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The Windham Frog Fight of 1754 · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. No first question today, have
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Speaker 1: you ever been to like a weird themed town? You
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Speaker 1: know how some small towns have like they're they're big
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Speaker 1: specific events like we're the best funnel cake place, stuff
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Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, there was one time I went to
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Speaker 1: this weird town in the seaside of England and they
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Speaker 1: had everyone was really nice for a while, but then
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Speaker 1: they lured me into this giant wicker contraption and set
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Speaker 1: it on fire and I barely escaped with my life.
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Speaker 1: Does that country that didn't happen to me? Um? Now,
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Speaker 1: I don't know the themes town, maybe like a Mayfair
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Speaker 1: type situation, like some sort of old timey recreation thing,
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Speaker 1: or what do we tell like Helen Georgia. Maybe I've
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Speaker 1: been to Helen Georgia. It looks like a tiny German village.
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Speaker 1: It does, and it's it's a well worth the trip
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Speaker 1: if the weather is nice and you're out that way. Oh,
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Speaker 1: I'm Ben. There's our super producer Casey Pegrove and our
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Speaker 1: guest producer Andrew Howards. When I think of theme towns,
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Speaker 1: I tend to think of some of the same stuff
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Speaker 1: you mentioned, all like a big holiday celebration that people
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Speaker 1: have specific to that town. But then it could also
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Speaker 1: just be a theme that they're really into. Like let's
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Speaker 1: say I'm just making up an example here. Let's say
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Speaker 1: that several centuries ago town was saved by like a
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Speaker 1: little drummer boy, and you go there centuries later and
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Speaker 1: you see all these statues of little drummer boys, and
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Speaker 1: then things are named after the drummer, like it's Little
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Speaker 1: Drummer Boy Avenue or Little Drummer Boy Lane. Uh. Today's
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Speaker 1: episode is kind of in that same vein. But we're
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Speaker 1: knocking out two missions with one stone today because my friends,
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Speaker 1: I think we are finally back on our state by
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Speaker 1: state episode. Horse. Oh my goodness, Ben, that's exciting. By
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Speaker 1: the way, I'm Noel, and yeah, I just wanted to
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Speaker 1: point out a few really quick before we hop right
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Speaker 1: into today's theme town. Uh. There are lots of them.
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Speaker 1: It's a thing like Pella, Iowa, for example, is all
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Speaker 1: about the Tulip Time Festival, and Mount Airy, North Carolina
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Speaker 1: is basically a recreation of the Andy Griffith Show with
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Speaker 1: a Mayburry courthouse you can visit and and and all
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Speaker 1: that stuff. And then New Glaris, Wisconsin is themed after
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Speaker 1: like Switzerland. It's sort of like in the same way
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Speaker 1: that Helen is a small German village, New Glaris is
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Speaker 1: a tiny Swiss village, Ben, do you know about any
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Speaker 1: other weird towns with themes? I'm so glad you asked. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: shout out to lily Dale, New York, which is just
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Speaker 1: home to so many psychics and outsiders go to lily
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Speaker 1: Dell just to hang out with the psychics. And of
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Speaker 1: course the villages in Florida. Uh, no one living there
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Speaker 1: could be under nineteen and at least one member of
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Speaker 1: every house has to be over fifty five. But perhaps
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Speaker 1: one of the weirdest ones knowl is uh Thames Town, China,
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Speaker 1: which is located in song Jiang. It is a simulated
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Speaker 1: British city with everything amazing. Do they have fish and chips?
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Speaker 1: They have fish and choke certain newspaper. Well, now, Ben,
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Speaker 1: while all those towns sound amazing, we're not talking about
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Speaker 1: any of those towns today. I just wanted to establish
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Speaker 1: a legacy of themes towns. Today's town definitely fits amongst
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Speaker 1: those ranks, but has a much more Shelly say, amphibious theme. Yes,
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Speaker 1: that's correct. If you are driving through a tiny town
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Speaker 1: called Willomantic over in eastern Connecticut, you might notice things
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Speaker 1: are getting a little froggy in more ways than one.
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Speaker 1: There are lots of local businesses that are named after frogs.
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Speaker 1: You'll see frogs on logos, You'll see different statues of
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Speaker 1: frogs and main street and even the local graph heads.
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Speaker 1: Graffiti artists are spraying frogs around on the you know,
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Speaker 1: the local building walls. It's weird because there's a burrow
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Speaker 1: of Willimantic called Wyndham, and if you go to Wyndham
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Speaker 1: you will see this frog stuff turned up even further
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Speaker 1: turned Like if Willomantic main Street is an eight, windhom
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Speaker 1: is apparently and eleven. That's right. I mean you literally
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Speaker 1: have the city center featuring a bridge that's uh, that's
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Speaker 1: surrounded by these columns, each of which has an eleven
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Speaker 1: foot tall frog statue that's sort of gazing off into
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Speaker 1: the middle distance. So you might ask yourself why all
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Speaker 1: the frogs? Well, we're here to tell you. The New
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Speaker 1: York Times has a fabulous profile of exactly why all
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Speaker 1: the frogs? In an article from August nineteen six by
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Speaker 1: Robert A. Hamilton's, the title of which is the Frogs
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Speaker 1: and Spools of Wyndham Bridge, and he's referring to that
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Speaker 1: pretty odd Bridge situation that we just described. The story,
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Speaker 1: as it turns out, begins on June of seventeen fifty four,
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Speaker 1: when the residents of Wyndham were awakened by a bit
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Speaker 1: of a tumult, a bit of a hubbub in the
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Speaker 1: night um and all of them rushed from their homes
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Speaker 1: to see what all the fuss was about. Some of
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Speaker 1: them were really freaked out, running around screaming for their lives.
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Speaker 1: Even some were even armed and firing their weapons into
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Speaker 1: the night, which seems really dangerous with those other people around, ben,
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Speaker 1: what's going on? Why are they freaking out like this? Well,
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Speaker 1: they were freaking out because they thought it was yet
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Speaker 1: a another attack from either French or Native American forces,
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Speaker 1: which was something very much in the cards in the
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Speaker 1: seventeen fifties. But it turned out when dawn came, they
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Speaker 1: discovered the noise was not created by humans at all,
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Speaker 1: but instead by bull frogs fighting over the last dregs
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Speaker 1: of water that were in this pond that dried up
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Speaker 1: over the droughts, so awkward, little awkward. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's not not exactly the proudest moment maybe, but Wyndham
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Speaker 1: took it and ran with it. Because sure other towns
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Speaker 1: in the area had their fun, you know, in pubs,
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Speaker 1: making light of the people who were terrified of bull
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Speaker 1: frogs in Wyndham. But Wyndham did something really interesting. They
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Speaker 1: doubled down. They didn't bury this story. They decided to
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Speaker 1: lean into it and they said, look, we're gonna put
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Speaker 1: the frog on the town seal. We're gonna go all
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Speaker 1: in on this frog thing. And that's been the case
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Speaker 1: ever since. But if if you look the history, uh,
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Speaker 1: they were not being necessarily alarmist. They weren't flying off
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Speaker 1: the handle. If you were someone living in Wyndham in
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Speaker 1: the decades leading up to this time, you would have
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Speaker 1: freaked out too, because you would have had some reasonable
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Speaker 1: assumptions that people were coming to kill you, right, absolutely,
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Speaker 1: not only people, but like just life, like the the
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Speaker 1: the elements, you know, the Nate, the gods. Perhaps it
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Speaker 1: seemed as though, um, this tiny, tiny town population of
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Speaker 1: only a thousand was really kind of in some ways cursed.
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Speaker 1: It would seem in the summer of seventeen fifty four. Uh,
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Speaker 1: this would have been considered a frontier town. But like
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Speaker 1: you said, been the French and Indian War um had
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Speaker 1: broken out in May of that year. Uh, and that
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Speaker 1: was really threatening these these homesteaders. And also a drought
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Speaker 1: was threatening the crops that they had worked so hard
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Speaker 1: to cultivate. And Connecticut resident in general, we're living in
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Speaker 1: a constant state of anxiety as this French and Indian
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Speaker 1: War kind of really stirred things up. You know, they
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Speaker 1: were constantly living in fear of attacks, you know, from
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Speaker 1: the tree line surrounding their homesteads, and really kind of
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Speaker 1: that paranoia was certainly part of everyday life. But Wyndom
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Speaker 1: had it even worse because they were threatened by a
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Speaker 1: lot of natural phenomena as well that kind of doubled
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Speaker 1: their anxiety and their sort of fear of absolute annihilation. Yes,
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Speaker 1: we're talking about the ever present threat of disease, drought.
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Speaker 1: You know, these are agricultural communities, so people are at
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Speaker 1: the mercy of the weather. And of course, uh, different
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Speaker 1: contingents of people fighting in the French and Indian War
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Speaker 1: could easily overwhelmed this small town. And there were so
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Speaker 1: many rumors that were circulating in the area. The game
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Speaker 1: of telephone was in full swing. You might not be
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Speaker 1: able to prove that there were atrocities just up the way,
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Speaker 1: but you couldn't prove that they weren't happening either. So
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Speaker 1: this is a really fearful time, kind of like the
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Speaker 1: residents of the Tune from our Mad gas Er episode.
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Speaker 1: We're also terrified about ongoing conflicts or the horrors of war,
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Speaker 1: and so all of this, all of this is happening.
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Speaker 1: If you're the average resident of Wyndham, you are at
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Speaker 1: least a couple of times a day thinking is this
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Speaker 1: going to be the day that someone attacks our our
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Speaker 1: little community. So it's not a surprise that in the
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Speaker 1: dark of night June seventeen fifty four, they start hearing
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Speaker 1: a ruckus and a rumble, louder and louder and louder.
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Speaker 1: Who is it? They're thinking, who is coming to kill us?
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Speaker 1: Because this happens like really late, shortly after midnight, and
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Speaker 1: at first people had no idea what it could be.
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Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people have different guests too.
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Speaker 1: So according to the reports that we've read, the first
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Speaker 1: person to hear the noise was a servant of a
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Speaker 1: local parson, which I believe just means like a preacher,
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Speaker 1: right like in Frosty the Snowman, And pretend isn't that
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Speaker 1: he is Parson Brown? Remember that I think that means
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Speaker 1: the preacher anyway. Um. This guy's name was pomp and
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Speaker 1: he was the first to hear the noise when he
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Speaker 1: was coming home around midnight after hanging out with a
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Speaker 1: with a lady lady friend of his at a nearby farmhouse,
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Speaker 1: and he walked down the street when he neared the
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Speaker 1: part of the town called Wyndham Green. Um, he began
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Speaker 1: to hear this really bizarre noise that absolutely terrified him,
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Speaker 1: and it was echoing no, not cool, not cool. Well,
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Speaker 1: I would be freaked out too. The bull frogs make
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Speaker 1: really scary sounds. Um. But it seemed to come from
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Speaker 1: everywhere all at once, so this almost could have had
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Speaker 1: the feeling of some sort of like supernatural event too,
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Speaker 1: especially in the dark of night. Um. He ran home
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Speaker 1: and awakened his master, Parson White, who then you know,
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Speaker 1: doubled down on what he heard as well and sounded
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Speaker 1: the alarm, waking up everybody nearby who hadn't already been
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Speaker 1: awakened by the sound and the screaming of of the servant,
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Speaker 1: and the noise continued to, you know, just kind of
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Speaker 1: increase at this fever pitch, and many folks thought that
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Speaker 1: it was some sort of Native American chant, of some
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Speaker 1: sort a war cry perhaps, and that they were coming
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Speaker 1: to descend upon them. They would all be dead by dawn. Yeah,
11:43
Speaker 1: this pomp and circumstance quickly got out of control. Other
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Speaker 1: people said, no, this isn't a spell. Uh, these are
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Speaker 1: the war whoops. These are actually the war cries of
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Speaker 1: all called me Native American forces. And then other people said, no, no,
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Speaker 1: I know a little bit about the native populations. They're
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Speaker 1: actually just yelling gin and rum. It's still bad because
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Speaker 1: they're coming for us. And then some maybe more religious
12:15
Speaker 1: folks thought that what they were hearing what appeared to
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Speaker 1: sound like this cacophonous roars, were instead trumpets of the
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Speaker 1: biblical judgment day. But one guy stepped in and said, hey,
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Speaker 1: it can't really be the day of Judgment because you know,
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Speaker 1: it's like just after midnight, it's not even dawn. Uh.
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Speaker 1: Some people thought that they could hear noises being called
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Speaker 1: out in this pandemonium, especially two of the town's military leaders,
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Speaker 1: Colonel Dyer and elder Kin, And luckily, unluckily for the town,
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Speaker 1: Dire and Elderkin were actually you know, they were they
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Speaker 1: were in the community at the time. So their children
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Speaker 1: just crying, you know, where are my parents. Their men
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Speaker 1: who are like grabbing all the weapons they can. There
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Speaker 1: are women who are shrieking all the while this mournful
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Speaker 1: sound is creating a end of Days kind of soundtrack.
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Speaker 1: And then you know, this army kind of gets together
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Speaker 1: on the green and people have whatever they could grab, pitchforks, knives,
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Speaker 1: old swords, a few had guns. Uh. And then this
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Speaker 1: is when people started calling for Colonel Dyer and elder
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Speaker 1: Kin to take charge. Basically, right, that's exactly right. And
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Speaker 1: John Adams had some things to say about one of
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Speaker 1: these folks, this lawyer by the name of Elaphilett Dire,
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Speaker 1: who referred to as long winded and tedious but an honest,
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Speaker 1: worthy man. Uh. And he was the leader of the
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Speaker 1: town's militia. Then the militia sprung into action. Um. Then
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Speaker 1: you had this guy, Jedediah Elderkin, who was another lawyer,
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Speaker 1: presumably also long winded and tedious but also hopefully honest
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Speaker 1: and we're worthy. But we don't know that for a fact,
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Speaker 1: as John Adams did not opine on Jedediah Elderkin. I
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Speaker 1: love that name, by the way, Jedediah. It's hard to
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Speaker 1: say a lot of d sounds in this dude's name.
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Speaker 1: So he, along with Dire, were apparently planning to colonize
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Speaker 1: the Susquehanna Valley. By the way, Jedediah Elderkin and Dire
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Speaker 1: had actually planned to extend their colony into the Susquehanna Valley,
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Speaker 1: but the residents of Wyndham, who referred to themselves as
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Speaker 1: window mites, which I love, decided this was a bad
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Speaker 1: idea because they thought it would anger in their minds.
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Speaker 1: The Native Americans that lived around this area missed opportunity
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Speaker 1: to call themselves the windhammer or the wind jammers. Perhaps
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Speaker 1: we'll work on that, um, But it makes sense they
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Speaker 1: were already living in fear of these attacks. They didn't
14:46
Speaker 1: want to a further upset the apple cart. So we're
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Speaker 1: back to, you know, the night of the quote unquote attack, UM,
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Speaker 1: and these folks are understandably freaked out there hearing things
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Speaker 1: they're they're you know, playing into the sounds that they're hearing.
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Speaker 1: I mean, your ears can absolutely play tricks on you,
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Speaker 1: especially when your mind is unsettled in such a way.
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Speaker 1: So they're waiting around, hiding, you know, like you said, Ben,
15:08
Speaker 1: presumably arming themselves with whatever they had around um and waiting,
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Speaker 1: you know, for what they believed was going to be
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Speaker 1: a painful death. And they were firing into the darkness
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Speaker 1: throughout most of the night, those who had muskets, and
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Speaker 1: they noticed that as dawn approached, the sounds began to
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Speaker 1: die and they began to fade out. Uh. And then
15:34
Speaker 1: eventually a group of brave, courageous men formed a scouting
15:39
Speaker 1: party and they ventured out to the place where the
15:43
Speaker 1: sound came from, as near as they could tell. And
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Speaker 1: that's when they saw, not very far away at all,
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Speaker 1: about a hundred yards into the woods, local pond that
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Speaker 1: had almost dried up. And this is this is kind
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Speaker 1: of a sad part. Across the bed of the dry pond,
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Speaker 1: they found dozens and dozens of dead bullfrogs. The story grew.
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Speaker 1: You'll hear some accounts say hundreds of dead bull frogs,
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Speaker 1: and then swore people say thousands. Uh. But anyway, it
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Speaker 1: was a lot of frogs, and the scouting party realized
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Speaker 1: it was these frogs fighting, you know, for the last
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Speaker 1: bits of water in the pond that had generated this
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Speaker 1: noise that scared everyone so and interesting fun fact, the
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Speaker 1: pond belonged to dire And so what they realized was
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Speaker 1: what the I'm sticking with wind hammers. What the wind
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Speaker 1: hammers had heard were the first the battle cries and
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Speaker 1: then later the death knells of these poor thirsty bull frogs.
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Speaker 1: That was the whole, the whole thing. And oh, the
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Speaker 1: scouting party was just three guys. How did the townspeople
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Speaker 1: take it when they heard about this, Well, let's just
16:57
Speaker 1: say they felt a little little bit silly. I don't
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Speaker 1: want to impart my own interpretations too much on them,
17:04
Speaker 1: but there there is a sense of kind of humiliation,
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Speaker 1: of of feeling as though they overreacted. Again, this is
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Speaker 1: from from various reports. We've got some journal entries. Actually
17:15
Speaker 1: we're gonna read in just a second. They'll give you
17:17
Speaker 1: a little bit more of a sense of how this
17:19
Speaker 1: was received. Uh. But um, they they weren't had somewhere angry.
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Speaker 1: Some decided to make light of the situation. That's probably
17:28
Speaker 1: what I would have done. And that's ultimately it seems
17:30
Speaker 1: like the direction they chose to go as a as
17:33
Speaker 1: a town. Yeah, some you know, just we're like, we're
17:37
Speaker 1: never gonna talk about this again. Uh. And it didn't.
17:39
Speaker 1: You know, this town was so small again, only a
17:41
Speaker 1: thousand residents. They didn't even have their own newspaper. But
17:45
Speaker 1: word of mouth is a thing in and of itself,
17:48
Speaker 1: especially around this time, you know, when that was one
17:50
Speaker 1: of the only ways for stories like this to spread
17:52
Speaker 1: and kind of a frontier situation. Um. And the story
17:55
Speaker 1: did spread, and the wind Hammy's became kind of a
17:59
Speaker 1: laughing stuff. Yeah, it's something that people joked a lot about.
18:04
Speaker 1: And remember, as we said, Elderkin and I are both lawyers,
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Speaker 1: So lawyers in particular in this region of the Northeast
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Speaker 1: start to harass their colleagues with this story. You know, like, hey,
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Speaker 1: watch out, dire door. I checked. There aren't new frogs
18:21
Speaker 1: in there. Um. And people have more healthy approach to
18:24
Speaker 1: like some folks just threw up their hands and laughed
18:27
Speaker 1: at it. We know that Reverend Styles of Woodstock wrote
18:32
Speaker 1: about this to his nephew who was a law student,
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Speaker 1: and just an excerpt of the letter Here he says,
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Speaker 1: if the late tragical tidings of Windham deserve credit as
18:43
Speaker 1: doubtless they do, it would then concern the gentlemen of
18:46
Speaker 1: your Jurisprutian, which is a word I didn't know as
18:48
Speaker 1: a thing, order to be fortified against the dreadful crooks
18:52
Speaker 1: Torrian legiance, allegiance terrible is the very wreck of matter
18:56
Speaker 1: and the crash of worlds. Antiquity relates that the elephant
18:59
Speaker 1: fee is the mouse. A Hebrew trembles at the prowing
19:02
Speaker 1: of the cock, but pre WinCE is it that the
19:04
Speaker 1: croaking of a buffalo should so sad rise a lawyer,
19:09
Speaker 1: bell shadow rise, Holy cow. I'm sorry, Ben, I'm gonna
19:13
Speaker 1: need to unpack this. We've got some new words. There's
19:16
Speaker 1: some new terms. So if the late tragical tidings from
19:20
Speaker 1: Wyndom deserve credit as doubt as they do, it will
19:23
Speaker 1: then concern the gentleman of your juris Prussian, order to
19:27
Speaker 1: be fortified against the dreadful crooks of tarian legions. Okay,
19:32
Speaker 1: so they're basically just mocking them and and sort of
19:35
Speaker 1: acting as though frogs are some sort of terrifying force.
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Speaker 1: Was that kind of the idea Yeah, they're they're saying, Um,
19:44
Speaker 1: it's funny because it's it's like a fake warning to
19:49
Speaker 1: his nephew, like, Hey, you know you're going to be
19:52
Speaker 1: a lawyer now, so get ready for frogs watch out
19:56
Speaker 1: for that. Yeah, I gotta Ben, I'm going to aren't
20:00
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to incorporate belshaz eyes into
20:04
Speaker 1: the regular conversation. And there's one more little snippet here
20:06
Speaker 1: at the bottom, dire fuli Allah made of these audacious,
20:10
Speaker 1: long winded croakers things unattempted yet in prosal rhyme. What
20:15
Speaker 1: does the word Torrian mean here? Ben Torrian terrors in
20:19
Speaker 1: chimeras dire Obviously that's referenced to die or the lawyer
20:23
Speaker 1: and the militia leader. But what we've we've heard Torannian
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Speaker 1: is that the reference to the frogs genus or something
20:30
Speaker 1: like that. It's an interesting question because it's weird because
20:34
Speaker 1: he spells it Torreon and the first paragraph, and then
20:38
Speaker 1: Rannion in the second, So maybe some of that is
20:42
Speaker 1: just his handwriting. I was always under the impression that
20:47
Speaker 1: Torrian meant things relating to the sign of right. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I just googled it and got the same don't see
20:54
Speaker 1: any froggy connections there at all. Um, well, any etymological
20:59
Speaker 1: experts out there, let us know what you think or
21:02
Speaker 1: if this is something that's come up before. Obviously, one
21:05
Speaker 1: last sentence here, second time Trannian terrors and chimeras dire
21:10
Speaker 1: I hope, sir, from the Dire Full now that's the
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Speaker 1: Now they're making fun of dire and making his name
21:16
Speaker 1: into an adjective, right, and the from the dire Full
21:19
Speaker 1: reports from the frog Pond you'll gain some instruction as
21:23
Speaker 1: well as from the report of my Lord Cook. So
21:27
Speaker 1: he's like the fun uncle. That's the That's what this
21:30
Speaker 1: letter is is meant to convey to his nephews, like
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Speaker 1: frogs lawyers, you're gonna be one of those, watch out, bro.
21:38
Speaker 1: But instead he used Belle shazarries, which I think we
21:42
Speaker 1: both love. I hope you love it too. And so
21:45
Speaker 1: as this, as this continues, we should mention the only
21:49
Speaker 1: fatalities that night were frogs, which is regrettable, but still
21:53
Speaker 1: nobody in the town was even injured, I believe, but
21:56
Speaker 1: but not like due to stomping from townspeople. It was
21:59
Speaker 1: literally because they were thirsty, right, and they're malnourished in
22:02
Speaker 1: some way right, Yeah, exactly, it's because they couldn't survive
22:06
Speaker 1: the drought. Uh So, as the years go on, and
22:10
Speaker 1: I think partially because nobody was seriously injured, future generations
22:15
Speaker 1: talk about these jokes. They circulate in the area, and
22:19
Speaker 1: eventually the wind to Mikes, the winds Hammers get kind
22:24
Speaker 1: of proud of this. You know, this is before HP Lovecraft,
22:28
Speaker 1: so the association of small New England towns with amphibians
22:33
Speaker 1: is still not seen as a sinister thing. Uh And
22:37
Speaker 1: now it's like it's immortalized and not just letters but
22:40
Speaker 1: a lot of poems and songs from the times. Uh
22:44
Speaker 1: and we we have a few here. We know that
22:47
Speaker 1: the story even went all the way across the pond
22:49
Speaker 1: to Europe and people were talking about that's right. It
22:53
Speaker 1: really became Yeah, I don't know, like good natured ribbing,
22:58
Speaker 1: good natured ribbety that for sure. I'm sorry, But bull
23:02
Speaker 1: frogs crow bull frogs do croak and ribboning would have
23:05
Speaker 1: been an easier sound to pick out, I think in
23:07
Speaker 1: the night, whereas you know, croak and a chorus, like
23:10
Speaker 1: a comphony of croaks that kind of coalesced together into
23:13
Speaker 1: this like huge drone. A lot less a lot more
23:18
Speaker 1: sinister rather than just a few errant ribbts, Right, But
23:21
Speaker 1: it did kind of become sort of a pop cultural phenomenon. Right.
23:25
Speaker 1: There were songs and poems that were, you know, committed
23:28
Speaker 1: to print and circulated in the nineteenth century. One example,
23:32
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty one, UM was the Ballad of the
23:36
Speaker 1: Bull Frog Fight, A ballad of the olden time, um,
23:39
Speaker 1: And it starts off with a dire, full story, Must
23:42
Speaker 1: I tell should I at length relate at once a
23:45
Speaker 1: luckless town? Befell in wooden nutmeg state? I guess that's
23:51
Speaker 1: the reference to Connecticut, ben, I guess, so yeah. I
23:53
Speaker 1: always thought it was the Constitution. Maybe maybe it's the
23:57
Speaker 1: wooden nutmegs. They so, yeah, you're you're right. There were
24:01
Speaker 1: we know there were at least two other ballads that
24:04
Speaker 1: were written about what came to be called the Great
24:06
Speaker 1: Windham Frog Fight. There was an operetta, which I thought
24:10
Speaker 1: was awesome, called the Frogs of Old Windham from a
24:14
Speaker 1: tight uh. And then after the American Revolution occurred, the
24:19
Speaker 1: Windham Bank even started issuing bank notes with an image
24:23
Speaker 1: of a frog standing over the body of another frog.
24:26
Speaker 1: Of course, long time listeners you'll recall that during this
24:31
Speaker 1: period in history, it was a lot easier for banks
24:33
Speaker 1: to just decide they were going to make their own
24:35
Speaker 1: bank notes essentially coupons, right, exactly right, But no, what
24:40
Speaker 1: about Windham to date? Yeah, we sort of set the
24:43
Speaker 1: stage without a little bit with their you know, froggy
24:46
Speaker 1: regalia and these giant sculptures on top of those pillars,
24:51
Speaker 1: you know, on either side of that bridge. But the
24:54
Speaker 1: what we would refer to as the Willamantic section of
24:57
Speaker 1: Windham um became ultimate a ly a factory town that
25:01
Speaker 1: made goods, you know, like silk and cotton thread, and
25:06
Speaker 1: it became quite a boomtown as the American Thread Company
25:09
Speaker 1: located its headquarters on the banks of the Willimantic River,
25:13
Speaker 1: and that became Connecticut's largest employer. Connecticut being a relatively
25:17
Speaker 1: small state and and this being a really incredibly small town.
25:21
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. Um. So today you do have those
25:24
Speaker 1: eleven foot frogs on these giant spools of thread that
25:29
Speaker 1: kind of combine the two things the town is most
25:32
Speaker 1: known for. And they actually you know, are set up
25:35
Speaker 1: almost to look like you know, froggy centurions guarding the
25:39
Speaker 1: thread City crossing or this frog bridge. Yeah, and you
25:45
Speaker 1: can see pictures of these frog sculptures pretty easily online.
25:50
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. They weird me out just a
25:53
Speaker 1: little bit because the frog's eyes are these large, almost
25:58
Speaker 1: copperesque looking spheres that are blank, and they've got some
26:02
Speaker 1: curly cue stylization on them. Uh, it looks like it
26:07
Speaker 1: looks kind of sci fi, like from an alien civilization.
26:10
Speaker 1: But you can definitely go see these. And if you
26:14
Speaker 1: want to see the site of the bloody bullfrog battle itself,
26:19
Speaker 1: you'll need to be a little bit careful because it's
26:23
Speaker 1: now privately owned. It's along a state highway. The town
26:28
Speaker 1: made a marker indicating where the pond existed in the
26:32
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, but they moved it because underbrush was growing
26:36
Speaker 1: over it. Because now that sign is on the spot
26:39
Speaker 1: where all the village people gathered back in seventeen fifty
26:43
Speaker 1: four convinced it was the end of the world. Oh
26:47
Speaker 1: and no, some of those frogs there are sculptures around
26:51
Speaker 1: the town even have names. There's Willie and Manny after Willimantic. Correct,
26:58
Speaker 1: we've got Swift Deep, presently named after the fans of
27:01
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift. No, I'm kidding. It's actually reportedly named after
27:05
Speaker 1: the Algonquin meaning of william Antic itself, which is land
27:11
Speaker 1: of the swift running water, which immediately makes me think
27:16
Speaker 1: of the scene in Wayne's World where Alice Cooper explains
27:19
Speaker 1: that Milwaukee comes from the Algonquin word Milliwoauke, which means
27:23
Speaker 1: the good land. M hm hm. There was a frog
27:28
Speaker 1: parade in two thousand five and Windham wait with actual frogs, well,
27:34
Speaker 1: actual fiberglass frogs, so actual frogs asterix. They were painted.
27:39
Speaker 1: It's similar to that thing we have in Atlanta where
27:42
Speaker 1: different artists had painted these cow sculptures to remember that. Yes,
27:47
Speaker 1: so they painted these frogs and they paraded them through
27:51
Speaker 1: the town and then they were displayed for a while
27:53
Speaker 1: before they were auctioned off for charity. So if you
27:57
Speaker 1: go to Windom today, which uh seems to be a
28:01
Speaker 1: lovely place to visit, then you will see these various
28:04
Speaker 1: frogs laying around. But no, Andrew, fellow, ridiculous historians. If
28:13
Speaker 1: you spend some time in Wyndom and you make friends
28:17
Speaker 1: with the locals and you chat them up, you might
28:20
Speaker 1: meet some history buffs who have a different theory about
28:23
Speaker 1: why those bullfrogs were screaming in the first place. Ha ha,
28:32
Speaker 1: Ben the twists in the story, Why were the frogs
28:37
Speaker 1: making so much noise? We know they were a little
28:40
Speaker 1: bit thirsty and they were trying to get to that
28:42
Speaker 1: last little bit of water in the pond and that
28:45
Speaker 1: lowered pond. But what was going on that led to that.
28:48
Speaker 1: Susan Z. Harrick, an assistant professor in residence at the
28:52
Speaker 1: University of Connecticut's Biology Department, actually grew up in Wyndom,
28:56
Speaker 1: and she has a theory about what insided the original
29:01
Speaker 1: incident with the frogs that caused all of that chaos.
29:05
Speaker 1: So the story or the legend, I guess, I don't know.
29:07
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a little more than a legend. But
29:09
Speaker 1: initially it claims that the frogs were fighting for this
29:13
Speaker 1: little bit of water remaining in that pond. But Herrick,
29:16
Speaker 1: who herself is an expert in frog behavior, thinks that
29:22
Speaker 1: the frogs were actually getting it on. They were they
29:26
Speaker 1: were making sweet love, presumably in the last remaining splashes
29:31
Speaker 1: of that that lowered pond. M h. Yeah. The noises
29:37
Speaker 1: are what Herrick calls advertisement calls that tells other males
29:44
Speaker 1: about the male making the call. So it's kind of
29:46
Speaker 1: like it's kind of like if you had a song
29:50
Speaker 1: and you were like, I'm in great shape, I'm young,
29:54
Speaker 1: this is my spot of the pond. Also, if you're listening,
29:59
Speaker 1: I'm single, ladies, so be more like I've got a
30:04
Speaker 1: dad body, I've got an okay job, I'm kind of
30:07
Speaker 1: a professional nerd, and I've got a little bit of water.
30:11
Speaker 1: Come on, ladies, let's go so the So imagine then
30:15
Speaker 1: these kinds of songs, they're being dozens and dozens of
30:19
Speaker 1: them at minimum right shouted over each other. And this
30:26
Speaker 1: could easily explain the situation. But Herrick has found that
30:30
Speaker 1: oddly enough, it looks like usually instead of shouting over
30:33
Speaker 1: each other, neighboring frogs would take turns. One person would
30:37
Speaker 1: say their song, which I won't reveal on air, but
30:40
Speaker 1: you know, right to me, other species of frogs will
30:45
Speaker 1: just crowd together with a little less strategy. They'll figure
30:49
Speaker 1: out where females of their species may be, and they'll
30:52
Speaker 1: just all run up there shouting. Eric has this awesome line, Um,
30:57
Speaker 1: I really appreciated this. If you're listening to Susan Eric,
31:00
Speaker 1: she said, it's like a singles bar scene in human society,
31:06
Speaker 1: but for frog Yeah, and I don't know. I feel
31:09
Speaker 1: like we all know how that usually turns out. It
31:13
Speaker 1: makes me think of like the two dudes from Night
31:15
Speaker 1: at the Roxbury who are like both simultaneously trying to
31:18
Speaker 1: hit on one woman and they end up just kind
31:21
Speaker 1: of banging against her repeatedly until she just freaks out
31:24
Speaker 1: and runs away. You know that that seems like if
31:26
Speaker 1: I was inundated, You know, if I was a female
31:29
Speaker 1: frog and I was being inundated by all these calls,
31:31
Speaker 1: I might just be like, yo, I don't think I
31:33
Speaker 1: wanted anything to do with any of y'all because you
31:36
Speaker 1: clearly have no restraint and um, it's kind of gross.
31:40
Speaker 1: So that's just my two cents there, and there's Herrick
31:44
Speaker 1: follows this a little bit further because as she was researching,
31:48
Speaker 1: she learned that if things get particularly bad, some frogs
31:54
Speaker 1: will switch mating strategies that they, you know, they're species,
31:58
Speaker 1: ordinarily wouldn't use. So she believes that as the shoreline
32:03
Speaker 1: of this pond shrink and the males became increasingly desperate,
32:07
Speaker 1: they were losing their territory, uh their yards. Essentially, we're
32:11
Speaker 1: getting smaller and smaller. And then it was just too
32:14
Speaker 1: many dudes on the dance floor, too many males and
32:17
Speaker 1: too small a pond. They gave up on having any
32:20
Speaker 1: territory at all. They were just trying to find love.
32:23
Speaker 1: They weren't coordinating their calls, all of which leads Herrick
32:27
Speaker 1: to believe that's how this pandemonium occurred. They just started
32:31
Speaker 1: screaming desperately, and then the noise became so loud that
32:37
Speaker 1: it woke the members of the village. I do have
32:39
Speaker 1: a theory about the noise though, because when you think
32:42
Speaker 1: about it, in modern society, we're always surrounded with some
32:46
Speaker 1: kind of noise, especially if you live anywhere near other people,
32:51
Speaker 1: and the natural world is pretty loud too, But if
32:54
Speaker 1: you live in the forest for a while, you learn
32:56
Speaker 1: to recognize those sounds. So I'm wondering how loud this
33:01
Speaker 1: actually was, you know what I mean, like, how loud
33:04
Speaker 1: it would be a modern church. Was it just the
33:06
Speaker 1: fact that they didn't have TVs on at night or podcast?
33:09
Speaker 1: You know? But I've got to say that, and I
33:11
Speaker 1: think you've probably been in the situation to taking a
33:13
Speaker 1: nice stroll in the woods and you pass by like
33:16
Speaker 1: a patch where there are clearly some frogs going nuts
33:20
Speaker 1: and just a handful of them can raise quite a ruckist.
33:24
Speaker 1: So I would imagine, you know, under these conditions where
33:27
Speaker 1: they're really trying to compete for a lady's attention, could
33:31
Speaker 1: get really out of hand volume wise, especially reverberating through
33:36
Speaker 1: like a town square, you know, whether where there's the
33:38
Speaker 1: po presumably some sort of stone to reinforce the pond.
33:42
Speaker 1: I'm I'm guessing maybe not might have been more rudimentary
33:45
Speaker 1: than that, but yeah, I could imagine it would get
33:47
Speaker 1: pretty out of hand pretty quickly. Yeah, you know, I
33:51
Speaker 1: think there's also a good point to be made about
33:54
Speaker 1: the the weather at the time. Apparently the muggy air
33:58
Speaker 1: also helped the rokes spread. But you're right, you make
34:02
Speaker 1: a good point. Desperation can drive these frogs to some
34:06
Speaker 1: pretty uh superhuman croaks, you know what I mean, Like
34:09
Speaker 1: someone who is panicking when their kid is under a
34:12
Speaker 1: car and they're able to use that what do you
34:14
Speaker 1: call it, hysterical strength to lift the car. Maybe these croaks,
34:17
Speaker 1: maybe these frogs were croaking as a life and death matter,
34:21
Speaker 1: which as we learned it was, it was very much
34:24
Speaker 1: so uh And I don't know what that being said,
34:30
Speaker 1: this is cool. I love it when towns have something
34:32
Speaker 1: like this. Don't you don't you feel like if you
34:34
Speaker 1: go through a place like Hell in Georgia, don't you
34:37
Speaker 1: like that idea like, oh, we're back in a copy
34:41
Speaker 1: of Bavaria. I do like it, and I want to
34:44
Speaker 1: know why. I assume initially there's some real German heritage
34:49
Speaker 1: in a in a town like that. It turns out
34:51
Speaker 1: that in Helen that's not the case at all. They
34:53
Speaker 1: did it almost exclusively for tourists attraction purposes. It's not
34:58
Speaker 1: like it has some sort of history of like German immigrants.
35:00
Speaker 1: Unless I'm completely mistaken, but I could swear that I've
35:03
Speaker 1: that I looked this up thinking that that was what
35:05
Speaker 1: was up, and then realized, oh no, this is actually
35:08
Speaker 1: just like some developers that decided they wanted to, you know,
35:11
Speaker 1: make something a trap, sort of like south of the Border,
35:13
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. That's literally what it is.
35:16
Speaker 1: But despite this actually being a real part of the
35:19
Speaker 1: town's legacy, one of the people behind that frog bridge
35:23
Speaker 1: that we talked about really did hope that these statues
35:27
Speaker 1: would stir up some kind of almost folkloric urban legends
35:31
Speaker 1: surrounding the town. Right. A woman named Margaret p Reich,
35:35
Speaker 1: who's the executive director of the Windham Regional Planning Agency
35:39
Speaker 1: and one of the uh, the chief like boosters behind
35:42
Speaker 1: this frog bridge idea. She said that someone came back
35:47
Speaker 1: from Serbia with a travel guide that talked about these
35:51
Speaker 1: bridges featuring images of dragons and sculptures of dragons that
35:55
Speaker 1: are supposed to wag their tails when a virgin walks by.
36:00
Speaker 1: Uh she said, and quiz quoted in the New York
36:03
Speaker 1: Times article, We'd like to create a similar urban legend,
36:06
Speaker 1: but with frogs and probably not involving virgins. Okay, but
36:10
Speaker 1: that's not how that's not how urban legends work. Not
36:14
Speaker 1: quite so much. But I I applaud the idea. Who
36:17
Speaker 1: doesn't love a good urban legend. So let's let's make
36:22
Speaker 1: a let's make our own urban legend. Right now, Let's
36:24
Speaker 1: say that if you are looking for love, just like
36:29
Speaker 1: those frogs of old, then which you want to do
36:31
Speaker 1: is go to Wyndham Green on night in in summer.
36:36
Speaker 1: Will make it very It can be summer, it can
36:38
Speaker 1: be either June or July. Right, and then let's see,
36:41
Speaker 1: you know, let's say you you have to ask one
36:44
Speaker 1: of the frogs for help. Right, it could be manny
36:48
Speaker 1: windy whomever. And then you mentioned this off air, maybe
36:51
Speaker 1: maybe there's a certain way you walk. Yeah, like what
36:55
Speaker 1: is it? What do you call win winter winter? Sian?
36:58
Speaker 1: That's so, what is that backwards? Doesn't that just like
37:00
Speaker 1: walking backwards? It's walking counter counter exactly, that's right. Uh.
37:05
Speaker 1: And then what happens you you'll be blessed with your
37:09
Speaker 1: your true love's desire. Yes, if you hear the crow,
37:13
Speaker 1: if you hear the croak, you gotta hear the croak. Um.
37:16
Speaker 1: But Ben, I love that, and I think let's enter
37:19
Speaker 1: that into the lexicon of urban legends. And so so
37:22
Speaker 1: that's how these things start. Um. But one thing that's interesting,
37:25
Speaker 1: and it ties back into another recent episode we did
37:28
Speaker 1: is the Windham Bank. It was chartered in eighteen thirty two,
37:32
Speaker 1: uh and was built in what is now known as
37:35
Speaker 1: Windham Center. Um. It was a little slow to develop,
37:40
Speaker 1: and as we know, a lot of these frontier banks
37:42
Speaker 1: did issue their own currency. We did episode recently on
37:46
Speaker 1: the Leopard colonies that had their own currency, and then
37:48
Speaker 1: in the past we had done episodes on different kind
37:52
Speaker 1: of scripts that were issued that would lose their value
37:55
Speaker 1: completely if they were taken too far outside of their
37:58
Speaker 1: you know, place of issue. So the bank notes that
38:01
Speaker 1: the Windham Bank issued, which are very rare and are
38:04
Speaker 1: actually unlisted. And you'll recall Ben mentioned earlier, the Windham
38:09
Speaker 1: Bank and those bank notes, the script that they issued
38:12
Speaker 1: um featuring a frog kind of lording over the dead
38:16
Speaker 1: body of another frog. Why why that imagery band that's
38:19
Speaker 1: very Uh, that didn't quite that's not quite the spirit
38:22
Speaker 1: of the frog fight post Revolutionary War. Yeah, I guess
38:26
Speaker 1: that's true. But there's actually a poem by the great
38:29
Speaker 1: Wyndham poet, Reverend Theron Brown, that kind of exemplifies this
38:36
Speaker 1: whole frog you know, phenomenon um, and it goes like this,
38:42
Speaker 1: I pause to nurse the quaint remembrance. Here the bank
38:46
Speaker 1: and I were born the self same year. The mind.
38:49
Speaker 1: It's notes between whose figures poked two frogs so lifelike
38:55
Speaker 1: that they almost quote the original green backs of the
38:59
Speaker 1: native race that long anticipated salmon chase. They blossomed like
39:05
Speaker 1: pond lilies from the mud, memento of a war that
39:10
Speaker 1: shed no blood. And then everybody's like stepping there, Oh
39:13
Speaker 1: my god. I love that though, because at the end
39:15
Speaker 1: of the day, you know this, there's a lot more,
39:18
Speaker 1: a lot worse ways this could have gone. Uh, nobody
39:21
Speaker 1: lost their lives and ultimately the town of Wyndham went
39:24
Speaker 1: on to prosper So there you go, happy ending. Yes, yes,
39:28
Speaker 1: this also marks one more step in our journey to
39:32
Speaker 1: have an episode about every state in the United States.
39:37
Speaker 1: So thanks as always to our super producers Casey and
39:42
Speaker 1: Andrew Thinks. Also especially to our research associate Gabelusier who
39:47
Speaker 1: helped us hunt these frogs in Connecticut. Yes, indeed, and
39:50
Speaker 1: huge thanks to Alex Williams who composed this very theme
39:53
Speaker 1: that you're hearing right now. Super muster, Casey Pegrum, guest
39:56
Speaker 1: producer Andrew A how call me Ishmael Poward, and Christopher
40:02
Speaker 1: Haciotes here in spirit do to be here corporeally in
40:04
Speaker 1: the very near future? That's right, that's right, No spoilers,
40:09
Speaker 1: but everyone acts surprised. Also big thanks to our own
40:13
Speaker 1: croaker in the dark, Jonathan Strickland, a k. The quizter.
40:17
Speaker 1: I always wonder if he listens to the end of
40:19
Speaker 1: these to know the nicknames him at the end. We
40:25
Speaker 1: should wrap it up before he shows up though for real. Indeed,
40:28
Speaker 1: if you want to check us out other places on
40:30
Speaker 1: the Internet, you can find us. We are on Facebook.
40:32
Speaker 1: We're on Instagram at Ridiculous History. You can find you know,
40:35
Speaker 1: just google that and all the things will come up.
40:37
Speaker 1: We do recommend that you join our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians,
40:40
Speaker 1: where you can get in on the conversation around each
40:42
Speaker 1: new episode and you know, make some friends along the way,
40:45
Speaker 1: because after all, it's about the friends we made along
40:47
Speaker 1: the way. We're working on getting an email. I don't
40:50
Speaker 1: know why that's what's going on with that, but apparently
40:53
Speaker 1: our old email when we switched to a new provider
40:56
Speaker 1: somehow bit the dust. So more on that soon, but
40:59
Speaker 1: in the time that Facebook group is the best place
41:02
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us. You can also find
41:04
Speaker 1: us individually on social media's I am at how Now
41:07
Speaker 1: Noel Brown pretty much exclusively on Instagram, I am at
41:11
Speaker 1: the Frog King dot blogspot dot org. Um. If that
41:15
Speaker 1: doesn't work out for you, please find me at ben
41:17
Speaker 1: Bullan bo w l i N on Instagram where you
41:21
Speaker 1: can see any number of strange adventures I get into
41:24
Speaker 1: or come hang out with me on Twitter where I'm
41:27
Speaker 1: at ben Bulan hs W and always looking forward to
41:30
Speaker 1: hearing suggestions for new topics from you. Well that's that's
41:35
Speaker 1: a ride, Nola. I've got you know, my cacophonous noise
41:39
Speaker 1: for today as a leafblow as we record mid pandemic.
41:43
Speaker 1: So I think it's I think it's time to call
41:45
Speaker 1: this one. I think so, buddy. We'll see you next time. Books. Yeah.
42:04
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
42:07
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
42:10
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.