Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria
Speaker 1: trom Marquis. And before we begin talking about the two
Speaker 1: men highlighted in this episode, Chris Baker and Grandison Harris,
Speaker 1: we have a few important things to talk about first.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry. Chris Baker and Grandison Harris were both
Speaker 1: enslaved men whose work it was to snatch bodies from graves.
Speaker 1: To tell their stories, you're gonna hear some outdated language.
Speaker 1: We have chosen to include certain racial epithets as they
Speaker 1: appear in quoted material, not the one you're probably most
Speaker 1: worried about. Don't worry. We're doing that though, in order
Speaker 1: to honestly represent the bigoted language that was incredibly common
Speaker 1: and accepted at the time. This is, of course, if
Speaker 1: you know anything about it, a difficult period America's history.
Speaker 1: But it's really important to tell the stories of black
Speaker 1: men like Baker and Harris as they live their lives.
Speaker 1: And while we're setting this stage, let's also make sure
Speaker 1: we're on the same historical and constitutional page. We're not
Speaker 1: going to dive deeply into the history of the United
Speaker 1: States during the time of its Civil War. That would
Speaker 1: be an incredibly enormous and ongoing project, and there are
Speaker 1: plenty of resources for that information if you want to
Speaker 1: brush up on it. But there are a few key
Speaker 1: things to know that will help these men's stories come
Speaker 1: to life. The stories of both Chris Baker and Grandison
Speaker 1: Harris take place during the American Civil War, fought between
Speaker 1: April eighteen sixty one and April eighteen sixty five. Actually
Speaker 1: their stories take place a little bit before and a
Speaker 1: little bit afterwards as well. Post war, the United States
Speaker 1: Congress made amendments to the United States Constitution to both
Speaker 1: end slavery and to grant citizenship to black people. The
Speaker 1: Thirteenth Amendment, passed by Congress on January thirty first, eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, and ratified on December six that same year,
Speaker 1: abolished slavery within the United States or any place subject
Speaker 1: to their jurisdiction. Congress made several new laws to protect
Speaker 1: former enslaved persons, including the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment
Speaker 1: was passed by Congress on June thirteenth, eighteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: and ratified on July nine, eighteen sixty eight. It was
Speaker 1: intended to grant citizenship and equal civil and legal rights
Speaker 1: to free black people and enslaved persons who were emancipated
Speaker 1: after the Civil War. The Confederate States, defeated in the
Speaker 1: war underwent what was known as reconstruction. That always sounds
Speaker 1: like such a positive word, but this was a very
Speaker 1: turbulent time in the Southern States from the end of
Speaker 1: the war in eighteen sixty five until eighteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: This period was intended to have transformed the states politically, socially,
Speaker 1: and economically, but free and newly freed black people found
Speaker 1: themselves instead up against Jim Crow laws and black codes
Speaker 1: that enforced or even legalized racial segregation. These laws, which
Speaker 1: varied from state to state, became well established and lasted
Speaker 1: for almost a hundred years from the post Civil War
Speaker 1: era until around nineteen sixty eight. Their main purpose was
Speaker 1: to marginalize the black American community. Let's name off just
Speaker 1: a few examples. For instance, marriage between a white person
Speaker 1: and a person of color any color was prohibited, and
Speaker 1: that was actually the case in some US states until
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven. There were segregated waiting rooms, elevators, restrooms,
Speaker 1: you get the idea, and none of those designated spaces
Speaker 1: for black people were built or maintained to the same
Speaker 1: standards as those that were intended for the use of
Speaker 1: white people. Nothing about this was equal. In Georgia, for example,
Speaker 1: where Grandison Harris lived, it was unlawful for and we
Speaker 1: are this now quote any amateur white baseball team to
Speaker 1: play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within
Speaker 1: two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race.
Speaker 1: And it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball
Speaker 1: team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball
Speaker 1: diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the
Speaker 1: white race. Virginia, which was Baker's home, authorized cities and
Speaker 1: towns to create what we're called segregation districts to prevent
Speaker 1: anyone of color from moving into white neighborhoods. Okay, so
Speaker 1: now that we know where we are in history, let's
Speaker 1: take a break for a word from our sponsor. When
Speaker 1: we're back, we'll talk about who Chris Baker was and
Speaker 1: why he was important. Welcome back to Criminalia. Now that
Speaker 1: we have a little bit of background into the time
Speaker 1: Chris Baker and Grandison Harris were alive, Let's start talking
Speaker 1: about their actual lives. Despite what we may often see
Speaker 1: in movies and media, not all enslaved people worked as
Speaker 1: agricultural laborers on large plantations, such as those producing cotton
Speaker 1: or sugarcane. While many did work on plantations in the
Speaker 1: Southern States, there were also enslaved people engaging in skilled labor,
Speaker 1: such as in domestic jobs cooks, blacksmiths, drivers, gardeners. That
Speaker 1: list goes on and on. There were a variety of
Speaker 1: workplaces including when you might not think of, well, at
Speaker 1: least probably not at first, Chris Baker may have been
Speaker 1: involved in the theft of hundreds of corpses from black
Speaker 1: cemeteries across Richmond, Virginia in the mid to late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Chris was a black man born at the Medical College
Speaker 1: of Virginia or m c V, to enslaved parents who
Speaker 1: also worked at the school. Those who were enslaved were
Speaker 1: considered property, and that made Chris the property of m
Speaker 1: c V. He was born into enslavement. Demographic information about
Speaker 1: Chris varies on just about every single detail, beginning with
Speaker 1: the year of his birth. Without knowing when he was born,
Speaker 1: it's hard to determine if he was an enslaved man
Speaker 1: during his time snatching bodies or part of the time,
Speaker 1: or if he was freed with others at the close
Speaker 1: of the Civil War. Some records indicate he had a
Speaker 1: wife named Martha, maybe Martha. Some reports refer to Martha
Speaker 1: as his mother, not his wife, and he did were
Speaker 1: fairly certain have a son named John. Some reports suggested
Speaker 1: Chris lived with his family in the basement of the
Speaker 1: Egyptian building at the school. However, this is also a
Speaker 1: for debate. Some historians point to the city directories in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds, where a Chris Baker is listed
Speaker 1: at a series of addresses close to the hospital in
Speaker 1: Jackson Ward District of Richmond. When Chris began acquiring bodies,
Speaker 1: it was either by his own hands with a team
Speaker 1: of a few other guys, or by hiring others to
Speaker 1: do so for him. Regardless of whether he worked alone
Speaker 1: or not, all of the bodies he acquired were for
Speaker 1: the Medical College of Virginia. As an aside here, The
Speaker 1: Medical College of Virginia that we're talking about joined with
Speaker 1: the Richmond Professional Institute in nineteen eight to form Virginia
Speaker 1: Commonwealth University or VCU as we know it today. Chris
Speaker 1: was m c VS in house resurrection man, or as
Speaker 1: he was described in the nine census, his occupation was
Speaker 1: quote an anatomical man. In addition to digging up bodies,
Speaker 1: his work also included preserving those bodies in quicklime for dissection,
Speaker 1: as well as generally keeping up with the local deaths
Speaker 1: and therefore any potential body snatching opportunities in the city.
Speaker 1: Chris was well respected on campus. In fact, he was
Speaker 1: often asked to take pictures with the medical students after dissections.
Speaker 1: But in the black community it was rumored Chris could
Speaker 1: wield black magic. As one future doctor wrote of the
Speaker 1: legendary resurrection man, quote, he was a small man, bald,
Speaker 1: and wore a black skull cap that made him so
Speaker 1: distinguishable that Negroes avoided him like the plague. According to
Speaker 1: VC used chairman of the Department of African American Studies,
Speaker 1: Dr Shaun O. Utsie Baker had been arrested several times
Speaker 1: in the act of stealing bodies. He describes an instance
Speaker 1: when Chris and three other men were caught by local
Speaker 1: Virginia authorities in the process of disturbing at least eight graves,
Speaker 1: so this is a large operation at that point. That time,
Speaker 1: Baker was indicted on one felony and two misdemeanor counts
Speaker 1: of body snatching, but he was pardoned by the governor.
Speaker 1: As we've talked about in almost every episode this sea
Speaker 1: and many authorities simply looked the other way when it
Speaker 1: came to this job, and Chris became famous, infamous as
Speaker 1: a ghoul who haunted the graves of the black community.
Speaker 1: There is no way to know how many bodies were
Speaker 1: stolen from cemeteries in the area, but the estimates from
Speaker 1: within the black cemeteries are in the thousands. Baker, it said,
Speaker 1: was known to haunt both the Sycamore Cemetery on the
Speaker 1: North Side and the Oakwood Cemetery in northeast Richmond. Unlike
Speaker 1: the white students who took photos with him, his work
Speaker 1: left the black community fearful of him. There are many
Speaker 1: sensational stories surrounding Chris. One talehold is that he would
Speaker 1: attend funerals disguised as a mourner to scout for fresh bodies.
Speaker 1: Another tells of how some richmonders believed he carried a
Speaker 1: bag to silence the screams of the living he captured
Speaker 1: in dark alleys around the city. Little side note here,
Speaker 1: there's really no evidence that Chris committed orders for bodies,
Speaker 1: although that wasn't unheard of among body snatchers. If you
Speaker 1: remember the term burking. We talked about that in our
Speaker 1: episode about William Burke and William Hare, who never seemed
Speaker 1: to have stepped foot in a cemetery, yet were highly
Speaker 1: successful at delivering fresh corpses. The Virginia State Newspaper argued
Speaker 1: in a front page feature story that Chris Baker and
Speaker 1: other resurrection men were not what many considered to be quote,
Speaker 1: a necessary evil. This article argued, quote, if they be,
Speaker 1: why not divide the honors between Oakwood Cemetery and Hollywood alike,
Speaker 1: and between the two races. It has been claimed by
Speaker 1: many white men that Negroes are physically dissimilar to Caucasians.
Speaker 1: If that be true, then it is not fair to
Speaker 1: the white people that only colored ones should be dissected
Speaker 1: and should be the only ones of whose physical structures
Speaker 1: the doctors have any knowledge. After an eight five visits
Speaker 1: in their land, English travel writer Harriet Martineau astutely observed
Speaker 1: that quote in Baltimore, the bodies of colored people exclusively
Speaker 1: are taken for a dissection because the whites do not
Speaker 1: like it and the colored people cannot resist. Chris Baker
Speaker 1: story is not the only one of its kind. Next,
Speaker 1: we are going to travel to Georgia. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit early, but we're going to take this opportunity for
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor, and when we're back, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the life of Grandison Harris. Welcome back to Criminalia.
Speaker 1: Grandison Harris was an enslaved man who stole the bodies
Speaker 1: of black people from black graveyards. A little bit similar.
Speaker 1: Here is his story. The Medical College of Georgia and
Speaker 1: Augusta once purchased a man for the purpose of quote,
Speaker 1: procuring subjects for anatomical study. Yes, this is real, and
Speaker 1: stay with us here. In eighteen fifty two, the Medical
Speaker 1: College of Georgia or MCG bought a black man named
Speaker 1: Grandison Harris to be their exclusive body snatcher for their
Speaker 1: anatomy classes, and he was jointly owned by all seven
Speaker 1: members of the school's medical faculty. Let's unpack that statement
Speaker 1: and a half. Yes, a medical college purchased a thirty
Speaker 1: six year old enslaved man in the mid eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: when slavery was legal in the state of Georgia. According
Speaker 1: to faculty minutes from an eighteen fifty two meeting at MCG,
Speaker 1: the dean of the college purchased Grandison at a Charleston,
Speaker 1: South Carolina auction for seven hundred dollars. So seven hundred
Speaker 1: dollars in eighteen fifty, if you're curious, is roughly equivalent
Speaker 1: in purchasing power to about twenty six thousand dollars today.
Speaker 1: According to reports of the event, Grandison was separated from
Speaker 1: his wife, who was pregnant and who remained enslaved as well.
Speaker 1: Grandison was described as quote a large and powerful Galla
Speaker 1: slave born in eighteen sixteen in West Africa. As an
Speaker 1: enslaved Gulla man, he would have been from one of
Speaker 1: several tribal groups of western Central Africa who, upon being
Speaker 1: brought to the United States, were primarily forced to work
Speaker 1: on the plantations of coastal North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Speaker 1: and Florida, often on rice and cotton plantations. Grandison's fate
Speaker 1: brought him to Georgia, but not to a rice field.
Speaker 1: Before Grandison became mcg's go to grave robber, The faculty
Speaker 1: had tried a few alternative methods for procuring cadavers. First,
Speaker 1: there was no way these seven doctors, who were apparently
Speaker 1: comfortable owning a human planned to potentially ruin their reputations
Speaker 1: by getting caught with a hand in a coffin. So
Speaker 1: that was out. The school's cadaver program began just like
Speaker 1: a lot did. They purchased fresh corpses for seventy five
Speaker 1: cents each from local body snatchers in Augusta, but they
Speaker 1: ran up against a common problem there was a limited supply.
Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty nine, the school tried a different tactic
Speaker 1: and began to source cadavers from out of state for
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars. One order of bodies from New York
Speaker 1: City was shipped in barrels of whiskey to preserve them
Speaker 1: during travel. What is unclear in that report, though, is
Speaker 1: exactly how many bodies one might purchase for one dollars
Speaker 1: shipped from New York. Regardless, that was not really an
Speaker 1: efficient method anyway. They still needed more corpses, so to
Speaker 1: fill this void they brought in Grandison. For decades, Grandison's
Speaker 1: work was as an in house resurrection man dedicated to
Speaker 1: steal bodies from graves at downtown Augustus Black Cedar Grove
Speaker 1: Cemetery to be delivered to and used by the medical school.
Speaker 1: Cedar Grove Cemetery is notable here because it was reserved
Speaker 1: for Augustus impoverished and black residents. There was no fence,
Speaker 1: and the bodies there were buried in plain pind coffins,
Speaker 1: sometimes known as toothpicks. Dr Eugene Murphy and mcg professor
Speaker 1: and former dean, who was a contemporary of Grandison, had
Speaker 1: observed the body snatcher at work. He recounted his routine
Speaker 1: as quote. He would go to the cemetery late at night,
Speaker 1: with only the moon watching. He would quickly dig down
Speaker 1: to the upper end of the box, smash it with
Speaker 1: an axe, reach in there with his long and powerful arms,
Speaker 1: and draw the subject out. He would put the subject
Speaker 1: in a big sack, place it in a cart, and
Speaker 1: carry it to the school. Grandison, we should note, was
Speaker 1: known to be really meticulous. He would memorize the grave
Speaker 1: site before disturbing it, and then he was able to
Speaker 1: to recreate that grave site perfectly once he had put
Speaker 1: the dirt back down, right down to the flower arrangements.
Speaker 1: The exhumed body was first destined for preservation in vats
Speaker 1: of whiskey, and later it was off to the dissection table.
Speaker 1: Between eighteen thirty five and nineteen twelve five nine eight
Speaker 1: Telfare Street, an impressive Greek Revival style building, housed nearly
Speaker 1: all of the medical colleges anatomy classes and their cadavers.
Speaker 1: Stories of these quote night doctors, a term often used
Speaker 1: in regard to the stealing and selling of bodies, became
Speaker 1: part of local black focal or tradition, and men like
Speaker 1: Harris and Baker as well were turned into a sort
Speaker 1: of bogeyman, used to scare local children and frankly, to
Speaker 1: scare adults as well. There's a chapter on Harris in
Speaker 1: the book Bones in the Basement post Mortem Racism in
Speaker 1: nineteenth century Medical Training, in which J. Philip Waring, retired
Speaker 1: administrator of the Urban League, is quoted as saying local
Speaker 1: blacks feared him because they did not know who he
Speaker 1: was going to dig up next. He was feared in
Speaker 1: the I don't want to say supernatural, but anyone who
Speaker 1: goes out and digs up bodies and gets away with
Speaker 1: it and makes money. And the medical college promoted him,
Speaker 1: and what have you what kind of person was this?
Speaker 1: It's believed doctors and doctors in training at the medical
Speaker 1: school were the ones who taught Grandison to read and
Speaker 1: write so that he could follow the obituaries and funeral
Speaker 1: announcements in the local papers. It was illegal for an
Speaker 1: enslaved person to read or write at this time in
Speaker 1: America's history, so Grandison had skills that other black men
Speaker 1: would not have had. Chris Baker, for instance, was not literate.
Speaker 1: Historians also believe that Grandison had decent knowledge of anatomy
Speaker 1: and even assisted during dissections, and that he became something
Speaker 1: of a respected mentor like figure among the medical students.
Speaker 1: And photographs taken of each graduating class during his tenure
Speaker 1: you will find Harris standing along with the students. Eugene
Speaker 1: Murphy of MCG also described how after one late night run,
Speaker 1: Grandison went from the graveyard to a saloon. Two students
Speaker 1: who've been watching the night doctor, walked over to his
Speaker 1: wagon and pulled a corpse from a sack. One of
Speaker 1: the students, as the story goes, then climbed into that sack.
Speaker 1: When Grandison returned from having a drink, the student moaned
Speaker 1: from within the sack, quote Grandison, I'm cold, buy me
Speaker 1: a drink, And to that the legend goes. Grandison replied,
Speaker 1: you can buy your own damn drink. With the end
Speaker 1: of the Civil War on April night, eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: and the abolition of slavery on December eighteenth, eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: Grandison was a freeman and he left mcg his wife
Speaker 1: and child. A son named George, moved to be with him.
Speaker 1: He relocated his family across the Savanna, a river from Augusta,
Speaker 1: to the small town of Hamburg, South Carolina that's now
Speaker 1: known as North Augusta, and there he served as a
Speaker 1: judge in a Freedman's Bureau court. Those were courts meant
Speaker 1: to settle cases of freed or formerly enslaved people who
Speaker 1: were facing prejudice in the white court system. Even with
Speaker 1: his family reunited and a new respectable job, there is
Speaker 1: no way this was an easy time for Grandison. The
Speaker 1: reconstruction period had become a violent political crisis, and in
Speaker 1: its failure, Jim Crow laws became the way things were
Speaker 1: in Georgia and across many Southern states, and Grandison found
Speaker 1: himself in a strange place in his community. He could
Speaker 1: read and write he held a good job. He's described
Speaker 1: as wearing quote proper gentleman's clothing, and a description of
Speaker 1: that would be, say, imagine a panama hat in the summer,
Speaker 1: a derby in the winter, and he always wore a
Speaker 1: mutineer in his lapel on sun days. Grandison, it seems,
Speaker 1: from all accounts, was a really friendly man. It was
Speaker 1: known among the black community that he threw great parties
Speaker 1: that were attended by the emite of local black society.
Speaker 1: He was a member of the influential Colored Knights of Patheus,
Speaker 1: a Masonic secret society that was started in eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: by black men. It borrowed from the rituals of the
Speaker 1: White Knights of Patheus. The biggest difference here was that
Speaker 1: any race was eligible to join the Colored Knights. Hamburg
Speaker 1: was a small, primarily black community across the river from Augusta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that it was a haven for
Speaker 1: black residents. White people from the surrounding area continually clashed
Speaker 1: with the residents there. An event called the Hamburg Massacre
Speaker 1: happened there in July of eighteen seventy six. That massacre
Speaker 1: was rooted in racial hatred and political motives, and it
Speaker 1: began as a simple dispute over free passage on a
Speaker 1: public road. Two white farmers were temporarily blocked from crossing
Speaker 1: a road while an all black regiment engaged in a
Speaker 1: military exercise. Outraged the men, who were named Thomas Butler
Speaker 1: and Henry gets Him filed a formal complaint demanding Hamburg's
Speaker 1: all black militia be disbanded. This is a very significant
Speaker 1: and detailed event in Southern history. We are speeding through it,
Speaker 1: we know. But the deal here is that when the
Speaker 1: governor called in local paramilitary groups known as the Red
Speaker 1: Shirts to quell any violence that seemed to be simmering,
Speaker 1: at least according to his estimation, terrible things happened. Hundreds
Speaker 1: of the all white Red Shirts surrounded and attacked the
Speaker 1: black militia regiment. Six black men and one white man
Speaker 1: were killed, and the event did nothing but worse in
Speaker 1: relation between the races spurred by racial tension, Grandison left Hamburg.
Speaker 1: He moved his family to Augusta and returned to his
Speaker 1: work in the dissection lab, this time as a full
Speaker 1: time employee at the Medical College of Georgia, and that
Speaker 1: meant he was paid for his work. He received eight
Speaker 1: dollars a month for doing the work he'd previously done
Speaker 1: for the school as an enslaved man. We did find
Speaker 1: one report that his salary fell between ten dollars and
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars a month, so a little bit more, and
Speaker 1: that when he retired in nive it was on a
Speaker 1: pension of ten dollars a month. So we're in the
Speaker 1: ballpark here. He was listed as supporter in the medical
Speaker 1: schools records, although everyone knew that wasn't really his job.
Speaker 1: But this time around at MCG the medical students didn't
Speaker 1: see him as a mentor. They treated him, it's reported
Speaker 1: as though he had been quote disloyal to the South
Speaker 1: by working on the behalf of the black community in
Speaker 1: a freedman's bureau of court, and they mocked him for
Speaker 1: his attempt at social climbing. In fact, both students and
Speaker 1: faculty mocked him by calling him judge off campus among
Speaker 1: free and enslaved blocks in Augusta. At the time, Grandison
Speaker 1: was known as a ghost, a ghoul, and even a villain.
Speaker 1: Despite a new law allowing dissection in Georgia to be
Speaker 1: legal beginning in eight seven, that law still didn't mean
Speaker 1: there were enough fresh corpses for dissection tables, and the
Speaker 1: body snatcher profession was still needed. Grandison continued to not
Speaker 1: only rob graves, but helped purchase corpses of the poor
Speaker 1: who died in prisons and hospitals and from anywhere else
Speaker 1: he got a tip on a fresh corpse. As Grandison
Speaker 1: got older, his son, George, began to take on more
Speaker 1: of the school's graveyard responsibilities, but George was not as
Speaker 1: well liked or as responsible as his father had been.
Speaker 1: The dissection lab began to emit an odor strong enough
Speaker 1: for the Board of Health to be called in, and
Speaker 1: they discovered not only old rags and tobacco on the floor,
Speaker 1: but also scraps from dissection procedures and a neglected vat
Speaker 1: full of bones. Not the kind of scene in medical school,
Speaker 1: or actually really anyone wants to explain. Grandison retired in
Speaker 1: nineteen o eight, after giving one final lecture instructing the
Speaker 1: medical students on the finer points of being a night doctor.
Speaker 1: He died of heart failure in nineteen eleven at the
Speaker 1: age of ninety five, and he was buried in Cedar Grove,
Speaker 1: the very same cemetery where he had plundered for fresh
Speaker 1: corpses for decades. In nine nine, the cemetery's records were
Speaker 1: destroyed when the Savannah River overflowed, and today still no
Speaker 1: one knows where Harris's body lies. In addition to that
Speaker 1: bone collection, in nine nine, construction workers accidentally discovered the
Speaker 1: remains of We've seen this two ways, actually of roughly
Speaker 1: four hundred corpses or ten thousand bones below the old
Speaker 1: Medical College building on Telfair Street, many of whom were
Speaker 1: likely secretly disposed of by Grandison as part of his
Speaker 1: daily duties. Some remains were still marked as specimens, but
Speaker 1: because many were scattered or broken, it's been difficult for
Speaker 1: archaeologists and forensic anthropologists to determine much about them. The ancestry, sex,
Speaker 1: or age of each individual is unknown. What they have
Speaker 1: been able to figure out, though, through testing, is that
Speaker 1: seventy seven percent of the bones are male, and most
Speaker 1: of the remains belonged to black men. Found with them
Speaker 1: were old medical tools, as well as an old wooden
Speaker 1: vat that had been used to store bodies and whiskey,
Speaker 1: and that that still contained bones too. The discovery was
Speaker 1: turned over to local authorities, and the bones were buried
Speaker 1: in Cedar Grove Cemetery. This is obviously a very complex story.
Speaker 1: It's not just body snatching. There is also race, socioeconomic status,
Speaker 1: right and wrong, and it's a story that we hope
Speaker 1: experts to dive more deeply into. One thing that kept
Speaker 1: coming up in the research for today's show is that
Speaker 1: there's going to be more to this story than meets
Speaker 1: the eye. And we completely agree, so we hope we
Speaker 1: have done it justice, but we acknowledge there's a lot
Speaker 1: of depths here we can't even get into because the
Speaker 1: information has not really been studied. I holly hope that
Speaker 1: you are not going to serve us anything from that that.
Speaker 1: No rock gut whiskey today. No, And in fact, I'm
Speaker 1: sidestepping whiskey and using an alternate spirit in something. This
Speaker 1: was one where it was a little bit tricky because
Speaker 1: I was trying to think of something that we could
Speaker 1: make that would be a little historical, pretty commonly associated
Speaker 1: with the South, and not too disrespectful. Right, It's a
Speaker 1: little bit tricky, of course, very tricky. The thing that
Speaker 1: kept coming to my mind is a mint jewlip. I
Speaker 1: am not that big of a fan of I will
Speaker 1: confess but there's a fun history lesson to this as well,
Speaker 1: which will help be a little bit of a palate
Speaker 1: cleanser if you just need a little break from heavier things.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to make it a little bit different
Speaker 1: than the mint julip you have probably been served if
Speaker 1: you've ordered one before, because it gets its own association
Speaker 1: with a lot of very racist institutions in some cases. However,
Speaker 1: if we go all the way back to the origin,
Speaker 1: it's different than what you're drinking today, probably right. If
Speaker 1: you look up the International Association of Bartenders recipe for
Speaker 1: a mint julip, it's like sugar water your mint and
Speaker 1: whiskey or bourbon. We're not doing that, but we are
Speaker 1: doing a variation. And I ended up going to a
Speaker 1: book that I have in love, which is written by
Speaker 1: Jerry Thomas in the eighteen sixties. If you are a
Speaker 1: drinker or a bar person, Jerry Thomas, he's sometimes called
Speaker 1: the father of mixology. We've referenced him before on the show.
Speaker 1: He wrote several books called The Bartenders Guide and various
Speaker 1: other names. But this is really like the first English
Speaker 1: language codification of like drink recipes. His julip is a
Speaker 1: fun one I'm actually going to read it because it's
Speaker 1: not terribly long. He first starts with a way to
Speaker 1: basically make simple syrup. Will skip that it's very short,
Speaker 1: but then it reads. Take three or four sprigs of
Speaker 1: fresh mint, Press them well in the sugar and water
Speaker 1: until the flavor of the mint is extracted. Add one
Speaker 1: and a half wine glass of cognac brandy and fill
Speaker 1: the glass with fine shaved ice. Then draw out the
Speaker 1: sprigs of mint and insert them in the ice with
Speaker 1: the stems downward so that the leaves will be above
Speaker 1: in the shape of a bouquet. Arrange berries and small
Speaker 1: pieces of sliced orange on top in a tasty manner.
Speaker 1: Dash with Jamaica rum, and sprinkle white sugar on top.
Speaker 1: Place a straw as represented in the cut, and you
Speaker 1: have a julip that is fit for an emperor. He
Speaker 1: also includes variations to do a brandy julip, a gin
Speaker 1: ju lip, a whiskey julip, which is what most people
Speaker 1: get today, or a pineapple julip. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: go back to that original conky julip because your girl
Speaker 1: loves neck, which I'm calling the anatomical man. And I'm
Speaker 1: adding another twist to it to just make it its
Speaker 1: own unique thing and take it out of some of
Speaker 1: its previous associations. So you are going to use your
Speaker 1: tablespoon of simple syrup or a vanilla syrup. If your
Speaker 1: name is Holly Fry, that's presume in any reside. Or
Speaker 1: I say simple syrup, I'm probably using vanilla syrup because
Speaker 1: I just like it better. Then you are going to
Speaker 1: small dice one large strawberry, toss it in there, and
Speaker 1: then four to five mint leaves, and you're just gonna
Speaker 1: muddle them, you know how. Normally I say, don't go
Speaker 1: crazy muddling, go crazy muddling, because you really want to
Speaker 1: mash up that strawberry and get it so it can
Speaker 1: fit through a straw. Theoretically that's the problem with strawberries,
Speaker 1: and they stick in the straw. So I get your
Speaker 1: your your muddle the hell out of this. If you
Speaker 1: can find like a boba straw that are made taking
Speaker 1: those big boba pearls, that to me is a great
Speaker 1: way if you're doing a fruit muddled drink. It's no
Speaker 1: fun to be sipping a drink. And then so once
Speaker 1: you have your strawberry and your mint leaves and your
Speaker 1: syrup muddled really well, to the point that it's a
Speaker 1: slurry in the bottom. Just fill the whole glass with
Speaker 1: crushed ice. Crushed ice is very important. I will tell
Speaker 1: you why. In a moment, you're gonna add the crushed ice.
Speaker 1: You're gonna put in two ounces of cognac. You stir it.
Speaker 1: You wanted to get chilled on the outside of your
Speaker 1: glass before you even try to drink it. This is
Speaker 1: where I also explained crushed dice. You'll see in cocktail
Speaker 1: recipes like they sometimes call for specific kinds of ice,
Speaker 1: and that's not just to be like a fancy pant's unicorn.
Speaker 1: They serve different purposes. So in the case of this,
Speaker 1: if you were to just drink your two ounces of
Speaker 1: cognac with your strawberry and Mintley's, it is, to my paletate,
Speaker 1: not that delicious, even with the sweetness of it, because
Speaker 1: it's just too strong. It's too many strong flavor. Crushed
Speaker 1: ice versus like cube dice, has greater surface areas, so
Speaker 1: it's diluting your alcohol a little bit more quickly, and
Speaker 1: you're actually getting a more simpable drink. That is the
Speaker 1: science of different kinds of ices, different kinds of drinks. Right,
Speaker 1: if you have like a drink where it calls for
Speaker 1: one large ice cube, what they mean is, we don't
Speaker 1: want you to dilute this anymore than it's absolutely necessarily
Speaker 1: going to happen to keep it cold. So like you
Speaker 1: want your stuff mixed together, you want it to dilute
Speaker 1: it your purposely watering down your alcohol. This is the
Speaker 1: case if you do a whiskey based Julu as well,
Speaker 1: crushed ice is key and it probably goes to that
Speaker 1: saying you don't want to just slurp it all down
Speaker 1: quickly because you want it to have some time to dilute.
Speaker 1: That is the anatomical band in its alcohol form. If
Speaker 1: you want to make a nonalcoholic one, it's super easy.
Speaker 1: You do the same exact thing, but you want to
Speaker 1: put in two ounces a very very very strong tea,
Speaker 1: so you basically are making like the world's yummiest iced
Speaker 1: tea with strawberry and mint in it. And if you
Speaker 1: use vanilla syrup it makes it very lovely. I use
Speaker 1: a black tea there. I've seen some people. I was
Speaker 1: doing some research about other mock tail variations on mint julips,
Speaker 1: and some people like to use a combination of a
Speaker 1: mint tea and a black tea together, which sounds like
Speaker 1: an interesting idea to steep with two bags in your
Speaker 1: cup or whatever, because that will give you more of
Speaker 1: that minty minty flavor, since black tea can overwhelm softer
Speaker 1: flavors sometimes. But you'll do everything else the same again,
Speaker 1: keep that crushed dice. You want that tea very strong.
Speaker 1: That is the anatomical man. I will say I prefer
Speaker 1: the mocktail on this one. As much as I generally
Speaker 1: love Kognac, the mock tail is more palatable for me.
Speaker 1: It's more refreshing, which is really what I want from
Speaker 1: any drink anyway. Like I'm not a big wine drinker,
Speaker 1: I've always said, and it's because part of it I'm
Speaker 1: allergic to a lot of wine. But I also just
Speaker 1: don't find wine refreshing. Like when I drink wine, I
Speaker 1: feel like I need to drink something to be hydrated,
Speaker 1: and sometimes when you're doing like a heavy Kognak only thing,
Speaker 1: like I like Kognak in things more than on its own.
Speaker 1: So that is the scoop with why we went to
Speaker 1: a historical version of the jew lip and then put
Speaker 1: our own little twister rou on it, which hopefully is
Speaker 1: yummy for everybody that tries it, and I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy it. And if you didn't know about crushed ice
Speaker 1: and why it's important, now you do. This is also
Speaker 1: why if you meet people that are really into bar
Speaker 1: culture and tiki bar culture has a lot of people
Speaker 1: that are very obsessed with their ice shapes. But that
Speaker 1: is part of it. It is part of the actual
Speaker 1: mix of your drink. It changes the flavor profile of
Speaker 1: your drink quite a bit. So it's also like sometimes
Speaker 1: you will shake a drink with ice, sometimes without, because
Speaker 1: if you're doing it with ice, you actually are hoping
Speaker 1: for a little dilution in the process. Science. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the science part of the show. Like I said, that
Speaker 1: is the anatomical man our twist on a jew lip
Speaker 1: and I hope you dig it. Thank you for spending
Speaker 1: this time with us this week. I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: we took time to tell these two particular stories. And
Speaker 1: we will be right back here next week with more
Speaker 1: Grave Robin and Resurrection on Criminalia. Criminalia is a production
Speaker 1: of Shonda Land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shonda Land, audio, Please visit the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.