Episode 55: Benjamin Franklin's Surprising Subterranean Mystery

Who would've thought that a discussion about Benjamin Franklin's quirky eating habits could lead to an unsettling discovery in his London basement? Join Phoenix and I, Smarticus, as we munch through Franklin's amusing cranberry and apple cravings and ponder over his patriotic poultry proposal. But brace yourselves, for our conversation takes an eerie twist when we recount the hair-raising tale of over 1,200 human bones found beneath Franklin's residence. Get ready to sip on some 'crapple juice' and tackle a historical whodunit that's as captivating as it is creepy.

In the spirit of curiosity, we're toasting to the past and inviting you to bring your burning historical questions to the table. Be sure to subscribe and leave your mark with a review; our Facebook community awaits your presence for the freshest anecdotes from yesteryear. We promise to keep the stories riveting and the mysteries unraveling, as we cherish your company on these thrilling expeditions through the annals of time. Thanks for tuning in to 'Smarticus Tells History', where every episode is a clink to knowledge and intrigue.

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Transcript

Ben Franklin's Basement Bones

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Smartacus.

Speaker 2 0:03

Tells History.

Speaker 1 0:06

Alright, enough with the echo and fanfare. You're here for history, right, and not that boring crap you learned in high school. This stuff's actually interesting, like things you've never heard about the Civil War, cleopatra, automobiles, monopoly, the Black Plague and more Fascinating stories, interesting topics and some downright weird facts from the past. It's a new twist on some stories you may know and an interesting look at some things you may have never heard. So grab a beer, kick back and enjoy. Here's your host.

Speaker 2 0:39

Smarticus. Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to another exciting episode of Smarticus Tells History. I am your host, smarticus, accompanied by my co-host, phoenix. Hello, an unfolding and jolly old London is where the story takes place today. Join us as we delve into the curious secrets discovered in Benjamin Franklin's London home basement, but only after we talk about the drink that we picked for this episode.

Speaker 3 1:08

And why we picked it.

Speaker 2 1:10

Yes.

Speaker 3 1:11

So we did some digging into Ben Franklin's preferred foods and beverages and come to find out he loved a snack on cranberries and apples. Like, like a squirrel is what I'm getting out of that.

Speaker 2 1:25

Yeah, it says he preferred to snack on them all the time and his, but his actual all-time favorite food was turkey and I didn't want to do turkey. You know, I don't think Phoenix wanted to do turkey either.

Speaker 3 1:39

I would have done it for you, Smarticus.

Speaker 2 1:41

So well, I didn't want to. So I honestly thought about well, honestly, like we just go to go get turkey deli meat, just make sandwiches out of it. I didn't want to do that um and uh, but he loved turkey so much that he actually suggested that it should be our national symbol. Did you know that?

Speaker 3 2:03

I did, I did, I did. Yeah. I further read in other places that the other founding fathers were like Ben. You know my brother in Christ. No, Simmer down.

Speaker 2 2:19

That's not happening. It's not always all about turkey.

Speaker 3 2:23

Ben, oh my gosh. Speaking of turkey, do you know how dumb they are?

Speaker 2 2:26

Yeah, they're pretty dumb. I mean like I read somewhere that they'll, if they hold their head up somewhere and it's raining, they'll, drown.

Speaker 3 2:36

Domesticated turkeys. Wild ones don't do it, but domesticated turkeys if they are. If it starts to rain and something taps on their head, they go what's that? With their mouth open like an idiot, and then they drown because they don't bother to look down.

Speaker 2 2:49

Jeez, that's ridiculous, it is Anyway sorry readers, Listeners, not readers.

Speaker 3 2:55

We're drinking Cran Apple Juice.

Speaker 2 2:58

Oh yeah, we didn't get to that. So yeah, so, and that's actually one of my favorite drinks.

Speaker 3 3:03

I love it too. Yeah, and that's actually one of my favorite drinks.

Speaker 2 3:10

I love it too Quite lately, I've been just drinking the snot out of it. It's really good for your kidneys, I hear. Yeah, I was going to say not just for the kidney stone aspects, but because it just tastes good and it is more or less healthy for you. I like tart drinks.

Speaker 3 3:23

They make me happy, yeah, but anyways, I mean healthy for you. I like tart drinks.

Speaker 2 3:26

They make me happy, yeah, but anyways. So that's what we chose. We chose apple and cranberry juice. I like to call it crapple juice.

Speaker 1 3:34

Because why not?

Speaker 2 3:36

Because why not, but it's usually. I mean you can put however amount of whatever in it you want. I usually do about half and half. Sometimes I'll do, sometimes I'll do about a third of cranberry juice and the rest apple juice, but this time I think I put more, half, more, half and half. But, it tastes great.

Speaker 3 3:56

I bought the already packaged together stuff.

Speaker 2 3:59

Oh yeah, I don't do that, I mix. I buy them separately and then mix them.

Speaker 3 4:03

Oh, that one's a purist.

Speaker 2 4:06

I was going to say, because I'm stingy like that, you're weird.

Speaker 3 4:12

We don't associate with you.

Speaker 2 4:14

Yeah, there you go Buy that package crap. It was even better, it was even worse. We got the generic Kroger brand. It's not even name brand, it's generic. What kind of crap is that?

Speaker 3 4:36

and you know what? I'm not sorry, I pinched those pennies hard I made them squeal.

Speaker 2 4:40

It's oceans and mods, or nothing else I'm a heathen, I'm sorry, it's all right, I'll let it slide thank you, I appreciate that well.

Speaker 3 4:54

Benjamin franklin was a polymath, statesman and a founding father of the united states. He is celebrated for his contributions to science, politics and literature. But in 1998, I know it seems so like so close. I was reading, I started just when I was doing the research. I was like 1998? 98.

Speaker 2 5:19

Really, don't worry, I'm definitely not Googling what a polymath is. It's a person of wide range knowledge and learning. In case anybody else was wondering you didn't know that, I didn't know that You're so precious. I was like what the hell is a polymath? I'll be honest, I thought it was some sex thing or something. To be honest, I was like what the hell's a polymath? I'll be honest, I thought it was some sex thing, or something to be honest.

Speaker 3 5:40

I was waiting for you to say it.

Speaker 2 5:42

I was like I hear he was pretty crazy. I wouldn't have put it past him.

Speaker 3 5:47

But in 1998, a group of construction workers were working on conservation repairs of Franklin's former Craven Street home. As they excavated the basement, they stumbled upon a startling find Over 1,200 human bones, neatly arranged in a pit. The discovery sent shockwaves to the historical community and ignited a wave of speculation.

Speaker 2 6:11

The bones believed to be from the late 18th century posed a mystery that captivated historians and archaeologists alike. Questions swirled who were these individuals and how did their remains end up in the basement of one of America's most iconic figures? Was Benjamin Franklin? A serial killer Was also asked.

Speaker 3 6:30

A coroner examined them first and found that they were over 100 years old. That meant that there was no need for an investigation to ascertain whether these people were newly missing. After that, the Franklin House team invited Dr Simon Ilsen and other colleagues from London's Institute of Archaeology to take their turn at looking over the bones, as well as the pit they were found in.

Speaker 2 6:52

What they discovered was that the remains belonged to at least 15 individuals. In addition to those 1200 bones, they found microscope slides, a portion of a turtle spine and mercury, which sounds really strange for someone to have dumped in a hole one meter deep and one meter wide in what was the garden at the back of the house. Now it is under what is known as a seminary room.

Speaker 3 7:13

The circumstances surrounding their burial and the reasons for their presence in Franklin's basement remained elusive until they looked into the history of the people who lived there over 100 years ago. Franklin came to England in 1757 as a diplomatic agent for the William Penn family. He was a boarder at the Craven Street house from then until 1775.

Speaker 2 7:35

During that time he became quite close to the landlady Margaret Stevenson and her daughter Polly. They would write to each other whenever traveling separated them. In 1770, polly married William Hewson, an anatomist who is famous even now for his discoveries regarding blood coagulation. Hewson studied under William Hunter, a famous obstetrician and anatomy lecturer.

Speaker 3 7:59

Houston and Hunter were really chummy for a while until they had a falling out over scientific discoveries which Franklin actually tried to smooth over, but to no avail. However, houston was elected to the Royal Society, which is the UK's National Science Academy, thanks to some help from Franklin, according to Marcia Beliciano, the director of the Benjamin Franklin House. She said Franklin thought Hewson was a polite and promising young man. He further helped Hewson by encouraging him to create a private academy at Craven Street for the further study of anatomy.

Speaker 2 8:32

It is incredibly important to note that during this time, dissections were not fully legal until the 19th century.

Speaker 3 8:39

And neither was the acquisition of the bodies to dissect.

Speaker 2 8:43

Yeah, so he was, it was all for science. Yes, it really was.

Speaker 3 8:49

And they were dead.

Speaker 2 8:51

Yeah, they were dead. I mean, when I'm dead, somebody could do whatever to my body. I don't care.

Speaker 3 8:57

I'm donating my body to science. They can do what they want cremate it and give the remains back to my kid.

Speaker 2 9:02

That's kind of what I said, although I wouldn't mind being frozen either.

Speaker 1 9:08

Why.

Speaker 2 9:09

Then I can come back as a cyborg Metal body, but with a little help from resurrectionists, think grave robbers, who dug up people and sold their bodies to science and possibly a little bribe to the hangman. Anatomy classes were a go. Many of the bones found at the Benjamin Franklin House show distinctive cut marks on them that would suggest they have been used to teach amputations, which, according to Bellassiano, this is a good skill if you were a surgeon. Likewise, some of the skulls had cuts that were most likely made by a trepanning device.

Speaker 3 9:47

Yeah, that's a device that was used to make circular holes in the skull. Gross I know, but they believed at the time that it was a very necessary procedure to alleviate pressure in the brain, you know, for when an Advil just won't solve that pesky migraine. Of course, this practice of boring holes into someone's skull had a high rate of infection and blood loss, which eventually resulted in the patient's death. So maybe just drink some water and take a nap.

Speaker 2 10:14

Yeah, that's probably the safest bet, right? And the private schools, like the one one Houston opened, were growing popular and more common. Because hospital teaching was limited due to those murky dissection and body snatching laws, they provided answers to the growing interest in public health. Even more useful was that the lessons by experts were financially successful, encouraging growth not just in academia but in the longevity of the schools.

Speaker 3 10:42

Sadly, the physical discovery of anatomy was not without its hazards. In 1774, hewson contracted septicemia from a dissection. In case you're wondering, sepsis can take as little as 12 hours to see the infected person die. As it runs through the body, it causes damage to the organs, which is incredibly painful. Hewson died at the age. Person die as it runs through the body. It causes damage to the organs, which is incredibly painful. Houston died at the age of 34.

Speaker 2 11:05

That left Pauly with two children and one on the way. Franklin wrote to his wife about the tragedy of his friend's death and Pauly's loss, stating that he died last Sunday morning of a fever which baffled the skill of our best physicians. He was an excellent young man, ingenious, industrious, useful and beloved by all that knew him.

Speaker 3 11:23

In 1775, he left England after realizing that reconciliation with England and the colonies was impossible. Once back in Philadelphia, he was chosen as a delegate from Pennsylvania to go to the Second Continental Congress. We aren't going to cover the revolution in this episode, but we will tell you that Polly and her children moved to the city of brotherly love after the war ended so that she could be closer to her very close friends, the Franklins.

Speaker 2 11:48

Policiano has been quoted as saying Franklin was a champion of science. He was supportive of young researchers and others. That could exemplify his passion for knowledge and innovation, and we think she was spot on about one of our founding fathers.

Speaker 3 12:02

So, in conclusion, was Franklin a serial killer? Probably not. Was he totally down for barely legal learning about the human body? You betcha, If you dig deep enough in London can you find all kinds of things, Absolutely. Lastly, we should be very grateful to the rule breakers, innovators and knowledge seekers from 200 years ago. Without them, medical science would still be in the dark ages.

Speaker 2 12:24

Thank you for joining us today, and if you have any historical questions or topics you would like us to explore in future episodes, don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you for joining us, and if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review. We'll be back with more stories from the past. Until then, keep exploring.

Speaker 1 12:43

Thanks for listening to Smarticus Tells History. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate and review and make sure to subscribe and be sure to follow the show at facebookcom. Slash Smarticus Tells History or just click the link in the show description. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.