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The Millionaires and Wild Horses of Cumberland Island · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always, so
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man,
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  Speaker 1: the myth, the legend, our super producer, Max, the Wild
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Horse Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Ooh, couldn't drag me away.
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  Speaker 1: That's Noel Brown. I've been bowling. We are excited to explore... something,
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  Speaker 1: a strange tale that takes place in our own home
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  Speaker 1: state of Georgia.
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  Speaker 2: Right, on the island of Cumberland.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and Cumberland Island, if you're just looking on
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  Speaker 1: Google Maps or what have you, might seem like any
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  Speaker 1: of the other islands down there in the southeast of Georgia,
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  Speaker 1: but There's a strange story at play here, so we'd
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  Speaker 1: like to explore this story. It's a place where, guys,
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  Speaker 1: they're just random horses.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. They're just roaming free. Let those ponies run,
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  Speaker 2: as our buddy Scott would say.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes. Our good friend Scott Benjamin. Noel, we
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  Speaker 1: have to talk about cumberland island as uh with a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of context have you been there.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think so i was racking my brain uh
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  Speaker 3: and i i'm a i'm a hilton head myrtle beach
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  Speaker 3: kind of guy never never hit the cumberland island but
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  Speaker 3: i heard it's really lovely this.
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  Speaker 4: Time of year yeah what about you max i have
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  Speaker 4: never been to cumberland island i actually I mean, I
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  Speaker 4: can guess where it is, but I don't know off
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  Speaker 4: the top of my head exactly what part of the
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  Speaker 4: state it even is in.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Well, we know Georgia has a very odd
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  Speaker 1: shape as a state. So it's got that far southeast
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  Speaker 1: area where they have a few islands, a coastal connection, and,
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  Speaker 1: of course, the famous Savannah, Georgia. Cumberland is interesting because
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  Speaker 1: it is the biggest barrier island in along Georgia's coast,
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  Speaker 1: it has two primary land masses. They're connected by a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of marshes. They're called Big and Little Cumberland Island.
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  Speaker 1: If you look at it all together, Cumberland Island proper
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  Speaker 1: is about 17 and a half miles long. It's between
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  Speaker 1: like half a mile and six miles wide. And overall,
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  Speaker 1: you're looking at 16,000 acres, which is As Noel and
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  Speaker 1: Scott just said, enough room to let those ponies run.
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  Speaker 3: So the local flora and or fauna is pretty much
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  Speaker 3: what you'd expect from an island of the low country.
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  Speaker 3: Spanish moss of saltwater coves, these brackish marshes that, oh
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  Speaker 3: my gosh.
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  Speaker 2: This is such good writing.
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  Speaker 3: Courtesy of our new research associate, Ames, brackish marshes that smell.
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  Speaker 2: Of pluff mud.
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  Speaker 3: Know what pluff butt is but i bet it smells
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  Speaker 3: interesting uh and a ton of other creatures like the
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  Speaker 3: uh remarkably san rio-esque adorable tiny fiddler crab tiniest fiddler
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  Speaker 3: crab playing the tiniest violin uh you ever did see
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  Speaker 3: sea turtles uh come uh every year um and lay
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  Speaker 3: their eggs on the shore uh and then of course
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  Speaker 3: there's the.
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  Speaker 1: Horses yes yeah which we'll get to in a moment
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  Speaker 1: we promise As far as human beings go, Cumberland was
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  Speaker 1: originally inhabited by the Timuqua Native people. That is spelled T-I-M-U-C-U-A.
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  Speaker 1: And their territory stretches between northern Florida into Georgia. However,
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  Speaker 1: accounts are going to differ on whether or not these
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  Speaker 1: Native peoples had a year-round presence on the island, or
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  Speaker 1: maybe they just They just rocked up every so often
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  Speaker 1: when they needed to, you know, hunt tiny fiddler crabs.
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  Speaker 1: And this group of people lived there, unbothered by outsiders,
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  Speaker 1: probably stopping by Cumberland every so often, with no interference
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  Speaker 1: until about the 1500s.
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  Speaker 3: Oh boy, what was their interference in the 1500s, courtesy
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  Speaker 3: of master interferers, religious orders of monks, Spanish friars, and
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  Speaker 3: as well, of course, the military accompanying them.
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  Speaker 1: I like that, Noel. I like your phrase, master interferers.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of their whole deal.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, no shade on religion, but they've caused some
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  Speaker 3: sticky wickets over the years, right?
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  Speaker 1: Right, right, right. So as you're saying, these master interferers,
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  Speaker 1: I'm in love with that phrase, they are rocked up
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  Speaker 1: and they called the island San Pedro Macama.
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  Speaker 3: Because like it didn't already have a name. They just,
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  Speaker 3: you know, hey, you know what? We're the first ones here.
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  Speaker 3: We'll just plant a flag and call it whatever we want.
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  Speaker 1: Can you imagine?
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  Speaker 2: The gall?
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  Speaker 1: Right. Just the absolute chutzpah there. Like, could you and
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  Speaker 1: I and Max walk into like a random mall?
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  Speaker 2: Could we walk into- I was thinking random mall too, Ben.
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  Speaker 2: What the heck? I don't know why. So what did
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  Speaker 2: we say?
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  Speaker 1: We're going to Cumberland Mall? That's what it is! That's
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  Speaker 1: what it is! Oh my gosh.
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  Speaker 3: It's actually my favorite mall here in the Atlanta area.
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  Speaker 3: It's got a really good arcade called Round One with
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  Speaker 3: lots of dope Japanese rhythm games and arcade fighters. But no, Ben,
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  Speaker 3: I would not rock up to Cumberland Mall and or
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  Speaker 3: the Round One arcade and just decide.
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  Speaker 2: At this day forth.
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  Speaker 3: I decree it shall be known as Trump Mall.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Sorry. There it is. There it is.
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  Speaker 1: No, it had to happen.
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  Speaker 4: Wouldn't it be America Mall?
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  Speaker 2: Well, there is the Mall of America.
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  Speaker 1: It is. It is called the Mall of America. I've
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  Speaker 1: been there. It is the largest mall in the United States.
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  Speaker 5: Or wouldn't it be Mall of America Mall? Mall America,
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  Speaker 5: kind of like Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
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  Speaker 1: There we go. Or City of London, London. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: What's the harm in being redundant?
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, what we are saying is that these Spanish folks
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  Speaker 1: were no hate to Spain, but Spanish folks at the
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  Speaker 1: time were not quite conquistadors, right? They were conquistadors. Conquistador adjacents?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: That's great. They were kind of dicks. So they walked
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  Speaker 1: in like Noel, Max, and I planned to walk into
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  Speaker 1: Cumberland Mall. And they said, forget whatever these folks call it.
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  Speaker 1: It's San Pedro Bacama now. We're going to build a
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  Speaker 1: huge fort, you know, for our time. We're also going
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  Speaker 1: to build a Catholic mission.
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  Speaker 2: And have some disease.
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  Speaker 1: And have some disease. And also, this is such a
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  Speaker 1: catbird seat. uh, geographically because they can gather sassafras, which
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  Speaker 1: is fun to say. And the sassiest frass, it's the
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  Speaker 1: sassiest of the frass.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody knows that. It's like a root, right? You make a, it's,
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  Speaker 2: you can make, it's like a, a, a sassaparilla.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a, it's a shrub and Europeans loved it
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  Speaker 1: at the time. They loved their sassafras. Uh, also there's
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  Speaker 1: this excellent harbor on Cumberland Island, right? which allows these
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  Speaker 1: Spanish conquistador-coded types to engage in a lot of trade,
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  Speaker 1: and they're able to meet people from these native communities, right?
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  Speaker 1: And as you teased there earlier, Noel, this interaction was
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  Speaker 1: very bad for the native people. The Timocua were wiped out.
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  Speaker 1: over the next 300 years by colonization and disease. Yup.
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  Speaker 3: Can't have one without the other. Well, you could, I suppose.
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  Speaker 3: Neither of them are great.
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  Speaker 2: Colonization, there's really no version of that that's like awesome
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  Speaker 2: for the others.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: The ones being, the ones what are colonized, yeah?
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  Speaker 1: It makes you think about what will happen when human
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  Speaker 1: beings encounter alien species because everything in human history teaches
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  Speaker 1: us that it's bad for the home team.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed.
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  Speaker 1: We've also got to mention 1751. This is when human
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  Speaker 1: slavery becomes a matter of legal fact. Human slavery is
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  Speaker 1: allowed in Georgia. On the books in 1751, 13 settlers
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  Speaker 1: receive the very first land grants for Cumberland Island. This
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  Speaker 1: eventually grows into 15 plantations that produce indigo, rice, and cotton,
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  Speaker 1: all worked by enslaved people. And we don't know what
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  Speaker 1: happened with the sassafras.
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  Speaker 2: No, that got lost to history.
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  Speaker 3: And we have some great sources coming from Georgian Cyclopedia.
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  Speaker 2: I'm just going to call it that.
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  Speaker 3: I guess it's really Georgia Encyclopedia, but Georgian Cyclopedia sounds cooler.
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  Speaker 3: and their entry on Cumberland Island. They said before 1800,
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  Speaker 3: Cumberland was almost entirely uninhabited. but by 1860, there were
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  Speaker 3: more than 500 enslaved people who resided there, which was
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  Speaker 3: a 7 to 1 ratio of enslaved to free whites.
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  Speaker 3: And at the end of the Civil War, 1861 to 65,
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  Speaker 3: you had true occupation type situation. Military authorities placed Cumberland
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  Speaker 3: Island within the Sherman Reservation, the Sherman Reservation occupation, which
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  Speaker 3: is a 30 mile wide land reserve that ran the
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  Speaker 3: length of the Georgia, South Carolina coast, which then, you know,
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  Speaker 3: as residents of Georgia, it feels like Our coast sort
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  Speaker 3: of gets lost in the, you know, the beauty of coasts.
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  Speaker 3: But it is quite lovely and great places to vacation.
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  Speaker 3: You know, Savannah, Charleston, you know, some really, really cool spots.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And shout out to that broken arrow off
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  Speaker 1: the coast.
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  Speaker 2: Who else is going to bring you? Right.
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  Speaker 3: Broken arrow being a, what is it, an unexploded nuclear weapon?
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  Speaker 1: Or a lost one, right? Yes, a nuclear device. They're
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  Speaker 1: in the, as Ames calls it, pluff mud.
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  Speaker 3: The rich and ripe smell of pluff mud.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah. We know that there was a small settlement
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  Speaker 1: of freed people or free people that grew around Cumberland.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're in language.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Gullah, which is cool.
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  Speaker 2: Gullah Geechee.
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  Speaker 3: They're the people. And of course, y'all may remember growing
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  Speaker 3: up Gullah Gullah Island on Nick Jr. I just remember
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  Speaker 3: there being like a giant tree frog, but that's about
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  Speaker 3: all I remember. There are Gullah speakers that came up,
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  Speaker 3: of course, or that inhabited areas around Savannah as well.
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  Speaker 3: I just remember when I did public radio news for Georgia,
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  Speaker 3: one of my colleagues was based in Savannah and he
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  Speaker 3: was always doing stories about sea turtles and Gullah history
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  Speaker 3: and other stuff.
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  Speaker 2: But I just remember quite a lot of sea turtles
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  Speaker 2: and Gullah.
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  Speaker 1: That's such a cool job, man. What a catbird seat
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  Speaker 1: that you could just become curious about something and put
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  Speaker 1: it on the air.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, those were the days. Back when there was funding.
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  Speaker 2: It is nice to see that they are still going strong,
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  Speaker 2: Georgia Public Radio.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, we are huge fans of public radio. It was
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  Speaker 1: also during this period, not the period of radio, but
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  Speaker 1: during like the early 1800s, that there was a mansion
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  Speaker 1: built on Cumberland Island. We have to introduce.
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  Speaker 2: You to— Dare we say a manor?
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes. It was definitely a manor of mansion. It
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  Speaker 1: was built by a revolutionary war hero named Nathaniel Green. General? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: General Nathaniel Green.
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  Speaker 2: But you're right.
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  Speaker 3: We should say his rank. Well, you know, that was
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  Speaker 3: his title, I guess. He had the bona fides. The
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  Speaker 3: mansion was five stories. It was made of a really
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  Speaker 3: interesting material. I guess I can sort of liken it
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  Speaker 3: to adobe, a mixture of broken oyster shells, ash, water,
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  Speaker 3: and sand that was mixed locally.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of. It reminds me of some other forts
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  Speaker 1: maybe down south in Florida. And they named the house Ames.
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  Speaker 1: I agree with you that rich people do have a
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  Speaker 1: weird habit of naming estates. They named it Dungeness Plantation.
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  Speaker 3: After the crabs, no doubt. Or perhaps the crabs are
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  Speaker 3: named after the plantation.
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  Speaker 2: Hard to say.
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  Speaker 1: Hard to say. This manor of mansion burned down in 1866,
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  Speaker 1: but it was a, dare we say, beachhead. It was
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  Speaker 1: just the first of dynasties that would later settle into
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  Speaker 1: Cumberland Island. And, Noel, I got to tell you, man,
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  Speaker 1: I remember having to go to Sea Island. in, uh,
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  Speaker 1: off the coast of Georgia, uh, where apparently a lot
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  Speaker 1: of very wealthy people have their, I don't know, winter homes.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I can't remember. We talked recently about St. Simon's
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  Speaker 3: Island and a lot of these very wealthy enclaves, uh,
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  Speaker 3: in coastal, on coastal Georgia and South Carolina. Um, but yeah,
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  Speaker 3: Sea Island is definitely one of those as well. Um,
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  Speaker 3: Lucy Carnegie, who is the wife of the less famous
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  Speaker 3: younger brother of Andrew Carnegie, the also-ran Carnegie, Thomas Carnegie.
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  Speaker 1: I love that this guy is long dead. Yeah, and we're.
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  Speaker 2: Making him from beyond the grave. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Thomas.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure you had stuff going on. But, you know,
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  Speaker 2: Andrew was kind of a bit of a bigger deal.
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  Speaker 2: It's hard to exist in that shadow, even post-mortem.
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  Speaker 3: But his wife, Lucy, visited Cumberland as a tourist once.
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  Speaker 3: and really, really liked it. Had a great time, was
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  Speaker 3: absolutely captivated by the smell of puff mud and all
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  Speaker 3: of the other features of the island. The history of
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  Speaker 3: Dungeness really interested her as well. So she and her
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  Speaker 3: husband set about purchasing some ruins, areas, though it was
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  Speaker 3: a little difficult since the owner of the Dungeness estate
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  Speaker 3: wasn't really trying to sell it, a Yankee. Right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was it was that time in American history.
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  Speaker 1: And the problem was for the owner that the Carnegie's have, spoiler,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of money. And they were set upon this idea.
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  Speaker 1: Lucy Carnegie really wanted to own this history. So eventually
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  Speaker 1: the owner of the estate said, all right. I will
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  Speaker 1: sell it to you. The Carnegie say, yay, we've got
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  Speaker 1: our new home in Cumberland Island, but they didn't stop there.
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  Speaker 1: Noel over time, they tried to buy the rest of
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  Speaker 1: the Island as well.
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  Speaker 2: What rich people buying up all the land.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know about that then that doesn't seem right.
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  Speaker 3: A year later, Carnegie and a business associate of his,
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  Speaker 3: a guy named Leander Morris, um, Is that nominative determinism?
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  Speaker 3: It just sounds like lender, but I'm not sure if
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  Speaker 3: he was in banking or not. He bought the adjacent
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  Speaker 3: 8,240-acre Stafford plantation, which also came with a mansion, from
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  Speaker 3: the heirs of a cotton baron for.
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  Speaker 2: $ 40, 000. Can't get an extra value meal for less than
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: $ 40, 000 these days. In 1886, Lucy acquired Morris's part.
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  Speaker 3: Of the Stafford land for as little as $ 38, 000.
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  Speaker 1: Which is still a crazy amount of money. We're not
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: going to do the inflation calculator right now.
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  Speaker 3: We already know it's pennies. I mean, it's already too cheap.
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  Speaker 3: So what's the point? Add insult to injury.
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  Speaker 2: Why don't we?
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  Speaker 1: And so Lucy Carnegie, through various proxies, would continue to
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  Speaker 1: add island real estate to her portfolio. stuff to her
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  Speaker 1: dragon pile for the rest of her life she ultimately
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  Speaker 1: controlled the southern 90 percent of the island so shout
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  Speaker 1: out to the people who refuse to sell.
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  Speaker 3: The holdouts yeah Thomas passed away in disgrace in 1886.
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  Speaker 3: Why am I so down on this guy? In 1886,
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  Speaker 3: just after retiring. But he did create quite the presence,
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: cast quite the shadow on the island of Cumberland before
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  Speaker 3: his passing. He commissioned the construction of a two-story Queen
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  Speaker 3: Anne-style home where the ruins of that dungeness manor once
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  Speaker 3: stood that had roads put in connecting the existing structures
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  Speaker 3: of the family and purchasing. This is like, approaching an old.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: English, like, manor compound kind of situation. In that style, right?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. It's definitely a compound at this point because
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: if you have to put roads in between cities The
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: various things you have built, you are no longer in
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: a townhome. No, no.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: You got to have a gamekeeper.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right. You got to have people with weirdly specific jobs. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: the footman. Oh, there's a guy. The master of arms. Yeah,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the master of arms. Here's the guy we pay to
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: sleep in the rough in our garden and dress like
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: a gnome. Remember that? The garden gnome thing?
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, the flex, the weird historical flex of hiring a
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: human garden gnome.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, they were so close to that kind of cosplay.
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  Speaker 1: After Thomas, who, Noel, you obviously hate, after he passes away.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I feel better about him now. I'm warming up to him.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: You're warming up.
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  Speaker 3: But though I'm not quite sure if we're going to
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  Speaker 3: get to any weird racist stuff.
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  Speaker 2: So I reserve judgment. Okay, there we go.
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  Speaker 1: That's fair. After this guy passes away, his wife, newly widowed,
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  Speaker 1: continues to build and expand the estate. The compound itself,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: or actually the house itself, grows to over 50 rooms,
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  Speaker 1: and then they have all sorts of things, all sorts
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  Speaker 1: of weird rich people things. We know it ultimately came
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  Speaker 1: to be called the Dungeness Complex, right? This is more
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: than 20 buildings, right? their walls, their decorations. There's a
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: colonnaded walkway, which we just learned the word for, a pergola.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed.
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  Speaker 3: You had yourself an olive orchard, a garden, you know,
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: which I guess that's in the British parlance as well.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: You had some greenhouses, a dairy pasture for cows to
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: roam free.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think they're growing milk.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: That's not a thing that can happen.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: Although, wouldn't that be funny if the BBC had done, like,
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: a mockumentary about, like, milk trees?
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Remember the spaghetti trees?
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a good one.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Yup.
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  Speaker 3: So the Carnegies, oh, not to mention a smokehouse, an
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: ice house, because I guess, yeah, they had to, like,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: create ice in refrigerated facilities.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Folks were saying, just picture whatever your weirdest whim is.
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  Speaker 1: And they had a house for that. And they had
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: a name for that house.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: Yup. They also had multiple houses, housing, even for their staff, uh,
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: of 200, which was of course.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Uh, here we are.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: There it is by race.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: There it is. Yeah.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: You called it.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: That's that guy.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: You called it.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: You were right. Family line.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: They, they, They had this crazy lifestyle, and a lot
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: of the bachelor sons of the Carnegies would stay on
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the island routinely. Eventually, the Carnegie dynasty moves out of
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the Dungeness complex in 1952, and they did it because,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: get this, folks, really wealthy people are also cartoonish cheapskates.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: They said it was too expensive to maintain this crazy endeavor.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: And the house burns to the ground in 1959, this
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: time due to arson, not accident. It reminds me a
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: little bit of our earlier series on Frank Lloyd Wright.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: The whole disgruntled staffer, I guess, for lack of a
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: better term, that burned the building down. Yeah.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Crazy.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And you think about it without being undiplomatic,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: you can see where someone is coming from, right? If
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: you're put in that kind of situation, why not burn
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: it down? So the structures are still standing, or the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: ruins of Dungeness Complex. You can visit them if you
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: tour Cumberland Island today. You will also see Plum Orchard Mansion,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: which was a wedding gift to George Carnegie. Can you imagine...
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine giving someone a mansion as a wedding gift?
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: It's a bit of a flex. It's a step up
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: from a Lambo.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: It's a step up from a Lambo.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Plum Orchard was donated to the NPS, National Park Service.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: We're big fans. In 1972, another structure called Grayfield now
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: serves as a hotel. or like a bed and breakfast
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. You can visit and sleep there. The
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Carnegie family still owns it.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: They sure do.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: So, lest you're thinking that the Carnegies are the only
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: rich folks to ever plant their flag in Cumberland Island, well,
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: you'd be mistaken. It's also famous for hosting the secret
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: wedding of, I love the secret wedding, of John F.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Kennedy, heard of him, junior rather, and Carolyn Bessette.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: Specifically, the ceremony took place at the First African Baptist
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Church with a reception at Grayfield following.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, geez. Yeah, the inn from earlier. Okay, we promised
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: you horses, folks. Here are the horses. Ames really came
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: through on this one. The other unusual feature of Cumberland Island,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: like apart from the weird life of American aristocrats, is
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: wild horses. And we kept, off mic, we kept singing
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: that frickin' song.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Couldn't drag me away from that frickin' melody. It's so beautiful.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Really got its heels dug in, or its hooves. There
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: we are.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there is some evidence that these wild horses came
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to the island as early as the 1500s, but we
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: only have written records of them dating back to 1742.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: By the end of the 1700s, island landowners were reporting
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: an estimated population of around 200 horses, as well as
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: some mules and some free Roman livestock on Cumberland Island.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: In the 1800s, though, several of the plantations were being
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: operated on the island, and horses actually played an important
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: part in transporting folks, you know, because these are, you know,
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: on those roads, on those dirt roads, as well as,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: I guess they would Pull plows or something?
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: They would pull something. They would be workhorses, as the
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: saying goes. And as well as, you know, horse riding,
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: horseback riding for funsies.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And your pals, the Carnegie's folks, they contributed
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: to this population. They had a stable of over 50
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: horses for exactly what you just described, Noel. I've got
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: to note this. Riding, hunting, and carriage pooling.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Aha, carriage.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: Ben, off mic, or not off mic, on mic, but
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: off topic slightly, did you hear that they are ending
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: carriage culture in New York City?
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: The whole like around Central Park. Yeah, I think so too.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: There have been issues.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: There was some legislation because I think a young boy
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: was killed or trampled. And of course, it's also not
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: particularly awesome for the horses, not to mention that it
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: smells like horse poop around there pretty often. I just
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: rode my bike from Queens to the theater district to
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: see a show. And man, you have to cross the
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: little circle, Columbus Circle, and it smells like straight up dookie.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: But this is a good thing. I think that's pretty awesome.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I had no idea.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: This is new.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I think I just saw this yesterday. That's great news, though.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I remember a few years ago, our pal Jon Stewart
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: was railing about the horses. It's bad for the horses, right?
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: It's bad to make them pull carriages. But that was
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the way of the world.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: It's not that far off from the elephant show.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Episode that we did on Stuff They Don't Want You
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: to Know.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, man.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And we've got a SeaWorld episode coming up. So stay
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: tuned for that one, folks. So the horses, they stay, right,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: after the Carnegie's leave in the 50s. Between the 1940s
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: and the 1960s, these horses are considered free range. You
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: live on the island, you see some horses, and you're
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: just like, oh, there goes Big Joe.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Big Joe.
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah, riding on his steed. Yeah, and by 1972, the
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: horses have survived on the island.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: They're reproducing. Now we have wild or feral horses. Also,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Ames wants everybody to know that feral horses is a
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: sick band name. I think it's pretty good.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Dude, absolutely.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: And I just think, I don't know, what do you
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: think of, Feral versus wild in terms of terminology. Doesn't
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: feral have a bit of a connotation of like they're
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: going to bite your face?
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Feral has some baggage with it.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I think it's got a little bag of badger baggage, yes.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: There it does. We'll keep it. As technically an invasive species,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: these horses are non-native animals. They are not in any
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: way really managed by humans. There's no population control, no
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: veterinary care. Nobody is– there's no government agency that makes
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: sure they get food and water.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that also would include it's not
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: like they're being fitted with horseshoes, right? They're out there
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: doing their thing all natural.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which can be pretty rough.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. For sure. It's not all natural.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Right, right. These guys are made for the vast plains, right?
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: The steppes of Central Asia and stuff like that.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Didn't they contribute to kind of some of the like
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: some management of the environment?
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Like they would, you know, eat.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Vegetation and kind of contribute to, you know, so you
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: got to cut that stuff back. But if you have
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: a bunch of horses eating it, then it can help
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: prevent wildfires and help things grow, etc.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're grazers. They're not built for the terrain of
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the forest on the island. They don't get the ideal
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: amount of food. Their average lifespan is only eight to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: nine years, which is scary and sad. And now, to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: your point, Noel, there is this grand debate between animal
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: rights advocates and then conservationists, fans of horses and fans
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: of earth. So the... The conservationists are going to tell
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: you that there's a lot of harm caused by these
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: horses to the island because they are grazing too much.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: And the fact that they're, you know, always eating, always
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: eating different plants reduces plant cover, plant growth. Yeah.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: And it's the kind of stuff that like you would
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: need folks to take care of. like if you have
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: anybody i've never had the pleasure i have a backyard
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: that i have a guy that comes and helps me
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: with because that you know it can get really cool
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: backyard thank you ben i do appreciate it but my
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: dude just came yesterday and he's the guy that kind
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: of did a lot of the landscaping and put in
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: some like rain what's it called like a rain burn
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: or something like that but it's got a rain garden
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: but it overgrows so easily and it can get out
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: of hand i can't imagine having the amount of land
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: that some of these millionaires were having to deal with.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: Not that they couldn't afford to have folks to cut
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: it back for them, but what a convenience to have
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: it kind of come with the property.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: You got this built in like, you know, garbage disposals.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: And we have one very anti-horse source. which I didn't
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: think we'd say today. But we have one very anti-horse
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: source called Visitor Use Management Plan for Cumberland. And they
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: tell us, quote, the feral, to your point, Noel, horse
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: herd likely consumes between 200 to 400 tons of vegetation
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: each year and removes up to 98% of vegetation in
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: areas they frequent. So our visitor use pals are telling us, apparently,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: that if these wild horses still roam free on Cumberland Island,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: eventually they're going to eat the forest.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: They're going to eat the forest. Well said.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just munching down on some veg. Different solutions have
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: been proposed to provide care for these horses, and that
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: includes things like providing contraception, adopting young foals from off
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: of the island, But it does remain a continuous issue.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: The idea of maybe the population becoming unsustainable, right?
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Not being enough resources for them to be able to
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: exist naturally as they have. That's why hunting is not
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: always awful, right? 100%. That's why people get hunting licenses,
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: because it helps manage the population so that deer, for example,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: don't get... crowded out by their own population, and then
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: the resources that they need to survive become too scarce.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah. And if we don't have people or other
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: animals hunting rabbits, then eventually they're going to terrorize everybody,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: including Napoleon.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Ben, we've talked about this before.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: Isn't it interesting, though, how, you know, it's okay to
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: hunt deer, who are majestic, beautiful creatures. Borderline, rabbits are
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: sort of on the fence for some people, but hunting horses?
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: No good. Not in this country. I mean, come on.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: I'm not suggesting that they should, but it is just
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: that disconnect in different cultures as to what animals are
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: off limits. I always find it particularly fascinating because as
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: we know in other countries, eating horses is no big deal.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: They're as popular, if not more popular, than beef.
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: That's exactly what I was going to jump in and say.
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: It's like, you know, horses are just not as tasty.
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: Quote Futurama, we eat humans if they didn't taste like crap.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: And thank you there, Max. As we know, longtime listeners,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: I have eaten many things. One of those things was horse.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: I've actually had horse sashimi, which was not bad. I'm
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: going to say it wasn't bad.
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: Well, and Ben, if I'm not mistaken, I know you
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: always go out for the wild meats from your snack
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: stuff days and just your general culinary adventurous spirit. But
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: when we were in the Middle East, I think you
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: got a camel kebab.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: What was that like?
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Gamey? Yeah, it had some game to it, Noel. It
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: had some game to it.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: I think gamey is such a funny term for the
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: way something tastes. It doesn't really mean anything.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: It feels like a British person's insult. Oh, you've got
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: a bit of game upon you. Well, if someone stinks,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: they will say you smell a little gamey. That is
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: a thing people say from time to time.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: Ben, I think we should wrap this up with a
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: little bit of tangents and trivia rather than save it
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: for a listicle episode because I think this is a
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: good little supplement. And thanks again to brand new research
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: associate Ames for rocking out this brief.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So one of the big badgers or the
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: big pickle here is that tourists love badgers. visiting cumberland
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: island and love seeing the wild or feral horses trotting
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: around eating up the forest if you want to visit
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: cumberland island you have to realize that the rules nowadays
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: are pretty strict no i think they limit how many
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: people can be there at once.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Exactly which also makes sense because humans can be something
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: of an invasive species if they overcrowd places.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Look at Mount Everest, for example. Not good.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: There has apparently been a documentary that has been making
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: the festival rounds about the Mount Everest kind of Sherpa
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: phenomenon and how it's absolutely just being overcrowded by these millionaires,
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: adventure enthusiasts, and causing all kinds of problems to the
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: natural beauty of that place. This is interesting, and I'm
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: glad that they are keeping this in mind. Only 300
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: visitors can be there at any given day. No cars
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: or carts are allowed. The island can only be accessed
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: by boat, and there are no shops or restaurants. So
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: people are trying to, like, get away from it all.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: What a good way to do it. No, I mean,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: give it time, I guess. Indiana got to wonder, like,
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: is there something in the bylaws, or how does that work?
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: Because we know corporations want to, like, dig their hooks
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: into these remote type places and get you a Starbucks
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: set up or whatever. So there must be something actively
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: preventing that from happening.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Also, how do we define cart? Like you can't have
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: a little red wagon that you pull around. Like you
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: can't have a little basket on wheels. Like what is
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: a cart? How strict are they with it? Apparently pretty strict.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: And if you have the chance to visit Cumberland Island,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: please tell us about your experience and let us know
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: if you got close to one of the horses. That's
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: our show. Thank you so much to our super producer, Mr. Max,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the wild horse, Williams.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Huge thanks. Minor thanks.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: Begrudging thanks to Jonathan, the beast of burden, Strickland.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: The quizster.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's perfect. And Jonathan, if you're listening, yes, sometimes
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Noel and I go off mic to really think about
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: the best way to politely insult you. Exactly.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: Fine.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: How do you do to you, sir?
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: And A.J. Bahamas Jacobs, a.k.a. The Puzzler, of course, Dr.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Rachel Big Spinach Lance, Eve's Jeffcoat, Christopher Haciotis, Ridiculous Crime.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I kind of know. Have you ever ridden a horse?
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: It's been a long time, Ben. It's been a long time.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: I did, surely, when I was a young lad, but
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: not in.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: My adult life have I ridden a horse.
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: I should ride the more than Ethan.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Fair, Ben. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.