Speaker 1: Welcomed. Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart 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. The games we enjoy today have evolved over time.
Speaker 1: Baseball in basketball, for example, look a lot different today
Speaker 1: than they did fifty years ago, and soccer or football
Speaker 1: for listeners outside of the United States, might have undergone
Speaker 1: the most change. It used to be a lot closer
Speaker 1: to rugby. But one man sought to change all of
Speaker 1: that when he wasn't walking along the bottom of the
Speaker 1: New York Bay. His name was Arthur Pember. Born in Brixton, England,
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty five, Pember came from a wealthy family,
Speaker 1: his father a successful stockbroker. He was homeschooled and didn't
Speaker 1: go to college, choosing instead to work alongside his father
Speaker 1: in London as a stockbroker as well. Pember eventually married
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Houghton in eighteen sixty, but after she died from
Speaker 1: complications arising from a miscarriage. He remarried in eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: two to Alice Mary Grieve, but eighteen sixty two also
Speaker 1: marked the start of a blooming passion for Pember the
Speaker 1: No Names or n N football club. He could often
Speaker 1: be found clad in a knitted jersey and cap, scrambling
Speaker 1: across a field in northwest London as he tried to
Speaker 1: put a ball between a pair of goal posts stuck
Speaker 1: in the dirt. He became team captain the following year
Speaker 1: and represented the club at a meeting of all the
Speaker 1: other clubs in the area in October of eighteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: Football was something of a wild West back then, before
Speaker 1: things were standardized and coded. Every club town seemed to
Speaker 1: have its own set of rules. For example, Cambridge University
Speaker 1: used only their feet, but players at the Rugby Public
Speaker 1: School use their hands to carry the ball. Rugby Public
Speaker 1: School also happened to be where the sport of rugby originated.
Speaker 1: With everyone else playing by different rules and regulations, figuring
Speaker 1: out who scored and who won became something of a headache.
Speaker 1: Pember chaired the first football club meeting and explained to
Speaker 1: the group how the sport they loved needed a universal
Speaker 1: rule book. Not only would it make it easier for
Speaker 1: everyone to play, but it would also expand its appeal
Speaker 1: outside of their organization. They all agreed, and by the
Speaker 1: end of the meeting two decisions had been made. First,
Speaker 1: the captains of eleven clubs came together to form an
Speaker 1: official governing body known as the Football Association, and secondly,
Speaker 1: they elected Arthur Pember as its president. But not everyone
Speaker 1: was in agreement. England's public schools already played by their
Speaker 1: own rules and had no interest in joining the Association
Speaker 1: unless they had a prominent role in either creating the
Speaker 1: new guidelines or running them entirely. Public schools in the
Speaker 1: UK weren't like the public schools in America. They were
Speaker 1: institutions meant for the elites of high society. Pember had
Speaker 1: never attended a public school, and he had no interest
Speaker 1: in letting them steamroll his efforts of football standardization. He
Speaker 1: got to work laying down the law. Players could no
Speaker 1: longer run while holding the ball, nor could they kick
Speaker 1: or trip someone below the knee, otherwise known as hacking.
Speaker 1: It took five meetings and a lot of heartache, but
Speaker 1: in the end Pember got his rule book. The laws
Speaker 1: of the game were sold for a shilling apiece published
Speaker 1: as an easy to carry booklets. The association kicked off
Speaker 1: part in the pun the adoption of its new rules
Speaker 1: on January ninth of eighteen sixty four with a game
Speaker 1: between two teams, one captain by Pember himself. The president
Speaker 1: side one two to zero, kicking off Pember's multi year
Speaker 1: tenure as a prominent football player and high ranking member
Speaker 1: of these asociation. Roughly four years later, Pember and his
Speaker 1: family moved across the Pond to America, settling in New
Speaker 1: York City on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Aside from football,
Speaker 1: there was another activity he loved, mountaineering. Back in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, Pember had actually summitted Mount Blanc in the
Speaker 1: Alps and now lectured in New York. On his climbing experiences,
Speaker 1: he was almost never satisfied and sought new ways to
Speaker 1: push himself. But more importantly, Pember seemed to have a
Speaker 1: problem with bullies, as he had handled back home by
Speaker 1: refusing to let one football club kick opposing players during games,
Speaker 1: as I said, a practice known as hacking. His stance
Speaker 1: caused that club to leave the association entirely. He took
Speaker 1: a job for the New York Tribune, investigating corruption among
Speaker 1: the police departments in prisons. He also reported for The
Speaker 1: New York Times on how the poor lived by disguising
Speaker 1: himself as a beggar and embedding himself among them. But
Speaker 1: one story still nagged at him. It had captivated him
Speaker 1: soon after his arrival in New York when he learned
Speaker 1: about the existence of the Fiji Mermaid, an exhibit that
Speaker 1: had been part of P. T. Barnum's American Museum. The
Speaker 1: mermaid was a three ft long sea creature that had
Speaker 1: been allegedly purchased from Japanese sailors in eighteen twenty two.
Speaker 1: It had a fish like tail, a shriveled body, and
Speaker 1: a mouth full of teeth. It had been a hoax,
Speaker 1: obviously most likely made of paper mache, but Pember didn't care.
Speaker 1: Even though he knew better. He believed traveling to the
Speaker 1: bottom of New York Bay made for a must read story.
Speaker 1: Papers were already reporting on the potential mermaid sighting by
Speaker 1: a mother who had allegedly witnessed one off the coast
Speaker 1: of Cape Cod in eighteen seventy two. Pember donned a
Speaker 1: diving suit and stepped off a boat into the murky
Speaker 1: depths of New York Bay. His boots weighed sixteen pounds
Speaker 1: and carried him to the bottom, helped by a hundred
Speaker 1: pound weight that had been fastened to his chest. He
Speaker 1: certainly got an Eiffel of absolutely nothing. The bay was
Speaker 1: too polluted to see anything at all. He wrote his
Speaker 1: story saying, I can vouch for the fact that there
Speaker 1: are no mermaids in New York Bay, at least not
Speaker 1: in that part of which I explored. Pember, after suffering
Speaker 1: the losses of several of his children and his wife Alice,
Speaker 1: eventually left New York for North Dakota, where he wrote
Speaker 1: a book about his time as a journalist back east. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: he never finished it. He died at the age of
Speaker 1: fifty eight. Though his life ended abruptly, he left behind
Speaker 1: a sizeable legacy, and not just as a journalist. One
Speaker 1: week before he died, Pember read in The Times that
Speaker 1: local football clubs were playing the game according to the
Speaker 1: rules laid down by the Football Association in England. His rules.
Speaker 1: He might not have found mermaids in New York Bay,
Speaker 1: but Arthur Pember had changed the face of one of
Speaker 1: the world's most popular sports during his short time on
Speaker 1: this earth. New Jersey is known for a lot of
Speaker 1: weird things. Heck, there's even a whole magazine devoted to it,
Speaker 1: from haunted roads, to abandoned mental facilities to strange creatures
Speaker 1: lurking within its woods. New Jersey isn't just about boardwalk
Speaker 1: pizza and turnpike exits, but one weird story that doesn't
Speaker 1: often get told revolves around a man named Charles Bruin.
Speaker 1: Bruin was a Civil War veteran who had moved to Burlington,
Speaker 1: New Jersey after the war to become a tailor. He
Speaker 1: led a quiet life, getting along with his neighbors and
Speaker 1: attending church every Sunday. However, on November nine of nineteen
Speaker 1: o three, the unexplainable happened. Charles Bruin disappeared. No one
Speaker 1: knew what had happened to him. His neighbors hadn't seen him.
Speaker 1: The police and friends searched high and low, even across
Speaker 1: state lines, for the valued member of their community, to
Speaker 1: no avail. All that remained was a man's hat with
Speaker 1: a piece of paper bearing his name. The items that
Speaker 1: have been found on a ferry, the crew of which
Speaker 1: hadn't remembered seeing him either. Four years went by. A
Speaker 1: man by the name of Alfred Woolman had moved from Burlington,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, to Plainfield, Vermont, and taken a job as
Speaker 1: a trolley conductor. He was watching his passengers boarding the
Speaker 1: trolley when a man stepped on for a ride. Woolman
Speaker 1: recognized him immediately. After all, he had been a mainstay
Speaker 1: of Burlington for so long and had been missing for
Speaker 1: the past four years. It was Charles Bruin. His friends
Speaker 1: and neighbors were surely going to be thrilled that he
Speaker 1: was still alive. Woolman walked over and greeted the man,
Speaker 1: asking him what had happened, why he had left. The
Speaker 1: passenger looked up as though Woolman was a stranger. He
Speaker 1: told him he must have the wrong person. He said
Speaker 1: his name was Frank Johnson from New York and he
Speaker 1: didn't know this Bruin the conductor was talking about. Johnson
Speaker 1: exited the trolley soon after leaving. Woolman stupefied, but the
Speaker 1: conductor refused to let it go. He started asking around
Speaker 1: town if anyone knew this man, Frank Johnson. As it's
Speaker 1: turned out they did. Johnson had arrived in Vermont three
Speaker 1: years prior, and just like Bruin, he kept mostly to himself.
Speaker 1: He was simply a god fearing man who attended church
Speaker 1: on Sundays. But that wasn't enough for Woolman. He had
Speaker 1: to know for sure. He was like a dog with
Speaker 1: a bone, and he knew he needed help to bring
Speaker 1: closure to the case. He reached out to Bruin's brother,
Speaker 1: who came to Burlington and greeted the man who looked
Speaker 1: exactly like his sibling. Johnson, however, was upset. He had
Speaker 1: already told Woolman that he was not Charles Bruin. He
Speaker 1: had no idea who these people were, including the man
Speaker 1: claiming to be his brother, So Johnson explained to them
Speaker 1: the details of his old life in New York. He
Speaker 1: had had a daughter who still lived there. Her name
Speaker 1: was Anne, and he had recently purchased a life insurance
Speaker 1: policy for her. Frank Johnson's back story was full of
Speaker 1: little details, and for a moment it sounded like Woolman
Speaker 1: and the brother had gotten mixed up in the bizarre
Speaker 1: case of mistaken identity. They all eventually departed and the
Speaker 1: story wound up in a local newspaper. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: a slow news day, A friend of Johnson's name, Dr
Speaker 1: Buchanan read the story about Woolman, the brother and Charles
Speaker 1: Bruin from Burlington, New Jersey. As it so happened, Buchanan's
Speaker 1: father had been a chaplain back in Burlington's and asked
Speaker 1: him if he had ever known Charles Bruin. Then, around
Speaker 1: June thirty, Buchanan was awoken in the middle of the
Speaker 1: night by a phone call. It was Johnson's landlady. Her
Speaker 1: tenant had apparently woken up without any knowledge of where
Speaker 1: he was or how he had gotten there, and Johnson
Speaker 1: told her that his name was Charles Bruin. Buchanan and
Speaker 1: his father hurried to the home where Johnson knee Bruin
Speaker 1: was staying and found him pale faced and in a daze.
Speaker 1: He said he was Charles Bruin from Burlington, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: He recognized Dr Buchanan's father, but the last four years
Speaker 1: were a blank. He didn't remember Anne or New York
Speaker 1: or any of what he had told Woolman and his
Speaker 1: brother a short time earlier. He did, however, remember everything
Speaker 1: that had happened before he became Frank Johnson, such as
Speaker 1: his life in New Jersey and his time in the
Speaker 1: Civil War, but something else had cropped up doing Bruin's
Speaker 1: life as Frank Johnson his prophetic dreams. One dream had
Speaker 1: involved a fire in a shop in which a woman
Speaker 1: named Miss Brown would have died, but Johnson had been
Speaker 1: there to save her. The following day, fire broke out
Speaker 1: at the same establishment, just as he predicted, and he
Speaker 1: stepped in to save Miss Brown's life for real. Another
Speaker 1: dream occurred after an incident in which he had repaired
Speaker 1: a fur coat and then sent it back to its owner.
Speaker 1: The owner returned it, saying that the lining was shredded
Speaker 1: by the time it had reached him. That night, Johnson
Speaker 1: dreamt that he had taken the coat back to New York,
Speaker 1: where he met a small man who told him the
Speaker 1: skins that he had used for the lining were the
Speaker 1: wrong type. The next day, Johnson packed up the coats,
Speaker 1: took it to New York, and met the man that
Speaker 1: he had seen in his dream. The rest of the
Speaker 1: events transpired exactly as he predicted. No one knew exactly
Speaker 1: what had caused Charles Bruin to abandon his old life
Speaker 1: and start a new one as Frank Johnson, nor could
Speaker 1: they explain in his ability to predict the future through
Speaker 1: his dreams, although his story was reported on in several
Speaker 1: newspapers and the Journal of American Society for Psychical Research.
Speaker 1: As for Bruin, he went back to New Jersey where
Speaker 1: he was reunited with his family. One week later, however,
Speaker 1: he moved back to Vermont where he got his old
Speaker 1: job back, the one that he had when he was
Speaker 1: Frank Johnson. Because apparently, some habits, even the ones we
Speaker 1: don't remember, and definitely be hard to break. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast 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.