Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world
Speaker 1: is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
Speaker 1: open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
Speaker 1: on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Everybody likes a deal. From Black
Speaker 1: Friday to Cyber Monday to Labor Day weekend, people love
Speaker 1: to line up and log on for big savings. The
Speaker 1: deals aren't always worth the effort, though. The percentage might
Speaker 1: be too low, or the brand might not be top tier.
Speaker 1: But sometimes an opportunity comes along that's just too good
Speaker 1: to pass up. Along the southern edge of Nebraska is
Speaker 1: a city, though you wouldn't know it by looking at it. Harvard, Kansas,
Speaker 1: spans less than one square mile and boasts a whopping
Speaker 1: population of about a thousand people. It was founded when
Speaker 1: the Burlington and Missouri Railroad laid down tracks there in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one. Two years later, Harvard was incorporated as
Speaker 1: a village. It took its name from the prestigious university
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts, and just like its namesake, it's not without
Speaker 1: its own list of famous former residents. Ida Bengston was
Speaker 1: born there in eighteen eighty one and went on to
Speaker 1: become a groundbreaking bacteriologist. She was also the first woman
Speaker 1: to work at the U S Public Health Services Hygienic
Speaker 1: Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health. And who could
Speaker 1: forget Paul Revere, No, not that Paul Revere. Paul Revere
Speaker 1: Dick was the leader of the hit nineteen sixties rock
Speaker 1: band Paul Revere and the Raiders. He was born in
Speaker 1: Harvard in nineteen thirty eight. But the city wasn't just
Speaker 1: home to scientists and rock stars. Families of all kinds
Speaker 1: raised their children there, business owners open shops, and of course,
Speaker 1: a place even as small as Harvard needed a police department,
Speaker 1: although given the size of the town a large prison
Speaker 1: was deemed unnecessary. Yet there needed to be a place
Speaker 1: to hold people in case they broke the law, as
Speaker 1: rare as that was, and so a small brick jailhouse
Speaker 1: was built and had a single door on the front
Speaker 1: and a few small windows on the side to let
Speaker 1: the light in, but otherwise it was barely bigger than
Speaker 1: an average sized dorm room. In n three, the town
Speaker 1: decided to put some of its land up for sale
Speaker 1: to raise money. A sixteen year old boy named Robert Pinckney,
Speaker 1: who happened to be the son of a local physician,
Speaker 1: was interested in buying a plot for himself. He planned
Speaker 1: on using it to grow a victory garden to support
Speaker 1: the war effort. As he was reading through the list,
Speaker 1: he noticed something strange though someone had included the town
Speaker 1: jail as one of the properties for sale. Pinckney, ever
Speaker 1: the good samaritan, tried to warn the city about its mistake.
Speaker 1: Instead of listening, though the city council laughed him out
Speaker 1: of the room. Pinckney figured that if they weren't going
Speaker 1: to remove it from the listing, then he would buy
Speaker 1: it for himself, and he did for one dollar and
Speaker 1: fifty cents. Officials refused to admit their screw up, and
Speaker 1: Pickney signed the papers. He officially became the owner of
Speaker 1: the Harvard City jailhouse, and all it had cost him
Speaker 1: was a buck and a half. The police still went
Speaker 1: down with business as usual, though, tossing criminals and drunks
Speaker 1: into the jail when they had to. But Pinckney wasn't
Speaker 1: thrilled with his property being used without his permission. Now
Speaker 1: he was the landlord after all, so with the help
Speaker 1: of a lawyer, he sued the town for back rent.
Speaker 1: Harvard agreed, but on the condition that Robert tended the
Speaker 1: jail as though it was his own home. He was
Speaker 1: required to pull the weeds, trim the trees on the property,
Speaker 1: and get rid of the sidewalks or face heavy fines.
Speaker 1: Pinckney thought it might be easier to just tear the
Speaker 1: whole thing down altogether. Harvard couldn't have that happen, though,
Speaker 1: so they made a deal to buy the jail back
Speaker 1: from him. There was just one problem. He wasn't old
Speaker 1: enough to sell it. He'd have to wait until he
Speaker 1: turned twenty one. So the city did its best to
Speaker 1: hide its squabble with the budding real estate mogul, but
Speaker 1: word of Pickney's pettiness got out to the press that
Speaker 1: even made national news. Suddenly people came crawling out of
Speaker 1: the woodwork to buy the jail from him. One person
Speaker 1: offered him one and fifty dollars for it, while someone
Speaker 1: else asked to rent it for thirty five dollars a month.
Speaker 1: But Pickney had a better idea. He put the jailhouse
Speaker 1: up for auction to raise money for war bonds. One
Speaker 1: person came forward and bid ten thousand dollars. Well, person
Speaker 1: isn't quite the right word for him, is he. Charlie McCarthy,
Speaker 1: who won the jail in the auction, was a dummy,
Speaker 1: and that's not an insult either. He was a literal dummy,
Speaker 1: belonging to the world famous fren triloquist Edgar Bergen. Charlie
Speaker 1: gave the jail back to Harvard soon after. It's still
Speaker 1: there too, with a plaque outside that explains its tumultuous history,
Speaker 1: and no dummy, real or Wooden, ever put it up
Speaker 1: for sale again. Everyone has something to hide. It might
Speaker 1: be an illicit relationship, or reckless spending habits, or even
Speaker 1: something as harmless as a cupcake when they think no
Speaker 1: one is looking. Regardless of what it is, it seems
Speaker 1: like no one is without a skeleton or two in
Speaker 1: their closets. And just be careful if you start digging,
Speaker 1: you might not like what you find. Jenny Minton certainly
Speaker 1: did not. It was August of two eleven and these
Speaker 1: sixteen year old Oregon native had been clearing out a
Speaker 1: closet in a local lodge. You see her mother was
Speaker 1: a member of a social group known as the Daughters
Speaker 1: of Rebecca, who used the space for their gatherings. Minton
Speaker 1: stumbled upon a strange site during her cleaning. It was
Speaker 1: a coffin. Now. Her first thought was that it had
Speaker 1: been a prop maybe from an old theatrical performance held
Speaker 1: at the lodge. But she and her mother, Linda, opened
Speaker 1: the lid they realized that there was nothing fake about it.
Speaker 1: Inside the five foot long casket were bones, lots of
Speaker 1: them too, and they had yellowed and molded. Among the
Speaker 1: desecrated remains were teeth, a jaw, and even a skull.
Speaker 1: Jenny and her mom thought they had found something sinister,
Speaker 1: so they called the police. I have a skeleton in
Speaker 1: the closet, Linda told the dispatcher, we all do. The
Speaker 1: person on the other end of the line said, little
Speaker 1: did they know that Linda and her daughter actually had
Speaker 1: found a skeleton in the closet of the watch. A
Speaker 1: detective arrived to collect the bones for analysis. The police
Speaker 1: then conducted an investigation of the scene, but no foul
Speaker 1: play was detected. A similar experience happened to Paul Wallace
Speaker 1: in Warrington, Virginia in two thousand one. He'd been fixing
Speaker 1: the electrical wiring in a brick building when he noticed
Speaker 1: a small door in one of the walls. Wallace opened
Speaker 1: it up and pulled out a black box similar to
Speaker 1: the one Jenny Minton would find ten years later. Inside
Speaker 1: it was a skeleton and several white candles. Not wanting
Speaker 1: to disturb a possible crime scene any further, Wallace pushed
Speaker 1: the box and its contents back behind the door and
Speaker 1: alerted the authorities. They executed a search warrant immediately and
Speaker 1: took custody of the skeleton. Though Warrenton had never experienced
Speaker 1: such a grizzly discovery before, similar incidents had unfolded in
Speaker 1: attics and crawl spaces all over the country, and they
Speaker 1: would continue to do so for years to come. Jim
Speaker 1: Lushka from Missouri thought that he had snagged a great
Speaker 1: deal on a couple of prop caskets for his local
Speaker 1: theater group. Little did he know that one of them
Speaker 1: contained real bones that had once belonged to a living
Speaker 1: human being. But these coffins weren't a serial killers trophy,
Speaker 1: nor were they the work of a murderous cult. The
Speaker 1: buildings that the bones have been found in belonged to
Speaker 1: the fraternal organization known as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Speaker 1: It was formed in eighteen nineteen by English philanthropist Thomas
Speaker 1: He had started the order as an offshoot of the
Speaker 1: original Odd Fellows fraternity, which had gotten it starts in
Speaker 1: England back in the seventeenth century. Soon after its incorporation,
Speaker 1: wildly began traveling all over the US to open up
Speaker 1: lodges and established new chapters. Throughout its history, the Odd
Speaker 1: Fellows have been linked to secret societies like Freemasons and
Speaker 1: the Illuminati. In reality, they were nothing like them at all.
Speaker 1: Their mission statement claimed that the Odd Fellows visited the sick,
Speaker 1: relieved the distressed, buried the dead, and educated the orphan.
Speaker 1: In other words, they helped people wherever they could. However,
Speaker 1: like those other organizations, Initiation had its own set of
Speaker 1: rituals and customs. One such ritual involved a new member
Speaker 1: interacting with the skeleton, literally coming face to face with death,
Speaker 1: as a reminder to make the most of the life
Speaker 1: they were given. To do that they had to dedicate
Speaker 1: that life to helping others. In recent years, the skeletons
Speaker 1: have been replaced with plaster fact similes. However, there was
Speaker 1: a time when an odd Fellow could purchase a real
Speaker 1: one from a company specializing in their procurement. It's typically
Speaker 1: those remains that wind up kicking off police searches and investigations.
Speaker 1: As lodge as close, the people cleaning them out don't
Speaker 1: realize the meaning behind the boxes of bones that they
Speaker 1: find today, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows boasts six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand members and ten thousand lodges across twenty six countries.
Speaker 1: There is also a female focused branch known as the
Speaker 1: Daughters of Rebecca, the organization Jenny and Linda Minton belonged
Speaker 1: to back in two thousand eleven. Given the number of
Speaker 1: lodges remaining, it's only a matter of time before someone
Speaker 1: unwittingly stumbles upon another skeleton. Everyone meets death eventually, but
Speaker 1: most people don't expect to meet it inside their closet.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with How Stuff Works. I make another Award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore which is a podcast, book series, and television
Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
Speaker 1: the world of Lore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious, Yeah,