Speaker 1: You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky. He was
Speaker 1: reluctant to share his secret. The call, though, was too strong.
Speaker 1: In the secret too dangerous. The world you see was
Speaker 1: coming to an end, and everyone needed to prepare a
Speaker 1: farmer by trade. William Miller had once been a captain
Speaker 1: in the War of eighteen twelve. He had seen a
Speaker 1: lot during his military service, and he attended church well
Speaker 1: religiously in eighteen sixteen, though he no longer believed in deism,
Speaker 1: the idea that there is a supreme being whose hands
Speaker 1: off certain the real truth was hidden in the scriptures
Speaker 1: he searched until he found it in Daniel fourteen, which
Speaker 1: read unto two thousand days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed?
Speaker 1: To Millard, the message was perfectly clear, rapture by the
Speaker 1: hand of God. Excited, Miller concluded that doomsday would occur
Speaker 1: two thousand, three hundred days after a revelation on creation
Speaker 1: from the prophet James Usher. With time running out, he
Speaker 1: told neighbors and friends. He talked about his discoveries at
Speaker 1: church too, and before long locals began to believe him.
Speaker 1: Though he was never ordained, he had pained a license
Speaker 1: to preach and took his sermons on the road. He
Speaker 1: published books and produced pamphlets in just six months. His message,
Speaker 1: are You Ready to Meet Your Maker? Gained followers across
Speaker 1: the country. Of course, not everyone believed him. Angry mobs
Speaker 1: pelted him with eggs and rotten food, but their attempts
Speaker 1: to break up his sermons only made him more popular.
Speaker 1: After three hundred lectures, followers of what had become known
Speaker 1: as the Millerite movement seated fifty thousand, and with his
Speaker 1: shouts that the world would soon end, millions more were curious.
Speaker 1: If nothing else, Jesus would come for them. He promised
Speaker 1: he would arrive high on a mountaintop sometime between March
Speaker 1: twenty one, eighteen forty three and March twenty one, eighteen
Speaker 1: forty four. When that didn't happen, Miller admitted he may
Speaker 1: have been wrong and adjusted the date to April eighteenth
Speaker 1: of eighteen forty four. And when that date came and went,
Speaker 1: he became certain that the end of the world would
Speaker 1: happen on October twenty two of that year. Despite his
Speaker 1: being wrong multiple times, his followers doubled when they met
Speaker 1: for services. Their enthusiasm was equal to any big tent revival.
Speaker 1: Miller's popularity sword One man, a dairy farmer who believed
Speaker 1: in Miller, gave way all of his cows, the reason
Speaker 1: there wouldn't be anyone at the farm to care for
Speaker 1: them once he had gone up ascended. That is, and
Speaker 1: you wasn't the only one giving away their earthly belongings.
Speaker 1: Believers sold their land, gave away their jewelry and animals.
Speaker 1: They even busted up their furniture that have no use
Speaker 1: for sofas and beds where they were going. Women cut
Speaker 1: off their hair and ripped the ruffles from their dresses.
Speaker 1: Wanting to be properly attired for heaven, they began to
Speaker 1: wear long, flowing white garments. In the late spring of
Speaker 1: eighteen forty four, a meteor flew across the sky at noon,
Speaker 1: and the cosmic event was all the proof the Millerites
Speaker 1: needed the end was near. On October one, followers put
Speaker 1: on their ascension robes, and, believing that Christ had chosen mount,
Speaker 1: would choose it, climbed to the top and waited. Others
Speaker 1: who were physically unable to climb that far, felt that
Speaker 1: apple trees were the next best bet. An entire family
Speaker 1: had perched themselves in the tops of trees in a
Speaker 1: local orchard, and when a pair of travelers passed by
Speaker 1: a man in the tree asked if they were aware
Speaker 1: that the world would end by daybreak, one a reverend
Speaker 1: said that the matter didn't affect him, as he lived
Speaker 1: in Boston. The second author, Ralph Waldo Emerson, told him,
Speaker 1: the world doesn't affect me. I can get along without it.
Speaker 1: As the sun set, the Millerites waited, eager to meet
Speaker 1: their maker by sunrise, though it became clear he wasn't coming.
Speaker 1: The Millerites had just suffered the great disappointment, and now
Speaker 1: that the world wasn't ending, they began to suffer great
Speaker 1: depression that had given away everything, and many were now
Speaker 1: homeless and broke. Newspapers printed their story, or at least
Speaker 1: some version of it. Many Millerites claim that reporters made
Speaker 1: up the part about the robes. Today, though the story
Speaker 1: is widely accepted as fact. But what happened? How did
Speaker 1: so many people come to believe Miller Historians speculate that
Speaker 1: it might have been because powerful leaders and trusted experts
Speaker 1: hadn't told the public otherwise. No one holding a higher
Speaker 1: authority than Miller had proved him wrong, and by the
Speaker 1: time their cognitive biases had hit a fever pitch, such
Speaker 1: evidence was dismissed as disbelief and ignorance. You'd think that
Speaker 1: afterward they'd have gone back to how things were before
Speaker 1: Miller came along instead of recanting their belief, though they
Speaker 1: came to what they felt was a broader understanding. They
Speaker 1: had just interpreted the signs wrong. The world itself hadn't
Speaker 1: ended because Christ had cleansed heaven, not earth. But of
Speaker 1: course this isn't the only example of such an event
Speaker 1: in America. Moments of passionate belief that led people to
Speaker 1: do things most would never consider. Time may have distanced
Speaker 1: us from these movements, but their shadows are still there,
Speaker 1: painted across the pages of history. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. Welcome
Speaker 1: to American shadows. The church goers in the town of Enfield,
Speaker 1: then still part of Massachusetts, or what their pastor called
Speaker 1: stubborn and maybe even lacks in changing their less than
Speaker 1: Christian ways compared to neighboring towns, and with a reputation
Speaker 1: on the line that wouldn't do the church invited another
Speaker 1: preacher to speak. Jonathan Edwards accepted the invitation and took
Speaker 1: the task seriously. If his speech didn't whip the pastor's
Speaker 1: flock into shape, nothing would. He stood before the congregation
Speaker 1: on July seventeen, forty one and read his sermon, Sinners
Speaker 1: in the Hands of an Angry God. He had already
Speaker 1: delivered the speech to his own flock not long before,
Speaker 1: and to great success. His vivid descriptions of hell and
Speaker 1: the evil had observed in the real world, coupled with
Speaker 1: scriptures showing that certain behaviors were a bee line to
Speaker 1: Satan's doorstep, had the terrified flock gasping and screaming, there's
Speaker 1: nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out
Speaker 1: of Hell. Edwards railed, but the mere pleasure of God.
Speaker 1: More gasps erupted from the crowd as Edwards continued his
Speaker 1: seething sermon, informing them that such sinners deserved what was
Speaker 1: coming to them, that witnessing the bad events in life
Speaker 1: was just a taste of the horror Satan had waiting
Speaker 1: for them at any moment. He told them God might
Speaker 1: allow Satan to seize their souls, but God had given
Speaker 1: them chance after chance, and now he was furious with them.
Speaker 1: Not only might he rain down his wrath on them,
Speaker 1: he'd let Satan have their souls too. The congregation cried
Speaker 1: out for help for counsel. Edwards wasn't done, though not
Speaker 1: by a long shot. He continued to quote scripture and
Speaker 1: blend it with story after story at a fierce and
Speaker 1: unrelenting pitch. By the end of the sermon, his shouts
Speaker 1: were barely heard over the crowd. This type of speech,
Speaker 1: now referred to as fire in Brimstone, is still studied today.
Speaker 1: But what made the speech so effective. The trouble began
Speaker 1: between the seventeen thirties and forties. New England found itself
Speaker 1: in the middle of the Great Awakening, one of three
Speaker 1: distinct periods of widespread spiritual revivals and new denominations and
Speaker 1: religious movements. The devils and the details they say, and
Speaker 1: while much of Europe was facing which hysteria, many Americans
Speaker 1: focused on Satan. Their fear of the devil was part
Speaker 1: of what made Edward's speech so powerful. Throughout history, some
Speaker 1: sects of Christianity haven't taken to the idea of letting
Speaker 1: judgment day just come and go. They've tried to fight
Speaker 1: it by identifying potential Antichrists at all costs. The Antichrist,
Speaker 1: to the belief Goes, would cause the end of the
Speaker 1: world with catastrophes and a host of other misfortunes. Identify
Speaker 1: and read the world of them, and all would be well.
Speaker 1: Wicked behaviors and even thoughts were believed to cause storms,
Speaker 1: bad crops, stillborn, chill, green mental illness, disease, and any
Speaker 1: host of further wicked behaviors. In short, the devil fed
Speaker 1: off the impure acts of man, gaining more and more
Speaker 1: power until he could challenge God by bringing about Doomsday.
Speaker 1: The devil could hide anywhere, too, a cloven hooved man, animals,
Speaker 1: including black cats, and perhaps especially women, because they were
Speaker 1: perceived as the weaker sex. Was believed women were more
Speaker 1: prone to the temptations of the devil. But the deepest
Speaker 1: pits of hell, Edwards claimed, had been reserved for Native Americans, they,
Speaker 1: he claimed were agents of the Antichrist. He wasn't alone
Speaker 1: in his backwards and bigoted thinking. In early America, some
Speaker 1: settlers believed the devil had a stronghold over the Native Americans.
Speaker 1: Their pagan beliefs and their very existence threatened the settler's
Speaker 1: concept of what Christian life should be on their newly
Speaker 1: colonized land. Further, these settlers believed that during the colonial era,
Speaker 1: the Antichrist had control of the Church and the King
Speaker 1: of England. In short, some of these Protestant Americans were
Speaker 1: certain that non Protestants, immigrants, Native Americans, alcohol, and any
Speaker 1: other obstacle that didn't agree with their ideology was doing
Speaker 1: the devil's bidding. If the Native Americans wouldn't convert to
Speaker 1: their way of life and Christian beliefs, if they didn't
Speaker 1: surrender land for the betterment of mankind, they must be
Speaker 1: killed to save the world. Inane and racist, absolutely, and
Speaker 1: it sadly made sense to them. The colonists were on
Speaker 1: a new continent, then encountered people unlike them in their speech, apparents,
Speaker 1: and faith. With a new land and life came tremendous
Speaker 1: instability and plenty of anxiety to go with it. Humans
Speaker 1: across the millennia have looked for ways to explain things
Speaker 1: they didn't fully understand in an attempt to feel in
Speaker 1: control during times of uncertainty, Fear fueled irrationality and hatred
Speaker 1: among the colonists. Therefore, it became their duty to protect
Speaker 1: the earth at all costs until Christ's return. They believed
Speaker 1: that they had been uniquely tasked by God to conquer
Speaker 1: the land so that evil would not prevail. And all
Speaker 1: this change brought on a lot of experimentation concerning religion.
Speaker 1: In fact, during the American Revolution to religious revivals were
Speaker 1: also occurring the First and Second Great Awakenings. Churches offered
Speaker 1: hope in a world that seemed more than a little hopeless.
Speaker 1: But times were changing and religious needs with them, and
Speaker 1: along the way there were people who capitalized on the
Speaker 1: darker side of belief. Their message, however, wasn't one of hope.
Speaker 1: It was one of fear. Grotus Lie was just thirteen
Speaker 1: when she married twenty three year old Ira Wakeman in
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred. Over the years, they had fifteen children together,
Speaker 1: but Ira was not exactly the ideal father and husband.
Speaker 1: He was a big man who liked to throw his
Speaker 1: fists around, especially when drunk, which was quite often. Two
Speaker 1: things set Ira off the most wrote as attendance at
Speaker 1: Methodist meetings and reading the Bible, and it was the
Speaker 1: Bible reading that brought on constant death threats Rhoda believed
Speaker 1: her husband might kill her any day, and in he
Speaker 1: tried to go through with it. He had lit a
Speaker 1: fire and sat her in a chair Before it, he
Speaker 1: cursed her and God, swearing that the world would never
Speaker 1: be at peace as long as she were part of it.
Speaker 1: The story varies slightly here, depending on who tells it.
Speaker 1: It goes either that Ira beat her unconscious or that
Speaker 1: he stabbed her with a piece of burning firewood, regardless
Speaker 1: of how the assault took place. Row To later claimed
Speaker 1: that she died. Upon her death, she claimed red eyed
Speaker 1: imps danced around her when a bright white spirit emerged.
Speaker 1: Moments later, the imps scattered, and that spirit took her
Speaker 1: by the hand and escorted her up into the clouds.
Speaker 1: Once in heaven, she claimed she met both Christ and God,
Speaker 1: but after welcoming her as one of their own, the
Speaker 1: angels returned her to earth and then vanished. Rhoda took
Speaker 1: her experience as a revelation she was one with Heaven now,
Speaker 1: and if she had survived her husband, it was God's will.
Speaker 1: After all, her husband was an agent of the Devil,
Speaker 1: put on earth to kill her, and he had tried
Speaker 1: to do just that. He had failed, though, because Rhoda
Speaker 1: had been chosen by God when she awoke, she left
Speaker 1: him and went to live with her daughter Caroline. Determined
Speaker 1: to spread the word, she began preaching door to door.
Speaker 1: Certain that she had been chosen as the prophetess of God,
Speaker 1: she set about convincing others as well. Her half brother, Sammy,
Speaker 1: whom she also lived with from time to time, had
Speaker 1: experienced a brain injury that left him more like a
Speaker 1: child than a grown man, and Sammy above all, believed
Speaker 1: every word his sister told him. Before long, Rhoda and
Speaker 1: her followers paid Ira a visit. They tied him up,
Speaker 1: and Rhoda stabbed him. She told everyone that would free
Speaker 1: Ira of the devil. Although he survived the initial attack,
Speaker 1: he died some time later. Rhoda claimed she had had
Speaker 1: another revelation, though, that Ira had died when the devil
Speaker 1: no longer had any wicked plans for him. Her followers agreed,
Speaker 1: saying that for being in league with the devil, Ira
Speaker 1: got exactly what he deserved. The wake Knight's message of
Speaker 1: doomsday continued to gain more followers, but Rhoda had high
Speaker 1: standards for her followers. Do and believe as she said
Speaker 1: and all would be well disagree, though, and she would
Speaker 1: expose them as being the Antichrist. And that criticism was
Speaker 1: extended to the churches full of believers around her. Once,
Speaker 1: after watching people enter one of these churches, she openly wept.
Speaker 1: She woke her daughter Caroline in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: claiming that heavenly spirits wouldn't let her rest. They came
Speaker 1: to her night after night, she said, begging her to
Speaker 1: preach in the churches. In eighteen fifty two, though Caroline's
Speaker 1: husband Ephraim dared to speak out mother. He said, there
Speaker 1: is nothing in your doctrines. It's all a delusion. And
Speaker 1: with that, Rhoda became convinced that her son in law
Speaker 1: was possessed and wanted to kill her. She was afraid,
Speaker 1: she told Caroline, and not just afraid of Ephraim. Rhoda
Speaker 1: claimed another of her son in law's, Charles Willoughby, was
Speaker 1: also possessed. According to Rhoda, Charles had not only caused
Speaker 1: a winter's worth of storms, but it also plagued Sammy
Speaker 1: with thousands of imps that crawled over his head and back.
Speaker 1: But like her husband Ephraim, Caroline felt the stories about
Speaker 1: the imps pushed things too far, and she expressed her
Speaker 1: thoughts to her mother. As you might expect, Rhoda wasn't
Speaker 1: at all pleased. Don't call me mother, she shouted. Anybody
Speaker 1: that wants to kill me needn't call me mother. Rhoda
Speaker 1: would disown Caroline. Then she, Sammy and another follower named
Speaker 1: Thankful Hershey moved to New Haven, Connecticut. There they found
Speaker 1: a small house by the Grove Street Cemetery, practically under
Speaker 1: the eaves of Yale University. They sold fruit syrups and
Speaker 1: herbal medicines, and even boarded children. To earn additional income,
Speaker 1: Rhoda preached to nearby farmers and workers, meeting with them
Speaker 1: every Sunday and once more later in the week. Charles Sandford,
Speaker 1: fresh from his release at the Hartford Retreat for the Insane,
Speaker 1: joined them in hopes that Rhoda could cure him of
Speaker 1: his mental illness. But he wasn't her only new follower.
Speaker 1: A seventeen year old named Amos Hunt also joined up
Speaker 1: and quickly rose to the ranks of the wake nights.
Speaker 1: Some time later, Amos and his wife arrived for a
Speaker 1: meeting bearing pies and cakes. Rhoda ate a slice of pie,
Speaker 1: and then polished off one and a half of the cakes,
Speaker 1: all on her own. It's probably no surprise that she
Speaker 1: became sick, but Rhoda claimed that the sweets had been
Speaker 1: laced with poison and had nearly killed several followers, although
Speaker 1: there's no record that anyone else fell ill. For days,
Speaker 1: Rhoda lay sick in bed before visiting her doctor, his
Speaker 1: diagnosis insanity. Undaunted, she claimed Sammy was having a Yale
Speaker 1: chemist test the remaining cakes, but even before he announced
Speaker 1: his findings, she told her followers that enough poison had
Speaker 1: been found to kill at least ten men. The poison
Speaker 1: in question hadn't been arsenic, though she said that as
Speaker 1: a prophet of the Lord, she was immune to that. No.
Speaker 1: She claimed the cakes had been made from something worse,
Speaker 1: a concoction of men's brains, oil of their bones, the
Speaker 1: eyes of dogs and roosters, basil, topaz, copper, sink, platina,
Speaker 1: and toad entrails. Some wakem knights thought Hunt and his
Speaker 1: wife had made the poisonous cakes to determine if Rhoda
Speaker 1: was divine or merely human. Hunt, though was instantly accused
Speaker 1: of being the Devil's agent. Sammy even suggested that Hunt
Speaker 1: should die for his sins against the Prophetess well that
Speaker 1: or pay a cash settlement. Perhaps surprisingly, Hunt paid five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, and none of this sat well with the
Speaker 1: rest of the wake Nights. Rhoda's disciples began to wonder
Speaker 1: how the Prophetess hadn't seen the betrayal coming. But worse
Speaker 1: than that, they were shocked that she had accepted a
Speaker 1: payoff from a man of sin. Rhoda attempted to regain
Speaker 1: her followers trust with more lies and fear the world
Speaker 1: would inevitably be destroyed. She told them taking the money
Speaker 1: had placed an evil influence on every one of them,
Speaker 1: not just her, for Itightened by the prospect, they wanted
Speaker 1: to know how to save themselves. Not surprisingly, Rhoda told
Speaker 1: them exactly what had to be done. In December of
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five, Rhoda and Sammy moved again, settling into
Speaker 1: a small house that was often crowded with fellow wake nights.
Speaker 1: It was there that she told the others that the
Speaker 1: Antichrist had left Amos Hunt and had found its way
Speaker 1: to a pistol factory worker named Justice Washington Matthews. He
Speaker 1: had attended a few of their meetings, often accompanying one
Speaker 1: of their own, Meritable and her sister Polly. Justice didn't
Speaker 1: care much for Rhoda, and the feeling was mutual. The
Speaker 1: damning evidence against Justice had been that his wife had
Speaker 1: suffered a convulsion around the same time that Rhoda had
Speaker 1: fallen ill, and the timing, she claimed had not been
Speaker 1: a coincidence. The Antichrist had taken possession of Justice, and
Speaker 1: now the wake Nights must wage a battle to rid
Speaker 1: him of the devil. Oddly, Justice didn't object to their
Speaker 1: first attempt at exercising the devil from him. Maybe he
Speaker 1: felt pressured, or maybe he felt that the tea they
Speaker 1: wanted him to drink, brood from the bark of a
Speaker 1: witch hazel tree, wasn't so bad. Afterward, though, Rhoda determined
Speaker 1: that the tea hadn't worked. Believing that Justice was still possessed.
Speaker 1: The wakem Knights began to pray over him, but when
Speaker 1: no one witnessed a spirit leaving his body, they began
Speaker 1: to plead with him to give up the demon. Rhoda, however,
Speaker 1: had a different solution in mind. Blood On December twenty three,
Speaker 1: she and her followers conducted Sabbath worship in an upstairs bedroom.
Speaker 1: All told, fifteen people came and went for services that
Speaker 1: day and throughout the evening. By ten o'clock, Sammy had
Speaker 1: a nice fire going in the front room. When Justice
Speaker 1: arrived with his wife and sister in law, he removed
Speaker 1: his damp boots in front of the fire, and that's
Speaker 1: when Rhoda screamed, claiming the demons were torturing her. She
Speaker 1: wasted no time in instructing Polly to blindfold Justice because
Speaker 1: eye contact with a man of sin would harm her brother,
Speaker 1: claiming she feared for her safety. Rhoda also asked Polly
Speaker 1: to bind Justice's hands behind his back. Not wanting Rhoda
Speaker 1: to be frightened of him, Justice allowed it. Those present
Speaker 1: then led him to the day bed and began the exorcism.
Speaker 1: For two hours, they alternated between praying for his soul
Speaker 1: and shouting at him to give up the devil. Rhoda
Speaker 1: eventually retreated to her room, where she claimed the demons
Speaker 1: continued to torture her in the most excruciating of ways.
Speaker 1: After an hour, she said the demons were crawling around
Speaker 1: inside her and that she would soon die, and that
Speaker 1: if she did the world would end. Alarmed at her revelation,
Speaker 1: members raced down the stairs. He's killing her, they out it,
Speaker 1: He's killing the messenger. The prayers turned into a discussion.
Speaker 1: Two attendees said that it would be better to kill
Speaker 1: Justice than to let Rhoda in the entire world die.
Speaker 1: The remainder of the group quickly agreed, all except Sammy,
Speaker 1: who thought they should try one last thing. He ran
Speaker 1: out into the yard, and when he returned he was
Speaker 1: carrying a two ft long piece of wood. Perhaps, he
Speaker 1: suggested they could beat the devil out of him. They
Speaker 1: secured the doors and shuttered the windows to the room,
Speaker 1: and then turned their attention to Justice. The first blow
Speaker 1: struck him in the right temple, knocking him to the ground.
Speaker 1: After that, Sammy hit him again and again. Then, claiming
Speaker 1: some unknown influence was urging him on, he slit Justice's
Speaker 1: throat with a pocket knife. Not satisfied that the job
Speaker 1: was done, he retrieved a large oven fork used to
Speaker 1: lift the stove lit and drove it into justice His chest,
Speaker 1: not once, but twelve times, in a pattern designed to
Speaker 1: make the shape of a cross. The holes, Sammy said
Speaker 1: would force the demon to leave Justice's brother in law,
Speaker 1: who had been pushed into another room during the exorcism,
Speaker 1: heard gurgling noises. He pounded on the door, but others
Speaker 1: pulled him away, insisting that if Justice died, he'd be raised.
Speaker 1: The sound of the blows and Justice's cries sent a
Speaker 1: few scurrying away to a corner to pray. Another hour
Speaker 1: passed before Sammy finally opened the door at two in
Speaker 1: the morning. Sammy's clothes were washed into basin. His sleeves
Speaker 1: were so stained that they were ripped from the shirt.
Speaker 1: The floor was then mopped clean, and the piece of wood,
Speaker 1: still caked with Justice's hair and blood, was dropped down
Speaker 1: a hole in the front yard. Sammy's pocket knife was
Speaker 1: placed next to the corpse to make it appear that
Speaker 1: Justice had killed himself. Then tired from their efforts, the
Speaker 1: wake nights finally slept The next day. One of them left,
Speaker 1: returning with Justice's eldest son. The sight of his father's
Speaker 1: blooded corpse sent him running to a neighbor, who alerted
Speaker 1: the authorities. Upon their arrival, the police took in the
Speaker 1: gruesome scene and then instantly arrested everyone present. Soon enough,
Speaker 1: they were all in court making their statements. Regarding the possession.
Speaker 1: Newspapers were quick to report the trial. The New York
Speaker 1: Times called the murder a horrible case of fanaticism, adding
Speaker 1: that it was a frightful event of Millerism, and by
Speaker 1: then the American public often thought cases of violence or
Speaker 1: public insanity were due to Millerism. But on the December
Speaker 1: Sammy confessed and Rhoda's imaginary world collided with reality. She
Speaker 1: and the others awaited the grand jury's decision from a
Speaker 1: prison cell. While she did, she took to writing letters
Speaker 1: to various ministers and lawyers. Those messages alternated between plea
Speaker 1: and threats. She would surely die in prison, she claimed,
Speaker 1: and her death would be avenged by God. It wasn't
Speaker 1: her own life that hung in the balance, it was
Speaker 1: the fate of the world that Following January, Rhoda, Sammy,
Speaker 1: and the other Wake Nights sat in court once more.
Speaker 1: Rhoda again insisted that the world would end if they
Speaker 1: found her guilty, though she might decide to permit everyone
Speaker 1: to live a little while longer. However, she could call
Speaker 1: for judgment day whenever she felt like it. The trial
Speaker 1: dragged on until April. Members of the community, family and
Speaker 1: experts all took the stand to testify, and it was
Speaker 1: determined that none of the defendants were competent enough to
Speaker 1: stand trial. Rhoda and Sammy openly wept, while others had
Speaker 1: difficulty with the court's finding that she was clinically insane.
Speaker 1: A New York Tribune journalist sat before her and jotted
Speaker 1: down notes. Despite the ruling of insanity, a grand jury
Speaker 1: still convicted the entire group. Sammy was found guilty of murder,
Speaker 1: while Rhoda and the other followers were convicted as accessories.
Speaker 1: Before and after the fact, naturally, Rhoda was happy to
Speaker 1: tell her side of the story, how her followers were
Speaker 1: simply trying to save her and all of humanity. Killing
Speaker 1: Justice had been the only way to rid him of
Speaker 1: the evil inside him. She claimed that sadly, when Justice
Speaker 1: had died, the evil spirit inside him had left and
Speaker 1: had spread far and wide into the world. She settled
Speaker 1: back in her seat and offered the reporter one last
Speaker 1: bit of advice for his readers. Those who remained devoted
Speaker 1: to her had no need to worry, though. As long
Speaker 1: as they remained free, they would continue to seek out
Speaker 1: more men of evil, and if they found them, that
Speaker 1: each be put to death. Until then, she cheerfully urged
Speaker 1: readers should brew a strong cup, of which Hazel t
Speaker 1: There's more to this story. Stick around after this brief
Speaker 1: sponsor break to hear all about it. His outfit was colorful.
Speaker 1: The green military frock coat was made from the finest cloth,
Speaker 1: lined with silk, patterned with gold braids and of all
Speaker 1: things frogs. His black silk vest matched the black leather
Speaker 1: cap inverted like a cone. His sash was a deep crimson,
Speaker 1: and his pantaloons, a type of close fitting pant fastened
Speaker 1: at the calf, were either green or black. The choice
Speaker 1: depended on the weather, as did his footwear, either sandals
Speaker 1: or meticulously polished Wellington boots. As eye catching as it was,
Speaker 1: none of those were as important to him as the
Speaker 1: fine double edged sword he wore, and even that paled
Speaker 1: compared to the iron rod he carried, the rod he
Speaker 1: believed was instrumental in ruling the world. Orphan at seven
Speaker 1: and raised by strict elders of the Presbyterian Church, Robert
Speaker 1: Matthews spent a brief stint as a shopkeeper, a husband,
Speaker 1: and a father, but all that held him back from
Speaker 1: what he considered his true calling and pursuit spiritual perfection
Speaker 1: and religious truth. He preached to anyone whould listen, mostly
Speaker 1: about doomsday. Customers and then employers found his outbursts and
Speaker 1: fits of violent rage more than a little frightening, which,
Speaker 1: as you might guess, made earning a living difficult. Lack
Speaker 1: of employment kept his family in poverty, though he was
Speaker 1: adamant that it was his wife's fault, not his, not
Speaker 1: just regarding the jobs either. She was his undoing for
Speaker 1: everything that went wrong, and he kept a rawhide strap
Speaker 1: to beat her with. He was certain his wife was
Speaker 1: filled with evil spirits. He had tried to join an
Speaker 1: evangelical Christian church in Argyle, New York, but like the
Speaker 1: customers and employers, the congregation there found his laziness, fits
Speaker 1: of rage and violence abhorrent. On June eighteen thirty, he
Speaker 1: was arrested for disrupting service. After his release, he moved
Speaker 1: to Manhattan, leaving his family behind. He preached on street corners,
Speaker 1: asking people to address him as the prophet Matthias. His
Speaker 1: message was that of a male dominated kingdom of God
Speaker 1: with him as the king on earth. He had learned
Speaker 1: of another prophet, though one with a large following so,
Speaker 1: on the first Saturday in May of eighteen thirty two,
Speaker 1: Matthias paid him a visit at his apartment on Fourth Street.
Speaker 1: That's where Elijah Pearson the Tish Bite lived with his servant,
Speaker 1: a formerly enslaved woman named Isabella Bomfree. Soon enough, Pearson
Speaker 1: became convinced that he was Matthias's John the Baptist, paving
Speaker 1: the way for someone greater than himself. The following Sunday,
Speaker 1: Pearson gave a sermon to his followers, then turned them
Speaker 1: all over to Matthias, and the hand off couldn't have
Speaker 1: been more timely. Soon, Pearson's health began to deteriorate. He
Speaker 1: found himself experiencing nervous fits that only worsened over time,
Speaker 1: But Matthias wouldn't allow doctors to treat him, insisting that
Speaker 1: Pearson's problem was an infestation of demons that must be vanquished.
Speaker 1: Pearson never preached again, fully surrendering his pulpit to Matthias.
Speaker 1: Determined to set up in his own style, Matthias convinced
Speaker 1: one follower named Benjamin Folger to give him a plot
Speaker 1: of land just north of the Hudson River. He led
Speaker 1: his followers to the parcel and christened it Mount Zion.
Speaker 1: There he assigned sexual partners as casually as dolling out shores.
Speaker 1: Matthias moved in with Pearson and on July thirty four,
Speaker 1: fed him two plates of blackberries for his dinner. Immediately,
Speaker 1: Pearson fell violently ill. Once more, doctors were turned away,
Speaker 1: both men stating that only prayer would save Pearson. That night,
Speaker 1: Matthias left Pearson lying in his own vomit and excrement,
Speaker 1: and by morning the man was dead. Pearson was autopsied,
Speaker 1: and doctors determined that he had been poisoned. Matthias, having
Speaker 1: quickly been abandoned by his followers, found that only two
Speaker 1: remained loyal, Benjamin Folger and Isabella bomb Free. In fact,
Speaker 1: when Matthias was arrested, it was Isabella who helped secure
Speaker 1: lawyers for him, but Folger had other plans for Isabella.
Speaker 1: He spread rumors that she had once tried to poison
Speaker 1: his coffee, trying to throw suspicion on her. Angry Isabella
Speaker 1: retaliated by filing a slander suit against him. Foulger didn't
Speaker 1: worry about it much. He was confident that no white
Speaker 1: male jury would believe the word of a black woman.
Speaker 1: But he was wrong about that. Isabella one, and the
Speaker 1: court granted her a hundred and twenty five dollars, which
Speaker 1: is roughly four thousand today. During Pearson's murder trial, one
Speaker 1: of the doctors unexpectedly withdrew his earlier statement of poison,
Speaker 1: claim ing had found no such evidence of arsenic. Without
Speaker 1: enough proof against him, Matthias was ultimately released. He quickly
Speaker 1: fled New York and headed west. Isabella, however, stood her
Speaker 1: ground and stayed in New York, and she was used
Speaker 1: to fighting for herself. The lawsuit against Fulger hadn't been
Speaker 1: her first either. She had previously sued her former owner,
Speaker 1: a man who had illegally sold her son, Peter. A
Speaker 1: white family helped intervene, and together they took the man
Speaker 1: to court to win her son back. The case made
Speaker 1: her one of the first black women to take a
Speaker 1: white man to court and win. In eighteen forty three,
Speaker 1: Isabella found a different spiritual calling. She became an activist
Speaker 1: for women's rights and a staunch supporter of the abolition
Speaker 1: of slavery, and along the way, she changed her name,
Speaker 1: a name that just about every history book includes. Sojourner
Speaker 1: Truth American Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode
Speaker 1: was written by Michelle Muto with researcher Robin Miniter, and
Speaker 1: produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers
Speaker 1: Aaron Minky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn more
Speaker 1: about the show, visit grim and mil dot com. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.