Lore - Episode 179: Confidence

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Folklore has many uses, and a quick trip through history would reveal many that you’ve come to expect. It educates a community, preserves events and well-known figures, and provides a sometimes-fictional explanation for mysterious happenings. But one particular use for folklore needs a deeper look…because it’s beyond thrilling. ———————— This episode of Lore was sponsored by: Native: Native creates safe, effective personal care products that use trusted ingredients and performance. For 20% off your first purchase, visit NativeDEO.com/20lore and use promo code 20LORE during checkout. Squarespace: Build your own powerful, professional website, with free hosting, zero patches or upgrades, and 24/7 award-winning customer support. Start your free trial website today at Squarespace.com/lore, and when you make your first purchase, use offer code LORE to save 10%. Wondrium: Hundreds of topics taught by professors and experts, all in one enormous video library. Start your free month of unlimited access to the entire library! Go now to Wondrium.com/LORE.—and don't miss my newest recommendation: Arctic Manhunt: Hunt for the Mad Trapper. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [e-mail], or visit our listing here.

Have you ever known someone who was just too smart for their own good? You know the type, right? They're brilliant and unnatural at just about everything they do, but they tend to use their brains for less than typical things, usually to get up to trouble. Growing up in the 1950s and 60s, Frank was a textbook example of this. He was a bright kid with a couple of uncanny skills. He could learn enough about anything just by observing how it worked, and he could find creative ways to use that knowledge for his own benefit.

Honestly, there was very little he couldn't do if he put his mind to it. For Frank, though, that meant becoming a master con artist. His first con was stealing from his father, using a credit card meant to buy gas for his work truck. After that, he spent time figuring out how to write checks for cash he didn't have, and eventually how to do the same off other people's accounts. But he also expanded his horizons. Between the ages of 16 and 18, Frank used a forged pilot's license to travel around

the country, logging roughly a million miles. After that, he pivoted to medicine, spending time in a Georgia hospital as the chief resident pediatrician overseeing half a dozen interns and countless patients. He even managed to forge a Harvard Law School transcript and use it to get a job in the Louisiana State Attorney General's Office, something that required him to take and pass the state bar exam. And even after his criminal career ended in arrest and prison time, Frank Abagnale, Jr. was so good that the FBI would ultimately hire him as a consultant on fraud.

Most people have heard Frank's story, thanks to Steven Spielberg's hit film about him, Catch Me If You Can. But even if you haven't, it's easy to see just how much trouble someone can get up to when they've got a sharp mind and a natural understanding of the assumptions people make. For as long as humans have been around, there have been people gullible enough to believe anything, and others who are willing to take advantage of that. And while modern con artists tend to focus on fraud of some kind, their predecessors sometimes leaned heavily into a different world altogether.

A world where anything was possible and were understanding what made people tick included understanding what made them feel fear. The world of folklore. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. It's easy to imagine the fear they must have felt. This was 1804 after all. There were no electric street lights to chase away the darkness as the sun set on the Yorkshire town of Coward, and so fear was always there.

On this particular night, though, that fear took on a shape. As a local farmer looked out his window on his darkened property, he caught a glimpse of something in the shadows. Something with the twisted shape of a goblin-like face. And the folklore he'd been raised on allowed his mind to put the pieces together. What he was looking at was a bargast. It's a creature that owes some of its identity to the accent of Northern England. Instead of ghost, people there would say, ghast.

And this legendary creature, the bargast, certainly was ghost-like. It was a shapeshifter, sometimes taking on the form of a black dog, while other times looking more like a goblin or apparition. And the folklore was clear about how dangerous the bargast were. They were often seen as an omen of death. As seen one with your own eyes could prove disastrous. When they took the shape of a black dog, they were often accompanied by the sounds of rattling chains.

And if they got inside your home, they were known to steal your valuables. So on this night, the farmer who saw the mysterious shape outside did what any good person might have done in that area at the time. He ran away. Fearing for his life, he bolted out of his house and ran as fast as he could toward his nearest neighbor. We don't know if the bargast gave chase or if it remained behind. But when the farmer returned, he found his home ransacked and robbed.

But at least he was alive. Later that night, far from the farmer's house, the bargast stopped at the edge of the road. Reaching up to its neck, the demonic figure slowly peeled off its mask like something pulled straight out of an old Scooby-Doo cartoon and then tucked it into his bag. As he stepped out of the shadows and onto the road, the bargast was no more and in its place was the real thief, a local man named Joseph Brown. Brown was a young man, perhaps 30 years old at the time, and he was a con artist. We don't know a lot about his early life, like who his parents were.

And while we can assume that he had many siblings, as most people did in those days, we only know of one of them by name, a sister named Mary. But we certainly have a bit of information about his early adulthood. Joseph Brown worked most of the time as a flax dresser, someone who processed fiber from the flax plant so that it could be used in textiles. On Joseph's day, it was common for flax dressers to develop lung disease from their work, so it's easy to understand why he might have wanted out. Joseph was described by newspapers at the time as a pretty unattractive man.

His rather brutish face made him difficult to forget once he was gone, and while he was in front of you, he was beyond charismatic. It was a paradox that he was well aware of too, this idea that he looked rather unintelligent on the surface, but was actually brilliant in a lot of ways. Like a lot of con artists before and after him, Joseph understood people and what made them tick. For example, he knew that the people in town were obsessed with the tradition called porch watching.

It was an annual event, always on the night of April 24th, known as St. Mark's Eve, when locals would sit inside the church porch and keep watch for ghostly visitors. If the spirit of a local man or woman was seen between the hours of 11pm and 1am, those people were said to be destined to die in the coming year. It was a position with a lot of power, and because of that, individuals who volunteered for the task were often paid by locals to reveal who they saw that night. Partly for the easy coin, and partly for the power it gave him over others, Joseph was said to love the job.

But his reputation as a ghost seer was helped along by two other events as well. First, during an evening of heavy drinking at a local establishment, Joseph was thrown out by another young man. The two fought, and Joseph lost. But apparently, as he was leaving, he shouted that the other man would be in the ground before the year was over. And it actually came true. The second event happened when Joseph predicted that someone who lived on his father's street

would drown, a highly specific claim for sure. But on Easter Sunday, that's exactly what happened. When a young bricklayer's apprentice, who lived on his father's street, went to the river after work to wash off, slipped and hit his head on a rock, and drowned as a result. Joseph knew what made people tick in his town. He understood their hopes and dreams, and he understood their deepest fears. Whether it was through his official work as part of the church porch watch, or just through careful observation of the people around him, he couldn't help but notice an opportunity.

Yes, it probably would have surprised a lot of people to see the bargassed peel off its face, revealing Joseph underneath. But to him, it just made sense. People were gullible by nature, and their dependence on folklore only amplified that. So rather than work the dangerous job of flag stressing, he pivoted to something more fun, more lucrative, and much more effective. But for a while, it worked as planned. Over time, he robbed a number of farms in the area, building up a good old-fashioned

community panic as he went. But eventually, some people became a bit more curious and started to follow the clues. Like Scooby and the gang, they followed them back to the source, and soon enough a warrant had been issued for his arrest. With his con exposed, Joseph's hand was forced. Like the bargassed he had been impersonating, he vanished into the night, leaving town and family behind. But while his criminal activity might have ended in one place, it would appear in another

soon enough. Because for Joseph Brown, one thing was clear. There would always be more cons to pull. Brown didn't leave town alone, though. Right beside him was a younger man named Joseph Heselgrave, sort of an assistant and apprentice. And yes, I know that they're both named Joseph, and that's going to be confusing. So I'll probably just refer to them both by their last names from here on out, if that's okay with you.

Heselgrave couldn't have been much older than 17 or 18 at the time. His childhood is a mystery to us as well, but clearly he preferred a life of crime to the typical path most people followed. And together, he and Brown made quite a team. As I mentioned before, Brown wasn't the most attractive guy in town. It's clear from some contemporary newspaper accounts that a lot of people assumed he was mentally disabled in some way. They referred to him as dumb, but naturally that public perception came with its own folklore.

It was a common belief that those with mental disabilities were closer to God and that the spirit world often spoke through them. Maybe it had something to do with Jesus and his message about childlike faith. But what's clear is that most people looked at Joseph Brown's face and assumed that he wasn't too bright, which, as we know now, was a mistake. The two men set up their newest con in the town of Hensel, where they were far enough away from home to not be recognized. But rather than dust off that bar-gassed costume, they tried their hand at a new scheme, fortune-telling.

When Brown's appearance helped tremendously with that, people would pay to hear his predictions, which he delivered through a performance designed to reinforce their assumptions about his intelligence, and then Hensel Grave would pretend to interpret for him. It was a risky game, thanks in part to the wide assortment of social views on fortune-telling. It was at the basic level of form of magic, which made it both illegal and immoral. But it was also not taken very seriously by a lot of people. In fact, it was common for young unmarried women to play husband divination games, especially around Halloween and Christmas.

Honestly, the way fortune-telling was perceived often came down to social status. If you were rich, it was seen as a simple distraction, entertainment, and nothing more. But if you were poor, all the fortune-telling options available, whether it was crystal balls, cards, or bare-bones palmistry, tended to be frauds, and therefore illegal. Which is probably why Brown and Hensel Grave went looking for a bigger, safer con to pull off. And they found it right where they lived. You see, after arriving in Hensel, they paid for lodging at the home of two old spinsters

by the name of Fletcher. Having no husbands or children, these ladies made money by renting out a room in their home, providing a place to sleep and meals to eat. It was profitable, too. According to the records, the Fletcher sisters had managed to stash away at least 20 pounds, worth roughly $2,000 today, which they kept in a strongbox in the house. So it wasn't long before Brown and Hensel Grave found out about it and started plotting ways to steal it.

After briefly toying with the idea of marrying one of the Fletcher sisters, Brown settled on a plan with less long-term commitment required. On October 20th of 1804, he paid a visit to a druggist in a neighboring town, introduced himself as Joseph Fletcher, and then spun a fanciful tale about how his father was suffering incredible pain and needed lotinum to sleep. The druggist, a man named Mr. Perkins, felt great sympathy and sold him about an ounce of the stuff. A reddish-brown opium powder that contains morphine and coating, among other things.

Perkins didn't know the truth about why Brown needed the drug or what he had planned for it. The following night, October 21st, Brown and Hensel Grave sat down to dinner with the Fletcher sisters, ready to put the plan in motion. But just as things began, their neighbor, Robert Challenger, showed up unannounced, and one of the women asked him to join them for the meal. Challenger recalled watching Brown produce a quart of ale and then pour some of it into a pint glass before mixing in a brown powder, brown sugar to help the taste, he was told,

and then the cup was passed around, first to Hensel Grave, who pretended to sip from it, and then to the Fletcher sisters. Elizabeth Fletcher was said to have consumed the most of it. Around 9pm that night, both men retired to bed, and Challenger went home. In the middle of the night, though, when the house was quiet, the two lodgers came out of their room, found Elizabeth asleep and slipped the key to the strongbox out of her pocket. Getting what they came for, they grabbed their bags and vanished into the night.

Challenger must have slept in a bit later than his neighbors. When he woke up the following morning, someone else visited and told him that Elizabeth Fletcher was dying. He quickly made himself presentable, and then rushed over to see her, only to discover she was already dead. What happened next was a miracle of coincidence. News of the woman's murder spread far and wide, including to the druggist shop operated by Mr. Perkins, and when he heard the names, Elizabeth Fletcher and Joseph Brown, a lightball

went on in his head. After telling the authorities that he knew exactly who had done the deed, a warrant was issued. Amazingly, Brown and Hesselgrave were tracked down. They were hiding out in their old hometown, pretending like nothing had ever happened. In short order, they were arrested, put in chains, and transported to the local magistrate for trial. It seems as if their short journey down the road of criminal activity had finally come

to an end, and justice was about to be served. But their story wasn't over just yet. In fact, Brown and Hesselgrave were only warming up. The local newspaper said it best. Owing to the ignorance or stupidity of the coroner, proper proofs were not procured at the time to fix the death upon the parties, so they were dismissed. In other words, Brown and Hesselgrave were free. The authorities botched the investigation, and with no case, there was no trial, so both

men returned home. Now, they've had a brush with the law, literally getting arrested for a murder they definitely committed, and somehow walked away without consequences. So it would be safe to assume that they had been scared straight, so to speak. And yet the historical record only shows just how much more bold they became. After returning to Cowood, they started in on some petty mundane crimes. In January of 1805, they stole some fine fabric, linen and black silk, from a woman in town, went elsewhere to sell it, and then came home with their pockets full of coin.

In August of that year, they even pulled a good old-fashioned mugging, hiding in the bushes alongside the high road for a traveler to pass by. But Joseph Brown loved using beliefs and traditions of a community to his own advantage. That's where he shined. And as November approached, he realized that there was an opportunity on its way. November 5th. You see, back in 1605, a man named Guy Fox had tried to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords in a scheme remembered as the Gunpowder Plot.

Ever since, the country had celebrated that date with fireworks and church bells. But this one was going to be much bigger than most, because it was the bicentennial anniversary, and people love nice round numbers. So around 8pm that night, as the entire countryside rocked and rang from the celebration noises, Brown and Hessegrave jumped out of another hedge outside of town. This time they had firearms with them, knowing that they would sound like fireworks to anyone else who heard them. And when they were done, they left their victim, George Calvert, in a ditch, wounded and bloody.

It would be hours before Calvert was discovered, and by then it was clear his injuries were grave. Despite being transported to the general infirmary in the nearby city of York, physicians weren't able to save him. But he certainly put up a fight. He wouldn't pass away until December 14th. And when that happened, the crime transformed from robbery to murder. I'd like to tell you that this was the one that ended it for them, that the authorities

tracked them down and arrested them. And indeed, in December of that year, both men were taken into custody. But sadly, this new trial was also thrown out for the very same reason as the first, a defect in the evidence against them. Once again, Brown and Hessegrave were free men. It wouldn't last long, though. For a pair of intelligent con artists, they often got tangled up in some of the dumbest things.

And in March of 1806, that was an assortment of cured meats. It seems that they had convinced a man named Mr. Render to let them into the house where he worked as a servant, the home of John and Elizabeth Bolton, and walk away with a large quantity of ham and bacon. When they were spotted selling the food a few days later to a local pub owner, things quickly fell apart. Both men were arrested, as was the servant Mr. Render, and they were taken off to York for their trial.

A trial, by the way, that would have no issue with flawed evidence this time. I won't go into too much detail about that trial. They were caught red-handed, and they knew it. Someone had actually seen them in the field outside the Bolton's house just after the theft, dividing up their stolen goods. They even saw bacon sitting on the grass. But that doesn't mean that Joseph Brown was going down without a fight. First he tried to blame it all on Mr. Render.

The man had stolen the food himself, Brown claimed, and was only trying to sell it to them in the field. That's what the witness had seen that night. And to help earn himself some credibility, Brown had his own sister Mary take the stand and vouch for his character, as well as the woman who rented him a room in town. But none of it worked. After slipping through the net of justice for the murders of Elizabeth Fletcher and George Kelvert, it would be the theft of bacon that would end their journey.

Brown and Heselgrave were found guilty of the crime, and their sentence was delivered. Death by Hanging. There always seems to be one in the crowd, that individual who believes they are smarter than the system, than the other people around them. Most of the time that just makes them difficult people to live with, but every now and then that overconfidence drives them to something darker. History is filled with stories of con artists, and the tale of Joseph Brown is just one of many.

But the events of his life do a really good job of illustrating the true meaning behind the term. Con artists build fraud through trust. They know people so well, so intuitively, that they are able to trick people into doing whatever they want. All it takes is a little confidence. Those are the sorts of crimes that got Joseph Brown to where he was in the summer of 1806. Despite his intuition and intelligence, he found himself facing the death penalty with

no hope of escape. But people like Brown rarely give up that easily. After appealing to a higher ranking official, both men had a lucky break, rather than being sentenced to death for the theft of food. They were to be transported to Botany Bay in Australia, half a world away. There they would live out the rest of their days with no rights, no way home, and no second chance. It was a decision that put Joseph Brown on a ship at the docks in Portsmouth.

But before starting the long and dangerous journey to Australia, it stopped at the Isle of Wight, where Brown appealed to a magistrate there. Remember, he was a con artist, so a fresh setting meant new people to manipulate. And after confessing to all of his past crimes, he got what he was hoping for — a return trip to York — for another chance to sway the jury. It backfired, though. This time, thanks to his own confession, he was on trial not just for the theft of food, but also for all his previous murders.

Maybe he assumed that he would be able to talk his way out of it. Perhaps he hoped that the defects in the evidence that had thrown out those cases before would somehow still be there. Brown rolled the dice, became up empty. Instead, that sentence of lifelong service in a penal colony halfway around the world was replaced with immediate execution. He was escorted from the packed courtroom to the square outside, where the gallows were set up for all to see.

And there, in front of a crowd of over 5,000 people, he was hanged until he was dead. True to the times, his body wasn't carded off for burial. As always, there were too many medical students and not enough cadavers to learn on, so his body was delivered to them. Joseph Brown spent his life studying other people in order to manipulate them for his own benefit. But in the end, the table was turned. It was time for others to learn a little something about him.

Crime and folklore aren't the most obvious bedfellows. Honestly, when we discuss things like fortune telling or premonition, we tend to think of them in safe, harmless settings. But clearly, Joseph Brown saw an opportunity to use belief and tradition to his own advantage. And he wasn't alone. I have one more story to tell you that mixes folklore and fraud, and you won't believe how it ends. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

Mary wasn't a witch, but a lot of people assumed she was. In reality, she was a thief and had always been one. She was just the sort of thief who used tradition and folklore to her advantage. She was born in 1768 to a family of farmers who lived in the village of Azenby about 20 miles from the city of York. It wasn't an easy childhood, and they struggled to get by most years. So as soon as she was old enough to work for a living, she was hired out as a servant girl in the nearby town of Thursk.

Sadly, we don't know how old she was when that happened, but it couldn't have been easy. Far from home, working for someone else's family, all while still in her childhood. So she started plotting from an early age how she was going to improve her station. And for Mary, that started with theft. In fact, it was an early theft that cost her that job as a servant girl. But rather than return home, it seems that she left for greener pastures, making her way south to the city of Leeds.

There she began to build a reputation for herself as a con artist and a cut purse. But mixed in among all that was something else. Some people believed that she had supernatural powers. So here we have Mary, barely a teenager working over strangers in the big city with tricks that had them convinced that she was some kind of witch. As she got older and wiser, she pivoted to other cons, like potions for warding off evil spirits and medicinal tonics. And people trusted her with this for years.

Her breakout moment, though, happened later in life when she was about 38 years old. That was when she came into the possession of a magic chicken. Yes, you heard that right. She called it the profit hen of Leeds, and it had the most unusual talent. It seems that the eggs that were laid by this hen would have messages written on them. Things such as, Christ is coming. And the people of Leeds went crazy for it. It turns out it was just another one of her cons.

She was actually taking freshly laid eggs, writing the messages herself, and then placing those eggs back inside the hen. And yes, it was a ridiculous stunt to pull. There's no question about that. But I think it's also ridiculous that people actually fell for it and believed it was real. Forgive me for saying it, but I guess they fell for the yoke. That same year, she picked up a new client. William and Rebecca Perrigo were a local couple who needed help, and they had become

rather desperate in their search for it. You see, they were absolutely convinced that Rebecca had been cursed. That was the only way they could explain the chest pains she was having. And she wasn't getting better. And Mary was there to help. She gave them both a special food that was meant to help fight off the evil spell Rebecca was under. But Mary also laced that food with a small amount of poison, perhaps to keep the woman

sick and in need of her services. But it backfired, and within just a few months, Rebecca was dead. Now, given the situation, we would expect William to lash out, have her arrested, or simply walk away and wash his hands of it all. But that's not what he did. Now, for the next two years, William continued to be a paying customer, returning time and again to Mary for various charms and potions. For William, it was probably a security blanket and a living connection to his dead wife.

For Mary, the relationship was dependable income. But all of that came to an end when William somehow discovered that one of the charms he had purchased was a total fabrication. It was the profit hen of leads all over again, without the eggs this time, and William was enraged. He went to the local authorities and told them what he suspected, and then worked with them to lure Mary to a meeting where they could arrest her. Once in custody, all it really took was a quick search of her home to uncover evidence

of a number of crimes, including the murder of William's wife, Rebecca. Mary professed her innocence, of course. Even from inside a prison cell, she cried out that she had never intended to poison the woman. Medicine was tricky, after all, but they didn't buy it. After all the evidence had been gathered and the case against her was established, Mary was dragged into the courtroom in York for her trial. Hers was one of a number of cases being tried that day, but between the actual proceedings

and the jury's deliberation, it became an 11-hour ordeal. When it was over, though, the answer was final. She was guilty of fraud and murder, and was sentenced to immediate execution. After being taken outside, Mary Bateman was hanged in front of a crowd of over 5,000 onlookers, right alongside two other criminals who met their fate at the same moment. After it was over, her body was left hanging for days while visitors paid a few coins to view it. When her remains were finally cut down, they were taken to a local medical museum, where

strips of her skin were tanned into leather and sold as charms, and her skeleton fared no better, becoming an exhibit that stayed on display until at least 2015. Oh, and one last thing. I mentioned a moment ago that the courthouse had other trials going on the same day as Mary's, and that she even hanged beside two of them later that day. Well, the unusual thing about that is just how similar one of the other criminals was to her. He too had been a con artist, one who had built a short but popular career by using

his community's beliefs against them, leading to profit and a bit of murder. And while I'm sure you'd like to know his story, the amazing thing is, you already do. The man who hanged alongside Mary Bateman was done other than Joseph Brown. This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Menke, with research by Ali Steed and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video.

Check them both out if you want a bit more lore in your life. I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.