Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: An untested hypothesis remains just that a hypothesis. In order
Speaker 1: to be proven right or wrong, it must be subjected
Speaker 1: to experimentation. Scientists test their hypotheses all the time. It's
Speaker 1: how we make advancements in things like medicine, physics, and
Speaker 1: other scientific disciplines. But sometimes the people looking to advance
Speaker 1: civilization aren't scientists at all. They're just regular people seeking
Speaker 1: a better life, and all they want is to see
Speaker 1: if their theories are true, that such a life is
Speaker 1: out there somewhere, even if they have to build it
Speaker 1: for themselves. It all started with one man, at Tienne Kabe,
Speaker 1: a French legal scholar born in seventeen eighty eight. But
Speaker 1: despite his education in law, Kabe had little regard for
Speaker 1: its strict black and white rhetoric. He took a keen
Speaker 1: interest in politics and eventually moved to Paris, seeking out
Speaker 1: secret revolutionary organizations looking to upset the status quo. His
Speaker 1: day finally came with the Revolution of eighteen thirty, which
Speaker 1: saw the removal of conservative King Charles the Tenth and
Speaker 1: the appointment of the more liberal Louis Philippe to the throne.
Speaker 1: Cabey's efforts during this time also earn him a swanky
Speaker 1: government job as Attorney General for the island of Corsica,
Speaker 1: but this didn't stop him from voicing his displeasure toward
Speaker 1: other conservative branch as a French government. After enough complaining,
Speaker 1: he was not only removed from his position, but also
Speaker 1: exiled to England. Still, he didn't let this setback stop him.
Speaker 1: While he resided in Britain, Kabe focused much of his
Speaker 1: work on political and economic study, which he channeled into
Speaker 1: a new novel. It was titled Voyage on Icare and
Speaker 1: told the story of a fictional communal town called Ikorea.
Speaker 1: In this place, everyone was equal. There was no monarchy,
Speaker 1: no feudal system, and no one persecuted anyone else for
Speaker 1: standing up for what they believed in Korea was a utopia.
Speaker 1: After his five years in exile, Kabe returned to France
Speaker 1: and had his story published. Much to his surprise, it
Speaker 1: became a huge success, and not just as a bestseller.
Speaker 1: Readers of Voyage on icare really connected with its message.
Speaker 1: It was a message that promised everyone's needs would be
Speaker 1: met and provided for despite their current status. People wanted
Speaker 1: a real Ikorea where they could speak their minds without
Speaker 1: consequence and live truly free lives. Kabe hadn't just written
Speaker 1: an allegorical novel criticizing the current French government. He had
Speaker 1: crafted a blue print for a utopian society, and readers
Speaker 1: wanted to live there. By eighteen forty three, the author
Speaker 1: claimed that there were at least fifty thousand French citizens
Speaker 1: who believed in the promise of Ikorea. Four years later,
Speaker 1: he published an article titled let Us Go to Ikorea
Speaker 1: with instructions on how to colonize a portion of America.
Speaker 1: For that exact purpose, Kabey soon found the perfect spot
Speaker 1: to build his utopian vision. It resided across the Pond
Speaker 1: in America, a place full of promise and possibility, the
Speaker 1: state of Texas. He secured a million acres of land there,
Speaker 1: and on February third of eighteen forty three, almost seventy
Speaker 1: French citizens left home to start new lives in what
Speaker 1: would eventually become the Ikorea of their dreams. They finally
Speaker 1: arrived in Texas in late March. Kabey had promised them
Speaker 1: a huge swath of land that was close to the
Speaker 1: Red River and fertile ground for growing crops, but once
Speaker 1: they got there, the early Koreans found that they had
Speaker 1: been duped. The land was actually twenty five miles away
Speaker 1: from the Red River and measured nowhere near one million acres.
Speaker 1: They had only three thousand acres on which to build
Speaker 1: their homesteads, all of it broken up into smaller tracks
Speaker 1: with plots owned by the state of Texas in between. Honestly,
Speaker 1: a map of the place looked kind of like a chessboard,
Speaker 1: where the black squares were the Ikorean owned land and
Speaker 1: the white squares were not. More people continued to come over, though,
Speaker 1: but they soon realized that they just weren't cut out
Speaker 1: for utopian living. Kebey lost a number of followers who
Speaker 1: eventually returned to France, but some stuck it out, looking
Speaker 1: to make a go of it despite the odds against them,
Speaker 1: and their leader even managed to push the odds in
Speaker 1: their favor. He was in New Orleans when he came
Speaker 1: across a group of individuals who had fled their original
Speaker 1: home in Navu, Illinois, due to threats of violence from
Speaker 1: the surrounding communities. This fledgling organization happened to be the
Speaker 1: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, also known
Speaker 1: as Mormons, and they were only too happy to sell
Speaker 1: their old land to Kobey for a paltry price. So
Speaker 1: he and his followers eventually left Texas and moved north
Speaker 1: to Illinois, where there were already homes built and waiting
Speaker 1: for them thanks to the former Mormon owners. Unfortunately, Koreans
Speaker 1: still had a huge problem. Despite being a communist utopia,
Speaker 1: Ikorea required money to survive in an otherwise capitalist society.
Speaker 1: Tools and materials from outside had to be paid for.
Speaker 1: The struggle to survive as a communal enclave surrounded by
Speaker 1: a diametrically opposed economic ideology caused tension among the people.
Speaker 1: They began voicing their complaints out loud, to the point
Speaker 1: where Kabai became the very thing that he hated. A dictator.
Speaker 1: He forbade speaking ill of his efforts or of the
Speaker 1: community as a whole, He also outlawed things like tobacco
Speaker 1: and alcohol. Between the growing discord among his people and
Speaker 1: the fraud charges he was facing back home from former Ikoreans,
Speaker 1: it wasn't long before his utopian experiment collapsed. He was
Speaker 1: ousted from his role as head of the colony in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty and decided to set out on his own
Speaker 1: with a small group of loyal Ikoreans in tow. He
Speaker 1: died of a stroke a month later, but other members
Speaker 1: splintered off and settled down in Corning, Iowa, where they
Speaker 1: tried to build their ideal city of the future from
Speaker 1: the ground up. And they got close, but an increasingly
Speaker 1: younger demographic challenged the older established community members who didn't
Speaker 1: want to see certain changes, such as women getting the
Speaker 1: right to vote. By eighteen eighty six, all traces of
Speaker 1: Korea and its various factions had all but disappeared. To
Speaker 1: quote Nathaniel Hawthorne, eager souls, mystics, and revolutionaries may propose
Speaker 1: to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams, but
Speaker 1: evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the
Speaker 1: secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow
Speaker 1: of a dream we all have that one friend or relative,
Speaker 1: the one who lingers a bit too long at holidays
Speaker 1: and gatherings, who consistently makes themselves the center of the drama.
Speaker 1: They're always around, and they're a bit more high maintenance
Speaker 1: than everyone else. Harriet was a lot like that. She
Speaker 1: was born around eighteen thirty on the island of Santa Cruz,
Speaker 1: but quickly made her way to the nearby island of
Speaker 1: Santa Maria, off the coast of South America. She lived
Speaker 1: there for some time until a visitor from England arrived
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty five aboard a research vessel named HMS Beagle.
Speaker 1: His name was Charles Darwin. You've probably heard of him.
Speaker 1: He had left England in eighteen thirty one on board
Speaker 1: the Beagle to study various flora and fauna throughout his travels,
Speaker 1: and he did all of that. Darwin was a naturalist
Speaker 1: after all. He cataloged and studied a number of different
Speaker 1: species of plants and animals during that voyage. But then
Speaker 1: there was Harriet. Darwin met her on his first trip
Speaker 1: to the Galapagos Islands. She, along with two others, joined
Speaker 1: him on board the Beagle. Unfortunately, caring for Harriet and
Speaker 1: her two siblings became a bit too much, and they
Speaker 1: were eventually adopted by John Clemens Wickham. Wickham had been
Speaker 1: the first lieutenant on the Beagle, serving under Fitzroy while
Speaker 1: Darwin was a board. Wickham then became captain for a
Speaker 1: short time before retiring to Australia with Harriet and her
Speaker 1: two brothers, Tom and Dick. She resided with him in
Speaker 1: Brisbane at a place called Newstead House for the next
Speaker 1: nineteen years. Then in eighteen sixty Wickham departed Australia to
Speaker 1: spend his final years in France. Tom, Dick and Harriet,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, left Newstead House for the Botanic Gardens.
Speaker 1: Now it's important to understand that paperwork concerning the movement
Speaker 1: of all the involved parties is pretty scarce. It's believed
Speaker 1: by some that Wickham could not have adopted Tom, Dick
Speaker 1: and Harriet because he wasn't in England in eighteen forty
Speaker 1: one to collect them. Others argue that he actually was
Speaker 1: there to get them and then he took them to Australia.
Speaker 1: And Darwin's involvement has also been disputed, since he never
Speaker 1: actually set foot on the island where Harriet was born.
Speaker 1: But even though she was not native to any of
Speaker 1: the islands he visited. It's widely believed that he was
Speaker 1: in the right place at the right time. Harriet had
Speaker 1: found her way there and she was chosen to accompany
Speaker 1: him on his journey. Either way. She lived at the
Speaker 1: Botanical Gardens until nineteen fifty two, seventy years after the
Speaker 1: death of Charles Darwin, and during that time she was
Speaker 1: mistaken for a boy and called Harry, named for Harry Oakman,
Speaker 1: the groundskeeper there at the Botanical Gardens. It wasn't until
Speaker 1: she moved to the Gold Coast when it was discovered
Speaker 1: that Harry was actually a female. From then on she
Speaker 1: was called Harriet. By now she was over one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty years old and as I'm sure you can guess,
Speaker 1: she was not a person. Harriet, along with Tom and Dick,
Speaker 1: were tortoises, and the Gold Coast of Australia was home
Speaker 1: to Flay's Fauna Sanctuary, which would become her residence for
Speaker 1: the next thirty five years. She made one last move
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven to the Dtrolia Zoo's Queenland Reptile Park.
Speaker 1: This zoo was quite special, as its founders, Bob and
Speaker 1: Lynn Erwin had a son who loved all kinds of animals.
Speaker 1: He grew up to be a voice for wildlife conservancy
Speaker 1: and education. Along with his wife Terry. Steve Irwin became
Speaker 1: known by his nickname the Crocodile Hunter, and among the
Speaker 1: many creatures under his care at the zoo was Harriet.
Speaker 1: Harriet had a good life there, according to the Australia
Speaker 1: Zoo's website. She ate a regular diet of fresh vegetables
Speaker 1: and hibiscus flowers, and the Irwins considered her an honorary grandmother.
Speaker 1: She was beloved by both staff and visitors alike. Sadly,
Speaker 1: Harriet passed away on June twenty third of two thousand
Speaker 1: and six of heart failure, but she lived to the
Speaker 1: ripe old age of one hundred and seventy six, and
Speaker 1: her legacy was just as wild as her. She was
Speaker 1: the only creature on Earth that had been roommates with
Speaker 1: both Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin. And to that, I say,
Speaker 1: kriike I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the
Speaker 1: Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: learn 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 Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.