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Selects: Who was America's first murderer? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Josh here with this week's s Y
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: s K selects. I've chosen who was America's First Murderer.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It's a classic episode from two thousand eleven, and it
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: has history, even more history, and at its heart it's
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: a true crime story. Uh plus is just straight up interesting.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: And we did record this ten years ago. So if
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: some of the words are language that we use seems
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: a little out of date, please forgive us. The world
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: has changed tremendously in the last decade. I hope you
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: enjoyed this one as much as we do, because it's
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: a great one. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: is Stuff you Should Know, Episode three. No, it's not
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: why I'm saying it is, Okay, So now it's episode
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: episode three something three nineer eight or that's good, Josh?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Is that your intro? Rocking and a rolling splitshing in
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: the splashing over the horizon? What could it be? Look
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: like it's gonna be a new country? You remember that one?
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: What are you talking about? That was genuinely have no idea.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: That was the the schoolhouse rock for the Mayflower Voyage,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: really rocking in a roll and splitsh it in the splash,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and you remember that over the horizon, what could it be?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Look like it's going to be a free country or
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: new country. Either way, it was both new and probably
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: knew because that was not free for everybody. That's true. Yeah,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: So you're talking about this because we're going to talk
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: about the first murderer, right, Yeah, And before we start,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I want to ask why has no one ever made
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a modern film about the Mayflower Voyage. It seems like
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a no brainer, you know. Yeah, I don't know, especially
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: after gotting around to it yet, like the awesomeness of
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Master and Commander. Did you ever see that, the one
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: with um Russell Crowe? Yeah, it was very good, surprisingly good. Yeah.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: It surprised me too. Actually, I didn't get the colon.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: It made it sound like it was a franchise, but
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: it was like the first of the franchise. It wasn't like, Oh,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I guess, I guess Pirates of the Caribbean did have
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a call in the first one, didn't it, I don't know, huh.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: But Master, that was Peter Weir master and commander. So
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: it makes sense that it was awesome because he's such
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: a great director and related to Bob we right, I think, really,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think so. I've always suspected.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Did he do the Treuman Show? Uh? That was written
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: by we did Gatica. I don't know who directed that.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: That That might have been Peter Weir, But he did
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Gallipoli and uh, like scores of great movies. Well cool, Well,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: thank you for joining us at this discussion of Peter
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Weir's films. He should direct the Mayflower movie was what
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: I'm say. For goodness sakes, Okay, they need to do
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: it like a realistic because you know, when you learn
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: about it in school, at least I did. I thought,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: you know, you learned about it from Schoolhouse Rock, and
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: you get the picture. They just sang songs and kind
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: of rock and rolled over the ocean and then ran
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: into Plymouth rock and shared Thanksgiving with the Indians. And
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: they need to make a real movie about how it
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: really was. Well, yeah, because you know, that whole Schoolhouse
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Rock impression is pretty widely held even among adults educated adults,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: And the reason why it is because there's a very
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: small amount of firsthand information that left Plymouth Colony right um,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and was allowed to stand. There was a small group
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: of people who were controlling all of the info about
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: that place, and they were trying to paint it in
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: as good a light as possible because they were trying
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: to attract investors. And these firsthand accounts that you know,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: basically painted the Puritans as you know, these hard scrapple
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: people who were um guided by a divine hand in
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the wilderness. Has stood all these centuries, hard hard scrapple.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about Let's talk about the Pilgrims the voyage,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: right they landed in sixty just as a quick primer,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: so says you, um. And they were Pilgrims. They were
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Puritans and separatists, as they were often called. They were
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: people who were so pious that no one in all
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: of Europe was pious enough to contend with them. And
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: they were like, I'm sick of all you sinners. Were
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: going to go found a new um, a new republic
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: in the in the name and for the glory of God,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: and we're going to be really, really good, and we're
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: going to do it in the new world, and that
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: that's what they did. They sailed over to Massachusetts and
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: landed in Plymouth. As it turns out, nice place to land,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I imagine. And uh, well, che, I mean, are we
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: going to get to the murder a guy right away
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: or should we just ease into that. Well, let's talk
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: a about who was there. It wasn't just Puritans, it
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: wasn't just separatists. There's a whole other group of people
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: who don't get talked about a lot. Uh. And they
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: were called the strangers. Yeah, that sounded really creepy when
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I read it. For some reason, I think it sounds cool.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I think it sounds creepy, Like they look like they
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: should have been dressed in like like the pilgrim black,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: like with why brim hats so you can't see their eyes. Yeah,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: what was the the deal with them? Were they Catholic?
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: They were anything but the separatists of the Puritans. So
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: they were Catholics. They were sailors, they were um Africans,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: they were whoever kidnapped Indians. I don't know if all
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: those people were on the main Flower, but there it was.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: There was a bunch of people, you know, got them
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: over there. He went with them and the Puritans were
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: pretty rigid. Obviously they didn't like Catholics at all. They
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: were indeed extremely rigid, but to this degree, as we'll see, Um,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: they they they found that like, no, nobody's this rigid.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: And there were a lot of strangers who broke all
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: out of laws, but um, there are a lot of
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Puritans who did too, um and they just kind of
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: glossed it over. They kept records, but these things just
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: didn't get promoted, right, Yeah, Mort's Relation, Yes, So what
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: you're talking about Mort's Relation written in sixteen twenty two
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: by William Bradford, who was clearly the governor, longtime governor
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: of Plymouth. His cousin George Morton wrote he was a
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: separatist and he wrote this book or an account, and
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: that was that sort of looked at as the account
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: of Plymouth. But as it turns out, as you point out,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: because you wrote this, Mortz Relation was written to attract funding,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: right for Plymouth. So it was basically like a lengthy,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: in depth brochure to attract investors. And what are you
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: going to say. You're not going to say, we're starving
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to death over here, we're having a really hard time
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: we're probably not going to make it. People are committing bestiality. Yes,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: buggery is what they call that. Huh, we'll get to that.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Of the okay, um and the not going to say this,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: they're going to say things are great, we're really you know,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: living and by God's will, we're really just making it
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: over here, and we need some more money. Yeah, yeah,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: they did, so that means take take it with a
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: grain of salt. They but they didn't just pretend like
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the strangers weren't there, but they painted some of the
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: strangers in possibly less than flattering light. Right. Uh yeah,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, are we at the Billington's Inn, might as
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: well be the Billington's the family, John Billington's, his wife
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: um eleanor his son's little John John Jr. And Francis,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: who was a boy his other son. They were sort
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: of painted as like reading your reading your article. They
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: sort of seem like, on one hand, like the first
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: white trash, you know, that's one way to put it,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: And then they also sort of seem like, no, you know,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: they might have been kind of cool and just rabble rousers. Yeah,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: or yes, I think that that's very accurate. But they
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: definitely weren't any friends of Bradford that he did not
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: like these people? No, he didn't. He called Um. He
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: wrote in a letter to a Mr Cushing. I believe
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: uh that who had some sort of authority I guess
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: in the over the colony in back in England. But
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: he basically says that Billington still rails against you, and
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: that he's a nave, which means a scoundrel. And he'll
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: always be a nave. He'll live and dies so and
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: and as so he'll live and die. Yeah. That was Kushman,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: by the way, thank you, the same thing. And uh
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: he also said that he quote he said they were
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: one of the profanest families to come to the colony.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just John, I mean they didn't. He
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: didn't like any of them. His kids were a bit
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: of a handful too, well, one of them. It doesn't
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: say who in the records. But on the way over
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Um decided that he was going to shoot off his
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: father's musket right gun in a cabin filled with people,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: which is bad enough, but he did it right next
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: to a open, half filled keg of gunpowder, right so
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: he almost just blew the whole Mayflower up and history
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: would have changed forever. Probably. So that was the first
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: thing that happened with the Billington's and the rest of
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the people on the Mayflower. No, actually it wasn't. There
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: was part. There was a mutiny that John Billington's, the father,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: was involved in um and he was he was let
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: off the hook because it was his first offense. But
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: he uh he that that started. Tensions were already high.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: And then one of his sons, either Francis or John Jr.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Shot off the gun in the cabin. So you start
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: to get an impression of this family, especially when you
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: look at you know, when you think of them bristling,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: not just the average persons, you know, ire, but a
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: puritan's ire, right, yeah, because you can screw up like
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: innumerable ways in the eyes of a Puritan, sure, especially
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: if you're not a Puritan, That's right. And then once
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: they got to the New World, Uh, they continue their shenanigans.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: John Jr. Kind of wandered off one day twenty miles
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: worth and wandered into a Native American village, and then
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: he was taken to another village by those Native Americans,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: and eventually they sent out a group to go find
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: him and took him a little while. They set sail,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: actually ended up on Cape Cod what is now Cape
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Cod and uh said, you know you're gonna have to
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: come back, Yes, And they found him because of Massive Swat,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: who was the great statum of the Wappanoag Wappag. Yeah,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: well panalog or get an email for that one. Um
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: who was involved in the first Thanksgiving with these same people.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: So he might have had something to do with that then, huh,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: well he did. He was already like he he basically
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: was Um trying to use the Englishman against his rivals,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I think the Abenaki um to basically run them out
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: rather than consolidate with the other Indians against the English.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: And basically that turned over the whole continent to Europe
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: like that one act is largely considered as the the
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: turning point. So he was already pals with him, um
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: and uh yeah, so he helped him find the boy.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: And if you're from Plymouth, if you live in the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Plymouth area, then you might know Billington Sea, which is
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: a pond and that's name for John Jr. Yeah, who
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: wandered off right. Yeah, I think that he might have
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: found that. I mean you know, he discovered the pond,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: but he may have discovered it on his wonder right
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: his sojourn. Yeah, but they found him and he was
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: quote be hung with beads. So apparently they you know,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: kind of adopted him a little bit like he was
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the mascot. Yeah, and then they gave him back. Yeah,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: and then the I think that the colonists gave the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Indians and a couple of knives and said thanks and
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: went back to Plymouth, thanks for the beads and the guy.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: But you have to imagine that mounting a ten man
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: sailing expedition into Indian country. Um, because your kid wandered off,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: it's gonna you're gonna You're gonna rub the back of
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: your neck and be like thanks a lot, you know. Yeah,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're at Billington's and you're like, thanks
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: for getting my kid back, you know, can I do
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I owe you anything? Or you know? Not so though,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: because Billington uh had a bad reputation in that he
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: scoffed at Captain Miles Standish and you don't scoff at
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Standish Miles Standish. Proud Miles Standard was trying to get
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: people to UH to you know, serve in the military,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and Billington was like, no, dude, ain't I'm not doing that.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: He was a part of anti government groups government subversion. Well,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: there was in there was called what's called the olderman
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Lyford Conspiracy. That was the name of two main conspirators.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: He was named as a co conspirator. And reading his
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: history and then this, you know, the the actual history
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: of this conspiracy, which is a lot of secret meetings
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: about how they should overthrow this Puritan regime and start
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: governing this colony the right way. Um, he was probably
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: a part of it, but he denied it and was
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: let off the hook again. Well, and he he was
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: also apologized for the UM for standing up against Standish
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: and they said they threatened him with hog tying, which
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: can actually kill you. I didn't realize that I could
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: see that because what you'r all your weights on your chest, right, Well,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: it's they tie your legs together, they tie your arms
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: behind your back, and then they tie your ankles to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: your neck around your neck. What So, unless you stay
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: completely arched like that, you're gonna start cutting off circulation.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Like it's a form of torture. It's not just how
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: we're gonna tie you up. Well, the that whole second
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: step has been kind of lost to history as I
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: understand it. Well, now is it just tying the hands
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: and tie your your hands and your ankles, your wrists
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: and your ankles together behind your back, and yeah, you're arched,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: But I don't know anything about tying the ankles around that.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: That's horrible. Apparently the old hog time is a little
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: more brutal. Yeah, which makes total sense. Which also makes
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: sense why he's described as basically like pleading for mercy
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: not to have that happened to him, and which is
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: why they let him go. Yeah, Miles Sands is like,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: all right, but get out of my site, Billington Diet,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and I mean, like there's really there's there's we can't forget.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: We can't leave out the fact that these people were
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: original plymouth colonists, like they were the first he's on
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: the charter, the first European, the first English European Americans,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: and the first what would become one of the first
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: states of America. Like, these are important people, no matter
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: what their reputations are. He was the signer of the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Mayflower Compact, which is the first um European based governing law.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I guess you would call it state of laws. Um,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: and he was he was. He helped Hugh the colony
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: out of the wilderness. He was one of the colonists,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: right yeah. And there's a pdf online I found that
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: traces his family tree and apparently James Garfield, the President,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: was a descendant of Billington's and it it. I mean,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: if you're I wish I would have written down some
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: of the last names. I A. Witten was one of them.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: But I mean there were people that have staid like
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: still alive today. Oh yeah, there's an apparently I remember
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: researching this. I couldn't find it when I reresearched for
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: this podcast. But there's like a whole group of people
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: who are into that kind of thing. We are proudly
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: ancestors of Billington's, this rabble rousing, the first like real
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: troublemaker in America. Well, people are proud period just to
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: be descendants of the Plymouth colonists for sure. So um,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: but you you, I hopefully everybody has like kind of
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: an idea of how Billington and his family were regarded.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Right Well, we didn't get to his wife and daughter.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I know that was after what he could, but his
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: wife was Eleanor was locked in the stocks and whipped
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: at one point. She was also had to pay fines
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: of five pounds sterling because she was found guilty of
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: slandering her neighbors and his granddaughter Dorcas. I love that.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: There's only one way to pronounce that, right, Yeah, d
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: O R c As. I'm gonna bring that one back.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: If I ever have a daughter, she's gonna be Dorcas.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Bryant uh Orcis apparently was sentenced to whipping because she
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: um had sexual intercourse when she was twenty two years old,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and you didn't do that. So um, yeah, the whole
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: family was definitely not They didn't fall in line with
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: with the rest of the crowd. Although that's that's not
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: true because a lot of the rest of the crowd
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: was doing even worse things. As it turns out, you
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: just didn't read it in the brochure, right, So can
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: we talk about some of the stuff that people were
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: doing please? Okay, So remember by there's still only seven
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: and fifty five people in Plymouth Colony. Okay, so this
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: this stuff is happening like twenty fifty years before that.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: The way fewer people, and yet there were incidents where
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: people like Thomas Granger, who was a servant UM was
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: indicted for buggery which we established before. It was beastiality
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: with a mayor, a cow, two goats, diverse sheep, two calves,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: and a turkey who he fell in love with. He
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: he was sentenced to hang by um or sentenced to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: die by hanging. Uh. John Walker the next year turkey
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: he yes, UM, he was. He laid with a bitch,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: as it's put and of course we mean the the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: well the pilgrims meant the dog, the female dog. Um.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Another guy was was he was held on suspicion of
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: buggery with the beast. Another guy had buggery with the mayor.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: And it just keeps going on and going on. So
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: basically somebody would get caught sleeping with a dog and
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: would be whipped, put into the stocks, pilloried, um. And
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: it was just recorded but never talked about. Yeah. There
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: was also rape in sodomy against humans going on. Yeah.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: The way they put sodomy was that they were um.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: These John Alexander and Thomas Roberts back in sixty seven
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: were called um and they got the hot irons, which wow,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: is that's rough. So you hear about this stuff and
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you think Dorcas doing, you know, sleeping with a man,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I presume is a very normal thing for twenty two
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: year old middle aged woman to do right at the time. Yes,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: she's not that, she's not laying down with the turkeys. No,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: so Eleanor got put in the stocks for slander. Right, Yeah,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: there's no recording of what she said or basically, we've
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: reached this point here where we should probably talk about
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: what John Billington did. Okay, because now that we've debunk
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: the fact that not everyone was super pure, and you
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: can't necessarily read uh Mort's relation and the brochure and say,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: you know, everything was just hunky dorry over there. This
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: maybe actually, maybe this is why the movie hasn't been made,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: because he wants to see a guy sleeping with the turkey.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think there's a market for movies.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: You paid a lot for it, you know, it's a
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: market for that, but it's not box office grossing record
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: breaking numbers. Peter Weir wouldn't touchdown or what the in football?
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: So um, we should probably talk about how Billington became
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: America's first murderer. It took it took place what ten
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: years after he got there, So you have to think like,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: this guy's an original settler and he's been farming and
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: hewing uh inn existence out for himself and other people.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And as a UM, an original Mayflower compact signer, he
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: got a bunch of land parcel to him, like this
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: is tens Land now. So but while he made an enemy,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: clearly one real enemy. He made quite a few, Bradford
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: being one of him. But he made one enemy named
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: John Newcomen, who was a newcomer as it turns out,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: to Plymouth. UM. He hadn't been there for ten years.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: And it seems like history is a little sketchy because,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: like you said, it's not all like recorded at that point.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: But one thing I read was it was possibly over
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: hunting rights. And don't know how true that is. It
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: is very true, it is. Yeah, there there's I when
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I was going back in UM reading the the source
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: material for this, I'm like, why did I Why was
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I so vague when I wrote this article? Because it
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: did that confirm? Did it confirm that? Yeah? Well so
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: in the Bradford's version basically is like this he wayed
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: at Billington Waylade. Newcoming, which we should explain what whyalate
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: is Waylade is like basically lying in wait and then murdering,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: like hiding in the bush as it premeditated. It's huge
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: if you read a stranger's account. There was an account
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: by a stranger and I don't know who. Um it's
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: not in this, not in the source I cited, but
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: um it talks about how Newcoming was already known to
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Billington's because he um, he used to steal from Billington's traps,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: he poached on his land, and um, Billington had chased
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the kid off a bunch of times. Newcomings seventeen at
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the time, gotches. He was jerk basically, and he was
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: what the strangers called a saint, which meant you were
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: in good with Bradford because you were a Puritan, and
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: compared to a stranger, you had exponentially more rights and
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: you got away with exponentially more stuff. Okay, so here's Billington,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: who already has a bad reputation, and there's some little
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: seventeen year old punk kid stealing from his traps who's
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: chased off time and time and time again, and um,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: he catches him there, so he goes after him with
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: his gun, and the kid goes and hides behind a tree,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: and Billington shoots at the tree. I don't know if
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: he meant to shoot at the kid. Apparently he was
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: a pretty good marksmant, but he hit the kid in
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the shoulder, not exactly a lethal shot today. Well, the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: kid died in like three days of an infection. That's
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: how the America's first murder took place, and it was
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: apparently with a blunderbuss. Have you ever heard of these guns?
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Is that the one with the big sort of like
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: you see fund as a pilgrim hunting with Yeah, a
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: little bit. I mean it's not like an elephant gun,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: but if it does flare out at the end, and
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like, um, what would be considered today,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like a sawt off shotgun. So like
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: it was a musket, but it was short and flared,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and so I imagine it it had a wider uh spray,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: even though it wasn't well, it wouldn't be a spray
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: because they didn't use pellets. But they compared it to
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: a sawt off shotgun. And what I read hand on
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the pump exactly. So, Um, that's how the first murder
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: took place. I get the impression. Billington, who was also
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: um described as um beloved by many. In another account
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: by a stranger, kind of a satirical take on Plymouth colony,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Thomas Morton in the New English Canaan said that he
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: was a beloved dude. He was beloved by many. Basically,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: if you were a stranger, you probably like Billington. He
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: sounded like a kind of a fun guy. To be honest.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I know he's the first murderer, but he's a rebel rouser.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I tend to associate with those types. Well, Billington thinks
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: that because of the the fact that they need people,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: they're still each individual is very important. Um, And that
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: this kid had been Really it was the kid's fault
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: that he was on his property. Billington had warned him,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: all warned him all that he would he would be
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: spared his life. Well, no, Governor Bradford himself was the
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: one who ordered him to death, and he didn't like
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: him to begin with, so he had his chance. So
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: this is um what you could call unfair to a
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: certain extent perhaps, And not only did Bradford sentence his
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: longtime enemy or somebody he disdained for many years to death.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: He was also the one who literally wrote the history.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: In addition to what is it Morts? What Mort's retort? Uh?
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Not Mort's retort. I was kidding Mort's relation. Okay. So
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: in addition to morts relation, the other probably largest cited
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: um firsthand account of Plymouth Plantation is called of Plymouth Plantation.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: It's Bradford's own journal. So he literally wrote the history
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: for Plymouth. And of course he's going to paint it
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in his He's going to paint himself and his fellows
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: in the best light, and that's what we go on,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: and Billington in a poor light because he sent it
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: him to hang. So I think, if anything, this Um
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: was the episode inten ended too. Tell you to always
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: take historical accounts of the Green install especially the old ones.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: There's always two sides to every story, and the three
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: stooges actually get better as you age stuff. You should
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: know you got anything else. Nope, If you want to
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: learn more about America's first murderer, type America's first murderer,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: America gonna be trouble saying that at these days. You
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: can type that in the handy. You can type wherever
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: you want, but you're gonna get the best result if
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: you type it in the handy search bart how stuff
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: works dot com. Sure uh, and that, of course brings
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: up listener mail. Yes, Josh, I'm gonna call this nicotine
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: poisoning from Aaron. A couple of years ago, guys who
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: came home from university to find my key wei roommate
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: working away in the kitchen. He decided to bake brownies
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: for the first time, and I hurried upstairs to try
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: something because he wanted to support his friend. Quickly, I
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: was overwhelmed by a sour taste, which was only mildly
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: canceled out by the cherries which were mixed in with
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the batter. It was very close to spitting it out
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: when my roommate walked in and said, what do you think.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to insult them, so I popped the
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: rest of it in my mouth and said I could
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: use a little more sugar. I left the room, and
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: that's when everything got hazy. What I do remember is
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: my roommates bursting into my room. This is crazy. They
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: found me curled up into a ball, with my head
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: between my knees, rocking slowly. I was covered in sweat
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and muttering to myself, letting out loud moans, which is
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: apparently what alerted my roommates when they opened the door.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: They flooded the room with light, caused intense pain in
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: my head and for some reason, in my stomach. Not
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: really thinking, I bolted to the bathroom and induced vomiting
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: trying to get all the evil out of me. I
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: was exhausted laying on the floor trying to figure out
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: what was wrong. Apparently there were two boxes on the table,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: did you read this? One one containing brownies and one
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: with shisha tobacco destined for the hookah that they kept
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: in their house. Far could in my haste, I accidentally
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: consumed about three ounces of cherry tobacco mix that was
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: destined for the hookah. I'm not sure exactly how much
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: nicotine my body absorbed in the hour or so it
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: was in me, but when I stood up, I promptly
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: passed out and, according to my roommates, started convulsing on
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the floor. They wanted to take me to the hospital,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: of course, but I refused. Being the bull headed midwesterner
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I sometimes can be or the college student who doesn't
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: want to pay for that kind of ning. When I
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: did go to the hospital the next morning, explained the
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: situation to the e R Tech. They immediately took my
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: vitals and said I was lucky, lucky to have survived
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: without any serious complications. Uh, that it very well could
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: have been a fatal dose. And all I can say is,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: if you're ever in the same situation, air on the
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: side of caution, called poison control right away. And he's
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: lucky that his roommates one of them had E M
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: T training because it could have gone the other way.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: And Aaron might not be a fan of our podcast
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: today man the ate who gets tobacco pot it in
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: his mouth and said it needs a little more sugar. Wow, Aaron,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you made it. Um if you had a yeah,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I'm very glad he's around so okay. And if you
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: are a member of the Billington clan by blood somehow
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: or marriage, whatever, we want to hear from you, send
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff works
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts, or wherever you
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.