Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky'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. Salvador Dolly had a bit of an unconventional
Speaker 1: streak about him. He enjoyed surprising people, He liked thinking
Speaker 1: and painting outside the box. And if his mustache is
Speaker 1: any testament to his temperament, you can assume just by
Speaker 1: looking at him that he was quite the interesting character
Speaker 1: to have a conversation with. Counted among his lack of
Speaker 1: convention was his undying quest to upset the status quo,
Speaker 1: to do something a little different, and he received just
Speaker 1: such an opportunity when U S Department of Corrections Commissioner
Speaker 1: Anna moscowits Cross approached Dolly's manager and invited the artist
Speaker 1: to give an art lesson to inmates at Rikers Island
Speaker 1: Prison in New York. The manager must have pinched himself,
Speaker 1: of course his client would want to take the commissioner
Speaker 1: up on this. He was, after all, Salvador Dolly, and
Speaker 1: true to form, he did intend to give the lesson,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately became sick before his visit and had to cancel.
Speaker 1: A shame too, as he had planned on bringing Baboo
Speaker 1: his pet acelot. But Dolly wasn't just going to call
Speaker 1: it quits. No, he decided to paint an original work,
Speaker 1: especially for the prison, to be displayed proudly. Inside it
Speaker 1: was a black blot representing Christ's head with the crown
Speaker 1: of thorns from which red and black splatter fell. Dolly
Speaker 1: even signed it for the dining room of the prisoners
Speaker 1: Rikers Island, s d and from nineteen sixty five to one.
Speaker 1: That was where it was, right in the middle of
Speaker 1: the prison dining room. It didn't take long though, before
Speaker 1: food fights became a problem. The painting got caught in
Speaker 1: the crossfire or perhaps became the target of all manner
Speaker 1: of flying entrees and tableware. One such projectile even cracked
Speaker 1: the glass and left coffee splotches on the paper itself.
Speaker 1: Seeing no other option, the prison decided to invest in
Speaker 1: better protection, and while they were doing that, they had
Speaker 1: it appraised, stunned by a valuation of two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars. They soon locked it safely inside a
Speaker 1: perspect's box, where no food fights could further tarnish it.
Speaker 1: It remained there for another two decades, the subject of
Speaker 1: many conversations, I'm sure. But then things changed on March
Speaker 1: one of two thousand three. That was when a fire
Speaker 1: alarm went off inside the prison. Now, according to standard
Speaker 1: operating procedure, all officers gathered at a predetermined location. However,
Speaker 1: four officers didn't show up. You see, they were too
Speaker 1: busy with a more artistic endeavor. As the all clear
Speaker 1: was given and the prisoners and guards went back about
Speaker 1: their business, folks noticed that something had changed between the
Speaker 1: time the fire alarm had gone off and the return
Speaker 1: of the inmates and guards. The painting had shrunk by
Speaker 1: about twelve inches in height and width. Worse, it was
Speaker 1: now oil on canvas instead of water color and charcoal
Speaker 1: on paper. It had also found itself a new frame,
Speaker 1: which had been stapled directly to the wall rather than hung.
Speaker 1: This new painting obviously was a fake, and not a
Speaker 1: very good one either, And yet through it all, the
Speaker 1: perspective box had remained locked. While there have been many
Speaker 1: art heists that defy investigators. This one was easy enough
Speaker 1: to solve, almost right from first glance. It took just
Speaker 1: a few days for one of the guilty guards to
Speaker 1: confess everything. A short time later, the other three had
Speaker 1: been brought in as well. There was a trial, of course,
Speaker 1: but despite the evidence of the new fake painting and
Speaker 1: the four guards absence from the place of meeting during
Speaker 1: the fire alarm, that trial was complicated and frustrating. In
Speaker 1: the end, they walked free. Which leads to the biggest
Speaker 1: mystery of all, and the one that's still not been
Speaker 1: solved to this day. The painting, that original valuable work
Speaker 1: by Salvador Dolly is still missing, and no one, not
Speaker 1: even the man accused of stealing it, knows where it is.
Speaker 1: The job of a United States president is one fraught
Speaker 1: with difficult tasks and hard choices. They must be aware
Speaker 1: of the threats to their country and way, the consequences
Speaker 1: of their actions on the rest of the world, and
Speaker 1: on top of all of that, they have to be
Speaker 1: careful whenever they interact with the public. Even with twenty
Speaker 1: four hour secret service, a president's life is in constant jeopardy.
Speaker 1: The most famous incident of this was, of course, the
Speaker 1: assassination of A. Braham Lincoln On April fourteenth of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, John Wilkes Booth shot the sixteenth President while
Speaker 1: he was watching a performance at Ford's Theater in Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. But Lincoln's life was actually in grave danger
Speaker 1: before that, and his savior was someone no one saw coming.
Speaker 1: It started five years earlier. In Springfield, Illinois. Word of
Speaker 1: Lincoln's victory was received around two am the day after
Speaker 1: election day, on November six of eighteen sixty It was
Speaker 1: a joyous occasion, at least to the newly elected president
Speaker 1: and his supporters. Meanwhile, in the South, what had started
Speaker 1: as idle rumblings quickly snowballed into a full blown movement.
Speaker 1: Pretty soon, Lincoln was receiving hateful letters on his desk
Speaker 1: from people who saw his opposition to slavery's expansion as
Speaker 1: a threat. Lincoln, however, didn't believe that he was in
Speaker 1: much danger. He didn't think that anyone would go so
Speaker 1: far as to come after a president of the United States,
Speaker 1: despite the warnings he'd received from friends, and so he
Speaker 1: began to prepare for his in our curation in March
Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty one, without the protection of a military escort.
Speaker 1: Little did he know, secessionists were also making plans to
Speaker 1: greet him. Lincoln's journey by rail would take him from Springfield, Illinois,
Speaker 1: to Washington, d C. By way of Maryland, one of
Speaker 1: the more dangerous states at the time as the secessionist
Speaker 1: movement gained steam. Maryland was a border state caught between
Speaker 1: the North and the South. It was a hotbed of
Speaker 1: pro slavery activity and was liable to join the South
Speaker 1: at any moment. There were talks of plans to damage
Speaker 1: the rail line in Maryland in advance of Lincoln's arrival
Speaker 1: in order to prevent his swearing in, plans that quickly
Speaker 1: turned to something more sinister assassination. Meanwhile, Lincoln released a
Speaker 1: list of the stops he would make on his way
Speaker 1: to Washington, where he would meet and shake hands with
Speaker 1: his constituents along the way. At one of those stops,
Speaker 1: on February three, which was a Saturday, his train would
Speaker 1: stop at Calvert Street Station in Baltimore around twelve thirty
Speaker 1: in the afternoon. Lincoln would then leave at three pm
Speaker 1: from nearby Camden Street Station for the last leg of
Speaker 1: his trip. Members of the movement gossiped and strategized on
Speaker 1: how to get someone close enough to the president to
Speaker 1: kill him. The man behind it all was one Captain
Speaker 1: Cipriano Ferandini. He was a barber from Corsica, Italy, who
Speaker 1: had organized a group of extremists to assassinate the president
Speaker 1: elect once he had reached Baltimore. And the plan was simple,
Speaker 1: create a disturbance that distracted the police at the station.
Speaker 1: While they were attending to the commotion, One of Ferandini's
Speaker 1: men would step forward and stab Mr. Lincoln to death.
Speaker 1: But word got back to Lincoln's team and they thought
Speaker 1: of ways to avoid the murderous plot. One idea was
Speaker 1: to have his train passed through Baltimore earlier than expected
Speaker 1: and catch the secessionists off guard. Through a combination of
Speaker 1: ruses and slight of hand, Lincoln was whisked from one
Speaker 1: train to the next late in the nights. He was
Speaker 1: forced to ride on passenger rails as news of his
Speaker 1: private train showing up in Baltimore might read to Ferandini
Speaker 1: and his crew. He arrived in Philadelphia on February just
Speaker 1: before eleven pm, where a Baltimore bound train was waiting
Speaker 1: for him. But how was he supposed to make it
Speaker 1: on board safely among all the other travelers, with help
Speaker 1: from his sister, of course, who helped usher him into
Speaker 1: the sleeping car through a rear door. Lincoln wore a
Speaker 1: hat and a shawl to disguise himself during the transfer.
Speaker 1: From there, it was smooth sailing to Baltimore, where the
Speaker 1: President elect arrived at three thirty a m. Nine hours
Speaker 1: before he was scheduled to appear. He was hurried to
Speaker 1: another train and whisked off to Washington to be sworn
Speaker 1: in as the sixteenth President of the United States. And
Speaker 1: that sister who had helped him she was a woman
Speaker 1: named Kate Warren, the first female detective in the United States.
Speaker 1: She worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which had been
Speaker 1: contracted by the president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore
Speaker 1: Railroad to aid in Lincoln's safe passage. Along the way,
Speaker 1: Warren had to bribe the conductors to secure the sleeping
Speaker 1: car for him, while Alan Pinkerton himself orchestrated the cutting
Speaker 1: of telegraph lines, hoping to stop communication between Ferrandini and
Speaker 1: his followers. Warren went on to serve as a spy
Speaker 1: for the Union during the Civil War, gathering intelligence for
Speaker 1: the North by going undercover in the South. After the war,
Speaker 1: she helped solve numerous high profile cases involving grand larceny, poisoning,
Speaker 1: and even murder, and she wasn't ever afraid to get
Speaker 1: her hands dirty or use a disguise when necessary. Her
Speaker 1: involvement in Lincoln's inauguration was key to saving the life
Speaker 1: of a man who, unbeknownst to anyone at the time,
Speaker 1: would go on to change the future of the country.
Speaker 1: And they couldn't have done it all without help from
Speaker 1: Kate Warren, detective spy an American hero. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast asked dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,