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A failed invention that leaves a lasting impression.
Edison must've flipped out
when he saw what happened to his machine.
An ill-fated voyage cloaked in mystery.
It's as if these people just disappeared completely.
And a mutant lizard that lurks in the night.
There were the big red eyes of this creature coming toward him.
WILDMAN: Within the walls of great institutions
lie secrets waiting to be revealed.
These are the mysteries at the museum.
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
played backdrop to the Oscar-winning film "Rocky,"
and the 72 steps he scaled
in one of the movie's most memorable scenes
lead directly to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
This museum is one of the largest in the United States
and features paintings by renowned masters...
medieval armor...
and Buddhist shrines.
But as visitors ascend the great stairs,
they are greeted by a vision
of poised elegance and iconic stature.
URUBURU: It is 13 feet high, cast in copper.
It's balanced on one foot,
shooting an arrow with the quiver drawn
in perpetual readiness to shoot.
WILDMAN: As Hofstra Professor Paula Uruburu can attest,
this prowling huntress oversaw
one of the century's most scandalous affairs.
It had everything that people are interested in --
sex, innocence being betrayed, and violence.
WILDMAN: To what horrific event did this statue bear witness?
June 25, 1906.
Manhattan, New York.
Hundreds of the city's elite
gather on the rooftop at Madison Square Garden
for the premiere of a new musical.
It was dinner theater. It was out under the stars.
The people would be dressed in their finest outfits.
WILDMAN: And in attendance is the Garden's architect,
Stanford White,
a notorious playboy known for his wandering eye.
He was somebody that men liked, women loved.
He was very charismatic.
WILDMAN: And this venue was his crowning achievement.
URUBURU: You could have boxing matches in the arena part
and then up on the roof garden was a sort of elite supper club.
WILDMAN: Perched atop a tower
overlooking the restaurant garden
stands a statue commissioned by White,
the Roman goddess of the hunt
and a symbol of virginity, Diana.
Under the stars,
as White settles in for the evening,
the cast breaks into a musical number.
They were singing a song, "I Could Love a Million Girls,"
which was, you know, probably prophetic
because White managed to have his cake and eat it, too,
for a long time, until it all...exploded.
WILDMAN: Then a fidgety man emerges from the crowd
and approaches White's table.
Suddenly, he pulls out a pistol.
And shot him point-blank in the head.
[ Gunshot ]
WILDMAN: White is instantly killed.
And people started screaming and panicking and running.
WILDMAN: In the midst of the hysteria,
the gunman surrenders to authorities.
He is identified as Harry Thaw,
a wealthy but volatile railroad heir
with high-society aspirations.
The public is gripped by the brazen nature of the crime.
And soon, the tabloid press begins searching for a motive.
URUBURU: And when they talk to as many eyewitnesses as possible,
everyone agreed that right after he shot White,
Harry Thaw holds up the gun and he says,
"I did it because he ruined my wife."
WILDMAN: Thaw's wife happens to be
the most celebrated model of her time, Evelyn Nesbit.
Women wanted to be her, and men wanted to have her.
Her picture was in all the magazines,
Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazar, Vanity Fair.
WILDMAN: But long before she married Thaw,
a 16-year-old Nesbit became acquainted
with Manhattan's social prince, Stanford White.
URUBURU: The relationship between Evelyn and Stanford White
started out innocently enough
in that he was very paternal with her.
He sort of was a patron for her.
WILDMAN: But the friendship evolved,
and White lured Evelyn
to his love nest above the Garden's theater,
where Diana, the *** huntress,
stood watch over the city.
URUBURU: She and White would climb into the cupola
that was just below where the Diana was,
and she would reach up and touch the heel.
WILDMAN: Then the hunter seduced his prey.
URUBURU: The way Evelyn described it was,
she went into the room a *** but she did not come out one.
And she, at 16, became the mistress
of this 49-year-old man who had a wife and family.
WILDMAN: But after a year,
White tired of the romance and ended the affair.
Evelyn was heartbroken,
until another suitor knocked at her door.
URUBURU: Harry Thaw came along,
and he promised that he would take care of her,
and he had promised
that he was gonna forget all about the episode with White.
WILDMAN: But Thaw couldn't forget.
The seemingly agitated and unstable heir
kept pressing Evelyn for more details
of her dalliance with Stanford White.
URUBURU: And he became obsessed over the idea
of what White had done to her and what she had done with him,
and he wanted to save this girl,
but she had already been defiled by White.
So, all of this was playing into
his already psychotic behaviors that he had.
[ Gunshot ]
WILDMAN: At what is dubbed "The Trial of the Century,"
Thaw mounts an aggressive defense.
He accuses White of preying on underage show girls
and justifies his crime as a heroic act
in defense of American womanhood.
But the prosecution alleges
that Thaw's real motive was not the noble defense of women.
They claim he killed White for a more selfish reason --
vengeance.
Harry wanted desperately to be part of New York society,
so when he couldn't get into the various clubs,
most of which White had either designed or was a member of,
he blamed Stanford White, and that was it for Harry.
He just decided that White was his mortal enemy.
WILDMAN: The jury determines that Thaw is not of sound mind,
and he is acquitted on grounds of insanity
and sent to an asylum.
To many, Thaw is a hero for defending his wife's honor.
But in the wake of the trial,
the wealthy industrialist fails to support Evelyn financially.
And following his release from state custody years later,
Thaw divorces the very wife he claimed he was defending,
calling back into question his true motives
for murdering Stanford White.
By 1925, the Garden has gone out of vogue.
The building is torn down
and replaced with a neo-Gothic skyscraper.
Evelyn Nesbit never fully recovers
from the events of that fateful summer night
and spends her remaining years
struggling with alcohol and drug addiction.
And today, the statue of Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt,
is prominently on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
reminding us of the violence she witnessed
and the sordid love triangle
that once riveted the American public.
Bishopville, South Carolina,
is a quaint and quiet southern town
nestled in the former heart of the state's Cotton Belt.
And just off main street is an institution
that celebrates the cultural history of the plant
that was known as king,
the South Carolina Cotton Museum.
On view is the first modern mechanical cotton gin,
a classic Cessna crop duster,
and a oversized replica of the plant's only natural enemy,
the boll weevil.
But stashed deep in the museum's archives
is a cryptic artifact that has nothing to do with cotton.
***: It's a rectangular object,
weighs around 26 pounds,
and there are three of these identical ridges
with a point coming up out of them.
WILDMAN: According to the museum's Executive Director,
Janson ***,
this cast left a lasting legacy on Bishopville.
***: It tells of a tale
that has terrified locals for centuries.
WILDMAN: What mysterious beast clawed its way into town
and left in its wake this menacing mark?
June 29, 1988.
Bishopville, South Carolina.
Just after 2:00 a.m.,
17-year-old high-school student Christopher Davis returns home,
and his parents are shocked by the look in his eyes.
***: They reported that he was terrified.
He was literally terrified.
WILDMAN: After gaining his composure,
Chris recounts what happened on his horrifying drive home.
While crossing a bridge, he suddenly got a flat,
so he pulled over to change the tire.
And while tightening the last nut,
he was startled by the sound of fast-approaching footsteps.
[ Footsteps approaching ]
When he looked over his shoulder...
[ Growling ]
...he saw this large object ambling across the field.
WILDMAN: He jumped into his car
and caught a terrifying glimpse in the mirror.
***: There were the big red eyes
of this humanlike, green lizard creature
coming toward him.
WILDMAN: As he hit the accelerator,
a violent thud shook the roof of his car.
[ Thud ]
And he saw the claws hanging over the front of the windshield
as it was holding on.
WILDMAN: Chris frantically swerved,
knocking the creature off his hood,
narrowly escaping what could've been a gruesome fate.
At the urging of his parents,
Chris shares his harrowing encounter
with Sheriff Liston Truesdale.
TRUESDALE: I thought to myself,
"I can't believe what I'm hearing."
WILDMAN: Then Truesdale subjects Chris to a polygraph test.
TRUESDALE: I had to get to the truth,
and he passed.
WILDMAN: So the sheriff digs deeper,
returning to the scene of the incident.
There, he discovers a set of mysterious footprints.
TRUESDALE: Tracks were 14 inches long
and about 7 inches wide.
WILDMAN: Hoping to discover
what kind of creature left this mark,
Truesdale makes a plaster cast of the print --
the same one held in the custody
of the South Carolina Cotton Museum.
Then he sends it out to be examined by a biologist,
but the animal that left the mark cannot be identified.
Before long, police field reports
about cars being ripped apart
by razor-sharp teeth and piercing claws.
***: I mean, you're not talking a little claw.
You're talking about a dagger claw.
WILDMAN: Locals are whipped into a frenzy
over the beast that seems to be terrorizing their town.
The media dubs it the "Lizard Man."
So, what is this mysterious beast?
I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, it's some kind of monster!
It's 1988, Bishopville, South Carolina.
17-year-old Christopher Davis has just had a terrifying run-in
with a giant creature
he describes as half man, half lizard.
And soon, his neighbors also report sightings
of a scaly mutant the media dubs the "Lizard Man."
So, what is this bizarre beast?
[ Growling ]
Many begin to wonder
if what Chris actually encountered that night
was nothing more than a bear.
But Christopher said it had green skin and three big claws.
WILDMAN: And only black bears, known to have five claws,
live in South Carolina.
Others contend that the Lizard Man sighting
was nothing more than a prank.
***: There is a theory
that a couple country boys took their flip-flops and swim fins
and created the footprints.
WILDMAN: Yet no human footprints
were discovered in the vicinity.
Others are convinced that the creature is real
and that its presence in the swamp
was recorded centuries ago.
***: This is not a new story.
The Indians talked about the lizard people
that came to live with them.
WILDMAN: But many consider this
nothing more than Native American legend.
Over time, sightings of the Lizard Man drop off,
and it seems the true nature of this elusive beast
will remain a mystery.
And today, this footprint cast
at the South Carolina Cotton Museum
serves as a reminder of the swamp-dwelling mutant creature
that came to be known as the Lizard Man.
Lockport, New York.
Set on the historic Erie Canal,
this town was named for a series of gates, or locks,
that regulate the channel's water levels.
And set back from the famous waterway
sits the Niagara County Historical Society.
This institution celebrates 175 years
of the region's rich history
and features a Victorian parlor-room display...
a turn-of-the-century doctor's office...
and a replica of a 1930s kitchen.
But there's one set of rather cryptic effects
that tell a most bizarre and hair-raising tale.
STICKNEY: It's like a murky glass,
and they have embossed lettering on them.
They're about 6 inches tall, and they're very, very thick.
WILDMAN: These bottles may be empty now,
but biographer Brandon Stickney asserts
that they once contained a prized commodity.
STICKNEY: It was one of the most sought-after products
in the world at the time.
WILDMAN: What liquid once filled these bottles,
and what role did it play
in the remarkable transformation of one eccentric family?
Cambria, New York, 1865.
Fletcher Sutherland lives on a farm
with his wife, Mary, and seven daughters.
But an interest in music sidetracks him
from working his fields and earning an income.
STICKNEY: He was never really very good at farming.
He really wanted to be on the stage.
WILDMAN: To distract her daughters
from the family's abject poverty,
Mary focuses on their appearance.
STICKNEY: Their mother, Mary,
had really encouraged them to grow long hair
because it made them look aristocratic.
WILDMAN: But then tragedy strikes
when Mary contracts influenza and dies.
Now Fletcher must find a means
to save his family from utter ruin,
so he comes up with an outrageous plan.
STICKNEY: He wound up getting an idea
to have the sisters sing.
[ Women vocalizing ]
Fletcher had heard of other traveling, singing families,
and he would try pushing his daughters out onto the stage
and having them perform.
WILDMAN: After grueling preparations,
the girls take to the stage.
They sing church songs and Victorian ballads,
but the act falls flat.
STICKNEY: They weren't amazing singers, certainly not.
They probably weren't even amazing performers.
WILDMAN: However, Fletcher notices one aspect
of his daughters' stage show
that garners considerable attention.
People were almost more interested in their hair
than they were in the sisters' singing.
WILDMAN: To capitalize on their flowing locks,
Fletcher revamps the girls' performance.
Now dressed in white gowns with their hair tied back,
the sisters perform songs until they reach the big finale.
The girls could all turn around at the same time
and have their hair let down.
[ Audience gasps ]
WILDMAN: As their hair cascades to the floor,
a combined length of 37 feet,
the audience gasps in amazement.
Fletcher renames their act "A Niagara of Curls"
after the famous waterfalls outside their hometown.
STICKNEY: And that's really when
the seven Sutherland sisters' reputation took off.
WILDMAN: Word of the singing sisters
with impossibly long hair spreads.
And soon, they're performing
to sold-out houses of admiring fans,
who bombard them with questions.
STICKNEY: They wanted to know how they grew their hair
and how they might be able to get the same thing.
WILDMAN: That's when Fletcher conceives of a product
that truly changes the Sutherlands' fortunes --
hair growth tonic.
He fills bottles like these with his proprietary formula,
and the product soon flies off the shelves.
STICKNEY: Customers from Los Angeles to Cuba
and all the way over to China
who bought this product
made the Sutherland sisters millionaires
practically overnight.
WILDMAN: But the newly minted stars
don't stop at hair tonic.
Fletcher and his daughters
develop an entire line of products
ranging from scalp cleaner and anti-dandruff potion
to hair coloring.
The money continues pouring in,
and the once-impoverished sisters use it
to fuel an extravagant and eccentric lifestyle.
STICKNEY: They built a mansion from their fortune.
They had golden horseshoes for their horses,
which they didn't even ride.
The girls all had minks with matching hats,
and each one had one attendant to take care of their hair.
WILDMAN: The Sutherland sisters
appear to be at the top of their game.
But little do they know
their massive hair empire is about to come crashing down.
It's the 1860s.
The singing Sutherland sisters are sweeping the nation.
Key to their success are their long, flowing locks.
So, the sisters have marketed a hair growth tonic
that's making them millions.
But this empire of hair is about to be cut short.
By the 1890s,
Fletcher Sutherland,
who had guided the meteoric rise of his daughters,
is incapacitated by dementia.
Then Naomi Sutherland succumbs to cancer.
STICKNEY: That really dealt a serious blow to the seven Sutherland sisters
because they were now six.
WILDMAN: Devastated by the loss,
the sisters build an exorbitantly expensive mausoleum
to honor Naomi.
Then in the wake of the tragedy,
one of the sisters decides to strike out on her own.
STICKNEY: When Isabella broke off
and started another hair tonic corporation,
that was really the major break in the family
that caused great arguments.
WILDMAN: It seems the once-invincible hair empire
is now vulnerable.
But the crushing blow is dealt
by the fickle force of fashion --
the bob cut.
STICKNEY: The Roaring '20s came in,
and women wanted short hair,
and the product sales fell right off.
WILDMAN: By 1925, after years of profligate spending,
their once-vast fortune is all but gone.
The once again impoverished Sutherlands
retreat to their decaying mansion
to die in obscurity.
Today, these empty bottles of hair tonic
on display at the Niagara County Historical Society
remind us of a once-legendary musical act,
the extraordinary hair that inspired it,
and the mixture of tragedy, excess, and greed
that caused it to come crashing down.
Just 20 minutes outside the metropolis of New York
sits a quintessentially American town,
West Orange, New Jersey.
And just off its main street
is a shrine to a truly American icon,
the Thomas Edison National Historical Park.
For 44 years, the brilliant inventor worked in this lab,
developing revolutionary technologies
like the phonograph, storage battery,
and motion-picture camera.
But there is a much lesser-known creation on display
that, according to archivist Leonard DeGraaf,
left its mark in a truly unexpected way.
It's 5 inches.
It's made out of different kinds of metal.
It's operated by a very small electric motor on top.
WILDMAN: This invention is considered
one of Edison's biggest disappointments,
yet it went on to radically transform
the nation's complexion.
It was a fluke, and it was a great fluke.
WILDMAN: What is this device,
and what multibillion-dollar industry did it spawn?
It's 1875,
and Thomas Edison is working on a new invention.
At the age of 28,
he has already patented a stock ticker,
a new version of the telegraph, and an electric voting machine.
But now the inventor sees an opportunity
to fundamentally alter the landscape of business.
DeGRAAF: The way businesses in the 1870s and 1880s
are organized and managed is changing.
They're expanding in size,
and the scope of their activities is increasing,
and that's generating the need to create a lot of paperwork.
WILDMAN: Yet the process of creating duplicates
is tedious and expensive.
DeGRAAF: One way is to send your document to a printer
and have it printed.
Another way is to have a copyist make hand copies
of the document.
WILDMAN: But Edison has an idea for a radical new machine
that creates high-quality copies efficiently and cheaply --
the electric pen.
The contraption is a handheld device
with a battery-powered motor,
which drives a needle up and down
just like a sewing machine.
The user writes with a pen on a sheet of paper,
but instead of leaving ink,
the pen pokes holes in the paper,
creating a stencil.
DeGRAAF: An ink roller would be passed over it,
and the holes would allow the ink
to pass through to the other sheet,
creating an exact copy of the document.
Edison's intent was
that it could make many copies from one stencil.
WILDMAN: With his design perfected,
in 1876, Edison patents his creation
and reveals it to the world.
DeGRAAF: There is a lot of interest in the electric pen
because there's a need for this type of technology.
WILDMAN: But once this promising device hits the market,
Edison receives some devastating news.
Customers are not impressed.
While the pen is fast and precise,
many find the device difficult to hold,
and the battery leaks toxic liquid.
But before Edison can make improvements,
the marketplace shifts.
DeGRAAF: By the late 1870s,
the electric pen was supplanted
by newer, simpler technologies --
the typewriter, carbon paper,
and then later, the mimeograph machine.
WILDMAN: Sales of the electric pen plummet,
and the device
that once promised to dramatically improve business
is now little more than a commercial disappointment.
Yet Edison's failure
is about to gain a surprising second life
in the unlikeliest fashion.
Edison must've flipped out
when he saw what happened to his machine.
It's 1878, New Jersey.
Thomas Edison has invented a revolutionary device
that creates duplicates of office documents.
It's called the electric pen.
But when it hits the shelves, business finds it unwieldy,
and the inventor's brainchild is a commercial flop.
Nevertheless, Edison's electric pen
will leave an unexpected and permanent mark.
New York City, the late 1880s.
Tens of thousands of new immigrants
are making this metropolis their home,
and one of them is a businessman named Samuel O'Reilly.
DOZER: Samuel O'Reilly was an Irish immigrant
and came to the United States in 1870.
WILDMAN: The Irishman settles into The Bowery,
a neighborhood in Manhattan's bustling Lower East Side.
DOZER: Thomas Edison had some of his wares
in a storefront on The Bowery,
and O'Reilly would pass by it every day
and see the electric pen.
WILDMAN: O'Reilly has heard of the pen's speed
and ability to form precise, even lines,
and inspiration strikes.
Instead of poking holes in paper,
what if the electric pen could ink lines on human skin?
Samuel O'Reilly was a hand-poke tattoo artist.
WILDMAN: Hand-poke tattoo artists
use a sharpened piece of wood or metal
to meticulously insert pigment into the skin.
DOZER: He knew immediately the motion going up and down
was the same motion of tattooing by hand.
And he says, "You know, I could take this machine,
"and I could change things around,
and this could work as a tattooing machine."
WILDMAN: O'Reilly begins streamlining the pen's design.
He modifies the handle, making it easier to grip,
and adds an ink needle.
He knew that it would cut down time,
increase his revenue, and give him a better product.
WILDMAN: And in 1891, he files a patent
for a new device he simply calls the tattoo machine
and quickly puts it to use.
It made it possible to speed up a tattoo,
to make them look cleaner, to make them last longer,
to be more creative, to be more artistic.
WILDMAN: Word of his fast and efficient machine gets around,
and soon O'Reilly is doing a brisk business
of up to 130 tattoos a day.
Over the years, O'Reilly trains dozens of apprentices
in the art of the electric tattoo.
And soon, a fad once confined to soldiers and sailors
begins to spread into the greater community.
This was a revolutionary device.
It really was.
It put O'Reilly on the map, and it put tattooing on the map.
WILDMAN: Today, over 20% of American adults
sport at least one tattoo,
fueling what has become a $1.6 billion industry.
The machines that we use today
are still built on the same theory
of what it was years ago.
WILDMAN: And here at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park
is the electric pen,
a 100-year-old failed invention
that spawned the modern tattoo industry.
Richmond, Virginia.
Tucked along the banks of the James River,
this city once served as the capital of the Confederacy.
And among the city's most important cultural attractions
is an institution
that's been preserving the state's legacy since 1832,
the Virginia Historical Society.
This neoclassical building boasts a collection
of Virginia's most cherished artifacts,
tracing its cultural transformation
across 16,000 years of history.
But deep in the building's archives
is an object that tells of a daring and dramatic journey
beyond state lines.
SHEPARD: It was created on paper by a press in ink.
It is 13x8 inches.
WILDMAN: According to Vice President for Collections
Lee Shepard, this lithograph illustrates
the perilous price of freedom.
SHEPARD: It stands out as one of the most courageous
and dangerous experiences in African-American history.
WILDMAN: What amazing voyage does this artwork depict,
and what role did it play
in one of the largest revolutionary movements
in American history?
August 1848, Richmond, Virginia.
33-year-old slave Henry Brown toils in a tobacco factory.
He was a very hard worker, a very skilled worker there
and very successful.
WILDMAN: But Brown desperately craves one thing -- freedom.
SHEPARD: He had saved a fair amount of money,
and he was anticipating that at some point,
he would be able to buy his family out of slavery.
WILDMAN: But soon, Brown learns some crushing news.
His wife and children have been
sold to a plantation further south.
Brown is devastated.
SHEPARD: He had reached a point where he would say,
"Well, all that I had to live for
"is now taken away from me,
"and I'm willing to do just about anything
to get out of this situation."
WILDMAN: So Brown begins plotting an escape.
SHEPARD: Henry Brown would've known
how dangerous personally it would've been
if he were to be caught.
WILDMAN: Captured slaves face severe beatings
and disfiguring abuse,
and Brown is determined to find a way to avoid this fate.
Then he is struck by a simple revelation.
Uninspected cargo boxes are dropped off
at shipping offices in Richmond every day
and sent out across the country.
So the slave concocts a simple but risky plan.
"Put myself in a box and ship myself to the North,
where there is freedom."
WILDMAN: To pull off this audacious plot,
Brown seeks out the assistance of a white shoemaker
named Samuel Alexander Smith.
[ Clatter ]
SHEPARD: He was a northerner working in Richmond,
and he appears to have had at least some feeling
of affinity with the abolitionist movement.
WILDMAN: Brown offers the shoemaker $86 of saved wages
to ship him to Pennsylvania
and arrange for his arrival at the Anti-Slavery Society,
and Smith agrees.
Now Brown goes about constructing a box big enough
to conceal his 5'8", 200-pound frame.
SHEPARD: When they were looking at the size of the box,
they wanted to make something
that was reasonably easy to handle
and not call attention to itself.
WILDMAN: Once Brown is stuffed inside the container,
he will be completely immobilized
for the perilous 350-mile journey.
SHEPARD: The box could be dropped. It could fall into the water.
Someone could come along and decide,
"Oh, what's in here? Let me look."
WILDMAN: But Brown's desire for freedom is unwavering.
And on March 23, 1849,
with only a bladder of water and a few biscuits,
Brown squeezes into the wooden crate.
SHEPARD: The top was nailed shut,
so when he consigns himself to that box,
he's in there until somebody lets him out.
And he just hopes
that that somebody that lets him out is
a friendly somebody.
WILDMAN: Will this scheme actually work,
or will Brown's pine box become his coffin?
It's 1849 in Richmond, Virginia.
A slave named Henry Brown has hatched a wild plot
to escape to freedom locked in a shipping box
bound for Pennsylvania.
But will he make it through this perilous journey alive?
On March 23rd, Brown begins his harrowing journey north
by railroad.
And then the railroad goes to the Potomac River.
WILDMAN: But there, his trip takes a treacherous turn.
As the box is transferred onto a steamboat,
it is carelessly flipped upside down.
Brown is so tightly packed in that he's unable to move.
And as blood rushes to his head,
Brown begins to experience unbearable pain.
He really feels like his eyes are gonna burst.
WILDMAN: Then, suddenly, he hears footsteps.
SHEPARD: Fortunately, somebody comes along
and decides they want to sit on the box
and turn it right-side up.
WILDMAN: Finally,
by the early hours of March 24th,
the parcel arrives at the office
of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society.
Now only one question remains.
Is Henry Brown still alive?
And they go to work breaking open the box,
prying up the lid, and there is Henry Brown.
WILDMAN: After 27 hours of unimaginable torment,
Brown is overcome.
Henry Brown himself describes this as his resurrection.
He was in slavery, he's gone through hell,
and he's emerged from this a new, free person.
With his newfound freedom, Brown has visions of creating
a large-scale, theatrical production
about the history of slavery.
To finance this ambitious endeavor,
he commissions a simple etching of his journey
and sells reproductions of the image,
like this one in the collection
of the Virginia Historical Society.
With the money he raises, Brown tours the world for years,
sharing the tale of his incredible plight.
Then in 1850,
the Fugitive Slave Law is passed,
legalizing the return of freed slaves
to their masters.
To ensure that he won't be captured,
Brown moves to England.
There, he achieves fame as an anti-slavery crusader.
And today, more than a century later,
this lithograph reminds us of Brown's unwavering courage
in the pursuit of one of humankind's
most fundamental rights -- freedom.
[ Gulls crying ]
Stretching along the coast of North Carolina,
Hatteras Island is dominated by idyllic expanses
of unspoiled shoreline
and the tallest lighthouse in the nation at 207 feet.
But at the southern end of the island,
the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum preserves
a more merciless maritime history --
one of unforgiving storms and hard-working sailors.
But one prized artifact in the collection harkens back
to one of the most enduring and confounding mysteries
of the eastern seaboard.
The artifact is roughly 40 to 50 pounds.
At its widest part, it's about a foot in diameter,
and it's made out of bronze.
WILDMAN: According to museum director Joseph Schwarzer,
this weathered ship's bell was taken from a vessel
whose puzzling history has baffled mariners and historians
for almost a century.
This bell was mute witness
to one of the great maritime mysteries of the century.
WILDMAN: On what ship did this bell once toll,
and what strange and inexplicable fate
did her unfortunate crew meet?
[ Bell tolling ]
Fall 1920, Norfolk, Virginia.
The crew of the schooner Carroll A. Deering departs
this busy port city for Rio de Janeiro
with 11 crew members and a cargo hold full of coal.
The ship is captained
by experienced and exacting *** Willis Wormell,
who is joined by first mate Charles McLellan.
This is Carroll Deering's maiden voyage.
SCHWARZER: It was a gorgeous vessel.
She was 255 feet long, about 44 feet in the beam,
and weighed 1,879 tons.
It was a big vessel.
WILDMAN: After more than two months of smooth sailing,
the crew reaches the port of Rio,
where they unload their goods.
Following a brief rest, they begin their journey home.
Little do they know, they are sailing into infamy.
January 31, 1921, Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
Coast Guard surfman C.P. Brady is on patrol
when he spots the Carroll Deering
with her sails at full mast wedged into a sandbar
not far from shore.
Something doesn't seem right.
There was no sign of anyone on board.
WILDMAN: When a Coast Guard team reaches the stranded vessel,
their suspicions are confirmed.
The ship is abandoned.
There's no sign of the crew, no sign of any of the lifeboats.
The captain's possessions are all gone.
It's as if these people just disappeared completely.
As the Coast Guard searches the hauntingly empty ship,
the mystery only deepens.
SCHWARZER: They find red lanterns in the rigging,
which means that the ship is out of control.
They're in distress.
WILDMAN: The Coast Guard starts to wonder if the crew,
unable to control the vessel,
lowered the lifeboat and abandoned ship.
SCHWARZER: And in heavy seas, something happened.
The boat was capsized, and all hands were lost.
WILDMAN: But no lifeboat wreckage or bodies wash up on shore,
as authorities would expect.
The investigators are baffled.
What has happened to the men of the Carroll Deering?
It's January 1921,
off Hatteras Island, North Carolina.
The Coast Guard has just discovered
the mystifying shipwreck
of a schooner named the Carroll Deering.
Her sails are at full mast,
and the lifeboat and all 11 of her men have
seemingly vanished without a trace.
So, what happened to the crew of the Carroll Deering?
As the Coast Guard launches an investigation,
a startling theory for the disappearance surfaces --
piracy.
A man reports finding an alarming note in a bottle
on a nearby beach.
It says, "Deering being pursued by vessel.
Crew in handcuffs. Please notify Deering Company."
WILDMAN: The note seems to be written by the ship's engineer."
But after the government analyzes the handwriting,
they come to a confounding conclusion.
SCHWARZER: And it later turns out that that's a forgery
and that it's not real.
Meanwhile, federal investigators comes across
more troubling evidence but not of piracy.
Retracing the ship's voyage, authorities find
that during a stop in Barbados on the ship's return journey,
Captain Wormell had reportedly expressed concern
not about high-seas outlaws
but about the very men under his command.
SCHWARZER: He made comments to other captains
that he was very dissatisfied with the crew
and he didn't trust them,
but there were no specifics as to why.
WILDMAN: It seems Wormell even grew wary of his first mate,
Charles McLellan, who was known to have a drinking problem.
In fact, the second-in-command was heard making drunken threats
against the captain while at port in Barbados.
SCHWARZER: Could there have been bad blood
between the first mate and the captain?
Certainly.
Could the first mate have become intoxicated
and killed the captain?
Possibly.
WILDMAN: Such an act would help explain
an abandoned course map found
by the Coast Guard on board the vessel.
SCHWARZER: They found that there were notations on it
by someone other than Wormell.
WILDMAN: The handwriting changed on the 23rd of January,
after the boat left Barbados.
SCHWARZER: That would lead credence to the idea
that something had happened to the captain.
WILDMAN: And some speculate that if the crew was complicit
in an attack on the captain,
they may have feared the repercussions
of this treasonous act.
What would their instinct be?
Their instinct would be to throw the body overboard,
get rid of his stuff,
get in a lifeboat, and disappear.
WILDMAN: But with no physical evidence to support this theory
and no sign of the sailors,
the investigation into the disappearance
of the men of the Carroll Deering
grinds to a halt.
SCHWARZER: They finally closed the files a year later and just said,
"Whereabouts of the crew unknown.
Reasons for loss unknown."
It really is an unsolved mystery.
WILDMAN: After all salvageable equipment, including this bell, is removed,
the shipwreck is dynamited,
its pieces slowly covered by the sands of the outer bank.
And at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum,
this bell keeps its untold secret
about the mysterious missing sailors
of the Carroll Deering.
[ Bell tolling ]
From a coldhearted *** to a death-defying escape,
a long-hair craze to a missing crew of sailors.
I'm Don Wildman, and these are the mysteries at the museum.