Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full 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. Most people are good at one thing, maybe two.
Speaker 1: Someone might be a talented pianist and also have a
Speaker 1: green thumb. They understand their skills and their limitations. Then
Speaker 1: there are folks like Richard. Richard was born in England
Speaker 1: around eighteen hundred, but his family moved to the United
Speaker 1: States when he was twelve, choosing Virginia as their new home.
Speaker 1: He worked different jobs as he got older, opting for
Speaker 1: occupations where he could put in a hard day's work.
Speaker 1: Richard eventually got a job painting houses, which may have
Speaker 1: contributed to his later problems. Remember, paints in those days
Speaker 1: were packed with hazardous chemicals, and in Richard's case, they
Speaker 1: apparently went straight to his head. His mental health got
Speaker 1: worse as he grew older. He once told his family
Speaker 1: that he was going back to England, disappearing for a while,
Speaker 1: and then came back and said that he had changed
Speaker 1: his mind. A short while later, he planned another trip
Speaker 1: to England and instead decided to stay in Philadelphia before
Speaker 1: going back to Virginia. His excuse for coming home well,
Speaker 1: he claimed to have read negative articles about himself in
Speaker 1: a Philadelphia newspaper, forcing his early return home. Not long after,
Speaker 1: Richard gave up painting houses. He was under the belief
Speaker 1: that he no longer needed a job because the US
Speaker 1: government was about to dump a huge windfall in his lap,
Speaker 1: what with him being King Richard the third of England
Speaker 1: and all. Unfortunately, there was one man standing in his way,
Speaker 1: President Andrew Jackson. Jackson was apparently preventing his payout because
Speaker 1: he was an opponent of the Second Bank of the
Speaker 1: United States in Philadelphia, which was where Richard's money was
Speaker 1: supposedly going to come from. However, if Jackson was removed
Speaker 1: from the picture, then a national bank could be established
Speaker 1: under a new President, Martin van Buren. This national banquet
Speaker 1: finally paid Richard the money he was owed for the
Speaker 1: English estates he thought he possessed. Not the simplest of plans,
Speaker 1: I know, but Richard wasn't the simplest of men either.
Speaker 1: Time went on and Richard's behavior grew more erratic. He
Speaker 1: started blowing money on fancy clothes and picking fights with
Speaker 1: random people. Each day he grew more and more paranoid
Speaker 1: about his neighbors. And then there was still the issue
Speaker 1: of that pesky Andrew Jackson sitting in the White House.
Speaker 1: Something had to be done. Richard spent weeks tailing Jackson
Speaker 1: through Washington, monitoring his comings and goings. It was at
Speaker 1: a rainy, dreary January eighteen thirty five when he finally
Speaker 1: decided to carry out his plan. He followed Jackson to
Speaker 1: the U. S Capital, where a funeral was being for
Speaker 1: the late Warren R. Davis of South Carolina. Richard waited
Speaker 1: behind a pillar for the service to end while everyone
Speaker 1: sat inside. After it was over, Jackson emerged, kane in hand.
Speaker 1: As his target passed the pillar, Richard jumped out, drew
Speaker 1: his pistol from his coat, and aimed it at Jackson's back,
Speaker 1: and then he pulled the trigger. Allowed bang sounded outside
Speaker 1: the Capitol, startling the crowd and Jackson, well, he was
Speaker 1: just fine. The gun had misfired. Rather than run away, though,
Speaker 1: the President lunged towards his attacker his cane held high
Speaker 1: above his head. Richard pulled out a backup pistol and
Speaker 1: aimed again, this time at Jackson's chest. Another bang and
Speaker 1: another dud. Twice Richard Lawrence had tried to assassinate the
Speaker 1: President of the United States, and twice he had failed.
Speaker 1: He tossed his guns and bolted into the crowd, but
Speaker 1: was unable to get away in time. He was promptly arrested,
Speaker 1: and later that day his guns were examined. One theory
Speaker 1: suggested that they were both highly susceptible to moisture. The
Speaker 1: humidity in the air might have contributed to their misfiring.
Speaker 1: Another possibility was that Richard had been sold bad gunpowder
Speaker 1: that simply failed to ignite. It turns out that Richard
Speaker 1: wasn't the only paranoid person in Washington. Though Jackson himself
Speaker 1: believed that Richard had been put up to the assassination
Speaker 1: by his own political opponents, such as Senator John C.
Speaker 1: Calhoun of South Carolina or Georgia Senator George Poindexter. Even
Speaker 1: though all the evidence pointed to Richard acting alone, there
Speaker 1: actually was one connection between himself and point Dexter. Apparently
Speaker 1: that senator had hired Richard to paint his house in
Speaker 1: the months leading up to the assassination attempt. When his
Speaker 1: constituents found out, point Dexter lost his re election and
Speaker 1: the only thing Richard Lawrence was guilty of killing was
Speaker 1: a senator's political career. Home, as has so often been said,
Speaker 1: is where the heart is. It doesn't matter where you live.
Speaker 1: As long as you're with the people you love in
Speaker 1: a place that you love, you can make anywhere feel
Speaker 1: like home. Sometimes though, it's hard to make a home
Speaker 1: someplace new, different sites and a different atmosphere can make
Speaker 1: settling down in a new place more difficult. But if
Speaker 1: you remember what made your last home special, you can
Speaker 1: usually find a way to enjoy the new one. Lord
Speaker 1: Davis remembered what made his home of Red Oak, Missouri special.
Speaker 1: He'd grown up there during the nineteen thirties. He remembered
Speaker 1: how neighbors waved to each other each day and helped
Speaker 1: each other out, how people in town supported themselves by
Speaker 1: making their own clothes and cannying their own food. It
Speaker 1: was a simpler time until World War Two arrived. That is,
Speaker 1: after the war, Red Oak looked less like a quaint,
Speaker 1: friendly place to live and more like a ghost town
Speaker 1: compared to the big city. It was quiet, too quiet.
Speaker 1: People who had in what the larger world had to
Speaker 1: offer while fighting overseas, suddenly wanted more from their life.
Speaker 1: No more sewing patches on old dresses and jarring their
Speaker 1: own preserves. They wanted fancy clothing shops and find cuisine.
Speaker 1: Even Davis left town for a while. He found a
Speaker 1: job in the Dallas Fort Worth area of Texas, where
Speaker 1: he lived for almost thirty years. When it finally came
Speaker 1: time for him to retire, though, he could think of
Speaker 1: no better place than his old hometown of Red Oak, Missouri,
Speaker 1: except it was a lot more run down by then
Speaker 1: than it used to be. The shops and homes he
Speaker 1: remembered growing up were still there, but in serious need
Speaker 1: of repair. There was the blacksmith shop where Davis's great
Speaker 1: grandfather had worked, and a general store his father ran
Speaker 1: and where Davis would spend his time lending a hand.
Speaker 1: It was also the place where he loved honing his
Speaker 1: artistic skills. You see, it didn't matter what materials were available, paints, clay,
Speaker 1: pastel's Lowell Davis was an artist. Now back in Red
Speaker 1: Oak for good, he saw a way to put his
Speaker 1: talents to use by sprucing up the old buildings from
Speaker 1: his youth. He gave them fresh coats of paint and
Speaker 1: repaired their roofs. He cleaned them inside and out, and
Speaker 1: restored them to their former glory. And he was able
Speaker 1: to do all of this because he was the only
Speaker 1: person living there. The town had all but been abandoned
Speaker 1: after the war, but thanks to his fancy city job,
Speaker 1: Davis had the means to bring the town he loved
Speaker 1: back to how he remembered it in the good old days.
Speaker 1: For people driving through Red Oak today, well they won't
Speaker 1: find much. There's quite a lot of farmland and several
Speaker 1: houses along the main roads, but the blacksmith shop, the diner,
Speaker 1: and many of the houses belonging to Davis's former neighbors
Speaker 1: are all gone. Everything now lives about twenty miles northwest
Speaker 1: near the town of Carthage. Davis dubbed his new home
Speaker 1: Red Oak Too, and brought up as many of the
Speaker 1: original properties as he could, moving them to a larger
Speaker 1: plot of farmland that he owned. He even brought in
Speaker 1: buildings from other areas around the original Red Oak, including
Speaker 1: a Philip sixty six gas station that had lived along
Speaker 1: the Old Root. Sixty six, Davis himself moved into a
Speaker 1: house that once belonged to notorious nineteenth century outlaw Bell Star.
Speaker 1: He saw his project as a way to rebuild the
Speaker 1: town he'd lost, although he knew he'd never get his
Speaker 1: old neighbors back. No one would be canning foods or
Speaker 1: attending their gardens, and he never had anyone to wave
Speaker 1: hello to each morning because there was no one to
Speaker 1: come out and collect their milk deliveries. Red Oak two
Speaker 1: was an art installation, a way for Davis to use
Speaker 1: unconventional materials like houses and storefronts to make the ultimate
Speaker 1: form of American art. His was an expression of nostalgia
Speaker 1: for a time gone by, and like all worthwhile efforts,
Speaker 1: it literally took a village. I hope you've enjoyed today's
Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
Speaker 1: me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com
Speaker 1: and until next time, stay curious, Yeah,