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Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is

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Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

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Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

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Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. People tend to be shaped by their surroundings.

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Speaker 1: Their family, friends, and neighbors all contribute to their upbringing.

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Speaker 1: The kinds of people they become depend on what they

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Speaker 1: were taught and how they were treated in their past.

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Speaker 1: But what happens when the past refuses to stay there?

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Speaker 1: Casper's past wasn't quite known by those who knew him

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Speaker 1: in Germany. Even Casper was hazy on the details himself.

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Speaker 1: According to a letter he carried, Casper had been handed

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Speaker 1: over to the letters author in eighteen twelve, when he

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Speaker 1: was only a few months old. This anonymous person had

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Speaker 1: allegedly educated Casper in all subjects, including reading and writing,

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Speaker 1: as well as the Bible, all the while Casper had

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Speaker 1: never left the person's house. He was the reward as

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Speaker 1: well as a prisoner of sorts, now that he had

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Speaker 1: come of age, though Casper had expressed interest in becoming

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Speaker 1: a cavalryman like his birth father. The letter had been

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Speaker 1: meant for one, Captain von Weisenegg, of the fourth Squadron

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Speaker 1: of the sixth Cavalry Regiment. The request from Casper's former

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Speaker 1: caretaker to the captain was to either enlist the young

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Speaker 1: man or hang him his choice. Casper made his way

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Speaker 1: to the captain's home with the help of a local cobbler.

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Speaker 1: Though he'd been taught to read and write, Casper only

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Speaker 1: answered the captain with one of three phrases. The first

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Speaker 1: was I want to be a cavalryman as my father was.

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Speaker 1: The second was simply horse horse. Difficult questions prompted the

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Speaker 1: third response, don't know. Casper was six years old, but

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Speaker 1: behaved and spoke like someone much younger. Sadly, the captain

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Speaker 1: did not take him in, though he didn't hang him either. Instead,

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Speaker 1: he was locked up in a tower in Nuremberg Castle

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Speaker 1: for the crime of being poor. As word about the

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Speaker 1: boys spread throughout town, so did speculation about his upbringing.

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Speaker 1: Some thought that he had grown up in the forest,

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Speaker 1: raised among the animals. The mayor of Nuremberg himself, though

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Speaker 1: Yaka Friedrich Binder claimed that he learned the truth after

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Speaker 1: visiting the young man in prison. This enigmatic young man

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Speaker 1: hadn't been raised in a home by an obliging caretaker. Instead,

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Speaker 1: he had been locked away in a dark cell only

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Speaker 1: two meters long by one meter wide. His bed had

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Speaker 1: been made of straw, and the only toys in his

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Speaker 1: possession were a dog and two horses that had been

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Speaker 1: whittled out of wood. During his time, he only ate

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Speaker 1: rye bread and drink water, which were also the only

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Speaker 1: food and drink he would accept while locked in the

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Speaker 1: tower in Nuremberg Castle. Sometimes, though he claimed that water

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Speaker 1: tasted bitter and would make him sleep, he'd wait up

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Speaker 1: hours later to new straw in his bed, as well

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Speaker 1: as trimmed nails and hair. He had no contact with

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Speaker 1: another soul for years until just before he showed up

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Speaker 1: in Nuremberg. It was a man, maybe the caretaker or

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Speaker 1: perhaps another acquaintance of theirs, who had come to teach

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Speaker 1: Casper how to talk and write his name. He had

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Speaker 1: also taught him the phrases to recite to Captain von Wessnig.

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Speaker 1: When the mayor's story about Casper broke out, it only

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Speaker 1: added to his mystery. Those who had gotten a glimpse

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Speaker 1: of him noticed he looked an awful lot like the

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Speaker 1: Grand Duke of Baden. Rumors swirled about how the Nuremberg

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Speaker 1: newcomer was none other than the Prince of Baden, originally

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Speaker 1: thought to have died in eighteen twelve, only months after

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Speaker 1: his birth. Casper celebrities soon led to his freedom. As

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Speaker 1: well as being adopted by the town, he was provided

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Speaker 1: with money for food and to further his education. Friedrich Dahmer,

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Speaker 1: a local teacher and philosopher, took him under his wing

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Speaker 1: and provided him with a home. Unfortunately, Casper's new life

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Speaker 1: would be interrupted by a vision for his past. In

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Speaker 1: October of eighteen twenty nine, the boy was discovered bleeding

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Speaker 1: in Dahmer's basement. He had been slashed across the forehead.

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Speaker 1: Casper claimed it was from a hooded stranger whose voice

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Speaker 1: matched that of the man who had brought him to

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Speaker 1: Nuremberg a year earlier. The incidents caused a stir in

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Speaker 1: the town. People started to wonder if the House of

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Speaker 1: Baden had tried to take him out instead. Skeptics didn't

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Speaker 1: buy Casper's story, though, nor did they believe that he

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Speaker 1: was the long lost descendant of the House of Baden.

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Speaker 1: They figured that Casper had just been accused of line

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Speaker 1: by Dahmer and then cut himself to Gardner sympathy and

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Speaker 1: throw people off his trail. Three years later, Casper had

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Speaker 1: gone through a few more caretakers and then moved to

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Speaker 1: the town of Ansbach. He was now being looked after

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Speaker 1: by schoolmaster Johann Meyer and financially supported by a separate

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Speaker 1: wealthy patron, But that patron died in eighteen thirty three,

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Speaker 1: which strained Casper's relationship with Meyer. Five days after that

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Speaker 1: patron's death, Casper was stabbed in the chest. Just like before,

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Speaker 1: the wound was inflicted by an unknown assailant. This time,

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Speaker 1: though Casper had been given a small bag, it contained

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Speaker 1: a note from the person who had allegedly attacked him.

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Speaker 1: He told his story to the authorities, who conducted an

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Speaker 1: investigation of their own. Sadly, Casper would never get to

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Speaker 1: hear their findings. He died three days later. If he

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Speaker 1: had survived, he would have heard how they didn't believe him,

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Speaker 1: how the notes had been folded into a triangle shape,

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Speaker 1: just like Casper used for all of his notes. He

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Speaker 1: would have heard how the police thought that he stabbed

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Speaker 1: himself and made up the story about the attacker as

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Speaker 1: a pr stunt to get people to talk about him again.

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Speaker 1: Casper was buried in on spot under a headstone with

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Speaker 1: the inscription that reads, here lies Casper Houser riddle of

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Speaker 1: his time. His birth was unknown, his death mysterious. Was

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Speaker 1: he merely a traumatized young man, or a con man,

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Speaker 1: or even a lost royal prince? No one knows for sure.

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Speaker 1: But one thing is certain. He died as he lived,

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Speaker 1: a complete and total enigma. Neither snow nor rain, nor heat,

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Speaker 1: nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift

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Speaker 1: completion of their appointed rounds. Though not an official motto,

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Speaker 1: these words have stood as a testament to the dedication

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Speaker 1: and nobility of the men and women of the United

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Speaker 1: States Postal Service. Before the Post Office Department was formed,

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Speaker 1: in individual colonies would handle their own mail deliveries. They

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Speaker 1: would hire contractors on horseback to deliver mail along specified routes.

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Speaker 1: Time was of the essence to these post writers, and

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Speaker 1: with tensions between the Crown and the colonies growing stronger

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Speaker 1: every day, their metal was about to be put to

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Speaker 1: the test. War was on the horizon, and it would

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Speaker 1: be a postmaster, not a soldier nor an army who

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Speaker 1: would bring the colonies together again. It's the British. One

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Speaker 1: such writer was Israel Bistle, born in seventeen fifty two.

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Speaker 1: He lived with his family in Massachusetts, where he took

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Speaker 1: a job as a post writer, delivering the mail. On

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Speaker 1: the night of April eighteenth of seventeen seventy five, British

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Speaker 1: troops marched from Lexington and conquered from Boston, not to

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Speaker 1: bring war, but to arrest the rebels and take their supplies.

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Speaker 1: Paul Revere sat out that night on his famous midnight ride,

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Speaker 1: alerting the local militia men to prepare. Two lanterns were

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Speaker 1: hung in Boston's Old North Church, letting patriots know the

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Speaker 1: British had left Boston coming and made their way across

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Speaker 1: the Charles River to Cambridge. By five o'clock the next morning,

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Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War had begun. The American militia was told

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Speaker 1: to disband, and both sides told their men to hold

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Speaker 1: but a miscommunication resulted in a single shot being fired,

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Speaker 1: a shot that changed the course of history. No one

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Speaker 1: knew where it had come from, and it's easy to

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Speaker 1: understand why if you've been to the farm where it happened,

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Speaker 1: I have, and it's a wide open space with a

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Speaker 1: few period buildings, some of which still have holes in

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Speaker 1: their walls where musket balls ripped through. It must have

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Speaker 1: been chaos and eight colonial fighters were killed in the skirmish.

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Speaker 1: Word of the attacks needed to be brought to nearby towns,

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Speaker 1: including Wooster and Marlborough. The job was given to post

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Speaker 1: writer Israel Bissell, only twenty three years of age and

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Speaker 1: about to embark on the most important ride of his life.

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Speaker 1: He was given an important letter written by Joseph Palmer,

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Speaker 1: a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. In the letter,

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Speaker 1: Palmer outlined the events that had transpired at Lexington that morning.

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Speaker 1: Bissell raised it from Watertown to Worcester in only two hours.

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Speaker 1: It said that his horse died from the effort once there.

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Speaker 1: The letter was copied for other writers to carry throughout Massachusetts,

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Speaker 1: and beyond warning everyone about what had happened, Bissell procured

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Speaker 1: another horse and continued on his journey. He'd been told

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Speaker 1: to seek out help from a Connecticut man named Israel Putnam.

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Speaker 1: Putnam was a veteran in his own right, having fought

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Speaker 1: in the French and Indian Wars. Before settling down on

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Speaker 1: April twenty, Bissell told Putnam about the attack, which prompted

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Speaker 1: the man to fetch his rifle from his barn and

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Speaker 1: joined the fight. In the meantime, Bistill rode off again,

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Speaker 1: this time to the coastal village of New London, Connecticut.

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Speaker 1: The New Londoners were not as quick to believe him

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Speaker 1: as Israel Putnam had been, nor the folks in Worcester.

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Speaker 1: They needed to know that this was at all some

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Speaker 1: sort of prank being pulled at their expense. Bissell had

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Speaker 1: to provide Swarren testimony as to the truth about the

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Speaker 1: information he carried, which took him hours to do so.

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Speaker 1: Once he placated those New Londoners, though, he set out

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Speaker 1: once more for New Haven, followed by Fairfield, where he

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Speaker 1: was provided with a new horse which would carry him

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Speaker 1: all the way to Manhattan. He gave the people of

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Speaker 1: New York the news from Lexington before traveling through Princeton

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Speaker 1: and Trenton, New Jersey, all the way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: By April, it took Bissile five days to go from Watertown,

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Speaker 1: Massachusetts to Connecticut. New York, New Jersey, and finally Pennsylvania,

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Speaker 1: but in doing so he managed to alert thousands of

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Speaker 1: troops about the Lexington attack. Sadly, he was never immortalized

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Speaker 1: in poetry for his efforts like Paul Revere, but perhaps

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Speaker 1: he should have been. While Revere had traveled a mere

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Speaker 1: twenty miles on his midnight ride, Israel Bistle had shown

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Speaker 1: everyone the true measure of a postal worker and a patriot,

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Speaker 1: covering a massive stretch of three hundred and forty five miles.

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Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn

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Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.

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Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership

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Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show

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Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,

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Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the

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Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.

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Speaker 1: Ye