1 00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:07,520 Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I 2 00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:14,240 Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full 3 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:17,960 Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, 4 00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:21,640 Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display, 5 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:27,560 Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet 6 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:38,960 Speaker 1: of Curiosities. The Cabinet of Curiosities is no stranger to 7 00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:42,159 Speaker 1: premature burials. In the past. For example, we've covered safety 8 00:00:42,159 --> 00:00:45,000 Speaker 1: coffins built with bells and other mechanisms to let those 9 00:00:45,040 --> 00:00:47,320 Speaker 1: on the surface know the person below them was not, 10 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:50,720 Speaker 1: in fact deceased. We've also told stories of people who 11 00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:53,840 Speaker 1: were accidentally buried alive and rose from the dead to 12 00:00:54,040 --> 00:00:57,920 Speaker 1: scare the pants off their living relatives. John McIntyre, however, 13 00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:01,920 Speaker 1: is a different kind of burial story entirely. He lived 14 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:04,600 Speaker 1: in Edinburgh in the early eighteen hundreds, a time when 15 00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:07,640 Speaker 1: body snatching was an easy way for ne'er dwells to 16 00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:10,960 Speaker 1: make the money. People, often men, would dig up freshly 17 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,720 Speaker 1: deceased bodies and sell them to medical schools which were 18 00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:17,600 Speaker 1: in desperate need of cadavers for educational purposes. It was 19 00:01:17,640 --> 00:01:21,800 Speaker 1: a competitive industry and body thieves or resurrection men as 20 00:01:21,800 --> 00:01:25,480 Speaker 1: they were called, resorted to inventive ways to pilfer corpses 21 00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:29,000 Speaker 1: without anyone noticing. For example, one method involved digging a 22 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:31,200 Speaker 1: hole about twenty feet away from the grave that was 23 00:01:31,240 --> 00:01:33,680 Speaker 1: big enough for a person to fit through. The digger 24 00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:36,679 Speaker 1: would then tunnel his way to the coffin, pry off 25 00:01:36,720 --> 00:01:39,400 Speaker 1: the foot or the head, and then pull the body 26 00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:42,200 Speaker 1: through the tunnel to the surface. Once they were out, 27 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:44,080 Speaker 1: they would replace the dirts and fill in the hole, 28 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:47,080 Speaker 1: and everybody, especially the families of the dead, would still 29 00:01:47,080 --> 00:01:50,120 Speaker 1: believe that their loved one was six ft under. Once 30 00:01:50,160 --> 00:01:53,360 Speaker 1: body snatching became a big enough problem, though, those closest 31 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:55,920 Speaker 1: to the deceased would stay in the cemetery before and 32 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:58,680 Speaker 1: after the burial to watch over the plot, you know, 33 00:01:58,960 --> 00:02:01,000 Speaker 1: just in case someone with a shovel happened to be 34 00:02:01,040 --> 00:02:06,200 Speaker 1: waiting nearby. John McIntyre, however, didn't have anyone watching over him. 35 00:02:06,240 --> 00:02:08,799 Speaker 1: Around mid April of eighteen twenty four, he had been 36 00:02:08,800 --> 00:02:12,960 Speaker 1: feeling sick, struggling with a fever and feelings of sluggishness. 37 00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:16,640 Speaker 1: Within days, he couldn't lift a finger. The prognosis was grim, 38 00:02:16,639 --> 00:02:20,080 Speaker 1: and McIntyre didn't see any point in going on, he 39 00:02:20,160 --> 00:02:22,880 Speaker 1: heard someone crying beside his bed, and then a nurse 40 00:02:22,880 --> 00:02:26,120 Speaker 1: pronounced him dead. He passed with his eyes still open, 41 00:02:26,280 --> 00:02:29,120 Speaker 1: having lacked the ability to close them in his final moments. 42 00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:33,799 Speaker 1: McIntyre's father closed them for him. His home remained open 43 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:35,960 Speaker 1: to the public for three days so that friends and 44 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:39,480 Speaker 1: family could pay their final respects. Then, on April fifteenth, 45 00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:42,120 Speaker 1: he was placed in a coffin and carted to the cemetery, 46 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:45,639 Speaker 1: where he was finally laid to rest. Dirt was shoveled 47 00:02:45,639 --> 00:02:48,240 Speaker 1: back into the grave, filling the hole and covering the 48 00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:51,400 Speaker 1: coffin for good. At least that was the plan, you see, 49 00:02:51,440 --> 00:02:54,280 Speaker 1: not long after he'd been buried, McIntyre was exhumed by 50 00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:57,280 Speaker 1: grave robbers looking for a fast buck. They hauled him 51 00:02:57,280 --> 00:02:59,880 Speaker 1: out and sold him to a local anatomy school. He 52 00:03:00,160 --> 00:03:03,080 Speaker 1: was stripped of his burial clothes and hoisted onto an 53 00:03:03,080 --> 00:03:06,400 Speaker 1: operating table where a doctor stood over his body, knife 54 00:03:06,440 --> 00:03:09,720 Speaker 1: in hand. An audience of medical students looked on from 55 00:03:09,760 --> 00:03:12,200 Speaker 1: the perimeter of the room as the doctor pressed the 56 00:03:12,240 --> 00:03:15,680 Speaker 1: blade to the man's skin and drew blood. McIntyre, as 57 00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:18,160 Speaker 1: if freed from the bonds that had rendered him immobile, 58 00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:21,400 Speaker 1: all this time, sprang to life in front of everyone. 59 00:03:22,200 --> 00:03:25,720 Speaker 1: People gasped and screamed. The dead had risen before their eyes. 60 00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:31,160 Speaker 1: Well sort of. John McIntyre hadn't really been dead. Whatever 61 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:33,760 Speaker 1: illness he had nearly succumbed to had simply placed him 62 00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:36,440 Speaker 1: in a trance. He couldn't lift his arms or move 63 00:03:36,520 --> 00:03:39,640 Speaker 1: his legs. He couldn't even blink his eyelids. He'd heard 64 00:03:39,640 --> 00:03:42,760 Speaker 1: the crying at his bedside and the nurse announcing his death. 65 00:03:43,080 --> 00:03:44,920 Speaker 1: He had heard every person who had come to say 66 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:47,800 Speaker 1: goodbye to his corpse. He remembered being placed in the 67 00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:50,480 Speaker 1: coffin and being lowered into the ground, and he had 68 00:03:50,520 --> 00:03:53,360 Speaker 1: heard them throwing dirt over his casket, a sound he 69 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:58,440 Speaker 1: described as far more tremendous than thunder. McIntyre had heard 70 00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:01,200 Speaker 1: and felt nearly everything that had happened to him from 71 00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:03,760 Speaker 1: the time at which he had died, all the way 72 00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:06,720 Speaker 1: up until when he finally woke up on the operating table. 73 00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:09,520 Speaker 1: When the doctors realized that he was still alive, they 74 00:04:09,520 --> 00:04:11,760 Speaker 1: helped him with all the tools at their disposal, and, 75 00:04:12,040 --> 00:04:15,480 Speaker 1: according to McIntyre's own account, in the course of an hour, 76 00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:19,600 Speaker 1: I was in full possession of all my faculties. It's 77 00:04:19,720 --> 00:04:22,279 Speaker 1: terrifying to think what might have happened had the body 78 00:04:22,320 --> 00:04:25,640 Speaker 1: statures not dug him up. How he would have perished alone, 79 00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:29,120 Speaker 1: trapped below the soil, unable to call out for help. 80 00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:33,599 Speaker 1: Crime doesn't pay, but every once in a while they 81 00:04:33,640 --> 00:04:50,520 Speaker 1: can evidently save a life. Most of us are familiar 82 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:55,279 Speaker 1: with the seven deadly sins lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy, 83 00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:57,800 Speaker 1: and pride, and the seventh is the one that most 84 00:04:57,839 --> 00:04:59,800 Speaker 1: people think sits at the root of most evil in 85 00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:05,160 Speaker 1: the world. Greed. It can lead to theft and robbery, exploitation, extortion, 86 00:05:05,600 --> 00:05:08,960 Speaker 1: and even murder. Luckily, for William Schmidt, he didn't have 87 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:11,240 Speaker 1: to deal with any of that. All greed did to 88 00:05:11,320 --> 00:05:14,279 Speaker 1: him was give him one heck of a workout. Born 89 00:05:14,320 --> 00:05:16,680 Speaker 1: in Rhode Island in the mid eighteen hundreds, William Schmidt 90 00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:18,840 Speaker 1: sadly grew up to see nearly all of his family 91 00:05:18,839 --> 00:05:22,400 Speaker 1: wiped out by tuberculosis or consumption as it was called 92 00:05:22,400 --> 00:05:24,919 Speaker 1: back then. He decided to try his luck out west, 93 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:27,520 Speaker 1: moving to California to prospect for gold in a place 94 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:32,080 Speaker 1: aptly named Last Chance Canyon, located in the Mojave Desert 95 00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:35,640 Speaker 1: among the El Paso mountains. The area yielded exactly what 96 00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:39,880 Speaker 1: he'd been looking for. In other words, he struck gold. Unfortunately, 97 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:42,680 Speaker 1: that wasn't very convenient for him because his mind was 98 00:05:42,720 --> 00:05:44,799 Speaker 1: on the north side of the mountain, while the smelter 99 00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:47,960 Speaker 1: resided on the south. In order to get his gold 100 00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:50,360 Speaker 1: to the smelter, he had to load up his two 101 00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:53,279 Speaker 1: burrows with all of the golden supplies and then trek 102 00:05:53,360 --> 00:05:56,640 Speaker 1: down a hard to navigate path crossing over difficult terrain. 103 00:05:57,240 --> 00:06:00,320 Speaker 1: So William had an idea. He decided to create a 104 00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:03,400 Speaker 1: shortcut from his dig site to the smelter by way 105 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:06,400 Speaker 1: of a tunnel. Using his hand tools and dynamites, he 106 00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:09,480 Speaker 1: got to work tunneling his way through the solid granite mountain, 107 00:06:09,839 --> 00:06:12,640 Speaker 1: which was hard to get through on his own. This 108 00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:15,920 Speaker 1: was partly due to his lack of experience. William, you see, 109 00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:18,440 Speaker 1: wasn't a miner by trade, and he was also just 110 00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:22,040 Speaker 1: using antiquated tools like simple picks and hammers. Even in 111 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:24,919 Speaker 1: nineteen there were modern alternatives that made the act of 112 00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:28,640 Speaker 1: tunneling through a mountain a little easier. Unfortunately, those tools 113 00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:31,039 Speaker 1: were out of his price range, so he would chip 114 00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:33,680 Speaker 1: away at the walls and load up canvas bags with 115 00:06:33,720 --> 00:06:36,440 Speaker 1: broken pieces of rocks. Once they were full, he would 116 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:38,400 Speaker 1: haul them out of the mine and dump them out 117 00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:41,400 Speaker 1: before starting again. Eventually, he replaced the bags with the 118 00:06:41,440 --> 00:06:44,080 Speaker 1: wheelbarrow until he was able to install a mine car 119 00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:48,040 Speaker 1: on tracks which he actually laid himself. This so called 120 00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:51,680 Speaker 1: shortcut became his life's work and obsession that even earned 121 00:06:51,720 --> 00:06:55,960 Speaker 1: him a nickname Burrow. William kept to himself, mostly choosing 122 00:06:55,960 --> 00:06:58,279 Speaker 1: not to get married or have children. Some say that 123 00:06:58,320 --> 00:07:01,680 Speaker 1: he remained childless so as to have passing down consumption 124 00:07:01,760 --> 00:07:04,360 Speaker 1: to his offspring, although it was possible that he simply 125 00:07:04,400 --> 00:07:07,880 Speaker 1: was just too busy with his pet project. He spent 126 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:10,720 Speaker 1: very little money in the process, choosing to burn cheap 127 00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:14,440 Speaker 1: twopenny candles instead of kerosene. Each night. When he ripped 128 00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:17,320 Speaker 1: his clothes, he would patch them with pieces of flour sack. 129 00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:21,480 Speaker 1: He fixed his shoes with crushed cans. His daily menu 130 00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:25,640 Speaker 1: was also pretty limited. William didn't eat much more than sardines, rice, 131 00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:28,400 Speaker 1: and onions, which he cooked on a cast iron stove 132 00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:31,320 Speaker 1: in his tiny cabin. He was so frugal, in fact, 133 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:34,800 Speaker 1: that he used short fuses on his dynamite to save money. 134 00:07:34,840 --> 00:07:37,120 Speaker 1: That also meant that when he lit them. He only 135 00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:39,400 Speaker 1: had seconds to get out of range of the blast. 136 00:07:39,840 --> 00:07:42,720 Speaker 1: It wasn't uncommon for William to hobble out of the tunnel, 137 00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:46,200 Speaker 1: bloodied and hurt from falling rocks caused by the explosion. 138 00:07:47,280 --> 00:07:49,560 Speaker 1: Those who knew him thought that he was suffering from 139 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:52,360 Speaker 1: a mental illness, perhaps even a breakdown of some kind. 140 00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:55,720 Speaker 1: After all, who would subject themselves to such punishment all 141 00:07:55,840 --> 00:07:59,040 Speaker 1: to save a few hours on donkey back. But at 142 00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:02,000 Speaker 1: a certain point it is no longer about making a shortcut. 143 00:08:02,400 --> 00:08:05,520 Speaker 1: The tunnel became something more. It became a testament to 144 00:08:05,640 --> 00:08:11,640 Speaker 1: his unbreakable will It became a legacy. In that legacy 145 00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:13,720 Speaker 1: was put to the test when a road was created 146 00:08:13,760 --> 00:08:17,600 Speaker 1: between the canyon and Mojave, covering the exact ground William 147 00:08:17,640 --> 00:08:20,480 Speaker 1: had been trying to bypass with his tunnel, but he 148 00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:22,920 Speaker 1: didn't let it stop him. He'd already been digging for 149 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:26,280 Speaker 1: twenty years and saw no point in stopping now. He 150 00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:28,920 Speaker 1: continued to chisel and carve his way through the mountain 151 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:31,920 Speaker 1: for another eighteen years. By the time he finished in 152 00:08:32,040 --> 00:08:35,640 Speaker 1: ninety eight, his tunnel measured half a mile long. He 153 00:08:35,720 --> 00:08:39,280 Speaker 1: moved nearly six thousand tons of granite by himself, all 154 00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:42,600 Speaker 1: for nothing. The new road had already given minors easy 155 00:08:42,640 --> 00:08:45,680 Speaker 1: access to the smelter in the south, but William didn't care. 156 00:08:46,040 --> 00:08:48,920 Speaker 1: He'd already gone too far to just stop, and after 157 00:08:48,960 --> 00:08:51,400 Speaker 1: the tunnel was finished, he didn't even end up using 158 00:08:51,440 --> 00:08:54,000 Speaker 1: it for himself. He sold the rights to it to 159 00:08:54,160 --> 00:08:57,160 Speaker 1: another minor. Was it the best use of his time 160 00:08:57,200 --> 00:09:02,280 Speaker 1: and energy? Probably not, but that doesn't mean it wasn't curious. 161 00:09:06,679 --> 00:09:09,400 Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet 162 00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:13,320 Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn 163 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:17,920 Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. 164 00:09:17,960 --> 00:09:21,520 Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership 165 00:09:21,559 --> 00:09:24,839 Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show 166 00:09:24,960 --> 00:09:29,040 Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, 167 00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:31,160 Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the 168 00:09:31,320 --> 00:09:36,119 Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.