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260 | Root of the Matter · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production
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  Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world
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  Speaker 1: is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
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  Speaker 1: open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
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  Speaker 1: on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. The attempted murder by poison case
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  Speaker 1: grabbed the nation's attention in nine. In fact, even the
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  Speaker 1: most seasoned investigators in Austin, Texas had never seen another
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  Speaker 1: case like it. The victim, simply referred to as Treaty,
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  Speaker 1: had been one of Austin's oldest and most beloved residents,
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  Speaker 1: the last living survivor of a legendary council. The intended
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  Speaker 1: victims spent their days in the city's historic district, where
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  Speaker 1: they stood witnessed to a lot of history over the years,
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  Speaker 1: from the rebuilding of the state capital in eight or
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  Speaker 1: the Austin Damn failure, to the construction of several bridges
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  Speaker 1: and an airport, and the first days of the Dell
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  Speaker 1: Computer Corporation. And throughout it all this elderly citizens served
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  Speaker 1: the community well. In the early years, negotiations and other
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  Speaker 1: pivotal meetings had been Treatise thing, hence the nickname. Although
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  Speaker 1: to be fair, councilman and other leaders weren't the only
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  Speaker 1: ones to sit in the company of such an esteem citizen,
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  Speaker 1: Rain or shine, heat or cold. Austin's oldest resident was
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  Speaker 1: always there for the people of the city. Try as
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  Speaker 1: they may, no one could figure out why someone would
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  Speaker 1: want to poison such a truly outstanding member of society.
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  Speaker 1: Investigators couldn't ask, either, because Treaty was dying and incapable
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  Speaker 1: of talking. As the news spread, get well cards from
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  Speaker 1: children poured in. Small gifts began to pile up. A
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  Speaker 1: local spiritualist even tried her healing powers by transferring positive energy,
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  Speaker 1: during which time she claimed that Treaty had once, in
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  Speaker 1: another life, been in a Egyptian woman named Alexandria. Lacking
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  Speaker 1: scientific or spiritual abilities of their own, most citizens just
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  Speaker 1: wished Treaty a speedy recovery. Others sent in chicken soup.
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  Speaker 1: Texas resident and industrialist Ross Perot wrote a blank check
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  Speaker 1: for all care and treatment, as well as funding for
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  Speaker 1: the investigation, telling officials that no matter how much it
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  Speaker 1: cost or how long it would take, to just send
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  Speaker 1: him the bill with a generous funding. Specialists were called
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  Speaker 1: in and extensive round the clock work began. Nationwide News
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  Speaker 1: reports sparked outrage across the country. An innocent victim was
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  Speaker 1: barely clinging to life. The story even appeared in People magazine.
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  Speaker 1: As words spread, so too did offers to help. The
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  Speaker 1: manufacturer of the chemical used in the poisoning offered a
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  Speaker 1: ten thousand dollar reward for the capture of the assailant.
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  Speaker 1: On June twenty, police arrested Paul Cullen, who had been
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  Speaker 1: bragging about the attempted murder. And while we might imagine
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  Speaker 1: he'd poison treaty because of an outcome of one of
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  Speaker 1: the many negotiations in the past, Cullen said it had
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  Speaker 1: to do with a spell. He'd been in love, you see,
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  Speaker 1: and no not with the elderly resident. It seems that
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  Speaker 1: he'd been infatuated with a drug counselor who hadn't returned
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  Speaker 1: his affection. Treaty was just available. After the poisoning, Cullen
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  Speaker 1: returned to the scene of the crime. To him, watching
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  Speaker 1: his victim fade represented the death of his love for
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  Speaker 1: the counselor. While heroic efforts were underway to save treaties life.
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  Speaker 1: Jurors in the case debated on life imprisonment for Cullen,
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  Speaker 1: although they eventually agreed on just nine years. He'd go
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  Speaker 1: on to serve three of those and paid a one
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  Speaker 1: thousand dollar fine. And while it seems justice wasn't served,
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  Speaker 1: Treaty not only survived, but also managed to outlive Cullen,
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  Speaker 1: who died a few years later. Of course, healing took
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  Speaker 1: a lot of time, as you might imagine, a powerful
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  Speaker 1: poison had been used, an herbicide, in fact, enough to
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  Speaker 1: kill one trees. Today, Treaty is thriving, in fact, for
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  Speaker 1: the first time since the poisoning acorns have been gathered.
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  Speaker 1: You see, Treaty is an oak tree, more inappropriate, a
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  Speaker 1: species called a Texas live oak, and, according to the
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  Speaker 1: National Forestry Association, the most perfect specimen of that type
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  Speaker 1: of tree in North America. Austin's oldest living resident is
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  Speaker 1: over six d years old. Treaty and another thirteen Texas
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  Speaker 1: live oaks were once called the Council Oaks and were
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  Speaker 1: the sacred meeting ground for Native Americans long before settlers
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  Speaker 1: took over the region. There's no doubt that the attempted
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  Speaker 1: murder case is certainly bizarre. In fact, I can't help
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  Speaker 1: but agree with the people of Austin. Why would anyone
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  Speaker 1: want to kill the treaty oak? And why couldn't they
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  Speaker 1: just leave them alone? At Victoria found herself in a scandal,
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  Speaker 1: there would be others, plenty of them. In fact, the
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  Speaker 1: first involved her marriage, or more appropriately, her divorce. You see,
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty four women men who divorced their husbands
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  Speaker 1: were not only blamed for the marriage failing, but they
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  Speaker 1: were also socially shunned. It didn't matter that Victoria was
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  Speaker 1: the sole financial supporter while her husband spent his days
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  Speaker 1: either drunk or womanizing. So with two children in tow,
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  Speaker 1: Victoria divorced him, leaving a trail of gossip behind her.
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  Speaker 1: The talk didn't bother her, though she had grown up
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  Speaker 1: with worse. Her father had been an abuse of con artist.
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  Speaker 1: But instead of going along with the social norms that
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  Speaker 1: women didn't disclose such things, Victoria talked. Women's rights became
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  Speaker 1: her passion, and she believed women shouldn't have to stay
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  Speaker 1: in abuse of marriages, and that their role in society
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  Speaker 1: was far more than wife or mother. She married again
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  Speaker 1: a couple of years later. This time to a former
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  Speaker 1: Union Army colonel James Harvey Blood, who was also a freethinker.
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  Speaker 1: The two settled down in New York, where he introduced
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  Speaker 1: Victoria to others also taking part in reform movements. So
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  Speaker 1: in Victoria's sister, Tenny, also moved to New York. Women's
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  Speaker 1: rights were the only objects near and dear to the
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  Speaker 1: two sisters. Hearts, though they also believed in equality and
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  Speaker 1: were staunchly antislavery. Victoria quickly became interested in politics and
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  Speaker 1: attended rallies, where her own speeches of equality were considered radical.
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  Speaker 1: By eighteen seventy, Victoria and Tenny were also well known
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  Speaker 1: for spiritualism, soon becoming mediums for the wealthy. Cornelius Vanderbilt,
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  Speaker 1: the railroad tycoon, was so taken with the two sisters
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  Speaker 1: that he set them up in their own business, a
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  Speaker 1: stock brokerage firm, making them the first women stockbrokers in America.
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  Speaker 1: And here's the thing they were good at it. Vanderbilt
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  Speaker 1: made millions from Victoria and Tenny's recommendations. It made them wealthy,
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  Speaker 1: to prompting the New York Herald to call them the
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  Speaker 1: Queens of Wall Street. The idea that women were holding
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  Speaker 1: down such a position, much less outdoing their male counterparts
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  Speaker 1: didn't go over very well. Soon men's journals published articles
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  Speaker 1: depicting the two as immoral, unschaperoned women. They underestimated Victoria, though,
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  Speaker 1: and she decided to fight fire with fire. That's when
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  Speaker 1: the sisters sold the stock brokerage firm and founded their
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  Speaker 1: own newspaper. Aside from women's rights and suffrage, they printed
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  Speaker 1: controversial articles on spiritualism, human rights, birth control, and even vegetarianism.
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  Speaker 1: Mostly though, the paper set the stage for Victoria's run
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  Speaker 1: for a higher office, the American presidency, and this was
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  Speaker 1: well before women were even allowed to vote. Outrageous for
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  Speaker 1: the Times, sure, but Victoria was just getting started. Victoria
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  Speaker 1: chose a running partner that most of us would recognize today,
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  Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas. But in a world where the public feared
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  Speaker 1: the mixing of black and white citizens, a woman running
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  Speaker 1: for president had to be one thing. Choosing a black
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  Speaker 1: man for a vice president sent much of the public reeling.
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  Speaker 1: Friends and supporters of incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant quickly
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  Speaker 1: attacked her character. Victoria Woodhull was wicked, they said. One accuser,
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  Speaker 1: prominent minister Henry Ward, Beecher claimed that aside from being
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  Speaker 1: twice married and a promoter of free love, Victoria had
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  Speaker 1: also engaged in numerous affairs with married men. When Victoria
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  Speaker 1: learned that Beecher himself had been having an affair with
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  Speaker 1: a married woman in his congregation, she exposed the minister
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  Speaker 1: as a hypocrite, publishing the details of the affair in
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  Speaker 1: her own newspaper. The story quickly became a national scandal,
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  Speaker 1: and as a result, Victoria was arrested her crime publishing
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  Speaker 1: obscene content. She was eventually cleared of all charges on
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  Speaker 1: a technicality. By then, though the election was over and
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  Speaker 1: all the controversies surrounding her had inspired Harper's Weekly cartoonist
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  Speaker 1: Thomas Nast to publish a sketch of her. It showed
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  Speaker 1: a woman carrying multiple children and strapped with an angry,
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  Speaker 1: drunken husband on her back as she struggled to walk
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  Speaker 1: up a treacherous mountain. In the sketch, Victoria holds a
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  Speaker 1: sign up that reads save yourself with free love, and
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  Speaker 1: the caption beneath it read I'd rather travel the hardest
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  Speaker 1: path of matrimony than follow in your footsteps. Nast had
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  Speaker 1: depicted Victoria as the devil incarnate, spurring another nickname Mrs Satan,
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  Speaker 1: although today we might call her something else, a trailblazer.
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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.