WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.760 --> 00:00:09.359 You're listening to an air Wave Media podcast. In seventeen 2 00:00:09.439 --> 00:00:12.880 thirty five, my ancestor, mother Leaves, was pregnant with her 3 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:16.559 thirteenth child, and it said under the pain of birth 4 00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:19.039 of labor, she cried out, let it be the devil, 5 00:00:19.160 --> 00:00:22.280 And so it was the creature. The baby was born 6 00:00:22.559 --> 00:00:26.719 normally at first, but then metamorphosed into this dragon like creature. 7 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:30.519 In some accounts, you know, the creature sort of thrashes 8 00:00:30.559 --> 00:00:32.799 everyone in the room, and other accounts it kills the 9 00:00:32.799 --> 00:00:35.000 women who are attending the birth and then it flies 10 00:00:35.039 --> 00:00:39.399 around the room and output chimney into the night. It's 11 00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:41.920 actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before. 12 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:49.399 A giant, hairy creature party part of mass in Luckness, 13 00:00:49.560 --> 00:00:52.359 a twenty four mile long bottomless lake in the Highlands 14 00:00:52.359 --> 00:00:55.399 of Scotland, gets a creature known as the Luckness Monster. 15 00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:18.760 Monster Talk. 16 00:01:20.280 --> 00:01:23.519 Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm 17 00:01:23.519 --> 00:01:26.120 your host, Blake Smith. As you can probably tell by 18 00:01:26.120 --> 00:01:29.560 that teaser from the television show Lost Tapes, today's topic 19 00:01:29.719 --> 00:01:32.400 is the Jersey Devil and we have a great interview 20 00:01:32.439 --> 00:01:35.200 for you with a scholarly fellow who, with memory serves 21 00:01:35.239 --> 00:01:38.959 as our first three peat guest from the History Department 22 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:41.840 of Keen University in New Jersey. We once again welcome 23 00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:45.040 doctor Brian Riegel, who previously joined us on Monster Talk 24 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:47.280 to discuss the demise of the Wherewolf at the hands 25 00:01:47.319 --> 00:01:50.599 of Charles Darwin and the history of cryptozoology and the 26 00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:55.400 relationships of credentialed scientists and amateur enthusiasts. Brian is an 27 00:01:55.519 --> 00:01:58.799 historian of science with a specialty in human evolution and 28 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:03.480 his relationship to religion in politics and American national origin theories. 29 00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:08.319 He is the author of Searching for Sasquatch, Crackpots, Eggheads, 30 00:02:08.319 --> 00:02:11.159 and Cryptozoology, which just came out in a much more 31 00:02:11.159 --> 00:02:14.159 affordable paperback edition. Check the show notes for a link 32 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:17.840 Moremsttle Welcome back, Brian. 33 00:02:18.919 --> 00:02:19.719 Thanks for having me on. 34 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:22.599 It's a pleasures. It's great to have you back. You've 35 00:02:22.960 --> 00:02:26.159 I think you are a fifth guest. I mean when 36 00:02:26.199 --> 00:02:28.599 we've very first, very first got started, and then you've 37 00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:31.680 been back to talk about your book, and I've kind 38 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:34.400 of followed your work and you just out of the 39 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:36.360 blue surprised me with this work you've done on the 40 00:02:36.439 --> 00:02:39.360 Jersey Devil. So when did you become interested in the 41 00:02:39.439 --> 00:02:40.039 Jersey Devil? 42 00:02:41.199 --> 00:02:44.439 Well, I guess I always was. You know, as growing 43 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:47.199 up in New Jersey, you hear the story early on 44 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:53.439 and it's you know, it's very fun and but about oh, 45 00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:57.039 I guess back in the winter, right after Hurricane Sandy 46 00:02:57.080 --> 00:03:00.319 came through and laid waste to most of the Garden 47 00:03:00.439 --> 00:03:04.840 State and we were we were out of out of 48 00:03:04.919 --> 00:03:07.800 power for over a week. And when it fun I 49 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:10.039 came back on, I had a lot of TV watching 50 00:03:10.080 --> 00:03:14.039 to catch up on, and there was I think it 51 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:17.719 was Monster Quest or one of those shows. They were 52 00:03:17.759 --> 00:03:20.840 doing an episode on the Jersey Devil. So if you 53 00:03:20.919 --> 00:03:23.599 were all sit and watch this, And as I watched it, 54 00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:27.719 it just made me angry because they were putting forward 55 00:03:27.919 --> 00:03:35.199 such such crap, you know, not research, just you know, 56 00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:39.599 like a like a televised version of Wikipedia. And I 57 00:03:40.120 --> 00:03:43.120 yelled at my TV a lot. And I started yelling 58 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:48.039 at my TV, and I said, you know, I'm gonna 59 00:03:48.039 --> 00:03:50.520 have to look into this. And so I decided to 60 00:03:51.479 --> 00:03:53.360 what I needed to do was to do a complete 61 00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:59.800 reassessment of the entire Jersey Devil legend. And so as 62 00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:03.840 a historian, your first instinct always and this is how 63 00:04:03.879 --> 00:04:07.919 you get trained in graduate school, where are the documents. 64 00:04:08.439 --> 00:04:11.120 Look for the documents, look for the correspondence, Look for 65 00:04:11.159 --> 00:04:14.520 the lost papers, you know, look for the notebooks, look 66 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:18.519 for the lost publications. And so I just started digging 67 00:04:18.759 --> 00:04:22.920 and doing what historians do, and very easily, very quickly, 68 00:04:23.639 --> 00:04:25.959 I came up with all those material and I said, no, 69 00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:29.120 why hasn't anybody done this? Why are there people running 70 00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:34.279 around the Pine Barrens thinking they're going to find this thing? 71 00:04:34.680 --> 00:04:36.000 There's nothing after to find? 72 00:04:37.160 --> 00:04:41.160 Hey, hey, hey, you can't just jump into conclusions like that. 73 00:04:41.639 --> 00:04:46.920 Yeah. Yeah, I've already gotten some interesting correspondence over this, 74 00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:49.560 which is which is what I expected. 75 00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:53.319 Well, do you know, listen, I sometimes make the assumption 76 00:04:53.399 --> 00:04:55.920 that with some of the more well known monsters that 77 00:04:55.959 --> 00:04:59.879 everyone who listens to the show knows what these creatures are. Right, 78 00:05:00.040 --> 00:05:02.720 But let's talk about the monster legend for a minute 79 00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:05.720 before we go into the actual history. What is the 80 00:05:05.839 --> 00:05:07.439 legend of the Jersey Devil? 81 00:05:07.800 --> 00:05:18.439 Okay, the accepted standard legend is this. In seventeen thirty five, 82 00:05:19.079 --> 00:05:22.879 outside of Burlington, New Jersey, in a huge forest that 83 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:27.079 is known as the Pine Barrens, a witch named Mother 84 00:05:27.240 --> 00:05:32.399 Leads gave birth to her thirteenth child, and as the 85 00:05:32.480 --> 00:05:36.279 child was breaching. She screams out, Oh, let this one 86 00:05:36.319 --> 00:05:40.279 be a devil. And what comes out is not a baby, 87 00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:44.879 but a sing with a horse like head, a bat 88 00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:49.680 like wings, a long tail, cloven hoofs, and claws. It 89 00:05:50.600 --> 00:05:56.720 yelps menacingly at the astonished, dim witted, dull witted family 90 00:05:56.759 --> 00:06:00.000 who's standing there watching, and then flies up the chimney 91 00:06:00.759 --> 00:06:04.839 and out and disappears, often to the forest, spending the 92 00:06:04.879 --> 00:06:10.160 next several centuries accosting any passers by that happened to 93 00:06:10.319 --> 00:06:15.800 encounter it. Just a basic story, right, and variations on it, 94 00:06:15.839 --> 00:06:16.920 But that's the basic story. 95 00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:22.560 It's a It's not like Bigfoot or a lot of 96 00:06:22.560 --> 00:06:28.439 the other cryptozoological creatures in that there's no population of 97 00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:31.040 these things. It's just one, right, right. 98 00:06:30.879 --> 00:06:35.319 It's it's not really it doesn't conform to the generally 99 00:06:35.319 --> 00:06:37.319 accepted definition of a cryptid. 100 00:06:38.560 --> 00:06:42.839 Yeah, exactly. So. So who is this Leeds family that 101 00:06:42.839 --> 00:06:43.920 that they're talking about. 102 00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:51.000 Well, in the legend, they are a kind of backwoods 103 00:06:51.240 --> 00:06:55.600 hillbilly family living a kind of detached life from the 104 00:06:55.639 --> 00:06:59.000 rest of civilization. When people think of New Jersey, they 105 00:06:59.040 --> 00:07:01.439 think of Bruce brings Me, they think of the sopranos. 106 00:07:01.480 --> 00:07:04.480 They think of the sort of last twenty miles of 107 00:07:04.519 --> 00:07:07.560 the Turnpike in the northeastern part of the state, which 108 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:13.639 is very urban, very industrial, but the lower half of 109 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:18.360 the state, it's essentially a separate state. South Jersey, it's 110 00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:24.519 very agrarian, very forested, very bucolic, and there's a huge 111 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:29.519 swath of pine forest that extends from the Atlantic coast 112 00:07:29.879 --> 00:07:32.639 of from Atlantic City all the way over to Philadelphia. 113 00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:37.839 And it's quite an enormous tract of land and rather 114 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:42.600 sick and as it's called the pine barrens, and it's 115 00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:48.480 not heavily populated. And so the Leeds family were denizens 116 00:07:48.519 --> 00:07:52.920 of the pine barrens, and the Pineys, as they're sometimes 117 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:57.680 rather unfortunately referred to even to this day, are supposedly 118 00:07:57.720 --> 00:08:01.279 like backward people who live in kind of hovels and 119 00:08:01.759 --> 00:08:07.720 you know, not part of the mainstream. And this legend 120 00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:11.399 builds upon this kind of stereotype, and the Leads family 121 00:08:12.040 --> 00:08:15.160 was one of these of these backwards families who were 122 00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:21.720 vaguely thought of to be into the occult and father 123 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:25.680 Leads or sometimes depicted as a drunk, sometimes as a 124 00:08:25.720 --> 00:08:29.680 ship a disgraced ship captain, and so they sort of 125 00:08:29.959 --> 00:08:34.039 in the legend, they conformed to every stereotype of kind 126 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:37.480 of dull witted backwards people. 127 00:08:38.120 --> 00:08:40.879 But they're not. They're not as sophisticated as like your snookies. 128 00:08:42.399 --> 00:08:46.679 Well, because we could probably do a whole other thingment 129 00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:50.919 just on that that they might be the modern equivalent. 130 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:56.399 But the reality is that when this whole story begins, 131 00:08:56.480 --> 00:08:59.360 the actually there really is a Leads family. There are 132 00:08:59.399 --> 00:09:01.679 still people in New Jersey, still people who live in 133 00:09:01.679 --> 00:09:05.159 the pine barrens who are descendants of the Leads family, 134 00:09:05.279 --> 00:09:09.200 So they never really went away. But what I found 135 00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:13.879 was that there's this transformation that takes place which is 136 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:19.360 fairly common in folklore. Not only does the Jersey Devil 137 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:21.840 itself transform from a normal child into the sort of 138 00:09:21.879 --> 00:09:27.039 hideous monster, but the legend transformed the Leads family from 139 00:09:27.240 --> 00:09:31.720 one form into another. The form they get transformed into again, 140 00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:35.240 like I said, this kind of dill witted backwoods people. 141 00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:40.080 But the really fascinating reality is that the Leeds family 142 00:09:40.320 --> 00:09:46.240 in the colonial era were civic leaders. They were aerodyite educated, 143 00:09:46.919 --> 00:09:52.399 They participants of the scientific revolution. They thought they were 144 00:09:52.399 --> 00:09:56.600 bringing astronomy and mathematics to the new world, and they 145 00:09:56.600 --> 00:10:01.399 were the complete opposite of the stereotype that they're that 146 00:10:01.440 --> 00:10:04.960 they're portrayed of as in the in the legend, and 147 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:09.519 far from being sort of dark occultists, they're actually quite 148 00:10:10.320 --> 00:10:14.159 uh active Christians. They start off as Quakers and then 149 00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:15.279 they become Anglicans. 150 00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:18.720 Okay, So so here, so again wanting to kind of 151 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:20.399 set the framework. I love the way you did this 152 00:10:20.399 --> 00:10:22.799 research is really good. So and it's going to be 153 00:10:22.879 --> 00:10:25.240 published very soon in Skeptical Choir. 154 00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:28.919 Looks like, Yeah, there's there's a kind of short popular 155 00:10:29.679 --> 00:10:33.240 version coming out in the next issue of Skeptical in Choir. 156 00:10:33.399 --> 00:10:36.759 That's what they tell me, the September October issue. 157 00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:38.080 Yeah, quite a good story. 158 00:10:38.679 --> 00:10:41.720 And then there's a much longer the peer review version 159 00:10:42.120 --> 00:10:44.639 will be coming out in a journal called New Jersey History, 160 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:47.600 and that's supposed to be the October November issue. 161 00:10:47.679 --> 00:10:50.360 And I have to say, as peer review articles go, 162 00:10:50.519 --> 00:10:54.399 that was really an excellent read. I mean, it was 163 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:58.639 it was completely accessible to someone as a d and 164 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:03.799 as I am. So let's talk about the culture at 165 00:11:03.799 --> 00:11:07.039 the time. So, first of all, what time of American 166 00:11:07.080 --> 00:11:10.559 history are we talking about? Roughly when the real Leeds 167 00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:11.600 family lived there. 168 00:11:11.639 --> 00:11:16.360 We're talking about the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. 169 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:20.919 So that's the sixteen and seventeen hundreds. See I got 170 00:11:20.960 --> 00:11:24.720 it all right, It's always one ahead exactly. So who 171 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:27.799 were the Quakers? Besides their delicious oatmeal? What else did 172 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:28.960 they do well? 173 00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:34.519 The Quakers were They start off as British nonconformist religionists 174 00:11:34.559 --> 00:11:41.360 in the midst of the British Civil War. They sort 175 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:51.159 of reject organized religion and organized authority and decides that Christianity, 176 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:53.799 to their mind, as it was being practiced by the 177 00:11:53.840 --> 00:11:58.000 Anglican Church in England really wasn't doing justice to God 178 00:11:58.120 --> 00:12:01.559 and to Jesus, and so they just to break away 179 00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:07.000 and form their own sect. They're originally called the Friends, 180 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:12.639 but because part of their theology is that each individual 181 00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:15.879 burns with an inner light the interlay of God, and 182 00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:23.039 this interlay causes people to behave in certain ecstatic ways, 183 00:12:23.639 --> 00:12:27.960 and they shake and they move around the meetinghouse, and 184 00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:33.840 detractors said, well, they're quaking with the Lord, and that 185 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:38.559 was meant as an insult. But as often happens in 186 00:12:38.639 --> 00:12:44.480 these situations, people who are called something as an insult 187 00:12:44.559 --> 00:12:48.240 will adopt that phrase to take the insult out of it. 188 00:12:48.519 --> 00:12:51.120 So even they start to refer to themselves as Quakers, 189 00:12:51.759 --> 00:12:54.360 but they were always originally known as the Society of Friends, 190 00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:58.039 and so they were basically a Christian offshoot. 191 00:12:58.279 --> 00:13:02.919 And within that Quaker group there were other sects or 192 00:13:02.960 --> 00:13:05.399 groups that also practice mysticism. 193 00:13:06.519 --> 00:13:11.320 Not really the sort of star or the central character 194 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:15.399 of this whole story is Daniel Leeds. He's the he'll 195 00:13:15.440 --> 00:13:19.039 become the patriarch of the Leeds family in America, and 196 00:13:19.159 --> 00:13:22.279 he's a bit of a mystic. He's very influenced by 197 00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:29.559 German Pietism, which was somebody which comes out around the 198 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:32.360 same time that Quakerism begins to form, but it begins 199 00:13:32.399 --> 00:13:35.320 to form in Germany in Austria, and again these are 200 00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:41.080 people who are sort of breakaway, a breakaway group who 201 00:13:41.320 --> 00:13:44.799 wants to break with mainstream Lutheranism because they thought Lutheranism 202 00:13:44.840 --> 00:13:48.879 had become too corporate and too sort of formulaic and 203 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:54.879 not emotional and mystical enough. And one of their one 204 00:13:54.919 --> 00:13:59.120 of their great philosophers, is this guy, Jakaboem, who writes 205 00:13:59.159 --> 00:14:02.320 a series of books, and Daniel Leeds gets a hold 206 00:14:02.360 --> 00:14:05.840 of this and reads his work and is very influenced 207 00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:11.080 by it and tries to bring a kind of a 208 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:19.000 German Pietists religious flavor to southern New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, 209 00:14:19.559 --> 00:14:24.519 and we'll run into all sorts of resistance from it. 210 00:14:24.559 --> 00:14:27.559 If you want to know the source of Jersey Devil legend, 211 00:14:27.600 --> 00:14:31.559 that's where That's where it is, this sort of clashing 212 00:14:32.240 --> 00:14:38.039 of German Pietism and Quakerism and Anglicanism in the New World. 213 00:14:39.200 --> 00:14:42.039 Yeah, and I know that sounds really odd that somehow 214 00:14:42.039 --> 00:14:44.360 that could lead to the Monster, but yeah, you make 215 00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:46.799 the case very well. So let's let's move the story 216 00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:51.080 forward a little bit. So the first generation of leads 217 00:14:51.399 --> 00:14:57.320 Uh is basically at not war, but they're in conflict 218 00:14:57.320 --> 00:14:58.480 with the Quakers, so. 219 00:14:58.759 --> 00:15:02.320 Right, right, Well, Daniel Leeds is actually born in England 220 00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:07.919 in Leeds, England and his family around the mid sixteen 221 00:15:08.720 --> 00:15:14.759 seventies decide to leave England and they convert to becoming Quakers, 222 00:15:15.039 --> 00:15:17.559 and they decide to leave England come to America to 223 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:21.159 sort of seek their fortune and find their futures, and 224 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:27.879 they arrive in around sixteen seventy six seventy seven. They 225 00:15:27.960 --> 00:15:30.120 go first to New York, which was a fairly common 226 00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:33.279 thing people coming from England and Europe would wind up 227 00:15:33.559 --> 00:15:35.360 in New York for a little while and then sort 228 00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:37.759 of head off to wherever they were going. And so, 229 00:15:38.519 --> 00:15:43.960 because it's already an established Quaker community in southern New 230 00:15:44.039 --> 00:15:47.399 Jersey and the Pine Barns, the Leeds family decides, well, 231 00:15:47.399 --> 00:15:50.759 that's where we'll go because we'll be amongst friends, both 232 00:15:50.759 --> 00:15:54.519 figuratively and literally. And so daniel Leed's like twenty five 233 00:15:54.960 --> 00:15:57.679 when they come over, and so he wants to he's 234 00:15:57.720 --> 00:16:00.879 a devout Quaker and he wants to part of the 235 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:04.519 religious life. And he does what everyone does, is you 236 00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:08.519 join the local meeting and you donate some money, and 237 00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:11.240 you become part of your society, and you buy some land, 238 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:14.159 and you know, you become part of the world you're 239 00:16:14.200 --> 00:16:14.679 moving into. 240 00:16:17.240 --> 00:16:19.679 And then things go wrong. 241 00:16:21.320 --> 00:16:25.960 Yeah. Yeah, Because Leeds is an interesting character, I've been 242 00:16:28.039 --> 00:16:32.159 desperately digging for information, biographical information on him back in England, because, 243 00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:34.080 like I said, he doesn't come over as a child, 244 00:16:34.159 --> 00:16:37.360 and he becomes over as a young man. And I've 245 00:16:37.399 --> 00:16:42.519 been following some some strands strands over there, but I 246 00:16:42.559 --> 00:16:45.600 haven't really been able to put together his early life 247 00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:49.080 in England just yet. But by the time he comes here, 248 00:16:49.120 --> 00:16:52.879 he's already filled with this kind of ecstatic notion. He's 249 00:16:52.919 --> 00:16:58.159 already had several visions of Jesus, uh, you know, he's 250 00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:03.360 seen these kind of missedical images, and he's taking on 251 00:17:03.519 --> 00:17:07.440 this kind of mystical flavor of Quakerism, and that really 252 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:11.279 doesn't sit well with his Quaker neighbors, who are very 253 00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:15.359 sort of black and white and right down the middle. 254 00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:18.279 And despite the fact that they're breaking away from the 255 00:17:18.279 --> 00:17:24.359 Anglican world, they're still fairly conservative. There's still fairly no 256 00:17:24.359 --> 00:17:27.359 nonsense in their Christianity. And along comes this guy Leads, 257 00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:32.759 who's talking about visions and Pietism, and Leads is a 258 00:17:32.799 --> 00:17:36.240 guy who is very interested in the mystical aspect of 259 00:17:36.319 --> 00:17:41.480 Christianity and coupling with that this kind of urge as 260 00:17:41.480 --> 00:17:44.920 people like this often have to tell people to tell 261 00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:49.000 others what he's up to. And so in sixteen eighty 262 00:17:49.039 --> 00:17:52.720 seven he decides to start publishing an almanac, which. 263 00:17:52.680 --> 00:17:58.039 No almanacs were that Centuri's version of Twitter. Right, Yeah, they. 264 00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:02.359 Were social medias. They were they were meant and at 265 00:18:02.359 --> 00:18:07.480 their core, an almanac was meant to be a handbook 266 00:18:07.480 --> 00:18:11.160 for farmers, because what you did was you calculate using 267 00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:16.440 astronomy and mathematics, you would calculate in astrology, you would 268 00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:19.799 calculate for a whole year, when the sun was going 269 00:18:19.839 --> 00:18:21.480 to come up, when the sun was going to go down, 270 00:18:21.519 --> 00:18:24.119 when winter would start, you know, all the sort of thing, 271 00:18:24.200 --> 00:18:27.640 because in the grarian community you need to know this 272 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:32.440 stuff for sure survival. And when the almanacs start being 273 00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:36.240 published in England, very quickly they become more than just 274 00:18:36.839 --> 00:18:38.640 these lists of when the sun's going to go up 275 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:43.440 and come down, and almanac publishers start including little stories 276 00:18:43.720 --> 00:18:47.920 and jokes and all sorts of information, and so Leeds 277 00:18:47.920 --> 00:18:54.039 builds his almanac around that model, and he starts putting 278 00:18:54.039 --> 00:18:58.039 into their things about medical astrology. And you know, it 279 00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:03.240 really quite came in the in the in the one 280 00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:06.079 article that that I that I said to the copy 281 00:19:06.119 --> 00:19:08.880 of I referred to him as a as a Christian occultist. 282 00:19:09.559 --> 00:19:14.119 And that's because he's not. But he's not a dark magician. 283 00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:15.079 Uh. 284 00:19:15.200 --> 00:19:17.400 There were quite a few people then and still to 285 00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:21.680 this day who see the occult as a way of 286 00:19:21.799 --> 00:19:25.680 gaining greater insight into Christianity. They don't see it as 287 00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:28.400 a kind of dark art at all. But if you 288 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:32.839 if you are a straight forward, mainstream Christian. You hear 289 00:19:32.880 --> 00:19:35.079 the word of cult, you go crazy because you think, 290 00:19:35.079 --> 00:19:37.119 oh my god, they're devil worshipers are doing this or 291 00:19:37.160 --> 00:19:40.319 doing that. And so he gets into quite a bit 292 00:19:40.359 --> 00:19:43.480 of trouble with his neighbors over publishing this almanac because 293 00:19:43.480 --> 00:19:46.519 they think it's to a cult and astrological. 294 00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:48.680 And and and I believe you wrote that they actually 295 00:19:48.759 --> 00:19:51.079 had a problem with him trying to predict the weather. 296 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:55.640 Yeah, because the prediction is thought of as this kind 297 00:19:55.680 --> 00:19:59.119 of negative thing to do that you shouldn't be doing this. 298 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:02.079 It's like a prophet or right, gotcha. 299 00:20:02.519 --> 00:20:04.519 Yeah, the Quaker's had some issues with prophecy. 300 00:20:05.319 --> 00:20:12.200 But when I think about American almanacs, Leeds family Almanac's 301 00:20:12.240 --> 00:20:13.680 not the one that comes to mind. 302 00:20:13.960 --> 00:20:14.599 No, it does not. 303 00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:17.759 Yeah, so tell us about that, because the whole story 304 00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:20.960 of his son and the relationship we had with Ben 305 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:22.640 Franklin I found fascinating. 306 00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:25.920 Right, Well, there's there's a whole thing that goes on. 307 00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:31.880 The Quakers actually buy up all the copies of his almanac, 308 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:34.720 first issue of it and burn it because they think 309 00:20:34.759 --> 00:20:38.119 it's so bad. And he will not be deterred, and 310 00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:41.200 he just keeps on going. Leeds is very lucky because 311 00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:43.519 the sort of the cosmic gears turn in just the 312 00:20:43.559 --> 00:20:48.079 right way, because a few years after he arrives, William 313 00:20:48.079 --> 00:20:51.839 Bradford shows up, and William Bradford goes down in American 314 00:20:51.960 --> 00:20:54.960 history as one of the first major printers that comes 315 00:20:54.960 --> 00:20:57.079 to the New World. He brings a printing press with 316 00:20:57.160 --> 00:21:00.559 him from England and they hit it off, come friends, 317 00:21:00.599 --> 00:21:03.200 and so Bradford's like, well, I'll just I'll keep publishing this. 318 00:21:04.039 --> 00:21:07.319 I'm not going to stop. And so the Leads Almanac 319 00:21:07.359 --> 00:21:11.680 becomes rather popular despite the Quaker father's being upset with it. 320 00:21:12.240 --> 00:21:16.440 And then in sixty eighty eight, Leads publishes a book, 321 00:21:17.119 --> 00:21:19.440 in fact, the first book ever published in New Jersey. 322 00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:21.519 Now that's one of the things that is really so 323 00:21:21.559 --> 00:21:26.079 interesting about this that the Leads family are pioneers, not 324 00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:29.240 just in New Jersey history, but in colonial American history, 325 00:21:30.079 --> 00:21:35.279 pioneers as religious activists, as writers, as publishers. The Leeds 326 00:21:35.319 --> 00:21:37.880 Almanac is the first almanac ever published in New Jersey, 327 00:21:37.960 --> 00:21:40.039 not the first in America, but the first in New Jersey. 328 00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:42.599 And in sixty eighty eight he writes a book called 329 00:21:42.599 --> 00:21:45.880 The Temple of Wisdom, where he tries to explain all 330 00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:49.799 this Pietists and mystical thought to his neighbors, and that 331 00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:54.079 goes down even worse than the Almanac did. They banned 332 00:21:54.359 --> 00:21:57.039 his book. The Quaker fathers of New Jersey banned his book. 333 00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:01.680 They publicly refer to day Leads as evil for what 334 00:22:01.720 --> 00:22:06.240 he's doing, and this causes Leads to quit Quakerism and disgust, 335 00:22:06.759 --> 00:22:10.039 and rather than just walk away from them, he decides 336 00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:14.319 to become a Quaker critic and he starts publishing books 337 00:22:14.319 --> 00:22:16.680 sort of attack what we would say called attack literature, 338 00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:21.960 claiming that the Quakers are bad people, and they steal 339 00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:25.079 from merchants, and they're adulters and all these horrible things. 340 00:22:25.240 --> 00:22:29.200 And this goes on for some years, and it's it's 341 00:22:30.079 --> 00:22:34.440 so the first scandal mongering in American history to rival 342 00:22:34.480 --> 00:22:39.160 any of the stuff that goes on today in the media. 343 00:22:39.319 --> 00:22:44.960 And what happens this years go by and round, oh 344 00:22:45.519 --> 00:22:51.000 seventeen fourteen, Daniel Les decides to retire and he turns 345 00:22:51.160 --> 00:22:54.920 the Almanac over to his son, Titan Leeds. He's got 346 00:22:54.920 --> 00:23:00.519 a bunch of kids, Daniel Leeds does. His wives don't well. 347 00:23:01.119 --> 00:23:04.799 All of his wives die early except for one, Jane. 348 00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:08.680 She has like eight kids, and then drops dead after 349 00:23:08.720 --> 00:23:13.079 the After that, Vanie Leeds turns the almanac over to 350 00:23:13.119 --> 00:23:16.799 his youngest son, Titan Leads. This is around seventeen to fourteen, 351 00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:21.480 and Titan isn't quite the anti Quaker that his father is. 352 00:23:21.519 --> 00:23:25.519 He's just happy to keep publishing the almanac. Titan Leeds 353 00:23:25.599 --> 00:23:31.880 is an astronomer, he's a mathematician, and around about oh 354 00:23:32.839 --> 00:23:39.160 seventeen thirty three he gets into an almanac feud, and 355 00:23:39.200 --> 00:23:41.200 he gets into an almanac feud with none other than 356 00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:45.640 Ben Franklin. Because this is early on in Franklin's career, 357 00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:48.599 and the Leeds Almanac is the most popular one in 358 00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:53.319 New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, and Franklin wants to start 359 00:23:53.599 --> 00:23:55.759 an almanac of his own because he knows it's lucrative. 360 00:23:55.759 --> 00:23:58.440 He can make money off of these things. They're very popular. 361 00:23:58.640 --> 00:24:01.400 They say they're they're cheap to me, and they sell 362 00:24:01.759 --> 00:24:05.359 very well. And so he is going to do Poor 363 00:24:05.440 --> 00:24:09.640 Richard's Almanac. He creates his character, which he actually steals 364 00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:14.359 from a from a London almanac, Richard Saunders, Poor Richard Saunders, 365 00:24:14.799 --> 00:24:21.079 and in the very first issue, Franklin says, in speaking 366 00:24:21.079 --> 00:24:23.960 through the voice of Richard Saunders, Poor Richard. He says, 367 00:24:24.480 --> 00:24:29.160 my friend Titan Leads, I have calculated according to astrology, 368 00:24:29.680 --> 00:24:32.119 and Titan Lee is going to die within the year, 369 00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:37.279 and he even gives a date. And of course the 370 00:24:37.400 --> 00:24:40.160 date comes and goes, and titanle doesn't die. And so 371 00:24:40.279 --> 00:24:42.720 Titan Leeds says, oh, this Franklin, he's a fool, he's 372 00:24:42.759 --> 00:24:48.119 a liar. And Franklin never misses a beat. He keeps 373 00:24:48.200 --> 00:24:52.319 straight face, and he says, no, Titan Leaves did die. 374 00:24:52.920 --> 00:24:56.119 And this person who is calling me all these horrible 375 00:24:56.200 --> 00:24:59.920 names is the ghost of Titan Leads. And this just 376 00:25:00.400 --> 00:25:03.200 makes Titan he's crazy, but there's nothing he can do 377 00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:06.400 about it. You know. He's fumes in public about this 378 00:25:06.519 --> 00:25:10.319 crazy Franklin, and Franklin just keeps a straight face and says, well, 379 00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:14.200 you know, my old friend Titan he's gone. But this 380 00:25:14.200 --> 00:25:16.759 this person running around isn't really a person. He's he's 381 00:25:16.799 --> 00:25:22.240 a sorcerer risen from the dead. And all Titan Leads 382 00:25:22.279 --> 00:25:26.880 can do is kind of fume and not react. Well, 383 00:25:26.920 --> 00:25:30.640 everybody gets a joke, he doesn't. But what happens is 384 00:25:30.680 --> 00:25:35.000 that Franklin's ploy works. Poor Richard's Olman act becomes the 385 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:38.640 most famous in American history, and the Titan and the 386 00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:40.359 leads Omanact is completely forgotten. 387 00:25:41.039 --> 00:25:43.400 I think the story amuses me on a couple of levels. 388 00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:47.480 You know. Obviously, Franklin's reputation is one that you know, 389 00:25:47.519 --> 00:25:49.599 you learn about in elementary school, and then as you 390 00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:52.279 get older you learn whoa This was quite an interesting 391 00:25:52.319 --> 00:25:54.519 person on a lot of levels. 392 00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:57.079 And far more complex than most people give him credit for. 393 00:25:57.720 --> 00:26:02.400 Yeah, I'll say so. I've read a lot of his writing, 394 00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:07.240 and some of it's quite body. Yeah. 395 00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:10.799 So, you know, if you were I always tell my students, 396 00:26:11.119 --> 00:26:12.880 I said, you know, if I couldn't meet any of 397 00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:15.480 the family fathers, it's got to be Franklin. 398 00:26:16.839 --> 00:26:18.160 Yeah, he would be great to me. 399 00:26:18.279 --> 00:26:20.880 First, you love to drink. He loved to, you know, 400 00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:24.799 pinch women's behind. He loved a good meal. You know, 401 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:26.559