Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Even though thousands of soldiers may fight in
Speaker 1: a war, few become household names like Georges Patton, Ulysses S.
Speaker 1: Grant or Robert E. Lee. But one man was so
Speaker 1: beloved by his country that when he died, all efforts
Speaker 1: were exhausted to preserve his body, and in the process
Speaker 1: they also made a pretty gross cocktail out of him.
Speaker 1: Horatio Nelson was born in England in seventy eight to
Speaker 1: a well to do family. He joined his uncle, a
Speaker 1: Royal Navy captain, on January one of seventeen seventy one,
Speaker 1: aboard the HMS Reasonable as a seaman. He was only
Speaker 1: thirteen at the time. After serving aboard several ships in
Speaker 1: the East and West Indies for the next six years,
Speaker 1: Nelson returned to London for his Lieutenant's exam, which was
Speaker 1: presided over by two Navy captains and his uncle. It's
Speaker 1: safe to say that he passed and was almost immediately
Speaker 1: appointed to a ship bound for the Caribbean. Throughout his career,
Speaker 1: he commanded a number of vessels and continued to fight
Speaker 1: for his country. He may have been the poster child
Speaker 1: for nepotism, but he made the most of that privilege
Speaker 1: and it earned him a great amount of acclaim and
Speaker 1: admiration from his fellow Briton's. He was a strong leader
Speaker 1: who tried not to let politics influence his decisions, so
Speaker 1: when he was killed by a musket ball in October
Speaker 1: of eighteen oh five, his death was mourn all over England.
Speaker 1: He'd been shot while standing on the deck of his ship,
Speaker 1: the HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. He'd been
Speaker 1: shot through his left shoulder and spine. The musket ball
Speaker 1: had also punctured one of his lungs as it traveled
Speaker 1: through his body. He died from his injuries three hours later.
Speaker 1: Word of his death made its way back home in
Speaker 1: sixteen days, which sent the country into an emotional tail spin.
Speaker 1: People wrote so many poems and letters to newspapers expressing
Speaker 1: their grief that the press had to issue statements asking
Speaker 1: them to stop. But there was a greater problem than
Speaker 1: the abundance of odes. Vice Admiral Nelson's body still had
Speaker 1: to travel back to England, and it was rotting. It
Speaker 1: was brought to the ship's surgeon, William Beatty, who believed
Speaker 1: that he could help. Beatty was something of an anomaly
Speaker 1: among surgeons. At the time, surgery was not the respected
Speaker 1: profession it is today. If someone needed a limb amputated,
Speaker 1: they had about thirty percent chance of surviving the procedure,
Speaker 1: and if they needed a new organ, well that was
Speaker 1: the end of them. But Beatty was different. During the
Speaker 1: Battle of Trafalgar, where Nelson was killed, he treated one
Speaker 1: and two injured soldiers. NINETI survived thanks to his efforts. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: by the time Nelson made it to his table, the
Speaker 1: Vice Admiral was already gone, which left Baby with the
Speaker 1: job of preserving his corpse for transport. Common practice dictated
Speaker 1: that Nelson be submerged in navy rum. The alcohol would
Speaker 1: keep him fresh ish until he could be properly interred,
Speaker 1: but the surgeon chose to go another way. Rather than
Speaker 1: use rum, he opted for something a little stronger, namely
Speaker 1: ethanol and brandy. It was a daring choice, but one
Speaker 1: that was made while the ship was struggling to stay afloat.
Speaker 1: The Victory had taken serious damage during the battle, and
Speaker 1: the goal was to get Nelson home in one piece.
Speaker 1: More or less, the brandy ethanol combination was of a
Speaker 1: higher proof than the rum, and Baby believed that it
Speaker 1: would better preserve the corpse. Nelson was quickly placed in
Speaker 1: a cask of the mixture as the ship began its
Speaker 1: arduous journey home. The thing about brandy, though, is that
Speaker 1: it doesn't make a great embalming fluid. After two weeks
Speaker 1: at sea, the cask erupted, It's lid blown off due
Speaker 1: to the gas building up inside. It was so shocking
Speaker 1: that a watchman task was standing guard over Nelson's body
Speaker 1: thought the Vice Admiral had come back to life and
Speaker 1: had pushed the cask open from the inside. The Victory
Speaker 1: eventually arrived back in England to throngs of people, all
Speaker 1: hoping to catch a glimpse of their beloved hero. But
Speaker 1: he wasn't exactly ready for his close up. For one,
Speaker 1: Baby still needed to conduct an autopsy. What was left
Speaker 1: of Nelson was then wrapped in linen and removed from
Speaker 1: the cask so the surgeon could locate the bullet that
Speaker 1: had killed him. From there, the remains were moved into
Speaker 1: a lead coffin, which was also filled with a concoction
Speaker 1: made of brandy, mirror and camphor for further preservation. There
Speaker 1: was concern that Nelson's skin might slough off like a
Speaker 1: loose sweater when moved one last time, but luckily his
Speaker 1: corpse retained its composure and was placed in a wooden
Speaker 1: coffin its final resting place. The funeral was held on
Speaker 1: January nine, eighteen oh six, at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
Speaker 1: It was a spectacle too, totally one point two million
Speaker 1: dollars by today's standards, and the ordeal left a lasting
Speaker 1: legacy on British culture, specifically it's drinking culture. Folks started
Speaker 1: calling Navy rum Nelson's blood, and if someone stole liquors
Speaker 1: straight from the cask, they referred to it as tapping
Speaker 1: the admiral. As for Baby, he was given the musket
Speaker 1: ball as a gift. He turned it into a watch fob,
Speaker 1: which he carried in his pocket for the remainder of
Speaker 1: his life. Baby died in eighteen forty two, and the
Speaker 1: ball was then passed on to another high ranking official,
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria. It's been a show piece at Windsor Castle
Speaker 1: ever since. But although it was an impressive artifact from
Speaker 1: the Battle of Trafalgar, it pales in comparison to the
Speaker 1: story of how Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson was pickled and
Speaker 1: brought home after his death a curiosity. Indeed, when we're young,
Speaker 1: many of us think our parents are superheroes, invincible and constant,
Speaker 1: like they'll be here forever. It's hard to imagine a
Speaker 1: world without them in it. Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky.
Speaker 1: Our parents are not bulletproof or invulnerable, and before long
Speaker 1: we must confront their mortality head on. In eighteen eighty,
Speaker 1: the Lang children didn't have a chance to say goodbye
Speaker 1: to their father. They had no reason to think anything
Speaker 1: would happen to him, But on one afternoon they witnessed
Speaker 1: the unthinkable and couldn't explain how it had happened. David
Speaker 1: Lange was a farmer in Gallatin, Texas. He was a
Speaker 1: humble man, living a modest life with his wife and children,
Speaker 1: just trying to get by. It was a sunny September
Speaker 1: twenty three and David was walking through his fields taking
Speaker 1: care of the day's work. These fields were fairly flat,
Speaker 1: with no obstructions or plant life to get in his way.
Speaker 1: He wasn't behind a fence, and there wasn't a ingletree,
Speaker 1: and he were in sight. Mrs Lang and the kids
Speaker 1: were back at the house watching him move across the property.
Speaker 1: As they sat inside observing his movements, they suddenly realized
Speaker 1: that he wasn't there. Literally, in the blink of an eye,
Speaker 1: David had simply disappeared. Their first thought was that he
Speaker 1: had tripped and fallen, maybe down a sinkhole or other
Speaker 1: open cavity, but as they ran toward where he was
Speaker 1: last seen, they realized there was no hole to be found.
Speaker 1: He was just gone. Others who had heard the commotion
Speaker 1: came to help Mrs Lang, who was beside herself with
Speaker 1: fear and grief at the disappearance of her husband. They
Speaker 1: helped her back to the house while her neighbors formed
Speaker 1: a search party. After some time, though it was clear
Speaker 1: that David was nowhere to be found. Such an event
Speaker 1: would be enough to traumatize anyone, but David's children never
Speaker 1: gave up hope. They knew their father was still out
Speaker 1: there somewhere, And so one year later, their daughter returned
Speaker 1: to the field where he had disappeared. Perhaps there was
Speaker 1: a clue or a remnant from that day that indicate
Speaker 1: where he had gone. As she stood there, looking out
Speaker 1: on the vast expanse before her, she called out to him.
Speaker 1: She shouted for him several times, but heard nothing in return.
Speaker 1: It was a silly thing to think that someone who
Speaker 1: had up and vanished would just reappear out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: and so she began her trek back to the house.
Speaker 1: Perhaps she had been distraught or the wind had hit
Speaker 1: her ear in a certain way. But as she was
Speaker 1: turning away from the field, she heard her father's voice,
Speaker 1: and he was in distress. She ran back to the
Speaker 1: house and fetched her mother, bringing her back to the
Speaker 1: field with her. She called out again her father's voice
Speaker 1: let out another cry for help. The next day they
Speaker 1: heard it yet again. It lingered for almost a week
Speaker 1: until it just disappeared, just as Lang had done one
Speaker 1: year prior. Those who were familiar with the story claimed
Speaker 1: that the grass where Lange was less seen grew better
Speaker 1: than anywhere else on the farm, and that his cattle
Speaker 1: wouldn't eat there Others said that the spot was barren,
Speaker 1: with the grass only growing around it. Maybe a beam
Speaker 1: of light or energy had carried him off into another
Speaker 1: dimension or a plane of existence. Whatever the case, there
Speaker 1: was something about that part of the farm that drew
Speaker 1: inquiry from the family and neighbors, or did it. After
Speaker 1: the tale had been reported a number of times over
Speaker 1: the years, researchers looked into it. A Tennessee librarian in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies claimed it had come from a hoaxer
Speaker 1: named Joseph Mulhattan. Mulhatton had lived in Tennessee in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty and had invented the story to win a lying contest,
Speaker 1: although there was no evidence of that having never happened either.
Speaker 1: Some attribute David Ling's disappearance to Student Palmer, a mystery
Speaker 1: writer who wrote his own version of the story in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three. Palmer's narrative was published in Fate magazine
Speaker 1: and was believed to be the first account, or at
Speaker 1: least among the earliest. When asked about its origins, Palmer
Speaker 1: said the story was not his. Sarah Lang, David's real
Speaker 1: life daughter, had told it to him. He had simply
Speaker 1: written the account down for them. Magazine, but experts believe
Speaker 1: that Lange had actually borrowed the idea from author Ambrose Beers,
Speaker 1: who had published a similar tale in eighteen eighty eight
Speaker 1: titled The Difficulty of Crossing a Field. It was about
Speaker 1: a plantation owner who disappeared under similar circumstances. But when
Speaker 1: she was challenged, Sarah Lange said that Beers was actually
Speaker 1: the story thief and not her. Ever since then, it's
Speaker 1: been a case of he said, she said, And despite
Speaker 1: the lack of proof that anyone named Lange was living
Speaker 1: in Gallatin, Tennessee in eighteen eighty David's story has persisted
Speaker 1: to this day. But hey, if you want to see
Speaker 1: it for yourself, you can always try to catch a
Speaker 1: production of the two thousand two stage adaptation of Beers's tail.
Speaker 1: It too, is called The Difficulty of Crossing a Field,
Speaker 1: with music written by a composer named David Lane. I
Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting curiosity these podcast dot com. The
Speaker 1: show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with
Speaker 1: how Stuff works. I make another award winning show called
Speaker 1: Lore which is a podcast, book series, and television show
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: world of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.