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Drunk History · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Very few good decisions
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  Speaker 1: are made when people are drunk, whether they're calling up
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  Speaker 1: an old friend out of the blue or picking a
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  Speaker 1: fight with someone who is much bigger, It's safe to
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  Speaker 1: say that most actions performed under the influence of alcohol
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  Speaker 1: are often followed by regret, unless you're Russell Arundel. Arundel
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  Speaker 1: and his buddies had been drinking rum when they came
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  Speaker 1: up with a brilliant idea, one that would put them
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  Speaker 1: on the map literally. Aaron Dell was an American businessman
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  Speaker 1: who also worked as a lobbyist for pet Sicola. He
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  Speaker 1: had been traveling in Canada with some friends when he
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  Speaker 1: came across a tiny island about three acres inside off
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  Speaker 1: the coast of Nova Scotia. It was called Outer Bald
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  Speaker 1: Tusket Island, and up until that point it had been
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  Speaker 1: nothing more than a fishing camp. The nearby community of
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  Speaker 1: Wedgeport on the mainland had become a popular spot for
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  Speaker 1: tuna fishing thanks to an international tournament that had begun
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  Speaker 1: back in the nineteen thirties. Businessmen and celebrities from all
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  Speaker 1: over North America went there to participate, including Franklin Roosevelt
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  Speaker 1: and Amelia Earhart. Aarondel had come to partake in a
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  Speaker 1: few days of tuna fishing, and he did what many
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  Speaker 1: wealthy capitalists do when they see something they want. He
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  Speaker 1: offered to buy the place. The island's owners sold it
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  Speaker 1: to him for the low low price of just seven
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars. All of a sudden, Arundel had
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  Speaker 1: his very own patch of solid ground where he could
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  Speaker 1: wait out his seasickness or grab a bite to eat
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  Speaker 1: without having to row all the way back to the mainland.
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  Speaker 1: He returned one year later with plans to build a
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  Speaker 1: small house on the island, and he hired several locals
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  Speaker 1: to do the work while he and some friends went
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  Speaker 1: off fishing. One night, while waiting for the house to
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  Speaker 1: be completed, he and his buddies went for drinks at
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  Speaker 1: a fishing lodge in Wedgeports. They downed glass after glass
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  Speaker 1: of rum, and as their inhibitions waned, their ambitions grew.
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  Speaker 1: That's when Aaron Dell came up with what he believed
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  Speaker 1: to be a great idea. He was now the king
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  Speaker 1: of a new nation, one that would be separate from
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  Speaker 1: its Canadian neighbor. He and his friends drafted a declaration
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  Speaker 1: of independence, renaming the island Outer Baldonia. According to them,
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  Speaker 1: it would only be populated by fishermen, who would have
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  Speaker 1: the right to lie and be believed. Women were banned,
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  Speaker 1: and in another predictably sexist move, they also made questioning, nagging, shaving,
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  Speaker 1: and interruption illegal acts. The currency of this new land
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  Speaker 1: was called the tunar, and all citizens who caught blue
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  Speaker 1: fin tuna would be declared princes. In fact, Aarondell would
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  Speaker 1: go on to mail over twenty letters to people that
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  Speaker 1: he called acquaintances of caliber, naming them as princes. The
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  Speaker 1: island's primary exports would only be empty beer and rum bottles.
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  Speaker 1: Passports were issued, and at one time it boasted a
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  Speaker 1: navy of seventy admirals commanding all manner of vessels, mostly
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  Speaker 1: of the fishing variety. By all appearances, Outer Baldonia was
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  Speaker 1: as Valida nation as any other, and it had all
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  Speaker 1: been started over drinks at a bar. One year later,
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty, the principality of Outer Baldonia was listed
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  Speaker 1: in the Washington, Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Directory, using Aaron
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  Speaker 1: Dell's office phone number at the US Capitol as its
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  Speaker 1: point of contact. Matt Making company Rand McNally even included
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  Speaker 1: it on a map. For a time. Aaron Dell even
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  Speaker 1: tried to have Outer Baldonia stamps issued, but couldn't get
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  Speaker 1: the project off the ground. As the years went on,
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  Speaker 1: Aaron dal stopped visiting his micro nation as frequently, and
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  Speaker 1: it eventually faded into obscurity. In nineteen sixty seven, reporter
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  Speaker 1: Nancy co interview him for a story about Outer Baldonia
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  Speaker 1: that she was writing for Sports Illustrated. He told her
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  Speaker 1: how President Truman's former vice president had asked to be
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  Speaker 1: the Secretary of Treasury for his country, a nation without
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  Speaker 1: money or assets. By the early seventeen hundreds, Arundel had
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  Speaker 1: stopped visiting the island entirely, so he transferred ownership to
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  Speaker 1: the Nova Scotia Bird Society. Today, the islands still exists,
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  Speaker 1: but it's been converted into a bird sanctuary. Visitors are
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  Speaker 1: welcome to stop by and even hunt during the right season.
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  Speaker 1: Oh and the tuna fishing tournament has also returned after
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  Speaker 1: a forty year hiatus. Participants who catch something aren't named
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  Speaker 1: princes anymore, but they'll at least be able to grab
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  Speaker 1: a drink with friends if they want to, just as
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  Speaker 1: long as no one gets any wild ideas. Maria Martin
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  Speaker 1: was born in Polstead, Suffolk, in the early eighteen hundreds.
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  Speaker 1: She lived with her stepmother and her father, who worked
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  Speaker 1: as a mole catcher. By the time she was twenty four,
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  Speaker 1: she'd already had two children out of wedlock, something that
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  Speaker 1: was pretty scandalous in her day. William, quarters older brother,
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  Speaker 1: was one of the children's father's but William was the
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  Speaker 1: one who fancied Maria. His reputation as a con man
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  Speaker 1: and a womanizer preceded him wherever he went. Though He
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  Speaker 1: once sold the pigs on his father's farm without telling
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  Speaker 1: him and then pocketed all the money. His father settled
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  Speaker 1: the dispute without need for police or courts, letting William
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  Speaker 1: off the hook and teaching him absolutely nothing in the process.
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  Speaker 1: Later on, the young William graduated from petty theft to fraud.
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  Speaker 1: Upon being found out, he was exiled to London until
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  Speaker 1: his family started to dwindle. His older brother Thomas died
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  Speaker 1: after falling through some thin ice while trying to cross
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  Speaker 1: a frozen pond. His father and his remaining brothers didn't
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  Speaker 1: survive the next two years, leaving William and his mother
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  Speaker 1: to run the family farm together, and all the while,
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  Speaker 1: he and Maria Martin carried on a secret love affair.
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  Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty seven, she gave birth to her third child,
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  Speaker 1: this time by William. The arrival of the baby changed
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  Speaker 1: something in quarter, though, and he insisted that he and
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  Speaker 1: Maria get married. Even after the child died a short
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  Speaker 1: while later, he still wanted her to be his wife
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  Speaker 1: now because of her previous children, the church would never
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  Speaker 1: allow them to get married in a typical ceremony. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: William suggested Maria meet him at a local site known
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  Speaker 1: as the Red Barn, a house with a red clay
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  Speaker 1: tiled roof that had become sort of a landmark. From
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  Speaker 1: there they would travel to Ipswich and Elope. A few
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  Speaker 1: days before they were set to leave, William came to
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  Speaker 1: Maria's home and warned her that the local constable was
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  Speaker 1: on his way to arrest her. He urged her to
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  Speaker 1: sneak off to the Red barn as soon as possible.
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  Speaker 1: William would take her belongings ahead first, while she disguised
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  Speaker 1: herself in men's clothing and snuck out before the authorities arrived.
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  Speaker 1: She'd meet him in the barn and the two of
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  Speaker 1: them would leave for Ipswich. The barn was close by
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  Speaker 1: Maria's home. The journey wouldn't take long on foot, and
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  Speaker 1: once she and William were married, her legal problems would
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  Speaker 1: finally be behind her. She left right behind him and
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  Speaker 1: the two began their future together. William returned to town
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  Speaker 1: sometime after the wedding, except Maria wasn't with him. He
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  Speaker 1: said he couldn't risk to bring her along without angering
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  Speaker 1: her family, but they said they didn't care. They wanted
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  Speaker 1: to see her. Unable to fend off her loved ones
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  Speaker 1: any longer, William returned to his wife, but they never
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  Speaker 1: came back from there. He wrote letters to her family
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  Speaker 1: about what they were up to and that they had
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  Speaker 1: moved from Ipswich to the Isle of Wight, but he
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  Speaker 1: wrote the letters, not Maria. Her family kept repeatedly asking
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  Speaker 1: to see her to get some kind of update directly
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  Speaker 1: from her, but William kept telling them that his wife
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  Speaker 1: was sick. Or that her letters must have been lost
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  Speaker 1: in the mail. Meanwhile, Maria's stepmother was having dreams, vi
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  Speaker 1: bid dreams about her stepdaughter and her whereabouts. She dreamt
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  Speaker 1: that the young woman had been murdered and left to
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  Speaker 1: rot in the Red Barn, and after several nights of
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  Speaker 1: having the same dream over and over again, her husband,
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  Speaker 1: Maria's father, walked over to the Red Barn to put
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  Speaker 1: her fears to rest. Once there, he started digging where
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  Speaker 1: his wife told him the right hand bay of the
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  Speaker 1: far side of the barn. She'd seen it in her
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  Speaker 1: dream so clearly, and as he dug, his fingertips brushed
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  Speaker 1: against something. It was cloth, a cloth sack to be precise,
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  Speaker 1: and after pulling it out and looking inside, he recognized
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  Speaker 1: its contents immediately. It was his daughter Maria. The only
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  Speaker 1: suspect who came to mind was William Corter, the last
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  Speaker 1: person to have seen her alive. They finally tracked him
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  Speaker 1: down to a lady's boarding house in West London, a
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  Speaker 1: business he ran with his new wife Mary. The police
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  Speaker 1: arrested him and brought him back to Polstead for a trial.
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  Speaker 1: At first, he denied having killed her, but all the evidence,
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  Speaker 1: such as witness testimony and a green handkerchief of his
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  Speaker 1: that had been tied around her neck were enough to
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  Speaker 1: convict him. He spoke with a priest and decided that
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  Speaker 1: if he was going to hang for his crimes, he
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  Speaker 1: might as well do it with a clear conscience. So
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  Speaker 1: he finally made a formal confession. Yes, he had killed Maria,
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  Speaker 1: but it had been an accident, he claimed. After his execution,
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  Speaker 1: the crowd bought pieces of the rope he was hanged
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  Speaker 1: with for one guinea per inch. But the dream that
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  Speaker 1: led to his capture, that, my friends, it was priceless.
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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, end television
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  Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
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  Speaker 1: the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious. Yeah h