joseph Palmer,
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  Speaker 1: a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. In the letter,
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  Speaker 1: Palmer outlined the events that had transpired at Lexington that morning.
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  Speaker 1: Bissell raised it from Watertown to Worcester in only two hours.
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  Speaker 1: It said that his horse died from the effort once there.
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  Speaker 1: The letter was copied for other writers to carry throughout Massachusetts,
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  Speaker 1: and beyond warning everyone about what had happened, Bissell procured
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  Speaker 1: another horse and continued on his journey. He'd been told
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  Speaker 1: to seek out help from a Connecticut man named Israel Putnam.
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  Speaker 1: Putnam was a veteran in his own right, having fought
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  Speaker 1: in the French and Indian Wars. Before settling down on
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  Speaker 1: April twenty, Bissell told Putnam about the attack, which prompted
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  Speaker 1: the man to fetch his rifle from his barn and
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  Speaker 1: joined the fight. In the meantime, Bistill rode off again,
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  Speaker 1: this time to the coastal village of New London, Connecticut.
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  Speaker 1: The New Londoners were not as quick to believe him
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  Speaker 1: as Israel Putnam had been, nor the folks in Worcester.
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  Speaker 1: They needed to know that this was at all some
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  Speaker 1: sort of prank being pulled at their expense. Bissell had
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  Speaker 1: to provide Swarren testimony as to the truth about the
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  Speaker 1: information he carried, which took him hours to do so.
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  Speaker 1: Once he placated those New Londoners, though, he set out
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  Speaker 1: once more for New Haven, followed by Fairfield, where he
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  Speaker 1: was provided with a new horse which would carry him
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  Speaker 1: all the way to Manhattan. He gave the people of
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  Speaker 1: New York the news from Lexington before traveling through Princeton
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  Speaker 1: and Trenton, New Jersey, all the way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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  Speaker 1: By April, it took Bissile five days to go from Watertown,
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  Speaker 1: Massachusetts to Connecticut. New York, New Jersey, and finally Pennsylvania,
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  Speaker 1: but in doing so he managed to alert thousands of
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  Speaker 1: troops about the Lexington attack. Sadly, he was never immortalized
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  Speaker 1: in poetry for his efforts like Paul Revere, but perhaps
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  Speaker 1: he should have been. While Revere had traveled a mere
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  Speaker 1: twenty miles on his midnight ride, Israel Bistle had shown
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  Speaker 1: everyone the true measure of a postal worker and a patriot,
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  Speaker 1: covering a massive stretch of three hundred and forty five miles.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
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  Speaker 1: Ye