Listen to the episode here.

This week, these two unhinged ladies wrap up the final week of Spooky Season with two perfect stories for the time of year. Theresa kicks off with the story of Wild Bill Hickock and how he was haunted by the death of one of the men he killed in a gun fight, and how his final hand of poker became known as the “Deadman’s Hand.”

Angie digs up a great tale when she regales us with the story of Edgar Allen Poe’s death. While his life was far from illustrious, it appears he might have been “cooped.” Cooping was when a group of people attempting to cause voter fraud, kidnapped and beat the victims, then got them drunk and had them vote in accordance with the kidnappers.

This story pairs well with:
Stagecoach Mary Fields
Button Gwinnett

Transcript

Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast, the podcast where two compulsive nut jobs are going to consume history, memes, and the stories behind them. Regale people who don’t care about them with said memes. And come together once a week to tell the only other person on this planet who looks forward to these conversations. I’m post one, I’m Teresa, and that’s post two. 

Angie: I’m Angie. I’m post two, sorry. Still haven’t figured out the cutoff thing. 

Theresa: I’m going to do it differently every time to prevent you from ever getting it. 

Angie: So you like being cutoff, that’s what I’m hearing then. You should see me drive on the freeway. 

Theresa: Okay, fair. Yeah, fair. I’ll let you have it. Okay. We are closing out Spooky Month, and I have been having a terrible time finding stories that I feel work for me because you know me wanting to bust myths and wanting to be like, okay, so this was really cool. And this was a great thing. And I was super thrilled and none of it’s true. 

Angie: Yeah, also every bit of it’s a lie. Yeah. 

Theresa: Okay, bye. Yeah, because my I need to know always leaves me disappointed. 

Angie: Yeah, but then you know, like you have some sort of, I can’t think of the right word, but like for me, it’s always, even though I’m disappointed by the answer, like I did the work and I got here, so I’m proud of my accomplishment, I guess. 

Theresa: Yeah, but it’s okay. It’s kind of like when you learn like previous episode that Vlad Tepes was funded by the Pope and considered a holy warrior as he like turned 23,000 humans into shish kebabs and created a brand new forest of rotting bodies. 

Angie: Then a brand new one as opposed to any previous forests of rotting bodies. 

Theresa: Well, technically, if you wouldn’t pull if you repurposed the tree. Yeah, but either way, like when you realize that that’s all the church and that we use crosses to get rid of Dracula, it’s like, but wait a minute, but wait a minute, we did Vlad the Impaler dirty. But our man was not afraid of crosses, but that was Bram Stoker doing his bed, I’m sure. Yeah. 

Angie: Bram Stoker and other Eastern and Catholic folklore mythology. Yeah. I think the one that still gets me is that we love so much the mythological story of Merelovo, only to know that none of it’s true. 

Theresa: Well, I mean, yeah, to know that it was basically racism. But yeah, like did she practice voodoo? Yes, she did with youth, not with the OO. It’s the OU. You. It’s like, OK, but she referred to herself as Catholic. 

Angie: Because, yeah, that’s that’s how it works in New Orleans. You very much do both. One of my favorite books talks about how it’s. The author of the book was raised in New Orleans and she she. Is retelling sort of parts of her life like you can tell the parts for life that she is sharing in this made up story and the parts of like New Orleans mythology that exist with all with with just being raised there like their urban legends, right? And she talks about how it’s specific to especially New Orleans, where you go to Catholic mass in the morning and then you head to bottom of the cup to get your to get your tea leaves read. Like it’s just there. There everything is so mixed together there that you can be Catholic and practice voodoo and you can be a voodoo priestess that attends Catholic mass like. 

Theresa: And from your lips to God’s ears, but the common threads on some of the videos that I’ve been posting on TikTok. And I’m just like, I’m not going to argue with you. You are clearly entrenched in your belief. You are not open to new sources. Yeah, God’s beat. Many blessings. Yeah. Yeah. 

Angie: No, I got you. I got you. 

Theresa: So yeah, if you’re curious about Marie LeVau, if you’re curious about Vladimir and Pailer, let me let me pause a second and look up where those are because let me see. 

Marie LeVau episode 63, that spicy Catholicism. Mm hmm. Which given our conversation now, I feel like is the best name for it. Um, mm hmm. And hope pious the second and Vlad Teppish. That was episode 66. Algorithms, favor Syphilis. Yeah. 

Angie: Oh, hey, we said Syphilis. 

Theresa: We got your ring card because it was Vlad Teppish’s brother, uh, Radu the handsome that died or that contracted syphilis and went insane. These are things. Mm hmm. And it, it takes a lot from me when I see some, but it’d be like, Vlad brother, Radu took over the throne. 

It’s like, any day is Syphilis. Don’t worry about part. But it’s like, I don’t necessarily say that because like, I don’t know. That’s why I’m trying to avoid community, but guideline violations. Yeah. Rude. 

Angie: The guideline violations about you. 

Theresa: I mean, it feels like an arbitrary line. I really don’t know where it is. 

Angie: Somewhere in there, it specifically says Teresa can’t yell at people about Syphilis. 

Theresa: Specifically. I mean, it feels like that is the unwritten rule everywhere I go. 

Angie: Oh, I see. People are just not ready to talk about Syphilis the way that we are. 

Theresa: Yeah. Um, but that, okay. So all that to say, I think it’s my turn to go first. 

Angie: It is your turn to go first. I went first last week. Okay. 

Theresa: So my hunt for a ghost story or a spooky story took me a very wild direction. Like my search history was extremely specific and it came up short. And so you’re going to see a couple of tie-ins where you’ll be like, I see what you tried to do there. Okay. Good. Because I, yeah, go. Okay. Um, I’m going to tell you the story of Wild Bill Hickok. Okay. Let’s go. Anything about him? 

Angie: I know very little about him. Like I know we are a cowboy and maybe showman. I think Annie Oakley maybe ran with him. Um, as far as anything else goes, I couldn’t corroborate. I like, I’ve probably seen it in a movie and was like, yeah, that’s well, but okay, you couldn’t tell you if it’s right or not. 

Theresa: So my sources, old west.org, seven strange, but true stories of the American West by Patrick McGuire, history.com. Wild Bill Hickok is murdered by Evan Andrews, legends of America, Wild Bill Hickok and the dead man’s hand. Are you missing a body part? It’s not a leg. I don’t want to hear it. And actually no, no one’s missing a body part in this story. 

Angie: Despite the dead man’s hand. So hold that thought. 

Theresa: Okay. Okay. Put a pin in that. I’m coming back to it. Okay. All right. James Butler Hickok is born Troy Grove, Illinois on May 27th, 1837. A lot of sevens. William Alonzo Hickok and Molly Butler Hickok are his parents. He’s got four brothers and two sisters. Parents are devout Baptist and they expect him to fulfill his chores on the farm and attend church every Sunday. So I feel like I have painted a very clear picture. Do your chores, go to church. Lots of jeans, lots of gigam. 

Angie: It’s Illinois. It’s a house. What is it? 1837 is I see. Yeah. 1837. Okay. 

Theresa: Now the parents, they also operate a station along the underground railroad. And this is where they’re smuggling slaves out of the South. That’s so cool. And that was one of the things I was like, wait, really? Now, this is during the time that our man James later bill, he gets his first taste of hostile gunfire. 

And he does so when him and his father are chased by law officers who suspected them of carrying more than just hay in the wagon. And I’m sure they were. Yeah. I will not confirm nor deny, but we do know that they were a stop. What they were hauling that day. You know, okay. Bill becomes enamored by guns with guns and he starts to target practice on small wildlife around the farm. 

Angie: As every boy with a baby gun and a farm, 

Theresa: you know, I feel like a lot of this, you just see coming. I just need to say the first paragraph, you’re going to imagine the next five and we can pick up later on. Yeah. 

Okay. He has some romantic notions of the Wild West and he, this never sits well with daddy. Daddy is not too thrilled with his son romanticizing the Wild West. How dare you. 

You have got cows to milk and nobody cares one hoot and any. Yes. But Bill grows up and as he’s, as he’s growing, as he’s aging into preteen years, he becomes an outstanding marksman despite daddy’s protests. Right. Because you’ve got cows to milk. Yeah. I mean, look, we, we ain’t got time for this. 

You’ve got to go sow some corn. At age 14, his father’s killed because of his stand in abolition. Unfortunately. So, but by 14, he’s already renowned as a marksman. 

Okay. So this thing to that. It’s three years later, Bill is 17 and he begins working as a co-path driver on the Illinois and Michigan canal. A towpath? I didn’t think I was going to get called out on that. I need to Google it. 

Angie: I’ll Google it later. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the phrase. 

Theresa: Hold on. I got it. Now I have to do this. National Park Service comes up with something. Of course it does. Well, it just says engines of the canal. Okay. So, okay. So a towpath, it looks like mules or whatnot. Walk along the side with tow ropes and pull the boat down. 

Angie: Okay. So he’s driving the mules down and they tug the boat. Yep. Okay. 

Theresa: And I don’t know why I didn’t care a thing about it. Like, oh yeah, towpath driver. What is it? I don’t know. 

Angie: These are the things. No joke. These are my side quests every week. Oh, what’s that? Do we need to Google that? What’s this? 

Theresa: Now I Googled a bunch of random other things. Like a painting of a bull. I Googled too much about a painting of a bull. It’ll pop up later in the story. Sometimes you got to know, you know. 

But anyhow, let’s get to the bull. So he’s a towpath driver and a year later he gets a job and he’s headed to Kansas. In Monticello, Kansas. 

And that’s in Johnson County for anyone playing at home. He’s going to be driving a stagecoach on the Santa Fe and Oregon trails. And one of the first people he meets in Kansas is an 11 year old named Bill Cody. Okay. Buffalo Bill Cody. 

Angie: Okay. Okay. I was like, I know the name sounds familiar. Bill Cody where there’s another word that we’re missing. But I don’t know what the word is. 

Theresa: This dude would later claim his fame with his Buffalo Bill Wild West show. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now again, like he’s he’s an older teen, young adult, and he meets this 11 year old and he’s just like, oh, hey, you’re cool. 

Whatever, you know, Godspeed to the Lou. Do you think it’s 1855 now and stagecoaches, as you would assume, are often threats to bandits and Indians along the trail. Bill quickly put his marksmanship to work as you would expect. 

And he is just great at defending his vehicle from attacks. There’s one trip where the stagecoach breaks down in wetmore Colorado. And as Wild Bill sleeps out under some bushes, the customer stayed in the coach until a disturbance woke them. One of the travelers lit a kerosene lantern to find Bill being attacked by a cinnamon bear. Oh, yeah, you weren’t expecting wildlife. I was. 

Angie: No, actually, I wasn’t expecting wildlife, but I especially wasn’t expecting the wildlife that I eat as a snack on Tuesdays. Well, I mean. But anyhow, so Bill, I saw a picture in him being attacked by a cinnamon flavored gummy bear because that’s what I am picturing. That’s I mean, I think more grizzly. 

Theresa: Whatever. But the struggle ends up with Bill severely wounded and the bear laying dead on the ground from Hickok’s six inch knife. Get it, buddy. I mean, which is just kind of like, I don’t, there’s no way me versus bear. No, I let me just put the pepper on me. Like I’ll just. There you go. Put me in the stew. 

Yeah, I mean, I’m. Go for the ham hoc. It’s got the biggest fat layer, some decent marbling. It’ll be tasty. There you go. He recovers from this almost lethal attack and he goes back to Monticello, Kansas, where he accepts an opposition as a peace officer and he does this. I love that. 

I’ve got solid dates, March 22nd, 1858. And after that, he works for the Pony Express and the Overland Express Station in Rock Creek, Nebraska. And it’s here he meets a dude. This is like namedrop city. David McCannels and the canals. Teases Hitchcock or Hitchcock, Hickock, unmercelessly about his girlish build and feminine features. And then it’s perhaps retaliation that he begins recording or courting this woman named Sarah Shull and this is whom the canals had been eyeing. So he’s like, oh, you like her? I’m going to go hit her up. 

Angie: And she’s going out to dinner with me tonight. Yeah, she loves my girlish figure. 

Theresa: Wait till she sees what I can do with it. 

Angie: For everybody playing at home, just know that she gave me the eyebrow when she said that. 

Theresa: I mean, look, if I’m going to make that kind of statement, I’m going to just lean in and go the whole way. Yep, you have to. Now, July 12th, 1861, McCannels, his son, two friends, that they come to the station supposedly to collect a debt. But swear words are exchanged, some feelings are had because McCannels is still deep in his feels for getting slighted by getting this woman scooped up from underneath them like she’s got no agency of her own. 

Angie: She didn’t have any decision in part in this at all. Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. 

Theresa: So McCannels, he ends up kicking the bucket along with his two friends who are his two friends are seriously wounded. They later die of their wounds. No charges are made against Hickok on the grounds of self defense. So he’s he’s racking up a body count. A bear. A bear defending people against the stagecoach with unknown tallies of a victim. Bandits. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Now, this account of what happens is highly sensationalized and it appears six years later in Harper’s new monthly magazine. 

Angie: It’s never mind. I’m not going to make you Google that. 

Theresa: You’re going to ask how old Harper’s magazine is. I was thinking Harper’s bizarre. I have a feeling they’re related. I just a matter of fact, I’m not going to assume that it was the same same. And I just like, oh, wow, great. Moving on. Yeah. Okay. Moving on. Like Nintendo is like hundreds of years old. Yeah. The company. Yeah. 

Angie: And that like didn’t they make gaming cards first? Like play. Like they did. Yep. Yeah. 

Theresa: Um, anyhow, so they write about this gunfight called the Cali’s Massacre and they embellished the story to the point where they basically say that Wild Bill, he just crosses a dozen people off of the census list. You know, just cleaning the Wild West, most dangerous people right off the map. Listen, when you got a job, you got a job, you know, I mean, he’s good at one thing. And apparently storytelling is one of them. There’s other good at two things. Well, you’re right. 

Good catch. So there’s a bunch of articles that come out. There’s a couple of books that follow. And every time his prowess is exaggerated, the story builds on itself. And he did have this impressive string of gunfights, but it’s becoming hard to separate fact from fiction. 

Okay. Now he moves again to a place in Missouri where he signed on with the Union Army. There he’s a wagon master and a scout. 

And he does this on October 30th, 1861. The military record cities got they purrified very little info. But we know that around. Yeah, right. 

Like we as much as we know, we don’t know anything. It’s it’s during his like military career that he receives a nickname Wild Bill. And there’s a couple of stories about this. One says that he was in Independence, Missouri when he encountered a drunken mob and they’re they want to hang a bartender. And this bartender apparently shot somebody in a brawl. And Hickok fired two shots over the head of the men, staring him down until the mob dispersed and a grateful woman shot him from the sidelines. Good for you Wild Bill. Now she might have mistaken Hickok for someone else, but the name sticks. 

That’s one of the more common stories. Now, July 1865, four years later, he meets up with this 26 year old gambler in Springfield, Missouri. And he loses. Okay, so the gambler that he meets up with had already lost to Hickok. And when Bill couldn’t pay up, David Tut took his pocket watch for security. So you can’t you can’t pay your debt. I’ll take the pocket watch. 

Angie: Now Hickok loses with this against this other gambler. 

Theresa: So it’s from what I understand. He plays this dude named Tut. I had lost to him before. But I think Hickok lost the second bit and Tut’s like, oh, you can’t pay your debt. Give me that pocket watch. And he’s like, I’ll get you the money. Here’s the pocket watch collateral. 

You so much as scratch that thing, I’ll kill you. Got it. Got it. So couple of days later, the two of them are meeting in the public square. Tut’s wearing the watch for all the C. And I’d be pissed. Moments later, he’s laying on the ground dead and Hickok’s acquitted of any wrongdoing. Because self defense of my pocket watch. I wasn’t in there. I don’t have, you know, the full transcript. It does seem like a little bit of, well, you know, he was a bit of a braggart. 

Angie: He had it coming. 

Theresa: The more you f around, the more you find out. Honest to God. 

Angie: Or as the youth say, on God. 

Theresa: Oh, yeah. He stood on, he stood tend to hoes down on business. So Hickok, back to Hickok, it’s still 18, or. 1865, I was able to do that. Wow. I read a date out loud correctly. 

Angie: Okay. That’s like three in a row. You doing all right? 

Theresa: Tomorrow’s going to be whole. Aches if I do get it all out of my system today. Nice knowing you. While Hickok’s in the army, he makes good friends with a certain general George Custer. 

Oh, okay. So this is again, this is one of those who’s who’s docs. And he’s working for Custer as one of his principal scouts. Custer apparently admired Hickok. He’s played poker with them. So poker seems to be a recurring theme. 

And would have gotten to know him better had it not been for the disaster at little Bighorn. Okay. These are things. 

These are things. Now again, we’re getting back to the who’s who shortly after the war, 1867, Hickok’s tracked down by a dude named Henry and Stanley. Stanley’s a New York, New York Herald. Stanley is a correspondent from the New York Herald who later goes on to Africa and found Dr. Livingston or Livingstone. And Hickok, when he’s talking to this reporter, he just kind of off the cuff tells Stanley who he is described as gullible that he had personally slain over a hundred men. Stanley does some fact check. He immediately reports the claim as the honest to God gospel. 

And Bill is a national legend. Okay. Yeah. So I imagine the two sit in a bar shooting whiskey. And he’s offhandedly goes, Oh yeah, I’ve off like a hundred souls. Done. 

And he’s just like, no kidding. Write it down. This will sell the papers. 

And boy did it. Now, November 5th, 1867. So we’re getting towards the end. Wild Bill, he runs for sheriff in Ellsworth County in Kansas, but he loses. And then he returns to the army. And it’s here he gets lanced in the foot during a skirmish with an Indian in Eastern Colorado. And he has to return back home during this, but he ends up going back to Kansas, becoming sheriff in Hay City in 1869. And on August 24th, 1869, he shot and killed a dude named Bill Mulray. And a month later, September 27th, he killed a roughie and named straw hand, where he is several like straw hand, right? Like, yeah. Where he and several others cause disturbance of local saloon. So you just like hearing bodies, bodies, bodies, bodies. 

What the body’s at the floor. Or it’s raining men could be the same situation. I really it is. 

It’s just wildly different. PODs. Yeah. 

So it’s now July 17th, 1870. And here’s where we get some problems because there’s members of the seventh US cavalry that catch Hickok off guard in drum saloon. They knock him to the floor and they begin kicking him. Hickok draws his pistols, killing one private and seriously wounding another. After the skirmish, he resigns from his position in Hay City and he returns back to Ellsworth, Kansas. And then for a time he moved to Abilene, Texas. And here’s where things really kick off. 

Angie: I want to know how he pissed the seventh cavalry off. 

Theresa: I mean, at this point, I truly don’t know. It could easily be something along the lines of they know him as a fierce gunfighter and they want to get drunk and try their hand. That makes sense. 

Angie: Yeah. I mean, like. 

Theresa: Yeah. And we already know he has a habit of like, oh, you like that girl. Let me go chatter up. 

Angie: Boys will be boys. This is this is part of that definition. Exactly. Not the best part, but part of part of it. 

Theresa: So he goes back to Abilene and he gets appointed a city marshal for $150 a month. Okay. And he also gets one fourth of all the fines assessed of the persons he arrests. So I kind of like this thing. You know, we’re catching you’re catching kickbacks from the amount of work you do. That works. It’s incentive. 

Keep working. Now it’s at this point, he has a run with a dude named John Wesley Hardin and Hardin is purportedly the worst killer in the wild less and he arrives in Abilene. And wild Bill allegedly took an indulgent parent like attitude with this nasty little murderer. Okay. I mean, come here, you little hoodlum come under my wing. You look fun. 

Angie: Now Hardin goes on to see if I can make a man out of you. Yeah. 

Theresa: Well, they and how would you make a man out of a murderer? No, go ahead. I’ve got words coming next. I want to see if you can tell me what you think they did together. What was their bonding time? Bear killing. They drank together, visited brothels and Hickok gave him lots of advice. Yeah. 

Angie: Okay. That’s not quite the same as bear killing. And that was where I was originally going to go, but it seems like not the right path. 

Theresa: I mean, if you don’t, yeah, I get it. Now, Hardin enjoyed going out with Hickok because Hickok is a renowned gunfighter and Hardin’s like, Hey, I’m cool by association. 

Angie: That works. Keeping me out of jail and also I’m cool. 

Theresa: Now he’s also pretty cautious around Hickok because he knows if he gets seriously out of line, wild Bill won’t hesitate and he’s going to drop them. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But it doesn’t take long because Hickok doesn’t, or Hardin does cross the line. He’s sleeping at this hotel called the American house and he’s awakened by snoring coming from the next room. He’s pretty pissed about getting woken up. And so he does the most logical thing and he fires a couple of shots to the wall. As you do. 

And there’s kind of a deadly silence. And that’s when Hardin knew that Marshall Hickok would have no issue chasing him down. Friends or not brothel buddies or not. So Hardin, he climbs out the window dressed in only his undershirt and he spots wild Bill approaching and he dove from the roof into a haystack where he hid for the rest of the night. 

Then he emerges at dawn, steals a horse and high tails it out dressed only in his undergarments. Okay. So this is pretty loony tunes. Yeah. Now. 

Okay. Here we’re, here’s where we go. He wild Bill does some marshaling and he goes to the bull’s head saloon. 

And this is what gets him the most trouble in his career. There’s two men who own the saloon, Phil Co and Ben Thompson. They’re gamblers. They’re gunmen. And they bought what they bought an oversized painting of a Texas longhorn with big, big balls, fully visible. 

Angie: How’d I know that’s where you were going to go? 

Theresa: And most of Abilene’s town folks, they’re offended by the sign and they demand that the animals autonomy or anatomy, sorry, be altered. And so Hickock has to stand with a shotgun as the quote, necessary deletions were made to the painting. I love this. Let’s do it worth honey. 

How was your day? So later Thompson leaves town, Cole sold his co sold his interest in the saloon and remained a gambler. And this is when Hickock and Co begin to court the same woman. And rumors circulate. They plan to kill each other. Of course they do. Like, so how did you meet? 

Angie: Well, I’d kind of be off my other boyfriend 

Theresa: and sing two dudes, but this one was trying to cover up bull balls. 

Angie: It was the funniest thing I met him last week while he was standing guard over a painting of bull balls. 

Theresa: And I just, the way the sunlight rippled off the paint, it was just stunning. Yeah. So in an attempt to intimidate Hickock, one of the owners said he could quote, kill a crow on the wing. I don’t quite understand. White know what that phrase means, but I’m assuming it’s supposed to be like I’m a dead good ass shot. 

Angie: And that means while the crow’s like when the crow takes off in flight, I can kill it. Maybe. 

Theresa: Hickock is said to say something along the lines of, did the crow have a pistol? Was he shooting back? Because I will be. I love that. And then it’s October 5th, 1871. This is where things come to a head. There’s a ton of cowboys in town. There’s fighting. 

There’s drinking. And the only deputy, Mike Williams, offered Hickock his assistance. So we only have two lawmen in town as all hell’s break and loose. Co is celebrating the end of cattle season when his friends entered the Alamo Saloon and a vicious dog tried to bite him. So Co, she’s at the dog. 

Okay. But he misses the dog and Hickock darkens the door just moments later. And he’s trying to investigate the shots because this makes sense. 

Co explains kind of what happened. Wild Bill tells him the truth that there’s no guns allowed in the city. And this was common for Wild West. The Wild West, as much as we want to say that they were wild mollusks, had very strict gun laws. Yeah, okay. 

And so he’s like, hey, that’s great, but you weren’t supposed to have a gun on you anyhow. And so what are you doing? Yep. So apparently, some however another, all hell breaks loose. And Co shoots at Hickock. Hickock returns fire shooting Co in the stomach twice. And then he hears footsteps behind him. So Hickock turns and fires again and accidentally killed Deputy Mike Williams. 

Angie: Oh, no, that’s unfortunate. Yep. 

Theresa: And it’s when he saw that he killed his friend and associate that this accident goes on to haunt him for the rest of his days. And it seems to be the last real gunfight that he gets into. Okay. And so when you’re Googling kind of things, they talk about this being the ghost that haunts him. I was like, yeah, I kind of drummed it up a bit there. 

Okay. Now, for the next several years, Hickock is living off his reputation. He works as a guide for some wealthy hunters, but his eyesight starts to fail because forties, right? 

Yeah. And he’s getting reduced to wandering the West and he’s trying to make his life as a gambler and he gets arrested several times for vacancy, which apparently is kind of what you charge people who don’t really have a job and just sit around the saluted gamble. 

Angie: And you can’t just put down on a gambler. 

Theresa: I mean, apparently that doesn’t quite work on your tax forms. I unclear. Okay. But he in 76, he arrives in Black Hills, Miningtown of Deadwood, South Dakota. And here he becomes a regular poker player at the number 10 saloon. And he’s kind of really kicking out this really meager existence of the card player. And then one day, 1876, he’s playing cards with his back to the saloon door. At 4.50 in the afternoon, a young gunslinger named Jack McCall walked into the saloon, approached Hickock from behind and shoots him the back of the head. 

Angie: Hickock, right? Is this the son of the other guy? Nope. 

Theresa: Okay. Hickock dies immediately. He was holding a hand that had two pairs, aces and eighths. This is, this is, this hand is referred to as the dead man’s hand. 

Angie: Oh, so it wasn’t actually a hand hand. Yep. Okay. 

Theresa: Now McCall tried to shoot some others in the crowd, but amazingly, all the pistols in his, or the cartridges in his pistol, they’re all duds. One source also said they misfired, so it could be, but McCall is later tried, convicted and hanged. Oh, okay. But that’s the story of Wild Bill Hickock, the dead man’s hand. 

Angie: After all that, why the hell was his back to the saloon door? He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he 

Theresa: I mean, I didn’t talk about, like, there was a lot I cut out, right? Like, I didn’t talk about how he did his own Wild West show that failed. He then goes on with Bill, Buffalo Bill Cody. I also cut out the part where he fell in love and married a woman who owned her own circus. But they really had such a short time together. They really only were together for their honeymoon. 

Angie: Oh, that’s unfortunate. 

Theresa: Okay. There’s so much about this. I didn’t want this to be an 11-D part series. 

Angie: I understand that. I understand that. The Dead Man’s Hand. I really thought there was going to be somebody that got slapped with somebody else’s hand. You know, I just want to keep you on your toes. 

Theresa: I don’t want you to ever know what my sources mean so that I can read my titles with impunity. Good for you. 

Angie: Well, funny enough, my story is also an American story that takes place in the early 1800s. So, I will tell you how I got there. I wanted to do a real-go story, you know, like this beautiful scotch castle that’s haunted by all these ghosts, whatever. 

But I wanted it to be like the lover that never got to live their life together and died on their wedding night. And you see them every so often on the battlements, whatever. The problem is those stories exist and they exist to like the nth degree, but there’s never any corroborating dates or actual people that we know the name. And if there is, it’s such a small story that it’s only 30 seconds long. 

Theresa: So, I was, and so you’re going to give me a compilation of your favorite 52? No. 

Angie: I was complaining to my husband that I could not find the exact story that I was looking for. And I was having a hard time coming up with just the perfect one. And he said, well, then why not do something creepy? Like, it doesn’t have to be ghosts or anything like that, but pick something weird and creepy. And I was like, okay, what about creepy adjacent? 

Perhaps a little macabre, maybe. And like clockwork, because I swear Google listens, the very next article to pop up on my feed was perfect. So, oh, I’m going to give you my sources. How did Edgar Allen Poe die? A new clue may solve the mystery. 

It’s a popular mechanics article released November 13th, of 2023 by Michael Natale. And there are several other sources, but the two that I use the most are Edgar Allen Poe, biography writer, poet from biography.com. And Edgar Allen Poe and his tumultuous romance is US National Park Service. 

Theresa: Okay, okay. I love the National Park Service. 

Angie: I knew you would be. I was like, wait, that’s amazing. And I cannot believe it’s an option here. I have several other sources, but I really only use one for like a catalog of his work so it didn’t really make it in. So I gave you the ones I actually used. So I was thinking it would be fun for the end of October. And it also occurred to me this morning that you opened October with Mary Shelley, and I am ending with another author. I mean, well done. Thanks. 

So here we go. Without further ado, let me give you the life of Edgar Allen Poe and his very interesting death. He was born on January 19th in 1809 in Boston, which was so weird to me. 

I did for some reason in my brain, his life happened much later in the timeline of things, like I’ve always pictured him as a Victorian. That’s even sickly looking. I think so. 

Yeah. So his parents are Elizabeth Arnold Poe, who was a British actress, and his father was a Baltimore-born actor called David Poe Jr. And from what I understand, Poe’s mother was far more successful than her husband. And this may have created some tension for him. So he runs off very early in Edgar’s life. Edgar never knew him. And by two, Edgar’s mother dies of tuberculosis. 

So put that on your bingo card if you still have it out. Now, at this point, Poe is, like I said, he’s two. He is sent to live with foster parents in Richmond, Virginia. They are called John and Francis Allen. 

John is a successful tobacco merchant. Two things I want to point out here. One, he is separated from his brother William and his sister Rosalie to live with them. And I’m unclear why. I don’t know how he ended up in Richmond, Virginia with these foster parents, but he is. 

Theresa: And they raise him. It’s a foster care system. This checks. 

Angie: Yeah. So the other thing that I thought was strange, and you mentioned this at the beginning of yours with the Underground Railroad, is because I saw Poe as a Victorian, like early 20th century, I did not see him firmly placed in the time of slavery. And it’s bizarre to me because his very successful foster father is a tobacco merchant in Virginia. So it’s really easy to make the connection. 

Theresa: It was very strange. Wasn’t the Victorian, okay, so I just googled it. The Victorian era spans 1837 to 1901. Right. 

Angie: He is born in 1809. 

Theresa: Okay. But he was an adult in the Victorian era. 

Angie: Right. But in my brain, he was born in 1901. 

Theresa: Oh, okay. Yes. You have a much, okay. Yeah. 

Angie: Like I had such a hard time, like reconcealing. Like that was so weird for my brain to understand. But long story short, it’s 1811 now. He sent to the home of this very successful tobacco merchant where he is raised. For all accounts, he seems to get on really well with Francis, his new mother, and appears to have a much harder time bonding with John. And when you actually think about it, that seems fair when you consider how it’s life’s gone so far and he’s only a toddler. Like, pause, run it off. He’s only ever known the women. It makes sense to me. 

Theresa: Well, I don’t imagine this dude being super affectionate. 

Angie: Neither do I. By 13, Poe is already like politically writing, and he’s writing poetry at the time. But both his headmaster at his school and your old papa, John, the foster dad, try very hard to discourage this. John wants him to stay in the family business. Like he wants to raise him up to be in the way of a tobacco merchant. And I have a feeling that the headmaster just had no imagination whatsoever. But this does not stop Edgar from writing. He continues writing, including on the back of dad’s business papers, which I think is super fun. I’m imagining a 14-year-old boy writing poetry that’s just awful on the back of dad’s receipts. 

Theresa: And he’s like, I had to give this to the county auditor and he’s got this bizarre thing about a crow. 

Angie: The hell is this? Yeah. What are you doing, Edgar? Go milk some cows. So as a young man, it’s 1826. He gets into the University of Virginia and he excels at his classes. But dad never sends him with enough money, so he is forced to gamble to try to sustain life at school. 

Theresa: Because I guess getting a part-time job is right. Like why is gambling, why is that the first go to? Like you couldn’t find a coffee shop. 

Theresa: Well, okay, because it’s one of those, it’s the allure. It’s the I could do it all and then I won’t have to work tomorrow. 

Angie: Right, well that and I think it goes back to the gentleman in class. Like this is just the thing that you do, right? So this obviously, this taking up gambling has this very opposite effect and he ends up in debt. I’m sure you’re shocked to learn and is only able to attend like a year of school. 

But in 1827, he is able to publish his first book. It’s called Tamerlane and the Other Palms and then life goes downhill from there. Around this time, he returns home to find out that his fiance, who just happened to be the girl next door, Sarah Elmira Royster, has become engaged to someone else. Apparently like her dad didn’t approve of her union with Poe, so pick someone else. 

So Poe does the logical thing and leaves town. He is very frustrated. He is very heartbroken. He moves to Boston. While he’s in Boston, Poe joins the U.S. Army. But just two years later, he is going to suffer some more heartbreak. He gets word that his mother Francis is dying of tuberculosis. It’s the way to go. 

So that’s two moms down to tuberculosis. So he starts home. He starts for the way home, but he doesn’t make it back before she passes away. 

And during this time in Richmond, dad and him sort of come to a brief truth and John gets him an appointment at West Point, like or helps get him an appointment at West Point, where once again, Poe excels at studies. But again, this only lasts a year. This time he’s kicked out for quote, poor handling of duties. 

Theresa: Now, isn’t he at West Point during the egg nub rise? 

Angie: Maybe it would have been 1828, 1827, 1828. One sec. I do want to say while you’re looking this up, though, while he’s at West Point, he is like daily writing things that he’s like passing out to his mates and they love it. Like their little satire and like some poetry sprinkled through here and there and his classmates are like over the moon about it. They’re having so much fun with his daily updates. 

Theresa: Eggnog riots were December 24th, 1826. So what year was it again? 

Angie: You would have been there 2728. Oh, so you just missed it. That’s a bummer. It would have been fun to make that connection. I mean, we kind of did, but it’s been fun if he was there to write about it. Basically, what happens is he gets kicked out for poor handling of duties, but in the midst of this, John, Gerald, dad has remarried without telling Poe. And when Poe finds out this does not sit well with him and biography.com suggests that there are those that say Poe basically aims to get kicked out of West Point just despite dad. 

Theresa: And the headmaster is pretty strict. So I’m sure Sayer has no problem kicking kiddos out. Right. Okay. 

Angie: So the US Army Corps of Engineers website has this to say about the ending of Poe’s time at West Point. Quote, in January, Poe quit his classes with predictable results. He was court-martialed and formally dismissed from the Academy on March 6, 1831. 

So he would have been there 1830, 1831. I think I told you the wrong year. Okay. Either way, it’s still… Well after the riot. 

Yeah. As a parting shot, he secured a cadet subscription of $170 to underwrite the publication of his third book of poetry. So like he got all his mates to fund his writing, right? It was mostly a rehash of his earlier work and was received as one former roommate remembered, quote, with a general expression of disgust. Another wrote in his copy, this book is a damn cheat. And that presumably because it contained not one of the humorous quibs and satires that he has fed his reputation for genius at the Academy. A fair number of cadets flung their copies into the Hudson River. Wow. This is rubbish. We wanted our fund. Bring that back, right? Okay. 

Theresa: So sometimes in the next… Basically he had no new material and all the stuff he used was pretty macabre. 

Angie: Yeah. And they didn’t… That’s not what they wanted. Like they wanted the fun stuff that he had been writing for them up to this point, right? So they were like, this is… What is this? No, this is out. 

Now over the next eight years, Papa John is going to completely cut ties with the UNPO. Um, who’s like living his life anyway? He seems pretty cool at that last point, which would probably been heartbreaking for me, but Poe’s gonna Poe, so he doesn’t really mind. He travels around. He’s looking for all sort of opportunities that he can find, right? He’s writing as much as he can write. 

And he is just whatever he can do, wherever he can do it. He’s already published two more books of poetry. He’s lived in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Richmond, and New York. 

So he has taken a tour. In 1831, he moves to Baltimore to the house of his Aunt Maria Clem. Now this is the sister of his biological father. And this is where he meets and falls in love with Virginia, his cousin. 

Theresa: And she’s so young. Am I right? Is this the… 13. 

Angie: Yeah. So 1834 rolls up. He’s been with Virginia in their home. At least living with Aunt Maria and Virginia. 

Theresa: That’s what I’m gonna say, because that sounded like the typical… They’re not… Okay, so I’m gonna get to that in a minute. 

Angie: But here, old dad, he passes away in 1834. So Poe’s been in Baltimore for the last few years. Dad passes away and completely leaves Poe out of the will. Period. Not a bumpkin. But he provides for his illegitimate child that he had never even met. Oh, that’s gotta really… 

Theresa: But to be fair, I mean, technically Poe’s not actually related. So I mean… 

Angie: Yeah, but still it sucks. It sucks, I think, because from the beginning, he wanted him to be in the business. He wanted them to be involved. And Poe just was not having it. I don’t think they ever had a warm relationship. So you can gather that Poe’s finances aren’t great, because you can’t be a tortured poet with good finances. 

Theresa: I mean, no, typically the struggle that helps create the art. Right? 

Angie: He’s struggling, but he finally gets on better ground. One of his short stories wins a contest in the Baltimore Sunday Visitor. And so he starts to publish more short stories. And this work seems to help, because in 1835, he lands an editorial position with the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. And here, Poe delivers this reputation, develops this reputation. 

Excuse me, Jack. Here, Poe develops this reputation as a cutthroat critic. Biography.com says that he’s, quote, writing vicious reviews of his contemporaries. His scathing critiques earned him the nickname the Tomahawk Man. 

Theresa: Joy, he sounds like a real cool person to have at parties. 

Angie: Right? Now, it’s 1836, and this is when he actually marries Virginia. She is 13. He is 27. 

Theresa: So that would be like, what, 11 when he started living there? How long was he at the house? 

Angie: He moved in in 31, marries her in 36. Okay. 

Theresa: So she was 13 when they got married, minus six. 

Angie: Good night. Good night. Right. Okay. So he’s 27. I’m not okay with any of this, 

Theresa: but there are a lot of yaw. If I watch you play with dolls, it’s not appropriate. 

Angie: It’s never going to be okay, right? Now, that said, though, there are a lot of historians and like po-officianatos that believe his marriage to her was a chaste one. 

Theresa: Like, no way. That’s like saying, and these two women were friends and roommates for the rest of their lives. No way. Yeah. 

Angie: It’s an interesting situation, no matter how you look at it, in my opinion for them. Now, this whole time, though, he has been still writing politically, right? And within the next year, he’s already made more than one enemy at the Southern Literary Messenger because as you said, I bet he is so fun to have at parties. Something about him having a combative personality and sometimes maybe a little bit of alcohol play a part in him leaving the magazine. 

Shocker. Now, he self-medicates. I’m saying sometimes maybe because there was an author that wrote a biography of him shortly after his death that would be considered an enemy of his today, who does not ever paint him in a great picture and says he is a flat-out alcoholic. 

Now, the thing with Po is that even if he was, he was a lightweight to begin with. He couldn’t hold his liquor no matter how he tried. So there are also other moments in his life where he is completely temperate. So I don’t really think alcohol plays a ton into his time at the Literary Messenger because a lot of what we learn about him comes from this author that hated him. 

Theresa: So I mean, I’m a lightweight now, but there were moments in my past where I could do some damage. 

Angie: So, yeah, I mean, I think this is one of those things we’re never going to fully understand, pose alcoholic intake, but he could have been or he could have just had a crap personality at this moment in his life. 

Theresa: You know, and it could have been a little column A, column B. I mean, look at the loving fatherly influences in his life. 

Angie: Very much so, right? Now, one of the things that I thought was so funny is while he is at the Literary Magazine, like he writes a treaty critiquing the contemporary style of home decor called the Philosophy of Furniture because we can’t just talk about, I don’t know, literature. We also have to be mad at the chair. 

Theresa: The times I have been, I’m greatly mad at inanimate objects. 

Angie: Honestly? Yeah, right? Okay. So like you said, he moves on from the Literary Messenger. He’s not there very long. But in 1841, Edgar Allen Poe would be responsible for launching a new genre of detective fiction with his series or his book, The Murdered in the Rue Morgue. Now, according to biography.com, this innovation is the bit that would earn him the nickname, the father of the detective story. And then he goes on to win a literary prize in 1843 for the Goldbug, which I’m super curious to read about because it’s considered a suspenseful tale of secret codes and hunting treasure, excuse me, hunting treasure. And that sounds super fun, but I’ve never read that one before. 

So I don’t know. Now, he goes on to work for a few more journals and magazines before moving to New York in 1844. And in 1844, he would write about this amazing balloon trip across the Atlantic for the New York Sun. 

Theresa: This article. He’s still carting around his child, right? Correct. Yes. 

Angie: This article grabs a ton of attention for him, but it was later revealed to be a hoax. And I guess this is a really popular thing at the time, which I find to be accurate. And nobody seemed to mind like it didn’t. It didn’t seem to dampen his literary skills. 

Theresa: So he wrote some fake news and it wasn’t so much of a scandal, so much of a, oh, well. 

Angie: Yeah, moving on. I guess that happens last week, you know, whatever. Now, all of that aside, things go great because he becomes a literary sensation with in 1845 with the 1860s and stanzas of the Raven. 

So even if people were mad, they stopped caring when the Raven came out. It was published in the New York Evening Mirror and is considered the best known piece of poetry in American literature and arguably the best work of his career. And I would agree. To me, it is the pinnacle of his career. In my opinion, I love the Raven. But if you’re playing at home and you are unfamiliar with this genre, basically this piece is the narrator, the narrator is pining over the loss of his great love, Lenore, and then all of a sudden he is visited by a Raven who will not stop saying nevermore. It would not be shocking to say that this poem covers death and loss, especially when you consider his life to this point. In 1847, his darling life passes away. She’s just 24, coincidentally, that is the same age his mother was when she died. 

Theresa: That’s so stinking young. 

Angie: You guessed it, it’s tuberculosis. So that’s three important women in his life. That was how you went out. It really was. It was the fashionable thing to do, I suppose. So you can imagine that Poe is, he is in his fields. He is very much grieving. He cannot help but continue to pour on the words on the page. 

He’s just in his fields. And a poem is released two days after he dies that they think was written around this time called Annabelle Lee. It’s believed to have been about Virginia. Have you, are you familiar with this? 

Theresa: It’s been a minute since I’ve read it, so if you want to remind me. I have the last little bit. 

Angie: But our love was stronger by far than the love of those who were older than we, of many far wiser than we, and neither the angels in heaven above nor the demons down under the sea can ever disever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabelle Lee. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabelle Lee, and the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabelle Lee. And so all the night tide I lay down by the side of my darling, my darling, my life, and my bride in her sepulchre, in her sep, sep, you cur, I can never say. Sepulcher. 

Thank you. There by the sea, in her tune by the sounding sea. He never seems to have recovered from her death, and he continues to suffer like mentally and physically with very poor health and poverty until his rather mysterious death in 1849. Allow me to elaborate. Do you know anything about Poe’s death? 

Theresa: It’s been a minute. It’s been at least a year since I looked anything up. 

Angie: So he dies on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore. He’s 40. Poe had left Richmond for Philadelphia 10 days earlier and was found in Baltimore on October 3rd, super distressed. Like sort of raving. He keeps calling for this individual called Reynolds. There’s all sorts of stories that develop. He is immediately taken to Washington College Hospital and four days later, supposedly his final words are Lord help my poor soul. Now, at the time of his death, they believed that he died of what is consult called congestion of the brain. I was unfamiliar with that. 

Theresa: Okay, congestion of the brain. I feel like I get that when I’ve gone to too many meetings. 

Angie: Honestly, yeah. It can be related to alcoholism. It can be any number of things. That’s, I think, was what the popular mechanics article said it was basically sort of the title, like the proper title you put for died of alcoholism, but could have been related to many other things. And there are plenty of other ideas as well, such as rabies. He could have had rabies. He could have had epilepsy or carbon monoxide poisoning. 

Theresa: So I’m going to say no to the rabies because we don’t have record of him having pet reccoons. 

Angie: Well, they have always suspected rabies because apparently he had a cat and the cat could have passed on rabies. I feel like that’s a bit BSE. 

Theresa: That does feel like a bit far fetched now. I mean, if he’s hanging out with rapid coyotes. 

Angie: Something, right? Now, okay. I think it’s possible, as I gave my reasons earlier, to rule out alcoholism on one hand because that year he had signed up as a son of temperance and was considered a lightweight anyway. But let me give you the more recent angle, a couple of them actually that have come out. Now, there is some belief that because of his wife’s death just a couple of years prior, he had been exposed to the tuberculosis and a lot of his symptoms were tuberculosis like that it could have been some sort of version of that. I find that one a bit odd. It took two years. 

Theresa: That seems insane. Okay. So you say that, right? And you look at like the New England vampire panic. Yeah, I guess that’s true. You know, like the first person died of tuberculosis and then people start slowly wasting away. Like I don’t think tuberculosis is this, well, don’t buy any fresh fruit and vegetables. You won’t be around to use them. I mean, I think it’s a longer tail. 

Angie: I don’t think it’s short like that either, but I also think two years seems like a really long time to be from being exposed to it to being showing signs of it. But I don’t know enough about tuberculosis too. 

Theresa: Well, and we’re also looking at signs that others documented being severe enough to get reported back. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have symptoms. It could just mean he had a persistent cough, but he also is also allergy season. 

Angie: Yeah, that’s true. Now, the more recent angle that has been postulated and could involve alcohol is that he could have been a victim of cooping. Are you familiar with what this is? Because I was not. Cooping sounds like what babies get. 

Theresa: That’s what I thought. And I don’t know of any infants that are throwing back Jack Daniels. 

Angie: Cooping is more commonly known at the time as a form of voter fraud. And when I read that, I was like, I’m sorry, I’m so much alcoholism and voting fraud hold hands. 

Theresa: They do. And this is why. Okay, so in the US at this time, shocking voting is full of all types of bribes and bargains and bullying and even outright abuse. So, cooping is this thing where individuals will take those that look perhaps a bit vaguely, the homeless, the underprivileged, and they will stuff them in a room, they will coop them up and beat up on them and bully them and get them to vote where they want them to vote, how they want them to vote, and do this multiple times to swing the vote in their favor. 

Right? Now, what I did not know, and this makes perfect sense because I had never thought about it, is at the time, voting stations or polling places were often at taverns. And when you voted, you got your obligatory picture of AIL. 

Theresa: I think we should bring that back. Or a ice cream cone? I mean, I’m not going to say how much the turnouts would go. If regardless of how you voted, you got a margaret bag. I mean, honestly, margaret is how you get me to do a lot of things. I’m not even getting kids. 

Angie: A swag bag is a much cheaper way to get people to vote than this is ways they’ve been working on, I think. So, what is believed to have happened, and this is not concrete, but this is the reigning belief right now, is that Edgar Allan Poe fell victim to this couping. And because each polling place you go to gives you a picture of AIL or what have you, he has had multiple drinks. He is already unwell. He is already sickly, right? And he has been forced to vote all over town in whatever town he’s in. 

Theresa: And he’s getting a picture, a beer per vote? One picture. I’m going to be just 

Angie: unable to walk into the next station. Right. Okay. So, this place that he was discovered was just outside one of these taverns. And unfortunately for Poe, while he was famous, he was only famous in the literary world, so people don’t recognize his face. Even if he was trying to say, hey, I’m Edgar Allan Poe, I meant most people aren’t going to know who that is. Right. 

Theresa: I mean, it’s a, look at Sarah Dynan. We know her as, you know, pop culture book writing icon right now, but would I be able to pick her out of a lineup? No. 

Angie: Probably not. I mean, like I know what she looks like, but I’m like going to say I know that that’s Sarah Dynan. That’s just walking down the street. Probably not. Yeah. If I sit next to her at the 

Theresa: coffee shop, I’ll be like, huh, she looks familiar. Moving on. Right. Okay. 

Angie: So, the guy that finds him happens to know who he is. And because Poe is already in such a delirious state at this time, he can’t say where he’s been. 

But for three days, he’s been somewhere, or maybe even more days now that I think about it, because he left Philadelphia 10 days before he dies and three days in, he shows up four days later, he’s dead. So he’s been, it’s been a week that he’s possibly been stuffed in this windowless room being bullied and abused to vote for whichever direction this group wants him to vote for. Meanwhile, he’s sick and they’re feeding him alcohol every time he votes. So that is how voter fraud and alcoholism are tied together and potentially how we think Ed Grail and Poe tied. 

So while it is not creepy, it is macabre adjacent because it is the Raven being fed alcohol until he dies. Wow. He should have just said never more. Honestly, it worked so well for the Raven. That’s the death of Ed Grail and Poe. 

Theresa: Well, I’m happy you didn’t hit on anything in my medical chart like you did with Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great’s death. 

Angie: I think about that a lot. My actions in that haunt me. 

Theresa: On how you, you, you just nailed it so, so good. And then I realized there was a likelihood had my med chart hit another point in time, I’d have been buried alive. 

Angie: Yeah, like I didn’t, I didn’t know that when I wrote that. But I think about it now with every story I write, am I going to take Teresa out medically with this one? 

Theresa: I mean, you know, it honestly, my chart’s wild and varied. Same. What are you going to do? 

Angie: I just go in all hands on deck and just hope that whatever I say doesn’t offend your physical nature and call it good. 

Theresa: And I’m just like, I’ve already done Terraria. Anything above that’s going to be an improvement. 

Angie: That’s funny because that’s also how I, how I judge things. I said something to Ian the other day and I was like, oh, well, it can’t be worse than Terraria. So yeah, that’s it. That’s my ground pole. Cooping. Story now, you know what coping is. 

Theresa: So we’ve done coping. We’ve done crimping, which was stealing, drunken sailors and putting them on boats or stealing, drunken people, turning them into sailors that putting them on boats. Yeah. 

Angie: And I said to Berkeloz is at least 10 times so you can cover that bingo card. Right. 

Theresa: Well, if you’ve enjoyed this, if you’re thinking, wow, this was a wild jump through history, I didn’t see any of this coming. Neither did we. Rate, review, subscribe, send this to the person who looks like they had to Berkeloz in a past life. And this is your favorite sickly Victorian person. 

Angie: Yeah. Share this with a ghost of the Victorian child in your basement. And on that note, goodbye. 

Theresa: Bye.