Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey'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. Everybody needs a little help every now and then.
Speaker 1: Someone who has never held a guitar needs to know
Speaker 1: where to place their fingers on the strings. A novice
Speaker 1: dance student must be told how to move their feet,
Speaker 1: and travelers in unknown destinations need to know where to go.
Speaker 1: That's where the experts step in, be it their guitar teacher,
Speaker 1: a dance instructor, or a tour guide. A person with
Speaker 1: advanced knowledge can be invaluable to someone just learning. But
Speaker 1: in the pantheon of great teachers, one stands out above
Speaker 1: the rest. His name was Jack, but he was better
Speaker 1: known as Pelaris Jack. During the late eighteen hundreds, Pelaris
Speaker 1: Jack was responsible for shepherding ships traveling between the cities
Speaker 1: of Wellington and Nelson in New Zealand. As explorers sailed
Speaker 1: between the North and South Islands, they would inevitably come
Speaker 1: upon a dangerous stretch of water known as French Pass.
Speaker 1: It was a narrow gap fraught with high winds and
Speaker 1: roaring waves. Two large ships had already sunk to a
Speaker 1: watery grave in trying to navigate it. Even the most
Speaker 1: seasoned captain needed help getting through it, and that's where
Speaker 1: Pelorus Jack came in. He was first spotted in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight when a schooner named Brindle entered French Pass.
Speaker 1: Jack pulled up alongside the boat to assist the Brindle
Speaker 1: and its crew on their journey. The captain of the
Speaker 1: Brindle tried to shoot their new guide at first, until
Speaker 1: the man's wife stepped in and stopped him. It would
Speaker 1: have proved a costly mistake too. Within twenty minutes, pellar
Speaker 1: As Jack had successfully guided the Brindle through the churning
Speaker 1: waters and jagged rocks to the safety of the Pelarius
Speaker 1: Sound on the other side. And no, Jack didn't hail
Speaker 1: from the Pelaris area, but he was familiar with the territory,
Speaker 1: and word of his good deed quickly spread to sailors
Speaker 1: all over New Zealand. Regardless of whose stories are to
Speaker 1: be believed. Jack's reputation for helping ships and needs spread
Speaker 1: far and wide. Captains who knew of him would stop
Speaker 1: at French Pass and wait for him to arrive, refusing
Speaker 1: to go through it until they knew that he was
Speaker 1: beside them. But not every ship treated Jack like a
Speaker 1: guardian angel. A fairy steamer named the S S Penguin
Speaker 1: nearly killed him in nineteen o four. A passenger tried
Speaker 1: to shoot the guide with the rifle, but was stopped
Speaker 1: when others on board restrain him. It didn't matter, though
Speaker 1: the damage was done. Jack never showed up to escort
Speaker 1: the SS Penguin again. A few years later, the ship
Speaker 1: sunk trying to steer through the channel on its own.
Speaker 1: After that attempt on his life, Jack was placed under
Speaker 1: the protection of the Sea fisher He's Act of nineteen
Speaker 1: o four, The misfortune of ships that ran a foul
Speaker 1: of Pelorus Jack led to his mystique, and sailors didn't
Speaker 1: only discuss him among themselves, they talked him up to
Speaker 1: the newspapers too. Postcards were even printed with his image
Speaker 1: on them. He performed his job reliably for twenty four years,
Speaker 1: and throughout that time developed some bizarre habits. For example,
Speaker 1: he often ignored wooden boats in favor of mighty steamers
Speaker 1: with metal hulls. He'd also abandoned the ships halfway through
Speaker 1: their trip through the pass, letting them find their own
Speaker 1: way from there. But perhaps the strangest occurrence of Jack's
Speaker 1: career happened in nineteen twelve, when the friendly Shepherd of
Speaker 1: the Seas disappeared. One theory suggested that Jack was killed
Speaker 1: by a harpoon fired by Norwegian whalers in April of
Speaker 1: that year. When his decomposing body washed up on a
Speaker 1: nearby beach. Not long after, experts concluded that he had
Speaker 1: simply died of old age. Jack would never help boats
Speaker 1: navigate the turbulent water as a French pass again. He'd
Speaker 1: never wait at the entrance to Pelarius sound guide them
Speaker 1: out of the channel, either no more playing in the
Speaker 1: wakes of the ships or rubbing against their hulls Pelaris.
Speaker 1: Jack wasn't a good Samaritan doing his nautical duty. He
Speaker 1: was a dolphin. When we think of secession, we think
Speaker 1: of a particular moment in American history when brother fought brother,
Speaker 1: and two halves of the United States nearly tore the
Speaker 1: country apart. I'm talking, of course, about the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and you knew that the South had chosen to secede
Speaker 1: from the rest of the country with a goal of
Speaker 1: starting its own republic. Instead, what resulted was a bloody war,
Speaker 1: costing thousands of lives over the course of four years.
Speaker 1: But it wouldn't be the last time part of the
Speaker 1: US would try to go its own way, and in
Speaker 1: the late nineteen thirties, residents of Wyoming, South Dakota, and
Speaker 1: Montana were suffering the Great Depression of ten years earlier
Speaker 1: had at East much. Farmers were losing their crops to
Speaker 1: drafts and grasshopper infestations, and it looked to them, at
Speaker 1: least as if the government didn't care about what happened
Speaker 1: to them. The hardest hit areas, often rural, saw almost
Speaker 1: no federal funding, with much of that going to larger
Speaker 1: infrastructure projects instead. While agriculture languished, railroads and dams were
Speaker 1: being built or improved. The Summit felt like the government
Speaker 1: had failed the people, The politicians that had been elected
Speaker 1: to represent them had lost their way, and President Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: big Government New Deal was the final straw. No longer
Speaker 1: with thousands of farmers and small town Americans stand by
Speaker 1: and let the world carry on as if they didn't exist.
Speaker 1: A new movement had dawned, and it's very vocal champion
Speaker 1: could be found in the man named A. R. Swickard,
Speaker 1: the street and water commissioner of shared in Wyoming. Swickard
Speaker 1: already had an axe to grind. The Republicans who had
Speaker 1: promised to help his town had seemingly abandoned in him instead.
Speaker 1: The time had come to take drastic action. However, Swickard
Speaker 1: would not resort to taking up arms against the United States.
Speaker 1: He sought a more peaceful and legal approach to secession.
Speaker 1: He and the rest of the movement would create their
Speaker 1: own states Absarrocca. The name was taken from the Native
Speaker 1: Crow language meaning children of the large beaked bird, and
Speaker 1: the Absaroka Initiative quickly took flight. Swicker delivered speeches in
Speaker 1: towns in Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota about what their
Speaker 1: possible new lifestyle might entail. Unsurprisingly, the new state would
Speaker 1: have a conservative bent, with a focus on small government.
Speaker 1: At the time, it was poised to become the forty
Speaker 1: nine state. Illustrated by a state flag design with the
Speaker 1: number forty nine written across it, Swicker showed crowds of
Speaker 1: potential license plate, a map, and held a beauty contest
Speaker 1: called the Miss Absarocca Pageant. It's first and only winner,
Speaker 1: Dorothy Fellows, joined Swickard in preaching the benefit of an
Speaker 1: independent state. The movement kept growing, as did their territory.
Speaker 1: In fact, as part of his publicity tour, Swickard touted
Speaker 1: the still under construction Mount Rushmore as a potential tourist
Speaker 1: destination since it would have fallen within their new state lines,
Speaker 1: and the coalition was being noticed outside the U S
Speaker 1: as well. The King of Norway came to Absaroka in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine. Well, it was more like he was
Speaker 1: passing through on his way to visit southeast Montana, but
Speaker 1: the people there took it as a sign that their
Speaker 1: fight for statehood was being recognized by the international community.
Speaker 1: Swickard was relentless in his pursuit of vindication. He held
Speaker 1: public hearings where those within Absaroka's borders addressed the wrongs
Speaker 1: committed by the big city politicians who had left them
Speaker 1: high and dry, and it seemed to be working. When
Speaker 1: officials in Montana and Wyoming got word of the unrest
Speaker 1: among their constituents, they started to listen more closely. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: if things had been different, we might have fifty one
Speaker 1: states on our maps today. Unfortunately, the plight of the
Speaker 1: Absarokans paled and co paris into the conflict going on
Speaker 1: in Europe. World War two had united the globe under
Speaker 1: one common goal, and the United States had started sending
Speaker 1: its own troops over there to fight. At that point,
Speaker 1: there was no longer a reason for disenfranchised farmers to
Speaker 1: start their own state. They dropped their plans to secede
Speaker 1: and throw their energy into the fray overseas. The movement dissipated,
Speaker 1: never quite regaining its momentum, leaving Absaroka to become nothing
Speaker 1: more than a state of mind. I hope you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
Speaker 1: by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.