The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

04/11/2024

(November 4) in 1924, Nellie Tayloe Ross and Miriam Amanda "Ma" Ferguson are elected to be the first women governors in the United States of America.

There is some debate over which one gets to be the first. Texas says Ferguson is first, because their pollslosed earlier. Wyoming says Ross is first, because she was sworn into office earlier.

Neither campaign was exactly inspiring. Ross was a widow picked as an emergency replacement for her late husband; Ferguson was a proxy for her corrupt husband who was prohibited from holding state office.

Nor was either effective in office.

Still, someone has to be first!

(We told the whole story in the episode "Run the World": https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/run-the-world/)

21/10/2024

The Sanctified Band was driven from their homes on Chincoteague Island, forced to live in floating arks, and persecuted up and down the Eastern Seaboard... and all they really wanted was freedom to worship as they pleased.

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/wild-frantics/

Key sources for this episode include Harry J. Collins, Jr. and Floyd L. Hagan, Sr.'s History of Christ's Santified Holy Church; Kirk Mariner's Once Upon an Island: The Story of Chincoteague; Vinson Synan's The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States; and contemporary newspaper reports.

This week we're promoting our friends the Apocrypals -- a podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible but try not to be jerks about it. Join comics writers Benito Cereno and Chris Sims as they journey through the Good Book from Acts to Zephaniah, with stops in the Apocrypha along the way.https://apocrypals.libsyn.com

20/10/2024

On This Day (October 20) in 1864, the British "extreme clipper" Sea King stops in Madeira for coaling, where she is sold to the Confederate States of America and transformed into the Confederacy's final commerce raider: the CSS Shenandoah.

For the next year the Shenandoah is the terror of the Seven Seas, capturing dozens of ships and crippling the whaling industry. In one week alone they capture over twenty-five ships in the Arctic Ocean.

Alas most of those prizes are taken after the Confederacy falls, making them illegitimate. The Shenandoah has been just ahead of the news for months, and when it finally catches up to them they have a major freakout.

(We discussed the strange round-the-world voyage of the Shenandoah in the episode "The Sea King." https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/the-sea-king/)

10/10/2024

On This Day (October 10) in 1774, a militia commanded by Colonel Andrew Lewis defeats an army of Shawnee braves at the confluence of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers, the site of modern-day Point Pleasant, WV.

The battle rages all day, and Virginians' losses are terrible; some 75 are killed and another 140 are wounded. The Shawnee only lose 40 braves but fail to dislodge the Virginians, who are soon reinforced.

The Battle of Point Pleasant is the only major military action of Lord Dunmore's War, which establishes a fragile peace along the frontier which is then blown up six months later by the start of the American Revolution.

(We discuss Lord Dunmore's War and the Battle of Point Pleasant in "The First Battle of the American Revolution." https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/the-first-battle-of-the-american-revolution/)

07/10/2024

This week we wrap up our look into Confederate skulduggery with a grab bag of smaller plots: Staging fake peace conferences at Niagara Falls! Robbing banks in Vermont! Burning New York! Kidnapping the vice president!

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/surprised-and-excited/

(This episode is the third and final part of Rapscallions!, a series about Confederate cloak-and-dagger operations in the final year of the Civil War.)

Key sources for this episode include Adam Mayers' Dixie and the Dominion: Canada, the Confederacy, and the War for the Union; Michelle Arnosky Sherburne's The St. Albans Raid: Confederate Attack on Vermont Oscar Arvle Kinchen's Daredevils of the Confederate Army: The Story of the St. Albans Raiders; and William A Tidwell's April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War.

04/10/2024

This was supposed to be a field trip to the the Erie Maritime Museum, but it mostly wound up being about a latke the size of my head.

These articles and episodes are ©2019-2024 by their respective authors, and published by the Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope. They are licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License. All rights reserved, all wrongs reversed.Designed by #13 at Lodge #777.

04/10/2024

On this day (October 4) in 1884, John Ballou Newbrough founds the Shalam Colony in Dona Ana County, NM.

To Newbrough, a dentist and Spiritualist who has produced a new scripture through automatic writing, Shalam is the culmination of a prophecy. Here he will raise perfect children who will lead the world into a new age of peace and harmony.

It does not go well. Newbrough and his followers do not know the first thing about farming and are not inclined to learn. In the end the entire colony is kept afloat through the largesse of New England millionaire Andrew Moore Howland.

The colony somehow manages to survive for two decades despite the death of Newbrough in 1891, several legal reversals, and the loss of most of the colonists. By 1907, though, Howland can no longer keep it running and shutters it forever.

(You can read the whole story of Newbrough, the Oashpe, and Shalam at http://order-of-the-jackalope.com/suffer-little-children)

02/10/2024

On this day (October 2) in 1974 Herb Washington is picked off during Game 2 of the World Series.

Herb, a track star and the fastest man in the world, had been signed before the season by the Oakland A's to serve as the team's "designated runner" who will pinch-run and steal bases. He proves to have no real talent for either.

The World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers is Herb's first national exposure, and he blows it. In Game 2 he is sent in to pinch run during the top of the 9th, and is immediately picked off by Mike Marshal. Herb throws a tantrum.

Herb makes two more appearances in the series but does not steal any bases or score. The following season he appears in a few early season games but is quickly cut from the roster on May 2.

(For the whole tale of "Hurricane" Herb's unusual baseball career see https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/hurricane-coming-through/

23/09/2024

The only thing standing between John Yates Beall and the Confederate prisoners-of-war on Johnson's Island was the USS Michigan... Well, that and a terrible con man and the cowardice of his own men.

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/resist-at-your-peril/

(This episode is part two of Rapscallions!, a three-part series about Confederate cloak-and-dagger operations in the final year of the Civil War. Part three will be released on 10/7.)

Key sources for this episode include Adam Mayers' Dixie and the Dominion: Canada, the Confederacy, and the War for the Union; John Bell's Rebels on the Great Lakes: Confederate Naval Commando Operations Launched from Canada, 1863-1864; Duane Schultz's The Dahlgren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War; William A. Tidwell's April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War; and The Memoir of John Yates Beall: His Life, Trial; Correspondence, Diary, and Private Manuscript Found Among His Papers, Including His Own Account of the Raid on Lake Erie.

20/09/2024

Guess who went on a field trip? Yep! Six weeks ago we went to the Morgan Surrender site in West Point, Ohio... and it was, uh, something.

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/end-of-the-line/

14/09/2024

Rowena Morrill was born on this day (September 14) in 1944.

Rowena attended the University of Delaware and gruadated with a fine arts degree. She eventually became a reknowned genre painter whose work graced the cover of hundreds of romance, horror, fantasy, and science fiction novels.

Alas, the general public remembers her primarily for one thing: that two of her paintings were discovered hanging on the wall of one of Saddam Hussein's Baghdad townhouses, which his sons Uday and Qusay used as a "love nest."

In the end, it turned out the paintings were just reproductions, but before that was discovered commentators used them to mock Saddam's taste, and didn't seem to care that they were also destroying Rowena's reputation.

(You can check out the whole sordid story in the episode "Saddam's Favorite Artist": http://order-of-the-jackalope.com/saddams-favorite-artist)

09/09/2024

Thomas Henry Hines had a cunning plan to free Confederate prisoners-of-war and break the Northwest off of the Union. All he needed were sixty good men, five hundred footsoldiers, and friends on the inside. Too bad none of those groups existed.

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/patience-is-sour/

(This episode is part one of Rapscallions!, a three-part series about Confederate cloak-and-dagger operations in the final year of the Civil War. Parts two and three will be released on 9/23 and 10/7 respectively.)

Key sources for this episode include Adam Mayers' Dixie and the Dominion: Canada, the Confederacy, and the War for the Union; David C. Keehn's Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War; Duane Schultz's The Dahglren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War; James D. Horan's Confederate Agent: A Discovery in History; and William A. Tidwell's April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War.

This week we're promoting our friends at Between Two Sterns -- where Jared Stern and Jared Stern talk to each other about their week, and then seek out other Jared Sterns around the world to see what they've been up to! https://jaredstern.com/between-two-sterns/

Also! I'll be presenting at the Intelligent Speech conference on February 8, 2025! If you register at https://intelligentspeechonline.com/ before the end of September you can get a special early bird rate-- and lucky you can take an extra 10% off that with the promo code JACKALOPE!

08/09/2024

Which historical fallacy do YOU wish was better known?
Join us ar IS 2025 to hear this question answered by many of your favourite podcasters!


https://buff.ly/3XAyfjV

04/09/2024

On this date (September 4) in 1849, Maria Monk dies in a women's prison on Blackwell's Island in New York.

In 1835, two American Protestant missionaries are approached by Monk, who relates a sob story claiming to be a former nun subjected to mental, physical, and s*xual abuse in Montreal's Hotel Dieu nunnery.

The missionaries "rescue" Monk, take her to New York, and tell her tales to the newspapers. Monk's disclosures spark a wave of anti-Catholic hysteria that sweeps across the nation for two years.

In the end her claims are easily disproved by neutral parties, both Catholic and Protestant. Monk, as it turns out, is not an ex-nun but a mentally ill pr******te and serial fabulist.

Afterwards Monk returns to prostitution, and in July 1849 she is arrested after attempting to pickpocket a sailor in a Five Points wh******se. While drying out in jail she has a fit of delirium tremens and dies.

(You can learn more specifics in our "Nuns on the Run" episode about the whole sordid affair. https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/the-awful-disclosures-of-maria-monk/)

19/08/2024

Legend says Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury (1661-1723) was New York's worst governor: a nepo baby failson; a bully and bigot; a corrupt spendthrift; a s*x pest with an ear fe**sh. Was he really all that awful?

And was he actually a transvestite?

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/universally-detested/

Key sources for this episode include Patricia Bonomi's The Lord Cornbury Scandal: The Politics of Reputation in British America; Alan Taylor's Writing Early American History; Charles Worthen Spencer's "The Cornbury Legend"; John Grant Wilson's The Memorial History of the City of New York from Its First Settlement to the Year 1892; and Shelley Ross's Fall from Grace: S*x, Scandal and Corruption in American Politics from 1702 to the Present.

Special thanks to the Initiates who contributed their voice talents to this episode: #2 Robert White, Richard Le Poidevin (of "The Curiosity of...?!"), #7, Dorothy White, Kristen Harkness, and Mary Anne White.

This week we're promoting our friends Imperfect Men, the show about the heroes, legends, and sometimes utter goobers who actually founded America. Join Steve and Cody every other week as they figure out who's a Founding Father and who's a Floundering Father. https://shows.acast.com/imperfect-men

08/07/2024

We're taking a nice long break between Series 13 and Series 14... so until then, why not check out one of these eighteen things we like?

These articles and episodes are ©2019-2024 by their respective authors, and published by the Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope. They are licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License. All rights reserved, all wrongs reversed.Designed by #13 at Lodge #777.

27/05/2024

For our milestone episode #100 we contemplate one of the most confounding conundrums of our age... How old is Charo, really?

00:00 Intro
00:32 Banter
02:00 Nothing But A Number
02:32 God I Feel Old
05:09 All That Matters is How Young Your Feel
07:44 I Don't Actually Care
10:28 Sources
10:48 Special Thanks
12:56 Outro

Key sources for this episode include Wikipedia and contemporary newspaper reports.

Full sources, transcript, links, and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/nothing-but-a-number/

A special thanks to everyone who helped us reach this amazing milestone, including: A.J. Sutton, Alex Baumans, Charlotte Lochinski, Chris White, David Blomenberg, David L. White, Dorothy White, Eric Leslie, Fearful Jesuit, Greg Armstrong, Jenn Voss, Jim Munizza, Kieran Davy, Kristen Harkness, Liz Roberts, Michael Finney, Richard Le Poidevin, Rob Brunksill, Robert B. White III, Robert Sibole, Rod Miller, Sam Link, Steven White, Tom Hand, Zane C. Weber... and you, our wonderful listeners.

After this episode we're going on hiatus for a few months. We'll be back in mid-August with a fresh series of all-new episodes!

Part of the That's Not Canon Productions podcast network. https://thatsnotcanon.com/

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Email: [email protected]

06/05/2024

In the early Twentieth Century, Joe Magarac was the American steel industry's answer to Paul Bunyan. And then it was discovered he might not be an authentic folk tale, but a relatively recent invention...

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/jackass-forever/

Key sources for this episode include Owen Francis's "The Saga of Joe Magarac: Steelman"; Jennifer Gilley and Stephen Burnet's "Deconstructing and Reconstructing Pittsburgh's Man of Steel: Reading Joe Magarac Against the Context of the 20th-Century Steel Industry"; Kevin J. Patrick's "Joe Magarac and the Spirit of Pittsburgh"; and Marshal W. Fishwick's "Sons of Paul: Folklore or Fakelore?".

Part of the That's Not Canon Productions podcast network. https://thatsnotcanon.com/

15/04/2024

"Wyoming's own midget mummy" was found in the San Pedro Mountains in 1932 and mystified thousands before disappearing in 1950. but what was he? A little person, a baby, a fake? And where the heck did he get off to?

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/vote-for-pedro/

00:00 Intro
00:32 Vote For Pedro
06:46 The Rest of the Story
16:22 ¿Dónde es Pedro?
20:36 Chiquita
23:40 Sources
23:59 Connections
24:18 Outro

Key sources for this episode include Aaron Mahnke's The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures; Charles J. Cazeau and Stuart D. Scott's Exploring the Unknown: Great Mysteries Reexamined; Jeremy Fugelberg's "The Mysterious Pedro Mountain Mummy"; Richard Marshall's Mysteries of the Unexplained; and contemporary newspaper reports.

And sincere apologies to the Cryptonaturalist (https://www.cryptonaturalist.com/) for biting his style.

Part of the That's Not Canon Productions podcast network. https://thatsnotcanon.com/

08/04/2024

In 2022, we took a trip to Dearborn to see the Dymaxion House in person at the Henry Ford Museum. https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/henry-ford-museum-greenfield-village/

01/04/2024

The Dymaxion House may have failed, but other companies did quite well by referencing it in their advertising... even if some of those ads were more than a little sarcastic.

25/03/2024

R. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House was a marvel of modern technology that promised to create freedom by liberating the mind and curing all of society's problems... so why aren't you living in one right now?

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/fuller-houses/

Key sources for this episode include Jonathon Keats' You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future; Lloyd Steven Sieden's Buckminster Fuller's Universe: His Life and His Work; and Michael Brian Schiffer's Spectacular Flops: Game-Changing Technologies That Failed... but especially Lorettta Lorance's Becoming Bucky Fuller, which is both the most thorough and most critical biography of Fuller and definitely worth checking out.

04/03/2024

Paul Otlet had a vision of an system that could search all the information ever created, from anywhere in the world, at the touch of a button... Too bad the most advanced technologies at his disposal were index cards.

Transcript, links, and more at:
https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/steampunk-google-and-the-world-city/

Key sources for this episode include Alex Wright’s Cataloging the World: Paul Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age; Françoise Levie’s L’homme qui voulait classer le monde: Paul Otlet et le Mundaneum; Paul Otlet’s Traité de documentation: Le livre sur le livre; Paul Otlet, Fondateur du Mundaneum, Architecte du savoir, Artisan de paix; and the newspaper archive of the KBR.

Presented by #42 (Alex Baumans). Pathologically interested in anything unusual and obscure. Closet goth, armchair general and amateur theologian. Favorite animals are ducks, octopodes and pigs. You will also find me surprisingly knowledgable about K-Pop girl groups.

Special thanks to the Collection Mundaneum in Mons for their assistance (http://www.mundaneum.org/en) and for providing images for our use. This episode is released under a Creative Commons except for the images, which may not be reproduced without the express permission of the Mundaneum.

Part of the That's Not Canon Productions podcast network. https://thatsnotcanon.com/

12/02/2024

Everyone knows the first battles of the American Revolution were Lexington and Concord... unless, that is, you live in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/the-first-battle-of-the-american-revolution/

Key sources for this episode include Randolf C. Downes's "Dunmore's War: An Interpretation"; J.T. McAllister's "The Battle of Point Pleasant"; Virgil Lewis's History of the Battle of Point Pleasant, Fought Between White Men and Indians at the Mouth of the Great Kanawha River (Now Point Pleasant, West Virginia) Monday, October 10, 1774; Glen Williams' Dunmore's War: The Last Conflict of America's Colonial Era; and West Virginia History's "Manufactured History: Re-Fighting the Battle of Point Pleasant".

Part of the That's Not Canon Productions podcast network. https://thatsnotcanon.com/

22/01/2024

In which a mysterious lost people living in the mountains of Tennessee turn out to not be so mysterious after all... and maybe not even all that lost, if the Internet can be believed.

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/neither-here-nor-there/

Key sources for this episode include Anita Puckett's "The Melungeon Identity Movement and the Construction of Appalachian Whiteness", Ariela Gross's "Of Portuguese Origin: Litigating Identity and Citizenship among the Little Races in Nineteenth-Century America", Brewton Berry's Almost White, Jean Patterson Bible's Melungeons Yesterday and Today, Katherine Vande Brake's Through the Back Door: Melungeon Literacies and Twenty-First Century Technologies, Melissa Schrift's Becoming Melungeon: Making an Ethnic Identity in the Appalachian South, N. Brent Kennedy's The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People, Tim Hashaw's Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed America, and Will Allen Dromgoole's The Malungeon Tree and Its Four Branches.

Part of the That's Not Canon Productions podcast network. https://thatsnotcanon.com/