Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: We all know that what goes up must come down
Speaker 1: one way or another, and to steer further into that cliche,
Speaker 1: the higher up, the farther the fall. This has been
Speaker 1: the case with every financial bubble in history, housing, banking, railroads,
Speaker 1: and even flowers. It turns out you can find the
Speaker 1: value in anything and everything, including the tulip spring is
Speaker 1: beautiful in the Northeast, and not just because of the
Speaker 1: blooms on the trees after months of a gray, depressing winter,
Speaker 1: but also because of the many parks that chose to
Speaker 1: plant tulip bulbs to brighten up their flower beds. It's
Speaker 1: a good choice. You can get them in nearly every color,
Speaker 1: and they stand head and shoulders above most blooms. Plus
Speaker 1: they're cheap, which is always popular with local governments. It's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine a time when tulips were so rare,
Speaker 1: so popular, and so expensive that they lifted the markets
Speaker 1: of an entire country. But that's what happened to the
Speaker 1: Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Now a lot of you
Speaker 1: have heard even here about tulip mania or tulip fever.
Speaker 1: The wildest story from that period is that there was
Speaker 1: a sailor that thought that the bulb of a rare
Speaker 1: tulip called Semper augustus was actually an onion, so he
Speaker 1: chipped it up and ate it with his herring sandwich.
Speaker 1: That likely disappointing meal got the man thrown in prison.
Speaker 1: Semper Augustus, if you've never seen it, is a beautiful
Speaker 1: tulip with a flamelike stripe design of red and white
Speaker 1: on the petals. The bulbs individually cost ten ten thousand guilders,
Speaker 1: which was more than most Dutch families would see in decades.
Speaker 1: It was enough to buy a grand mansion with a
Speaker 1: plum view. It was enough to get a man who
Speaker 1: made a simple mistake locked up. So how did the
Speaker 1: Netherlands become the hub of this madness. Tulips were first
Speaker 1: introduced by the Ottoman Empire in the fifteen nineties According
Speaker 1: to one story, it was the Dutch ambassador to the
Speaker 1: Ottoman court that noticed the beautiful flower and sent several
Speaker 1: samples to a botanist friend back home. The flower became
Speaker 1: an oddity after that, and then a status symbol thanks
Speaker 1: to the unique shape and the bright colors. And then
Speaker 1: a funny thing happened. The tulips exploded across Europe. It
Speaker 1: was the topic of conversation everywhere, and they began taking
Speaker 1: on value. Color, size and pattern could increase or decrease
Speaker 1: the price of the bulbs. Prices first started going up
Speaker 1: in the sixteen thirties as the country's overall wealth was
Speaker 1: growing thanks to that famous Dutch East India company. This
Speaker 1: combined with a newfound thaca and study of the natural world,
Speaker 1: meant that the time was ripe for the tulip. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: for the Dutch, this was often a time consuming process.
Speaker 1: Tulip bulbs that came from seeds can take up to
Speaker 1: twelve years to finally flower, although many didn't take quite
Speaker 1: that long. People began paying more for what they called
Speaker 1: broken bulbs of tulips that had striped or multicolored patterns
Speaker 1: on their petals because they were so unpredictable. Naturally, they
Speaker 1: grew to be in the highest demand. Think of it
Speaker 1: like opening a pack of Pokemon or magic the gathering
Speaker 1: trading cards. It was a gamble and people were happy
Speaker 1: to pay for the chance to win. For all that
Speaker 1: time and money, though, people only got to enjoy the
Speaker 1: actual flower for about a week, maybe just a little longer,
Speaker 1: but it was a week to be celebrated for sure.
Speaker 1: Prices grew and grew and grew, until one day the
Speaker 1: bubble burst. The fall was sharp and fast. Suddenly they
Speaker 1: weren't even worth one hundredth of what people had previously paid.
Speaker 1: According to Scottish writer Charles Mackay, writing two hundred years
Speaker 1: after in eighteen forty one, everyone from the aristocrats to
Speaker 1: the chimney sweeps had taken part in the craze, and
Speaker 1: the desolation of the market consumed more than a few fortunes.
Speaker 1: It's a very neat story, and one that we've certainly
Speaker 1: heard before, of ambition, greed and collapse. There's just one
Speaker 1: tiny problem. We don't know if tulip fever was real.
Speaker 1: Historians have begun taking a harder look at Mackay and
Speaker 1: other sources to determine the true impact of tulipmania and
Speaker 1: found its lacking. It's true that there was a booming
Speaker 1: tulip trade in the Netherlands in the early sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and some people really did spend an outrageous amount on
Speaker 1: certain types of bulbs, but those cases are outliers. Stories
Speaker 1: like that of the sailor who ate the bulb thinking
Speaker 1: it was an onion, or of poor street sweepers wandering
Speaker 1: the gutters looking for a bulb that might make them rich,
Speaker 1: didn't actually happen and were actually propaganda by Calvinists who
Speaker 1: feared the growing consumerism that was sweeping the increasingly prosperous Netherlands.
Speaker 1: This flower was a flash in the pan for the country,
Speaker 1: and contrary to popular belief, likely didn't collapse an entire
Speaker 1: economy when demand dried up. The number of tulips it
Speaker 1: would take to do that would be utterly overwhelming to
Speaker 1: the senses. I mean, honestly, just think about the pollen count.
Speaker 1: Some stories are so old we have to take them
Speaker 1: on faith. When presented with a myth and a lack
Speaker 1: of evidence, sometimes we simply accept what little we're left with.
Speaker 1: An apocryphal story is often better than none at all.
Speaker 1: And even if the legend doesn't make sense, it's certainly
Speaker 1: a lot more fun than whatever the truth might be.
Speaker 1: Right back in sixteen seventy four, an officer in England's
Speaker 1: Royal Navy arrived in America was Christopher Billup, and he'd
Speaker 1: been placed in charge of an infantry that had traveled overseas.
Speaker 1: With him. Along for the ride was a new Royal
Speaker 1: Governor of New York, a man named Edmund Andros. Billup
Speaker 1: decided to make his home on a small island off
Speaker 1: the coast of New Jersey. He'd been granted a patent
Speaker 1: for just over nine hundred and thirty acres of land
Speaker 1: on its southern tip, as well as an additional thirty
Speaker 1: acres of salt meadow to the west. Prior to Billup's arrival,
Speaker 1: the Dutch controlled the area. Their land grant stated that
Speaker 1: they owned everything on the western side of the Hudson River.
Speaker 1: The director of the Dutch India Company itself, Michael po,
Speaker 1: had obtained the deed from the Native Americans there for
Speaker 1: what would eventually become Billups Island. Well. Some thirty years
Speaker 1: after the Dutch had claimed the region, the British sailed
Speaker 1: in and took over, and to everyone's surprise, they did
Speaker 1: it peacefully. New Amsterdam now belonged to Great Britain, and
Speaker 1: King Charles the Second, who was in charge of England
Speaker 1: at the time, generously handed over control of that land
Speaker 1: there to his brother, James, the Duke of York, so
Speaker 1: they called it New York. With New York and New
Speaker 1: Jersey now under the purview of the British, it was
Speaker 1: time to set some ground rules. James established ownership among
Speaker 1: the colonies and declared that any territories west of the
Speaker 1: Hudson River belonged to New Jersey. Say for a handful
Speaker 1: of islands that were still considered part of New York.
Speaker 1: But there was one island that had found itself in
Speaker 1: the middle of a dispute between the two provinces. You
Speaker 1: guessed it. It was the same island that Captain Billup
Speaker 1: now called home. The Duke of York was in a quandary.
Speaker 1: If he allowed New York and New Jersey to continue
Speaker 1: to fight over this small territory, they'd be at odds
Speaker 1: over taxes and tariffs forever. He needed to make a decision,
Speaker 1: But rather than issue one outright, he chose instead to
Speaker 1: turn it into a wager. He said that if an
Speaker 1: island in the harbor could be circumnavigated in only twenty
Speaker 1: four hours, then New York could claim ownership. And the
Speaker 1: man he chose to sail around this particular island, why
Speaker 1: it was the person who now lived there, of course,
Speaker 1: Captain Christopher Billup. Billip was contracted by the Duke himself
Speaker 1: to circumnavigate the island, a job he was perfectly qualified for.
Speaker 1: After all, he'd already spent years in the British Royal
Speaker 1: Navy and was well versed in sailing across the ocean. This,
Speaker 1: honestly would be a piece of cake. In sixteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: Billip boarded his ship, the Bentley, and set sail. He
Speaker 1: traveled around the island in just over twenty three hours,
Speaker 1: squeezing in a victory under the Duke of York's one
Speaker 1: day limit. Billip had not only secured the island for
Speaker 1: New York, but he'd also earned himself another hefty parcel
Speaker 1: of land there as well. At least that's how the
Speaker 1: legend goes. You see, there's no evidence that such a
Speaker 1: race ever occurred. We have no paper trail to follow,
Speaker 1: and all that remains are a handful of news articles
Speaker 1: written in the early twentieth century, and a whole lot
Speaker 1: of speculation. This is a story that has been passed
Speaker 1: down through generations and as such has become something of
Speaker 1: a New York myth. Regardless of whether or not you
Speaker 1: believe it, this is the story we have. It may
Speaker 1: be apocryphal, but it's a fun and exciting way to
Speaker 1: imagine how one man helps settle the ultimate debates between
Speaker 1: New York and New Jersey, not who has the best pizza,
Speaker 1: but who owns Staten Island. 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 Worldoflore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.