February 7, 2019 • 31 mins
Join Ben, Noel, Casey and returning guest Christopher Hassiotis as they continue exploring the strange life and times of George Washington in the second part of this two-part series. Listen in to learn more about Washington's weird hair routine, his bizarre, lifelong medical issues, and his family's troubling history in early America.
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
Don't call it a comeback. Friends and neighbors are actually
go ahead and please do so, because this is part
two of our continuing series of weird George Washington Facts.
Welcome to the show. My name is Ben, my name
is Noel. If we are joined with our super producer,
Casey Pegram and our returning a special guest. It's an
(00:44):
immense privilege to have you on the show. Anytime Christopher
hascy otis what a delight to be here. Thank you,
and Ben, you've got your groove back, my friend, you're glowing.
You're absolutely glowing. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's
all the Hemp, very versatile crop, very first. Yes, is
that shirt you're wearing woven from Hemp? Yes, yes it is,
And as are my shoes and my coat undergarments. Is
(01:10):
that what you're gonna say, undergarments? Yeah? Traded in the
myth rill? That did I finally upgraded from myth rill
to imp So this is, as you mentioned, part two
of a two part series. If you have not checked
out part one of our George Washington Facts, it's it's okay.
Don't stress out. Just hit pause, you know, and and
(01:32):
and shake your fists at the podcast gods that list
the shows in reverse chronological order and just scroll back
and listen to the show from two days ago. Yeah,
that's such a bummer when they list them in that
reverse order. You know, I believe that the I Heart
Radio app you can swap things around and point them
in the other direction and start from start from earlier,
and go towards later. That's crazy talk. Who would ever
(01:54):
do that? What a time to be alive. The industry
is a morphing thing. So we it up the basic
gist of George Washington's life in our earlier episode, And now,
what do you say, gentlemen, should we dive straight into
the weird stuff? Yeah, there's a whole bunch of strangeness
to get into. I say, let's dive down that Washington hole.
(02:16):
Was it the muddy hole? The muddy hole, Washington's money.
Let's dive down Washington's muddy Hole. It sounds like the
worst ride at the Presidential theme park of my dreams.
Oh yeah, that's the one where there's never aligned. Yeah,
Lincoln's spooky log Cabin. I think, um man, if I
had a lot of extra time, we could just come
up with theme rides and uh for for every single
(02:39):
president that's out there, weird glitching robot, Lincoln's spewing sparks,
the theater, the taft bathtub you've got to escape taft tub,
taft tub that's full of old beans, of old beings. Yeah,
and then we get we get weird because we would
have the most fun I think with more obscure presidents,
(02:59):
like years, do you think he's the most obscure? Uh?
He You know that's a matter of personal opinion, isn't it.
That's why I'm asking you maybsonally. Oh you're asking me personally.
We're here, just you and me, and uh, we don't.
I guess no one Casey and millions and millions of listeners.
But yeah, I don't know. Yeah, who is the most
(03:20):
obscure president? I have great fascination with those lists that
come out every so often of ranking presidents from best
the worst. And they usually don't do every single president.
They usually do maybe the top five best ones in
the bottom five worst ones. And I gotta say the
(03:40):
bottom five are usually the same couple of dudes. Yeah,
you've got the obscure ones. You've got your Pierce here,
Millard Fillmore. Um, you know William McKinley, who was very
popular at the time but just kind of was forgotten
even though he was killed and was involved in a
lot of different things. So one who's constantly at the
bottom of list is Andrew Johnson. He's the one who
kind of after Lincoln' assassination, he took over, but he
(04:00):
didn't manage the situation well. He let the country fester.
Things were not handled well. Reconstruction was not handled in
a way that maybe look towards future generations. But I
think a lot of Americans would be hard pressed to
name Andrew Johnson. And I gotta tell you, I think
it's because his name is a little generic. It is
it is. It's a real uh, it's real John Doe. Yeah,
(04:22):
it's just not as memorable if he had some sort
of villainous name, or if he had some sort of name.
But you know, I mean, maybe maybe it's better that
his name is a little more kind of milk toast
and banal, because honestly, that's how some of the things
that fall apart in politics do. So it's just sort
of through no specific malice, through no ill will, it
just sort of the banality of things kind of things
(04:45):
fall apart. All right, so we're talking about bad presence.
Where's your boy g dub fall? That's true, this is
an episode about George Washingtons. Oh, I do want to
point out, did you know that Andrew Johnson never went
to school? Is it sort of like I never learned
to read and I somehow managed to become president. Turns
out I was bad at it. I think the closest
he got to a formal education was when his wife
(05:06):
taught him the basics, uh, like basic mathematics and writing
and so. So he is one of the worst regarded presidents.
So maybe, uh, we can draw some conclusions that an
intellectual curiosity and education, these are things that are important
for a president. That the desire to learn, the admission
that maybe other people have more information than you and
(05:27):
that you should rely on them for information like that,
that's the thing a president should espouse to aspire to. Yeah. Yeah,
I think I think that's solid and I don't think
that's a controversial point at all. We know that George
Washington had no problem learning from other people, and he
took advice pretty well well done, expertly played, my friends.
(05:51):
I know that means you have to go first especially
the part where you say, just so you guys, now,
Ben's doing this really sweet move where he's drawing his
ur finger and thumb together from them touching each other
to apart in the same cadence as he's saying, sege,
it's a slow parting of the Red Sea. We actually
made this a two part episode because we we wanted
to spend some time really focusing on that hand gesture
(06:15):
and really trying to up our vamp game. And whenever
Christopher Hassiotas joins us in the tank here, it's just magic.
Sparks fly. Yeah, but well that's true. Sparks did fly earlier. No,
you were electrocuted slightly by your headphones. That's true, saying that, um,
you all, you all, you do have a bit of
an electric person saying I'm not not saying that. Is
this is this part of are you still a little
(06:38):
weirded out by the mic situation? Is this part of
a revenge scheme? No, what happens is I'm wearing wool
socks and before you guys came in here, I was
just running back and forth the class. We just called
that a hassiotas at the office you got sapped so
I will go first. This is a little bit stranger.
This is not a social activity of George Washington, nor
(06:59):
is it a political activity. This is a medical fact
about the guy. He was one of the sickliest presidents
in US history. Over the span of his life, he
suffered from diphtheria, tuberculosis, smallpox, dysentery, malaria, quinsy which was tonsilitis, carbuncle, pneumonia,
(07:21):
and epiiclytitis. In fact, he was so afflicted that people
started speculating this may have played a role in his infertility,
because Washington did not have issue, as they would say
in the world of aristocracy, and it's well known that
he had no children of his own. In two thousand seven,
(07:42):
man named John k Amory at the University Washington School
of Medicine proposed that it wasn't for lack of trying. Instead,
he said Washington may quite possibly have been infertile, and
Armory list a number of possible reasons for this infertility,
including an infection caused by tuberculosis. We have a quote
(08:04):
here wherein he says classic studies of soldiers with tuberculosis
plur Z during World War Two demonstrated that two thirds
developed chronic organ tuberculosis within five years of their initial infection.
Infection of the epididymus or testes is seen in twenty
percent of these individuals and frequently results in infertility. Dude,
(08:24):
I just made a horrible mistake. I googled images of carbuncles.
Not good. I'm guessing you are not seeing the The
image of the cute little monster from the Final Fantasy
Video Games was his name? There? There was one called
a carbuncle. Interesting. Please please Ridiculous Historians correct me if
I'm wrong. These are disgusting, pus filled boils that cover
(08:45):
one's body who went and afflicted with them. It's not
a carbohydrate loving uncle. Nope, this is something we will
not be posting photos of on Ridiculous Stories. Well WHA
will not be too hasty. I'm gonna I'm not even
a regular host here, but can I put this to
a vote? Do I get a full vote? I'm gonna
take I'm taking a triple vote, and I'm voting no
(09:05):
photos of carbuncles on Ridiculous Historians three against two. I
support that. I see the gentleman to my left, I
you know, but I'm just saying, if you you know
if you want to gross yourself out, just google carbuncle.
If you would have a really disturbing the more you
know moment with the star flying over your head as
you throw up a little bit in your mouth. Carbuncle.
(09:26):
Do you think the fact that George Washington didn't have
children kind of cemented his legacy? You know, that he
didn't have kids who could kind of tarnish the Washington one. Yeah,
he was. He was alone. He set things in motion,
and he stepped back and that was it. Quite possibly.
I mean, that's that's a very good point, I would say.
And it's so rare for people to do that at
that level because I mean, they have all these idiot
(09:48):
sons that go and screw it all up for him.
You're not talking about Ben Stiller, are you. I'm talking
about that. One of the things that I know you
hate is nepotism. The adams Is, they, the Bushes, the Roosevelts. Look,
all those guys are like distant cousins. You can't. I
mean they came from a big, big family, I know,
(10:09):
but name recognition is still key now I will. I
totally see your point there, Christopher. Just like a Justice
Kennedy is not related to the former President Kennedy, Right,
So there shouldn't be any law barring them from occupying
positions of power. You know what I mean. I'm just
saying that it's very strange to explain to someone from
(10:32):
another country or another culture that this is purportedly a
meritocracy and then say in the same breath that, despite
being a meritocracy, through some amazing coincidence, the most qualified
people for a job happened to be related to each
other pretty often. But that just further underlines the point
(10:55):
that you make with Washington. Prehaps he was a safe
figure to mythologize. While he did not have children, one
thing that he did have was a non consensual workforce,
that's true. One of the things I wanted to talk
about was Washington's slaveholding. It's not really a happy topic
(11:19):
because we're talking about enslaved people, but it's a fact
of life at the time, especially for landowners. Um that
and and Washington had control over hundreds of slaves, more
than three people. Washington gets a lot of credit for
quote unquote freeing his slaves in his will. You know that,
that's one thing that people who defend the practice of
(11:40):
enslaving others when it comes to Washington, who is rightly
revered as the father, as one of the fathers of
our country, and who put a lot of great systems
in motion, but that doesn't change the fact that he
ran this giant plantation, and a plantation of that size
in what's sort of the South at the time was
run essentially on the on the free labor of enslaved Africans,
(12:04):
and at the time of his death, Washington owned more
than three hundred slaves. He inherited his first slave at eleven,
when his father passed away. So you had this young man,
George Washington, who was born into a life of maintaining
control over other human beings. When he passed in he
had a hundred and twenty three slaves who were legally his,
(12:27):
and then there were a hundred and ninety three that
he also controlled that were known as dower slaves. And
what that means is they were technically legally owned by
his wife, Martha. Now Martha married George when she was
twenty five. She was a widow at the time, and
she had taken on slaves both from her own family
and from her ex husband who passed away. So it's
(12:49):
it's really really interesting, and it can be kind of
fascinating to look at the the legal structure of slavery
until you remember that we're talking about actual human beings.
But a way that slavery and the legality of who
owns what was structured in the sevent hundreds is it's
just to me, it's so odd that you can be
talking about a human being in this way. So the
(13:12):
hundred slaves that Washington himself had, they were matched with
a hundred and nine which were legally Martha's but as
a married couple, were legally controlled by George. And there's
all this strange legally is that when George or Martha dies,
certain segments of the Washingtonian slaves are passed to a
(13:32):
grandchild or a cousin, and it all depends on this
sort of weird patriarchal but then also matrilineal lineage of
ownership of another person. But but there is one enslaved
person that I want to talk about, and that's only Judge. Now,
only Judge is one of the most well known enslaved
people involved in in Washington, and that's because she escaped.
(13:55):
She was able to tell her story two abolitionist newspapers
at the time and got her account out there. Now,
what makes this such a strange bit of history is
that Only Judge was a slave that Washington pursued until
the end of his life. She got away. And if
you listen to the episode from last week, Noel talked
about how Washington's thoughts on slavery were somewhat liberal and
(14:17):
they evolved over time. And that's true. He did grow
to oppose the idea of slavery, the idea of holding
other people in bondage, but he never freed his own slaves.
He still kept them enslaved, He used their free labor,
and he built his fortune and his empire, whether it
was a large fortune or not, on the labor of others.
(14:38):
So let's talk about Only Judge. She was born in
seventeen seventy three. She probably came into the Washington family
when she was around ten or eleven and was purchased
as a playmate. It's thought for one of the family
members now only has her own interesting history. Her father
was a British businessman. He was white, but he never
acknowledged paternity, and so she was able to be sold
(15:01):
into slavery and that's where where she comes in. Um Now,
in seventeen nineties six only learned that she was going
to be gifted to Washington's granddaughter. And when we talk
about the granddaughters of Washington, basically we're talking about the
children of Martha Washington and kind of her her folks,
because as we just mentioned, George himself never had any kids.
(15:23):
And so In only learns that she's going to be
gifted at presented as a wedding present to these new newlyweds.
So she escapes in May of seventeen ninety six. She
she flies the coupe Um and for a couple of
years she's she's free. But a couple of years later
she's spotted in New Hampshire, and this whole time the
Washington family is is after her. They've lost property. Despite
(15:46):
the fact that Washington had mixed feelings about slavery, it
seems like from the historical record that a lot of
his family, including Martha, did not have mixed feelings, and
they felt pretty strongly that enslaved Africans were their property
and we're owned wholly by them. So they took out
ads in local papers advertising a reward for the return
of owning, and a couple of years later she spotted
(16:08):
in New Hampshire, and Washington reaches out to a friend
of his in New Hampshire and asks him to abduct
only to return this person back to Mountain Vernon. And
so you know, he's he's encouraging kidnapping. At the time,
he probably saw it as a as a return of property.
But the thing about Washington and and his slaveholding is
it wasn't as straightforward. It wasn't wholly villainous as a
(16:32):
as it's easy to paint, but it's also wasn't wholly
by the books. Washington was pretty eager to to skirt
some of the laws when it came to slavery. When
he was president, he was living in Philadelphia, which at
the time was the capital of the United States. In
Pennsylvania had certain laws for slaveholders and uh and citizens
of Pennsylvania because at the time different states had their
(16:55):
own citizenship. Washington argued, though, that he was a citizen
of Virginia so that he didn't have to bide by
some of the slavery laws of Pennsylvania. He also would
rotate his slaves between the home in Pennsylvania and Virginia
for periods of time of less than six months, just
moving them around like property so that they would not
(17:16):
qualify or meet certain criteria under Pennsylvania law. So this
is a man who saw financial assets, who pursued them
as as they escaped, and until his death he he
tried to get Ony back. Um. Thankfully, Oni was was
never returned. She was captured at one point, and she
tried to negotiate with Washington. She said she sent message saying, look,
(17:41):
I will willingly be returned to enslavement with your family
if you promised that upon your death and the death
of Martha, I am free. And Washington didn't even negotiate.
He said, I'm not even going to consider these demands
because doing so would set a bad precedent. And this
is not you don't negotiate with pretty essentially, Yeah, and um,
(18:03):
I wish there were a happy ending to this story.
There's also not a sad ending to the story. Only
eventually she stayed in New Hampshire. She was not returned
to the Washington family. She married a sailor named Jack Stains.
Over their married life, they had three kids, who then
had their own children. Um. But the fact of the
matter is that throughout the rest of her life, even
(18:24):
though she had escaped enslavement by the Washington family, she
lived as a fugitive under the Fugitive Slave Act, which
Washington signed into law, and until her dying day in
eighteen forty eight, she lived as as a fugitive. There
was always, always, always a chance that she could be
taken back to Virginia. Terrifying way to live. I can't imagine.
(18:45):
So no, not a happy ending at all. Huh no,
And and and it's you know, I don't I don't
want to tarnish the legacy of a great American, But
we also don't need to look back and and over
mythologize someone. I think it's more accurate to look at
history as it was, to look at the man as
he was, and to acknowledge that this was part of
a complicated life and he had complicated feelings. And as
(19:09):
America has evolved and continues to evolve, so too did Washington,
just just not at the pace that um that it
would be nice to acknowledge. You know again, people say
that he freed all of his slaves in his will.
The fact of the matter is that after he died
of those more than three hundred slaves that he had
control over, only one, a man named William Lee, was
(19:32):
set free. Martha dragged things out for a lot of
the other hundreds of slaves. They were still enslaved for decades.
Eventually some of them gained their freedom. But again we're
talking five, ten, fifteen years. So despite despite George Washington's
will and his desire to set his slaves free, which
(19:53):
I might add is after he's left this earth and
after he has to deal with the ramifications of what
that means, He's still throughout his life benefited from their
free labor. It still took years and years and years
for the people that he enslaved to find their freedom.
And we would be remiss if we did not point
out these facts. You know, I think it is it
(20:17):
is an unpleasant and disturbing part of the story. But
I believe that same disturbing aspect is what makes it
crucial that we not just us on the show, not
just us listening, but we as a country remember what happened.
(20:39):
I've got to say, Christopher, I feel that I feel
it would be weird for us to end on such
a very serious somber note. Um what what do you
think you're you're the guest today. What do you think
about us exploring one more strange George Washington fact? Oh
yeah absolutely. I mean again, it's a man contained smalltitudes,
(21:00):
and there's a lot to George Washington, and he's one
of the foundational characters of our country and there's so
much to know about him. So um yeah, like let's
turn to no, no, let's can you can you dig
us out of this slavery hole? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, only
our original idea of the muddy hole was much more whimsical. Yeah,
(21:21):
I'm not so, you know now I'm not as on
board as it was with finding this guy a cool
middle name. No, no, So we all know the classic
Washington I in look the profile, you know, with the
what appears to be a powdered wig of some sort
that's wore at the time. Peruke a peruke, well done, Chris,
(21:44):
really step for Benjamin Franklin. That's right, Benjamin Franklin just
had kind of a desperate top and a bit of
a greasy ponytail on the back. The ponytail was the
height of fashion at the time. Um. But here's the thing,
and again, that profile you probably know it well from
those dollar bill as you were lest saying, that's not
a profile in dollar bill, it's a profile in the quarter.
But on the dollar bill it's a it's a it's
(22:05):
a three quarter kind of and then you know you've
got your creepy pyramid eye. But that's a whole another thing.
We did a whole episode on that on our other
show Stuffy Don't Want you to Know, and actually took
it on the road. So we know the creepy pyramid eye. Well,
the eye of Horace, I believe. Right, then that's what interpretation.
That's right, that's true. Listening to the show to to
find out more. Um, But no, it turns out that
(22:25):
that weird peruke looking do that Washington was supporting was not,
in fact a wig. Those were his natural hairs, um,
and he went to great lengths to quaff them as such. Well,
now it didn't grow like that. He he had that
would be nice in he had quite a regiment when
(22:46):
it came to his um keeping up his appearances. So
let me let me run through some of them real quick. Um.
That his hair actually was more of kind of a
reddish brown. Um. And here's the thing too, about that
particular hair the time, it was a really big deal.
People like to show as much forehead as possible. That
was like a sign of strength or something intelligence that
(23:09):
you had, like, you know, big, big, broad forehead. So
in order to do that, the reason they bound their
hair back in those ponytails was because it literally pulled
you know, tightened it up and pulled the brow up
so you'd have more brow on display. And thought exactly,
those guys would have been a king or you know else.
They would have loved facelifts. Can you imagine, yeah, founding
(23:32):
father facelifts. That's a reality show waiting to happen right there,
at least a spoof reality. Sounds like a weird website too.
It's Founding Father's facelifts dot com and hard to say
ten times fast. But his his hair was quite in fashion.
It was kind of a tough hair to right very much. So. Yeah,
and it wasn't a wig. But he powdered it as
as in the same way that these perukes would be powdered.
(23:55):
But here's the crazy part about it. In order to
do this, you know this stuff, it would be a
couple of different potential types of powder. Um could be
anything from talcum powder to other kind of crushed up
earth minerals that were a little more expensive, which is
more likely what he would have used. You think shock
is another possibility, the bones of the British that would
(24:17):
be cool. I I have nothing to confirm or deny
that possibly asbestos um. Yeah, But here's the thing. When
he was doing it, in order to keep it from
you know, going up his quite sizeable schnaz uh and
you know, down his throat, he wore like a weird
cone on his face, like a like a rolled up
paper cone that he would hold over his face while
(24:40):
applying this powder. Um. And he applied the plaster of
Paris was another option. What happened if it rained? Oh man,
there's so many questions. What we're going to get to that.
So in order to apply this stuff, he would use
almost like a makeup brush made of silk strips that
were bound together in a bunch um. So he would
dip this into to the powder and then just douse
(25:02):
himself with it, you know, and when his face would
be covered up, and he'd also be wearing something called
a powder robe, and that would keep it off of
his clothes. I feel like you need a whole powder room, huh,
because I mean otherwise, Ate Christopher the powder everywhere, And
I guess that is so you're thinking of the powder
room more like Dexter's kill room. It's just covered in
(25:24):
fred Oh man, we're on a we're on a roll here.
But what a mess, right, an absolute mess. You know,
you're totally right, my friend, because even though he was
wearing his powder robe, what was to keep this powder
from just dusting every surface, you know, in the vicinity
And he's wearing this weird sort of it looks almost
like a plague mask thing to cover his exactly. So
it's a very odd situation to walk in on and
(25:46):
he's doing it to himself. Presumably that's everything I've read
says he would this was his morning routine. Um. So
he would powder the hell out of his hair that
was already uh, dolled up in this do um, and
then he would curl the sides up into these kind
of winglets, this a little like a little kind of
they'd stick out, you know, like little ridges, a little
shelves on the side. In order to do that, he'd
(26:08):
use palmade, you know, get it all nice and greasy
and it would hold its shape. Um. So yeah, he
got his hair so saturated with this powder that it
didn't look like it was just kind of dusted. I mean,
it was just white as the driven snow. Here's the
thing too, this is a question that was raised in
this fantastic article that had really great company illustrations by
(26:29):
Wendy McNaughton for National Geographic Um, that has these really
great cartoons showing him what it must have looked like
for him to be doing this. I cannot recommend this
highly enough. It's not called George Washington's oh so mysterious hair. Um, No,
will you? Will you post that on the ridiculous Historian space?
That's all, and that is going to remain a carbuncle
(26:54):
free zone if I have anything to do with it,
ben um. But here's the thing. A question that she
raises in this article is, well, how the hell did
he keep this off his clothes? In all of these
portraits of him, he looks so pristine, and you would
think that this stuff would just be flaking off, every
flaking off. I mean, you're you're wearing these tight clothes
made of wool in with the American South, are you not?
(27:15):
I would be sweating buckets and just have white powder
dripping down. Wouldn't it just be dripping down? Yeah, it
does seem like it would be very gross. And there
is one portrait by Adolf Ulric wort Mueller who depicts
him with some kind of a little dan draffee flakes
on one show on one lapel of Touch of Humanity.
(27:36):
So there you go. He had a weird hair routine. So,
and the lesson is that that that portraits are not
always accurate representation of what someone might really look like. Well,
that's true. And at the end of the day, I mean,
you're sort of beholden to the person that's paying you
to paint their portrait. So listeners, please do not run
into the National Portrait Gallery and throw a little flex
(27:56):
of white paint on anything that you think would be
more historic accurate. And there we have it. George Washington,
first President of the United States, whiskey tycoon, dabbler in Hemp,
a freemason extraordinaire, slave owner, and a man with very
very strict priorities regarding his hair. It's very true. No
(28:18):
middle name, no middle name name. What else were some
of the little trivia bits from the top, Well, he's
got his his uh you know, his terrific title in
the military, that he will forever and always be Supreme
Commander General of the Armies of the United States. Did
you mention the carbuncles that he's crusted with, krusty sickly man.
(28:39):
They're not clear on how how inundated he was with Carbuncles.
We can only hope that it was if these Google
images have anything to say about it, it was a
real nightmare. I gotta say, Ben, you you mentioned him
as one of the sickliest presidents and listed out a
litany of maladies he'd been inflicted with. But if he
survived all those things, I'd say he's pretty strong and
(29:00):
and maybe we should wrap up by talking about these
somewhat ridiculous way in which he died. He did have
all these maladies, but Ina in December. What historians think
really killed him is a doctor medical malpractice, a doctor
who basically over bled him, drained him too much. Well,
and we already know that blood letting was a very
(29:20):
stupid remedy, and he was he was too blood let Yeah, yeah,
that's right. We have the We have the specifics here too.
It was a guy named All been Rawlins who all
in all, after four rounds of blood letting, removed something
like five pints of blood from the President that Dr
Alban I know, I know. I'm glad that blood letting
(29:44):
is not a common practice in medical centers today. Do
you think he got in trouble? I don't know. It's
a it's a it's a good question because I think
there have been some other presidents who died as a
result of well intentioned medical interven That's why they call
it practicing medicine. That's why they call it practicing medicine. Indeed,
(30:05):
and on that note, we hope you enjoyed our two
part series, A Weird George Washington Facts, which does count
technically until we do another one as our Washington episode
in a Bizarre series of Circumstances. Christopher, thank you so
much for dropping by. It is always an immense pleasure.
I'm I'm happy to count myself among the two of you.
(30:27):
As practicing podcasters. We do our best to keep our
podcasting chops sharp well practiced. Thank you, sir, and thank
you to our super producer, Casey Pegram. Thank you to
Alex Williams who composed our track. Thank you to Gabe,
our delightful research associate, and of course thank you to
our wonderful guest, Christopher Haciots and dear friend for as
always lighting up the room, sparking up our lives, giving
(30:49):
Ben his groove back after you took it away. Truly, truly, truly,
this is something that sparks joy Boy. Well, if you
want to continue the conversation, if you want to check
out some of the things that we have mentioned other
than carbuncles, you can visit us on the internet. We're
on Instagram, We're on Facebook, We're on Twitter. That's the
other one. You can find our favorite partners, show your
(31:12):
fellow Ridiculous Historians on our Facebook community page Ridiculous Historians.
If you want to see some pictures of very strange misadventures,
I will be having shortly follow me on Instagram and
at Ben Bullen and I am at Embryonic Insider. Find
me over at hasciotes H A S S I O
T I S. Christopher will be having some incredible adventures
(31:34):
in podcasting coming down the pikes in the near future.
I will keep you all super updated. Please do. We'll
see you next time. Folix
Don't call it a comeback. Friends and neighbors are actually
go ahead and please do so, because this is part
two of our continuing series of weird George Washington Facts.
Welcome to the show. My name is Ben, my name
is Noel. If we are joined with our super producer,
Casey Pegram and our returning a special guest. It's an
(00:44):
immense privilege to have you on the show. Anytime Christopher
hascy otis what a delight to be here. Thank you,
and Ben, you've got your groove back, my friend, you're glowing.
You're absolutely glowing. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's
all the Hemp, very versatile crop, very first. Yes, is
that shirt you're wearing woven from Hemp? Yes, yes it is,
And as are my shoes and my coat undergarments. Is
(01:10):
that what you're gonna say, undergarments? Yeah? Traded in the
myth rill? That did I finally upgraded from myth rill
to imp So this is, as you mentioned, part two
of a two part series. If you have not checked
out part one of our George Washington Facts, it's it's okay.
Don't stress out. Just hit pause, you know, and and
(01:32):
and shake your fists at the podcast gods that list
the shows in reverse chronological order and just scroll back
and listen to the show from two days ago. Yeah,
that's such a bummer when they list them in that
reverse order. You know, I believe that the I Heart
Radio app you can swap things around and point them
in the other direction and start from start from earlier,
and go towards later. That's crazy talk. Who would ever
(01:54):
do that? What a time to be alive. The industry
is a morphing thing. So we it up the basic
gist of George Washington's life in our earlier episode, And now,
what do you say, gentlemen, should we dive straight into
the weird stuff? Yeah, there's a whole bunch of strangeness
to get into. I say, let's dive down that Washington hole.
(02:16):
Was it the muddy hole? The muddy hole, Washington's money.
Let's dive down Washington's muddy Hole. It sounds like the
worst ride at the Presidential theme park of my dreams.
Oh yeah, that's the one where there's never aligned. Yeah,
Lincoln's spooky log Cabin. I think, um man, if I
had a lot of extra time, we could just come
up with theme rides and uh for for every single
(02:39):
president that's out there, weird glitching robot, Lincoln's spewing sparks,
the theater, the taft bathtub you've got to escape taft tub,
taft tub that's full of old beans, of old beings. Yeah,
and then we get we get weird because we would
have the most fun I think with more obscure presidents,
(02:59):
like years, do you think he's the most obscure? Uh?
He You know that's a matter of personal opinion, isn't it.
That's why I'm asking you maybsonally. Oh you're asking me personally.
We're here, just you and me, and uh, we don't.
I guess no one Casey and millions and millions of listeners.
But yeah, I don't know. Yeah, who is the most
(03:20):
obscure president? I have great fascination with those lists that
come out every so often of ranking presidents from best
the worst. And they usually don't do every single president.
They usually do maybe the top five best ones in
the bottom five worst ones. And I gotta say the
(03:40):
bottom five are usually the same couple of dudes. Yeah,
you've got the obscure ones. You've got your Pierce here,
Millard Fillmore. Um, you know William McKinley, who was very
popular at the time but just kind of was forgotten
even though he was killed and was involved in a
lot of different things. So one who's constantly at the
bottom of list is Andrew Johnson. He's the one who
kind of after Lincoln' assassination, he took over, but he
(04:00):
didn't manage the situation well. He let the country fester.
Things were not handled well. Reconstruction was not handled in
a way that maybe look towards future generations. But I
think a lot of Americans would be hard pressed to
name Andrew Johnson. And I gotta tell you, I think
it's because his name is a little generic. It is
it is. It's a real uh, it's real John Doe. Yeah,
(04:22):
it's just not as memorable if he had some sort
of villainous name, or if he had some sort of name.
But you know, I mean, maybe maybe it's better that
his name is a little more kind of milk toast
and banal, because honestly, that's how some of the things
that fall apart in politics do. So it's just sort
of through no specific malice, through no ill will, it
just sort of the banality of things kind of things
(04:45):
fall apart. All right, so we're talking about bad presence.
Where's your boy g dub fall? That's true, this is
an episode about George Washingtons. Oh, I do want to
point out, did you know that Andrew Johnson never went
to school? Is it sort of like I never learned
to read and I somehow managed to become president. Turns
out I was bad at it. I think the closest
he got to a formal education was when his wife
(05:06):
taught him the basics, uh, like basic mathematics and writing
and so. So he is one of the worst regarded presidents.
So maybe, uh, we can draw some conclusions that an
intellectual curiosity and education, these are things that are important
for a president. That the desire to learn, the admission
that maybe other people have more information than you and
(05:27):
that you should rely on them for information like that,
that's the thing a president should espouse to aspire to. Yeah. Yeah,
I think I think that's solid and I don't think
that's a controversial point at all. We know that George
Washington had no problem learning from other people, and he
took advice pretty well well done, expertly played, my friends.
(05:51):
I know that means you have to go first especially
the part where you say, just so you guys, now,
Ben's doing this really sweet move where he's drawing his
ur finger and thumb together from them touching each other
to apart in the same cadence as he's saying, sege,
it's a slow parting of the Red Sea. We actually
made this a two part episode because we we wanted
to spend some time really focusing on that hand gesture
(06:15):
and really trying to up our vamp game. And whenever
Christopher Hassiotas joins us in the tank here, it's just magic.
Sparks fly. Yeah, but well that's true. Sparks did fly earlier. No,
you were electrocuted slightly by your headphones. That's true, saying that, um,
you all, you all, you do have a bit of
an electric person saying I'm not not saying that. Is
this is this part of are you still a little
(06:38):
weirded out by the mic situation? Is this part of
a revenge scheme? No, what happens is I'm wearing wool
socks and before you guys came in here, I was
just running back and forth the class. We just called
that a hassiotas at the office you got sapped so
I will go first. This is a little bit stranger.
This is not a social activity of George Washington, nor
(06:59):
is it a political activity. This is a medical fact
about the guy. He was one of the sickliest presidents
in US history. Over the span of his life, he
suffered from diphtheria, tuberculosis, smallpox, dysentery, malaria, quinsy which was tonsilitis, carbuncle, pneumonia,
(07:21):
and epiiclytitis. In fact, he was so afflicted that people
started speculating this may have played a role in his infertility,
because Washington did not have issue, as they would say
in the world of aristocracy, and it's well known that
he had no children of his own. In two thousand seven,
(07:42):
man named John k Amory at the University Washington School
of Medicine proposed that it wasn't for lack of trying. Instead,
he said Washington may quite possibly have been infertile, and
Armory list a number of possible reasons for this infertility,
including an infection caused by tuberculosis. We have a quote
(08:04):
here wherein he says classic studies of soldiers with tuberculosis
plur Z during World War Two demonstrated that two thirds
developed chronic organ tuberculosis within five years of their initial infection.
Infection of the epididymus or testes is seen in twenty
percent of these individuals and frequently results in infertility. Dude,
(08:24):
I just made a horrible mistake. I googled images of carbuncles.
Not good. I'm guessing you are not seeing the The
image of the cute little monster from the Final Fantasy
Video Games was his name? There? There was one called
a carbuncle. Interesting. Please please Ridiculous Historians correct me if
I'm wrong. These are disgusting, pus filled boils that cover
(08:45):
one's body who went and afflicted with them. It's not
a carbohydrate loving uncle. Nope, this is something we will
not be posting photos of on Ridiculous Stories. Well WHA
will not be too hasty. I'm gonna I'm not even
a regular host here, but can I put this to
a vote? Do I get a full vote? I'm gonna
take I'm taking a triple vote, and I'm voting no
(09:05):
photos of carbuncles on Ridiculous Historians three against two. I
support that. I see the gentleman to my left, I
you know, but I'm just saying, if you you know
if you want to gross yourself out, just google carbuncle.
If you would have a really disturbing the more you
know moment with the star flying over your head as
you throw up a little bit in your mouth. Carbuncle.
(09:26):
Do you think the fact that George Washington didn't have
children kind of cemented his legacy? You know, that he
didn't have kids who could kind of tarnish the Washington one. Yeah,
he was. He was alone. He set things in motion,
and he stepped back and that was it. Quite possibly.
I mean, that's that's a very good point, I would say.
And it's so rare for people to do that at
that level because I mean, they have all these idiot
(09:48):
sons that go and screw it all up for him.
You're not talking about Ben Stiller, are you. I'm talking
about that. One of the things that I know you
hate is nepotism. The adams Is, they, the Bushes, the Roosevelts. Look,
all those guys are like distant cousins. You can't. I
mean they came from a big, big family, I know,
(10:09):
but name recognition is still key now I will. I
totally see your point there, Christopher. Just like a Justice
Kennedy is not related to the former President Kennedy, Right,
So there shouldn't be any law barring them from occupying
positions of power. You know what I mean. I'm just
saying that it's very strange to explain to someone from
(10:32):
another country or another culture that this is purportedly a
meritocracy and then say in the same breath that, despite
being a meritocracy, through some amazing coincidence, the most qualified
people for a job happened to be related to each
other pretty often. But that just further underlines the point
(10:55):
that you make with Washington. Prehaps he was a safe
figure to mythologize. While he did not have children, one
thing that he did have was a non consensual workforce,
that's true. One of the things I wanted to talk
about was Washington's slaveholding. It's not really a happy topic
(11:19):
because we're talking about enslaved people, but it's a fact
of life at the time, especially for landowners. Um that
and and Washington had control over hundreds of slaves, more
than three people. Washington gets a lot of credit for
quote unquote freeing his slaves in his will. You know that,
that's one thing that people who defend the practice of
(11:40):
enslaving others when it comes to Washington, who is rightly
revered as the father, as one of the fathers of
our country, and who put a lot of great systems
in motion, but that doesn't change the fact that he
ran this giant plantation, and a plantation of that size
in what's sort of the South at the time was
run essentially on the on the free labor of enslaved Africans,
(12:04):
and at the time of his death, Washington owned more
than three hundred slaves. He inherited his first slave at eleven,
when his father passed away. So you had this young man,
George Washington, who was born into a life of maintaining
control over other human beings. When he passed in he
had a hundred and twenty three slaves who were legally his,
(12:27):
and then there were a hundred and ninety three that
he also controlled that were known as dower slaves. And
what that means is they were technically legally owned by
his wife, Martha. Now Martha married George when she was
twenty five. She was a widow at the time, and
she had taken on slaves both from her own family
and from her ex husband who passed away. So it's
(12:49):
it's really really interesting, and it can be kind of
fascinating to look at the the legal structure of slavery
until you remember that we're talking about actual human beings.
But a way that slavery and the legality of who
owns what was structured in the sevent hundreds is it's
just to me, it's so odd that you can be
talking about a human being in this way. So the
(13:12):
hundred slaves that Washington himself had, they were matched with
a hundred and nine which were legally Martha's but as
a married couple, were legally controlled by George. And there's
all this strange legally is that when George or Martha dies,
certain segments of the Washingtonian slaves are passed to a
(13:32):
grandchild or a cousin, and it all depends on this
sort of weird patriarchal but then also matrilineal lineage of
ownership of another person. But but there is one enslaved
person that I want to talk about, and that's only Judge. Now,
only Judge is one of the most well known enslaved
people involved in in Washington, and that's because she escaped.
(13:55):
She was able to tell her story two abolitionist newspapers
at the time and got her account out there. Now,
what makes this such a strange bit of history is
that Only Judge was a slave that Washington pursued until
the end of his life. She got away. And if
you listen to the episode from last week, Noel talked
about how Washington's thoughts on slavery were somewhat liberal and
(14:17):
they evolved over time. And that's true. He did grow
to oppose the idea of slavery, the idea of holding
other people in bondage, but he never freed his own slaves.
He still kept them enslaved, He used their free labor,
and he built his fortune and his empire, whether it
was a large fortune or not, on the labor of others.
(14:38):
So let's talk about Only Judge. She was born in
seventeen seventy three. She probably came into the Washington family
when she was around ten or eleven and was purchased
as a playmate. It's thought for one of the family
members now only has her own interesting history. Her father
was a British businessman. He was white, but he never
acknowledged paternity, and so she was able to be sold
(15:01):
into slavery and that's where where she comes in. Um Now,
in seventeen nineties six only learned that she was going
to be gifted to Washington's granddaughter. And when we talk
about the granddaughters of Washington, basically we're talking about the
children of Martha Washington and kind of her her folks,
because as we just mentioned, George himself never had any kids.
(15:23):
And so In only learns that she's going to be
gifted at presented as a wedding present to these new newlyweds.
So she escapes in May of seventeen ninety six. She
she flies the coupe Um and for a couple of
years she's she's free. But a couple of years later
she's spotted in New Hampshire, and this whole time the
Washington family is is after her. They've lost property. Despite
(15:46):
the fact that Washington had mixed feelings about slavery, it
seems like from the historical record that a lot of
his family, including Martha, did not have mixed feelings, and
they felt pretty strongly that enslaved Africans were their property
and we're owned wholly by them. So they took out
ads in local papers advertising a reward for the return
of owning, and a couple of years later she spotted
(16:08):
in New Hampshire, and Washington reaches out to a friend
of his in New Hampshire and asks him to abduct
only to return this person back to Mountain Vernon. And
so you know, he's he's encouraging kidnapping. At the time,
he probably saw it as a as a return of property.
But the thing about Washington and and his slaveholding is
it wasn't as straightforward. It wasn't wholly villainous as a
(16:32):
as it's easy to paint, but it's also wasn't wholly
by the books. Washington was pretty eager to to skirt
some of the laws when it came to slavery. When
he was president, he was living in Philadelphia, which at
the time was the capital of the United States. In
Pennsylvania had certain laws for slaveholders and uh and citizens
of Pennsylvania because at the time different states had their
(16:55):
own citizenship. Washington argued, though, that he was a citizen
of Virginia so that he didn't have to bide by
some of the slavery laws of Pennsylvania. He also would
rotate his slaves between the home in Pennsylvania and Virginia
for periods of time of less than six months, just
moving them around like property so that they would not
(17:16):
qualify or meet certain criteria under Pennsylvania law. So this
is a man who saw financial assets, who pursued them
as as they escaped, and until his death he he
tried to get Ony back. Um. Thankfully, Oni was was
never returned. She was captured at one point, and she
tried to negotiate with Washington. She said she sent message saying, look,
(17:41):
I will willingly be returned to enslavement with your family
if you promised that upon your death and the death
of Martha, I am free. And Washington didn't even negotiate.
He said, I'm not even going to consider these demands
because doing so would set a bad precedent. And this
is not you don't negotiate with pretty essentially, Yeah, and um,
(18:03):
I wish there were a happy ending to this story.
There's also not a sad ending to the story. Only
eventually she stayed in New Hampshire. She was not returned
to the Washington family. She married a sailor named Jack Stains.
Over their married life, they had three kids, who then
had their own children. Um. But the fact of the
matter is that throughout the rest of her life, even
(18:24):
though she had escaped enslavement by the Washington family, she
lived as a fugitive under the Fugitive Slave Act, which
Washington signed into law, and until her dying day in
eighteen forty eight, she lived as as a fugitive. There
was always, always, always a chance that she could be
taken back to Virginia. Terrifying way to live. I can't imagine.
(18:45):
So no, not a happy ending at all. Huh no,
And and and it's you know, I don't I don't
want to tarnish the legacy of a great American, But
we also don't need to look back and and over
mythologize someone. I think it's more accurate to look at
history as it was, to look at the man as
he was, and to acknowledge that this was part of
a complicated life and he had complicated feelings. And as
(19:09):
America has evolved and continues to evolve, so too did Washington,
just just not at the pace that um that it
would be nice to acknowledge. You know again, people say
that he freed all of his slaves in his will.
The fact of the matter is that after he died
of those more than three hundred slaves that he had
control over, only one, a man named William Lee, was
(19:32):
set free. Martha dragged things out for a lot of
the other hundreds of slaves. They were still enslaved for decades.
Eventually some of them gained their freedom. But again we're
talking five, ten, fifteen years. So despite despite George Washington's
will and his desire to set his slaves free, which
(19:53):
I might add is after he's left this earth and
after he has to deal with the ramifications of what
that means, He's still throughout his life benefited from their
free labor. It still took years and years and years
for the people that he enslaved to find their freedom.
And we would be remiss if we did not point
out these facts. You know, I think it is it
(20:17):
is an unpleasant and disturbing part of the story. But
I believe that same disturbing aspect is what makes it
crucial that we not just us on the show, not
just us listening, but we as a country remember what happened.
(20:39):
I've got to say, Christopher, I feel that I feel
it would be weird for us to end on such
a very serious somber note. Um what what do you
think you're you're the guest today. What do you think
about us exploring one more strange George Washington fact? Oh
yeah absolutely. I mean again, it's a man contained smalltitudes,
(21:00):
and there's a lot to George Washington, and he's one
of the foundational characters of our country and there's so
much to know about him. So um yeah, like let's
turn to no, no, let's can you can you dig
us out of this slavery hole? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, only
our original idea of the muddy hole was much more whimsical. Yeah,
(21:21):
I'm not so, you know now I'm not as on
board as it was with finding this guy a cool
middle name. No, no, So we all know the classic
Washington I in look the profile, you know, with the
what appears to be a powdered wig of some sort
that's wore at the time. Peruke a peruke, well done, Chris,
(21:44):
really step for Benjamin Franklin. That's right, Benjamin Franklin just
had kind of a desperate top and a bit of
a greasy ponytail on the back. The ponytail was the
height of fashion at the time. Um. But here's the thing,
and again, that profile you probably know it well from
those dollar bill as you were lest saying, that's not
a profile in dollar bill, it's a profile in the quarter.
But on the dollar bill it's a it's a it's
(22:05):
a three quarter kind of and then you know you've
got your creepy pyramid eye. But that's a whole another thing.
We did a whole episode on that on our other
show Stuffy Don't Want you to Know, and actually took
it on the road. So we know the creepy pyramid eye. Well,
the eye of Horace, I believe. Right, then that's what interpretation.
That's right, that's true. Listening to the show to to
find out more. Um, But no, it turns out that
(22:25):
that weird peruke looking do that Washington was supporting was not,
in fact a wig. Those were his natural hairs, um,
and he went to great lengths to quaff them as such. Well,
now it didn't grow like that. He he had that
would be nice in he had quite a regiment when
(22:46):
it came to his um keeping up his appearances. So
let me let me run through some of them real quick. Um.
That his hair actually was more of kind of a
reddish brown. Um. And here's the thing too, about that
particular hair the time, it was a really big deal.
People like to show as much forehead as possible. That
was like a sign of strength or something intelligence that
(23:09):
you had, like, you know, big, big, broad forehead. So
in order to do that, the reason they bound their
hair back in those ponytails was because it literally pulled
you know, tightened it up and pulled the brow up
so you'd have more brow on display. And thought exactly,
those guys would have been a king or you know else.
They would have loved facelifts. Can you imagine, yeah, founding
(23:32):
father facelifts. That's a reality show waiting to happen right there,
at least a spoof reality. Sounds like a weird website too.
It's Founding Father's facelifts dot com and hard to say
ten times fast. But his his hair was quite in fashion.
It was kind of a tough hair to right very much. So. Yeah,
and it wasn't a wig. But he powdered it as
as in the same way that these perukes would be powdered.
(23:55):
But here's the crazy part about it. In order to
do this, you know this stuff, it would be a
couple of different potential types of powder. Um could be
anything from talcum powder to other kind of crushed up
earth minerals that were a little more expensive, which is
more likely what he would have used. You think shock
is another possibility, the bones of the British that would
(24:17):
be cool. I I have nothing to confirm or deny
that possibly asbestos um. Yeah, But here's the thing. When
he was doing it, in order to keep it from
you know, going up his quite sizeable schnaz uh and
you know, down his throat, he wore like a weird
cone on his face, like a like a rolled up
paper cone that he would hold over his face while
(24:40):
applying this powder. Um. And he applied the plaster of
Paris was another option. What happened if it rained? Oh man,
there's so many questions. What we're going to get to that.
So in order to apply this stuff, he would use
almost like a makeup brush made of silk strips that
were bound together in a bunch um. So he would
dip this into to the powder and then just douse
(25:02):
himself with it, you know, and when his face would
be covered up, and he'd also be wearing something called
a powder robe, and that would keep it off of
his clothes. I feel like you need a whole powder room, huh,
because I mean otherwise, Ate Christopher the powder everywhere, And
I guess that is so you're thinking of the powder
room more like Dexter's kill room. It's just covered in
(25:24):
fred Oh man, we're on a we're on a roll here.
But what a mess, right, an absolute mess. You know,
you're totally right, my friend, because even though he was
wearing his powder robe, what was to keep this powder
from just dusting every surface, you know, in the vicinity
And he's wearing this weird sort of it looks almost
like a plague mask thing to cover his exactly. So
it's a very odd situation to walk in on and
(25:46):
he's doing it to himself. Presumably that's everything I've read
says he would this was his morning routine. Um. So
he would powder the hell out of his hair that
was already uh, dolled up in this do um, and
then he would curl the sides up into these kind
of winglets, this a little like a little kind of
they'd stick out, you know, like little ridges, a little
shelves on the side. In order to do that, he'd
(26:08):
use palmade, you know, get it all nice and greasy
and it would hold its shape. Um. So yeah, he
got his hair so saturated with this powder that it
didn't look like it was just kind of dusted. I mean,
it was just white as the driven snow. Here's the
thing too, this is a question that was raised in
this fantastic article that had really great company illustrations by
(26:29):
Wendy McNaughton for National Geographic Um, that has these really
great cartoons showing him what it must have looked like
for him to be doing this. I cannot recommend this
highly enough. It's not called George Washington's oh so mysterious hair. Um, No,
will you? Will you post that on the ridiculous Historian space?
That's all, and that is going to remain a carbuncle
(26:54):
free zone if I have anything to do with it,
ben um. But here's the thing. A question that she
raises in this article is, well, how the hell did
he keep this off his clothes? In all of these
portraits of him, he looks so pristine, and you would
think that this stuff would just be flaking off, every
flaking off. I mean, you're you're wearing these tight clothes
made of wool in with the American South, are you not?
(27:15):
I would be sweating buckets and just have white powder
dripping down. Wouldn't it just be dripping down? Yeah, it
does seem like it would be very gross. And there
is one portrait by Adolf Ulric wort Mueller who depicts
him with some kind of a little dan draffee flakes
on one show on one lapel of Touch of Humanity.
(27:36):
So there you go. He had a weird hair routine. So,
and the lesson is that that that portraits are not
always accurate representation of what someone might really look like. Well,
that's true. And at the end of the day, I mean,
you're sort of beholden to the person that's paying you
to paint their portrait. So listeners, please do not run
into the National Portrait Gallery and throw a little flex
(27:56):
of white paint on anything that you think would be
more historic accurate. And there we have it. George Washington,
first President of the United States, whiskey tycoon, dabbler in Hemp,
a freemason extraordinaire, slave owner, and a man with very
very strict priorities regarding his hair. It's very true. No
(28:18):
middle name, no middle name name. What else were some
of the little trivia bits from the top, Well, he's
got his his uh you know, his terrific title in
the military, that he will forever and always be Supreme
Commander General of the Armies of the United States. Did
you mention the carbuncles that he's crusted with, krusty sickly man.
(28:39):
They're not clear on how how inundated he was with Carbuncles.
We can only hope that it was if these Google
images have anything to say about it, it was a
real nightmare. I gotta say, Ben, you you mentioned him
as one of the sickliest presidents and listed out a
litany of maladies he'd been inflicted with. But if he
survived all those things, I'd say he's pretty strong and
(29:00):
and maybe we should wrap up by talking about these
somewhat ridiculous way in which he died. He did have
all these maladies, but Ina in December. What historians think
really killed him is a doctor medical malpractice, a doctor
who basically over bled him, drained him too much. Well,
and we already know that blood letting was a very
(29:20):
stupid remedy, and he was he was too blood let Yeah, yeah,
that's right. We have the We have the specifics here too.
It was a guy named All been Rawlins who all
in all, after four rounds of blood letting, removed something
like five pints of blood from the President that Dr
Alban I know, I know. I'm glad that blood letting
(29:44):
is not a common practice in medical centers today. Do
you think he got in trouble? I don't know. It's
a it's a it's a good question because I think
there have been some other presidents who died as a
result of well intentioned medical interven That's why they call
it practicing medicine. That's why they call it practicing medicine. Indeed,
(30:05):
and on that note, we hope you enjoyed our two
part series, A Weird George Washington Facts, which does count
technically until we do another one as our Washington episode
in a Bizarre series of Circumstances. Christopher, thank you so
much for dropping by. It is always an immense pleasure.
I'm I'm happy to count myself among the two of you.
(30:27):
As practicing podcasters. We do our best to keep our
podcasting chops sharp well practiced. Thank you, sir, and thank
you to our super producer, Casey Pegram. Thank you to
Alex Williams who composed our track. Thank you to Gabe,
our delightful research associate, and of course thank you to
our wonderful guest, Christopher Haciots and dear friend for as
always lighting up the room, sparking up our lives, giving
(30:49):
Ben his groove back after you took it away. Truly, truly, truly,
this is something that sparks joy Boy. Well, if you
want to continue the conversation, if you want to check
out some of the things that we have mentioned other
than carbuncles, you can visit us on the internet. We're
on Instagram, We're on Facebook, We're on Twitter. That's the
other one. You can find our favorite partners, show your
(31:12):
fellow Ridiculous Historians on our Facebook community page Ridiculous Historians.
If you want to see some pictures of very strange misadventures,
I will be having shortly follow me on Instagram and
at Ben Bullen and I am at Embryonic Insider. Find
me over at hasciotes H A S S I O
T I S. Christopher will be having some incredible adventures
(31:34):
in podcasting coming down the pikes in the near future.
I will keep you all super updated. Please do. We'll
see you next time. Folix
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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