My family owned the house across the street near this cemetery at 166 packardville rd (built in 1870) from 1959-2022. I was the one that sold the house in 2022. I grew up playing ghost in the graveyard, with my cousins, in that graveyard, and had many a scary nights afraid of being poisoned. My father who moved into the house when he was 13 years old in 1959 claims that they found the headstone in the basement of the house when they moved in. I did my own research about the stone when I moved into the house in 2012, and found the same book as you with the story about the doctor’s basement. Weather or not my fathers story is true, or stolen from the book, and there was a headstone copy in the scary, dirt floor basement, it was scary thinking about it when I was a kid. Mission accomplished dad, rest in peace.
I take it Albert Valentine (mentioned in one of the newspaper clippings shown) woulda been your grandfather, then? I bet it's kinda interesting to see a family member who's probably been dead for years mentioned on the internet.
Dwight Cemetery in Belchertown, about 10 miles south of Pelham. It just has her name on it (Mary Gibbs), and the dates of her birth and death (14 May 1827 - 24 Jan 1902), no further inscription.
They found the body of an ancient Chinese Empress who had died of a heart attack but rather than rotting away she became what is called a "wet mummy." Her body, though very very old was so well preserved there were able to learn her cause of death. The woman was extremely obese and as such she had advanced heart disease All of her coronary arteries were all nearly stopped up by cholesterol. and hear cause of death was a heart attack. The food in her stomach was also well persevered, so well they could tell that she suffered the heart attack while eating her las meal. At the time there was no way the doctors of her era could have identified her cause of death. But as she died while eating, I'm thinking this could be most unfortunate for her kitchen staff.
They had testers! So I doubt the kitchen staff was blamed. They were amazingly advanced in healthcare and medicine, and I’m sure they knew what heart attacks were.
Taking into account the symptoms of pain and thirst, he may have had gallbladder stones causing bile duct blockage. Anecdotal reports claim that vinegar which contains malic acid may temporarily relieve gallbladder symptoms. Then -spoiler alert- shellfish can aggravate gallbladder stones. He may have been being poisoned by his own blocked bile ducts! So that would probably have been a difficult to treat problem at that time even if doctors were aware of gallbladder symptoms. Very interesting video and really appreciate all the research work you put into it.
Considering that gallstone disease mainly occurs in women (the effect of estrogen on the smooth muscle of the bile ducts and on the properties of bile), your statement that a 36-year-old man has cholelithiasis is absurdly ludicrous!!🙄🙄
Arsenic tends to persist in soils being a metal. As the alleged poisoning of Mr. Gibbs took place in one day, it would not have entered tissue or bone massively but traces should still be present in the grave area. Zachary Taylor was exhumed in 1989 to see if he died of arsenic poisoning (he didn't) and he died in 1850. Might be an interesting project for an enterprising Medical Examiner.
It binds to proteins, and I'd expect that until the body decomposed, it could be found in the liver. There probably wouldn't have been time for much to get "locked" into the hair. But by now, I'd expect that the tissue would be completely decomposed. I don't know how much would have made it into the bones. At any rate, I'd expect that modern analytical techniques would be able to determine the arsenic levels in the soil, and could be compared with the "background" level naturally present elsewhere in the graveyard. What I'm not sure about is how mobile arsenic is in soil, with rain and groundwater passing through.
Much depends on the water flow, for sure -but I know they can measure 'plumes' of arsenic from old orchards after more than a century. In reality, it is unlikely an investigation will be done now. @@jpolowin0
I mean honestly, he was already ill in his belly. He needed gruel or pap or other invalid food. I’m thinking she didn’t do it. He was sick already and whatever that was likely killed him. The Gibbs brother was just carrying on with stirring trouble.
@@NilZed1 shes the one that fed him the bad oysters knowing they werent fresh. She could have fed him any of those other things. Where did she get oysters? Where was she when he was sick? A neighbor had to give him something to drink. Where was she? Seems like she poisoned him, left him to die and when she came back found that he had somehow survived after days alone. So then she whips out aome bad oysters and gives them to a ravenous man who hasnt eaten in days? Still think she is innocent? Oh, and then she marries his brother....a younger brother who otherwise wouldnt have inherited. Now, as her husband, he gets the house, the wife and the land he was not going to get before. Yeah...he was murdered. Oh, btw, arsenic poisoning makes you insanely thirsty and burns your stomach as described. The cider probably counter-acted the stomach acid. Vinegar is a treatment for acid reflux.
@@smokejaguarsix7757 You and i are thinking the same scenario.😀 I had alarm bells ringing all over my head when i heard about the younger brother who married her after this brother died. "Qui prod est"? ("who benefits"? in Latin, the first question any investigator asks in case of suspicious death or murder). In this case, the answer would be his wife and the younger brother. I would go as far as to say that his younger brother could have killed him with the arsenic, not Mary. Mary took part in the scheme by serving the potentialy "dangerous" oysters, that were just a front to muddle the matters more(yes, oysters can cause food poisoing and potential death in those days, therefore they had to be blamed). And yes, arsenic poisoning causes masive thrist and fever, which means he had already been slowly and gradually poisoned for an indefinite period of time before his death. The oysters, when foul, have a horrible distinct smell, so he wouldn't have eaten them if they had been foul. Again, they had to be served and then blamed, to cover the murder and the prior poisoning. Arsenic could have been found in the house, i think it was an active ingredient in substances against rats.
@@smokejaguarsix7757 I have another scenario in mind: Warren had already eaten the bad oysters before and that was what got him sick in the first place. Arsenic complications due to prolonged exposure are really characteristic and would have been easily spotted, while acute arsenic poisoning would have killed him much quicker. Arsenic also isn't known to cause fever. However, every symptom does match food poisoning. Not only that, we have to consider that it happened in a town far away from the shore in the 19th century: there was no easily accessible information about proper preparation of oysters. From this point of view, it seems likely that the oyster were already spoiled or that Mary did not know how to prepare them properly in the first place. But why would she serve oysters then? It was the 19th century, so the likely scenario is that Warren requested the oysters, and Mary just complied. Also, vinegar is acidic, which makes it less effective than a glass of milk as treatment for acid reflux. Some people say it helps, some people say it makes it worse. However, it was weird William never forgave her for marrying his brother, as it was Warren who chose her as his bride. Unless William wanted to marry her. If all three brothers where infatuated with Mary, suddenly it all makes sense: William hated Mary for not marrying him, Warren suspected poisoning both beacause his mind was foggy due to the sickness and knowing the other brothers also wanted her, leading to jealousy and paranoia and the third brother marrying her after Warren died. Of course, this is all just conjecture and the scenario that makes the most sense in my mind. We have few testimonies and zero evidence to actually know what happened.
Great story. You really do your homework. There is a headstone in a graveyard here in SE Michigan that has the Enterprise carved in it and the phrase: “ Beam me up Scotty, there is no intelligent life down here” I chuckle every time I see it.
So glad Jacksfilms told the world about you. Your videos are like having a personal tour guide who just leads you places every once in a while. Very casual and friendly. Keep it up!!
There’s one in my local churchyard (Wolstanton, Staffordshire, England),a headstone of a girl accusing the father of her unborn child of poisoning her.
@@Davey-Boyd - Just had a look this morning, it’s a bit hard to read now but it says- “It was C---s B---w “That brought me to my end. “Dear parents, mourn not for me “For God will be my friend. “With half a pint of poyson “He came to visit me. “Write this on my grave “That all that read it may see." Her name was Sarah Smith and she was buried in 1763.
@@bjorntoulouse7523 Very interesting. I just googled it. I was expecting the "C----s B---w" thing to be the result of erosion or vandalism, but that is exactly the format in which it appears on the stone. Looks to me as if that was the only way permission could be granted to have the stone erected, since directly naming the guy would cause a lot of trouble. I did a bit of further digging and it turns out a local historian filled in the blanks, saying the accused was a wealthy local farmer named Charles Barlow.
He died in March... that's a month with an 'r' in it. Supposedly, you should never eat oysters in months with an 'r' in their name. which would mean the only months they are safe to consume would be may, June, July and August.
@@theimperfectgod7140I don't think it's superstition, it's just a general rule of thumb to only probably eat oysters in summer and conveniently, those months don't have 'r's in their name. Unless you're from the southern hemisphere lol, then it would be November, December, January and February.
As a part of the Gibbs family, even i didnt know this about my family's history, the most i know is the part we have in Kentucky and a little about our not so good history. Thank you for enlightening me n.n
I loved the bit at the end with the town meeting hall. I judge Mary as innocent too, but I wonder how the oyster dialogue went down. My feeling is that Warren suggested it. “Mary, I know I’m still reeling from gastritis, but you know what sounds good right now? A heaping pile of oysters.”
"Ripe, out-of-season, nasty ones... Mmmm-mmmm, delicious." He died in March and it's common knowledge you shouldn't eat Oysters out if season (Summer - June, July, August).
@@AbstractTraitorHero It was known in the 18th and 19th c in Britain as Oysters were a popular cheap workers food in the summer. In the US? Perhaps not. Evidently someone was selling those out of season oysters in order for them to get to a town 80 miles from the coast in March, so presumably it wasn't widely known in that area at that time. Or, more likely, the consumer's didn't know and the sellers didn't *care*. (Bald eagle screech)
Actually it was super common. People back then ate so many oysters they made them nearly extinct on the east coast and destroyed the market. Everyone ate them all the time
@@mellie4174 Exactly despite the risk it was a poor man's food along with any other shellfish, I think the risk was why it was poor man's food but hey people in poverty gotta eat.
Someone should make a small epitaph stone and install it at the base of the head stating “The rumors surrounding Gibbs’ death may have been greatly exaggerated.”
There's a very old head stone in a local Cemetery dad showed me 60 yrs ago. I'm be 69 on my birthday, here's the inscription as best as I remember. " Take care my friends as you pass by, as you are now so once was I, as I am now to soon you'll be, prepare yourself to follow me" that's as close as I remember anyway. I went looking for this stone 7-8 yrs ago and found it. It was carved on marble and is weathered and barely readable now, and covered mostly by lichens now. I think if I went back with paper and charcoal I could get a rubbing and recover the name and dates, and the cool verse. Maybe I'll do that before I "pass by"
There was the same or similar inscription on a gravestone in Wirksworth, Derbyshire. I think it went "As I am now, you too (or soon?) shall be..." I can't remember more.
@@Enoo-Wynn Amazing the one I know about is in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery in the southwest part Oklahoma City, in Oklahoma USA, dates to the middle 1800's Yours is in England, is that correct? What date, do you remember?
@@kevinpurcell7452 I don't remember, but I would guess the 1800s. The church is 5-700 years old (ie different bits), but I doubt older grave stones would be legible. (And possibly were removed. Some were actually in the path and I always used to jump over them due to fear of a skeletal hand reaching up!) Edit: I forgot to say, yes, it's in England. It's called St.Mary's.
When my mom was alive, we would go around to the older cemeteries and write down the names/info off the much older headstones, then take that info home and research it to find out the history of the place and the people buried there. There's so much history out there in those older parts of the cemetery, or the older cemeteries themselves. We found out a lot about the town we lived in by visiting the older cemetery and researching the family that had started it and was ultimately buried there. I love history, and finding out interesting facts about people's lives just from the headstones. There's so much that has changed for the better in this world over all these years, but there are still quite a few things that were amazing, simple, and truthfully full of life and wonder, that are gone due to the change of time. Thank you for doing what you do. If my mom was still alive, she'd have loved your channel :)
You really hit a home run by going the extra mile with your research and being able to tell quite a story. I'm a veteran cemetery walker, and I've seen all kinds of interesting causes of death on headstones in my travels, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma. Rabies, killed by lightning, railroad accidents, "bit by rattlesnake", families buried together where the headstone(s) reference a tornado/cyclone, and "Killed by Indians", with a few references to "scalping." One up in Wizard Wells, TX notes ""killed by base ball", and a few in Calvert, TX note "yellow fever." If you're ever in Salt Lake City, their main, historic cemetery has a famous burial, Lilly E. Gray, whose headstone refers to her as a "Victim of the Beast". If my memory serves, she didn't suffer any kind of unusual death, but her husband was a strange character who imagined that she'd been killed by the government or some such. And while you can no longer find the headstone, as someone made off with it, Katherine Cross is buried in Konawa Cemetery in Konawa, OK, and her headstone read that she'd been "Murdered by Human Wolves", possibly a botched operation, maybe an abortion.
@@cupidwxings It's a Biblical description. The Bible has a term, "wolves in sheep's clothing." In other words, it means "people who appear innocent but are not, and who consume terribly at others' expense." An example of that would be the pedo _Jimmy Saville._
I can't imagine marrying into a family that hates you, just to poison one of the enemies. There's a lot less motive for murder when you consider they stayed together, regardless of the feud. Sounds like they loved each other a lot.
I was wondering how long they had been married, since he was in his 80’s when he died. How old was she? If I was going to do my husband in, I wouldn’t wait until he was that old!
@@slthjawa5062gggghhjjjjjkkkk It was actually very common in those days. Have to take the time period and setting into account before casting moral judgement on someone's character.
Your videos make me want to keep a record of all of the old graves in my local graveyards before they become unreadable and destroyed. There are a lot of stories that need to be preserved.
You should. After finding some ancestors burials learned majority of their stones are now illegible, toppled, broken, or missing. Then we found a reprint of transcriptions that one local wrote over 170yrs ago, listing the text on each stone, where they were, descriptions & condition. If stones weren't legible they recorded fragments of words, so the souls laid there could be remembered. A copy of their work was gifted to the Parish which survived, it's now the most complete preserved record of inscriptions for this old (long closed) church and its graveyard.
That sounds like an interesting idea. There’s a little graveyard near my home. It’s old, so old that some gravestones have been lost to time and are little more than stone nubs sticking out of the ground. I’m fascinated with that place, went there one night with my partners to look around. It was peaceful, but we left since one of them got a little spooked. Maybe once the weather warms up I’ll go back there and do that for the hell of it.
@J.IsOkay you definitely should! My mum took some crayon rubbings of old old family headstones in our local graveyard. She’s so glad she did, the headstones are completely weathered away now. Luckily nowadays we can just take photos with our phones!😊
In mortuary school we learn about early formulations of commonly used embalming fluids. Mr. Gibbs died during a period of time where arsenic was a primary ingredient in many embalming solutions. Assuming he was embalmed, even if he were to be exhumed and autopsied arsenic would likely be present whether or not he died of arsenic poisoning. During that time there were cases of deliberate arsenic poisoning. However the presence of arsenic in embalmed bodies left reasonable doubt in these cases, making it nearly impossible to prosecute alleged offenders. Once the general public caught onto this, there was somewhat of an epidemic of accusations of arsenic poisoning against women by family members who disliked them, using the inability to distinguish the reason for its presence as a sort of faulty evidence to support their accusations of murder. This actually supported the move away from arsenic as an ingredient in embalming solutions! Great video!
I live out in the Black Hills and there's lots of fun little stories out here. My favorite story is probably of the Thoen Stone, a semi-headstone thing. It recounts the tale of a settler group that found gold in the hills before Custer's expedition. The stone ends the tale by saying that everybody in the group had been killed by Native Americans except for one survivor, who decided to carve the story into stone while be chased down. It always makes laugh because it reminds me of Monty Python's Holy Grail "The Castle of Aaaahhhh" bit. Anyways, the story doesn't quite finish there, as the guy who "discovered" the stone was the local stone mason, and I believe he put it up as an attraction after that, and there is now a replica on the hill where it was "found" in Spearfish, and the original is in Deadwood now.
I love how you bring these little pieces of history to life. You are so gifted at making these tiny dusty corners of the past in some tiny New England town feel larger than life and for just a few moments it’s almost like we are right back there with our heroes and villains of yesteryear witnessing them in full color living out their melodramas. Your storytelling is magic! Keep em coming! Also neat showing the old meeting house! Very cool!
We had a story of a wife poisoning her first husband on my mom's side of the family, but she actually did it. He survived the poisoning, and she never did any time for it, although they divorced, and each of them took one son to raise. Times were different, that's for sure.
Sounds like pancreatitis. My first thought was diabetes but he would have complained about other impossible to miss symptoms, like his vision going blurry. So he gets pancreatitis, his body isn't producing insulin and THAT causes his extreme thirst. Without insulin, the body tries to get rid of all the excess sugars in the blood by peeing it out... losing all the body fluids... making you thirsty.
I did a master's in marine biology and i took an entire semester long class on different types of shellfish poisoning caused by toxic algae blooms in the water where the oysters lived. This would be another angle to look into if *any* data exists on water quality/algae in whatever the nearest source(s) of oysters would be at the time.
Kudos to you!!!!! I spent my time working in a historic cemetery and my life learning the history of my area. I have always said that the cemetery was a place of fabulous forgotten stories and unwritten tales. THANK YOU for shining some light on them
While she may not have been trying to kill him, she didn’t do her husband any favors serving up a huge tray of oysters when he was already sick, I mean why not a nice soup broth & crackers or something? 😂
oysters are still somewhat pricey probably even more back then, and she or even he didn't what them to go to waste if they were bought before he got sick the extra day or two could have been what set the oysters off
Because, he wanted and asked for oysters! I think she was trying to make him happy, as a wife usually does. Especially, knowing they had five children!
As an ER nurse the number of people who come into the ER with abdominal pain while eating never ceases to amaze me. Food poisoning, especially if you eat enough, will kill you. It's not a nice way to go.
I almost died of it in basic training. Had to be hospitalized, given morphine and saline, because I had vomited up basically all of the water in my body until I couldn't move a muscle under my own will. That was a fun evening.
@isaacjones7809 omg this happened to me too ^-^ The weird thing is that my mother and I ate the exact same food (except she ate even more than I did) that day but only I became afflicted and had to be hospitalized.
My Father, as far back as I'm aware, always has been very *strong* against old food that has gone off (or the "in doubt" possibility of it having gone off.) I don't blame him, it's a wonderful practice. Though sometimes it also makes conversations that we only just put something in the fridge a few days ago.
Funny how William didn't have money to spend on an autopsy and investigation, but could sit at the gravestone every night and even hire armed guards. It sounds like William was unemployed, just like his brother.
When you mentioned the neighbor brought over Apple cider (Vinegar) my first thought was Food Poisoning. Apple Cider Vinegar is an old home remedy to help with food Poisoning. During that time, oysters were super popular, so it could have been multiple accidental food poisoning 😊
Love the ending and the thought of 'town meetings' and how the people living in Pelham gather to keep 'their' tradition and reputation alive. Evidently, community effort pays off. Maybe the rest of us should take note?
nuh uh that'd be communism >:( we can't actually do anything withcommunity just 15 minutes once a year then let the gov do the rest and act like we are actually mad at the government or we'd be ebil
With all the stories around about people being sick or dying from bad oysters...I suspect the Mrs. took the blame for something HE insisted on eating. 🤨
Probably his favorite food or something like that. I know I have given myself trouble by eating something I enjoy too soon when sick with a stomach bug.
Hello from the England /Scotland border. I found your channel by chance and I am pleased I did. You have centuries of history but many people seem to forget it. I live in a small town that was begun as a Roman supply fort for Hadrian's Wall. Tales like this are so important whether they are 160 or 1900 years old. I subscribed.
@@athenathegreatandpowerful6365 It could be said that your history starts in 1585 with the founding of the Roanoak Colony which is 438 years ago. Or, with a more conservatory view, from the founding of Jamestown in 1607. Those were the very first pioneers , to be followed a generation later by the Pilgrims. There was considerable contact between the old word and the new, and many of us in Europe have pre-revolutionary American roots. Many have Native American genes too. I've taken part in archeological digs in both the USA and UK and there is a big difference between how they begin. In the UK we often use a backhoe to get down to the layers we are interested in, but in the USA it's hand told from the grass down. I think that is in part because the sites in the US are far fewer and so more valuable for research. The USA and UK share much more than many people realise. Many of the political and social views behind the Declaration of Independence were as much British as American. The best example of this is Thomas Paine, the English author of Common Sense on which much of the D o I is based. I specially like Thomas Paine, not least because he was both a teacher and a Customs Officer in Lewes, Sussex, England - as was I. Many people in Britain held similar views but were suppressed. The Americans really did it, and good for them.
@@athenathegreatandpowerful6365 That's as skewed a view as counting the age of the United Kingdom as very old because you include the years it wasn't a nation yet. The US is young politically but not historically. Now Canada, that's our half sib who hasn't managed to get out of our parents' basement to set up living on its own. :)
@@Jeremy_the_unfallible_n-a If you think that way, our species inhabited these UK Islands tens of thousands of years before our ancestors got to the Bearing Straight/Americas. And before Homo Sapiens these UK Islands had Neanderthals and before them Homo Erectus. Roman history is practically modern history to our Islands.
"By the 1840s, oyster canning became a booming business in coastal cities such as Baltimore. Canned oysters and fresh oysters packed in ice were shipped inland to Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, and other Midwest cities."
Speaking of stories, I was doing some research concerning the Peninsula Campaign and happened to stumble onto a weird story. Long story short, on May 30th, 1862, a large thunderstorm had blown through the city of Richmond, Virginia. Both the Confederate and Union army noted this storm and it’s effects. The most peculiar factor about this storm was the amount of lightning it produced; enough lightning that at least four men from the 4th Alabama were killed by a bolt of lightning. Nearby Hanover Courthouse, the Quartermaster for the 44th New York was killed instantly when a bolt of lightning struck his tent. The same bolt of lightning stunned at least twenty others in close proximity. It’s the latter case I wish to talk about because I found out who the quartermaster was. His name was Henry C. Howlett; Quartermaster Sergeant of Company C, 44th New York. After the war, they exhumed his remains and had them shipped back north. He’s buried in Mohawk Cemetery in Mohawk, New York.
Great video! Pieces of history really come alive when you walk through a cemetery and hear some of the stories they have been around for literally centuries. My mother used to do that regularly. Whenever we passed an old cemetery, she would jump out of the car and start walking through it. It was something she like to do alone so I sat in the car and read and she came back and told me wonderful stories.
On a final note, I looked up the symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Then I looked up food poisoning. I think there is enough evidence to say that the dude probably got food poisoning- TWICE! Therefore you can't reasonably accuse the wife of deliberately killing him, but you definitely can say she was a TERRIBLE cook.
Stumbled on this randomly thanks to RUclips and I dig this content Just.. talking about interesting historical stuff. No clickbait, no exaggerations, no rumor and innuendo, just information. Awesome stuff, definitely excited to binge and watch more!
This was quite interesting to say the least. There's also the option that was not mentioned that Mary may have surmised the oysters were bad and gave them to him anyway! Back in the day they were not blind to the fact that food goes bad after a certain amount of time and won't use it. Also, seafood will have an off odor when it starts to turn. Just my 2 cents.
Why though? Seems a very odd plan, if it even was a plan. “I’m going to order a whole bunch of oysters, keep them until they just slightly go off so that I can notice but my husband can’t, and coincidentally my husband will get sick at just the right time and then be very hungry so that he eats them all without expecting to share the meal with me…” And if it was spur of the moment, what was it? “you know what, I’m tired of listening to how much his stomach bothers him. Hungry is he? What do I have in the pantry that just happens to have spoiled and will kill him.”
@@bookcat123 you notice when raw, depending how they are cooked you'd never know. Hence people that get sick from seafood present day at restaurants. She just may not have realized they were bad.
@@bookcat123For a possible motive, she did marry her husbands brother. Falling in love with the brother and wanting out of the marriage could easily be a motive for murder.
The saddest thing about these feuds. They go off into obscurity, and eventually, nobody remembers or cares. People have short lives, and they waste their time on useless pursuits of vengeance. Until everything becomes an obscure history of stupidity and arrogance. The Bible explains the human condition as a "chasing after the wind." It's insane that people treat each other so horribly for something that won't matter later on.
@@kevinkanzler495 I never claimed that anything is easy. But, the reality is even if you get revenge? You've solved nothing and you have taken God's ultimate authority away from him, and now you have God looking at you with displeasure. Is it really worth losing a chance for everlasting life that the bible talks about, and also losing the chance to see your bother again? Yes, I can't guarantee that God exist, I've never heard his voice or witnessed the miracles, but I do know that God is the only hope for the human race. I've watched human history, and the human race is running around like a tornado with no real answers than they had a thousand years ago or any time period for that matter. Personally, I'll take my chances with Jehovah God and Jesus Christ.
can we take a moment to appreciate how peaceful that cemetery is? its not beside some major road or stuck in the middle of a loud city but peacefully in the woods surrounded by trees
Most of the cemeteries in Western Massachusetts are like that, I am from that region and besides the major cities like Springfield, most towns have at the most 1,500 residents
Quabbin Reservoir is just east of Pelham, MA. when it was made, in the 1930s, it cut travel through town drastically, as east-west traffic now has to go to the north on Route 2 or to the south on Route 9 or even I-90. given the landform, though, it was probably always a bit of a backwoods.
I just discovered you last month & thought “why doesn’t this informative, funny, interesting & very entertaining young man have more clicks?” Finally the algorithm gods have discovered you! You’re very unique, excellent comedic timing & accuracy is my favorite combo. I’m elated to see the numbers on this video, congratulations!
Thank you for making such amazing videos informing on such odd stories/graves. Makes me want to go around the weird graves/sites in my neck of the woods.
So glad I found this channel! I love exploring historical graveyards as well as going to the "back room" of my local library to dig up local history and folklore in my area. It'll be just as interesting learning some of the same stuff about different places in your videos. New sub!
I'm so glad that you're able to dig through all of those sources to find and connect the juicy bits and weave them together to form a fantastic story! I think it was a bit distracting to have you on the very edge of the shot, though.
Yes there was someone in my family two generations back who died from eating a bad oyster. My grandfather always told the tale whenever he found the opportunity
What an amazing story. Of course I checked the symptoms of arsenic poisoning, and being very thirsty is not one of them. 😊 I love this American stories about the past. The algorithm sent me this one and I immediately subscribed. Greetings from The Netherlands.
Those are... not the symptoms of arsenic poisoning... and he was already sick. Seems like they should not have been allowed to put that on the tombstone.
A quick Google shows that ptomain poisoning leads to excessive thirst (amongst other symptoms). Arsenic poisoning does not. He was on his way out before he drank the cider vinegar!
This was the first time RUclipss algorithm gave me a glimpse at your channel…. Quite an interesting story sir! I think I may stick around and check out other videos ya got up here…. I really enjoyed the tone to your voice as you guide the story… Wishing ya good juju going forward in 2024, thanks again for the content!
When you said a neighbor brought apple cidar, which had almost turned to vinegar, I thought there's where the arsenic came from. Apple cidar can have 4.8 parts per million of arsenic. Currently, there is worry about hard apple cidars containing large amounts of arsenic.
Actually there is more arsenic in pure apple juice than there is in any cider and you would have to drink a heck of a lot for it to be toxic. Also its parts per billion not million.
@@littleannie390 when he mentioned vinegar, i wonder could it be the acid provided some temporary relief in case of As poisoning? i am not a doctor, i would like to hear from a toxicologist about that.
Stumbled across your videos by accident, but I appreciate your video style, and the fact that you cite your references so clearly! This was really interesting, definitely sticking around for more. Thank you for sharing!
Hi, great video! There's a cemetery here in Michigan that contains the grave of a Navy Seabee that was killed in a nuclear reactor explosion. Richard C. Legg died in 1961 from the meltdown of a nuclear reactor in Idaho. There's a mystery around how it could have happened and also the other man killed in the accident. Allegedly Legg had been fooling around with the other guy's wife. After the accident Legg's body was so irradiated that he had to be buried in a lead lined coffin and encased in concrete. He's buried in Kingston, MI
i dont watch Jacksfilms much and just found this channel on my own. i feel like a pioneer seeing the channel at this size. fully expected it to be well over a million subs after listening to the video as i cleaned. keep it up man, youre an outstanding storyteller
I don't know who you are and I've never heard of this channel but nowI"m a subscriber. You took a 1 min video and made a VERY INTERESTING almost 20 min video. I have had a drought in content I enjoy lately and finding this was a pleasure. I am going to go ahead and slam watch your channel over the next couple days. I guess I should hit the bell too. I hope more ppl find this channel. The way you just wondered around while talking made it seem so more like we're there too. The sound of the leaves on the ground. AA+ homie
What an absolute gem of a video. This is such incredibly high quality content. I was actually lucky enough to act in a film that had a scene shot in the Pelham Town Hall a couple years back -- genuinely are inspiring building. I hope you are brought back to it for another video and future, would love to know more about its history!
Great video. Would have loved to have heard about when and how Mary died and where her headstone is. Has it been subjected to any "additions" (such as "murderer") by anyone/anytime. Keep up the great work.
I really like your style. You show text sources on screen and you reference them in the description. You give detailed info and you're a good story teller. Many other channels take the info of a 2 minute wikipedia read and stretch it to become a 15 min video with cliffhangers. More success to you!
This is a really beautiful piece of local history that should be preserved for posterity. It spices up the local identity, I love it! Maybe putting up some information board of some sort for tourists would be a good idea 😊
The word mean used to be synonymous with being miserly. If William was anything like his father he probably got the oysters for cheap and didn't have the good sense to not eat them.
You’re so calming and just overall chill. Not in like a vibe way but more like you are the poster child for calm. It’s as if every molecule in your body is made of ocean waves and lavender. Does that make sense? He genuinely seems like that’s how he is in person, not an act or anything for the channel. Like How we see him is how he truly is. If so, I need that. Having someone that reminds you to slow down and enjoy the life around you is something everyone needs
Warren Gibbs - was a descendant of the Thomas Gibbs lineage, that got lands in Greenwich. Thomas being the Grandson of Mathew Gibbs, of Charlestown and Sudbury. I also am a descendant of Mathew, via Thomas. Most of the Gibbs' of this area are buried in the Quabbin Park Cemetery. David C. Gibbs
Id like to take a moment to appreciate what this person does, he goes out of his way, exploring gravestones from people who suffered obscure laws, unique burial requests, or just forgotten in time, some of these graves aren't even on any map, but he shows them off anyways, a handful of these people would be lost in time if these videos didnt exist Mad respect
In one video you mentioned the "Leatherman" but was referring to one I hadn't heard of. The one I'm thinking of was in western CT and NY wandering from Ridgefield through Kent and into NY around and around. Several 'caves' in the area, one in Salem, NY I think, are known as Leatherman caves and one, perhaps the one I mentioned, was a confirmed cave home.
Option 3. You have a bunch of period sources saying how likely it would be that oysters would be poisonous. They're also an unusual food to just have lying around in a region lile that. What if he was intentionally poisoned, just not with arsenic?
Seeing the meeting house is awesome. Maybe you could do a history of an old building like that. Places where interesting things happened and that still exist.
If he was murdered by arsenic his gravesite would have elevated levels compared to the other soil in the area. This was used to close 150 200 year old cold cases in the 1970s already and our techniques are much more sensitive now so yeah just test the soil
Love real small town stories like this. That cemetery with the orange autumn leaves looks just like those little small town locations from halloween shows. America has some really cool locations outside of the drab cityscapes.
Holy crap! I love this channel man! This intro alone drew me in, Didn’t even realize it’s a 19 minute long video! Incredible information here, As a Cape Codder myself, these stories close to home are amazing!
You should check out North Carolina's Blue Ridge mystery lights. Basically down here you can occasionally see lights in the sky fly up from the mountains and disappear. No one's really sure why. I haven't seen it myself but I don't live near the Blue Ridge as much anymore. I would visit in fall, definitely a great time to see the parkway too
I should mention that some people theorize that it's gas deposits being released, some people obviously think aliens, or government stuff it's really interesting
This is the first video of yours that I have seen after it popped up in my recommended, and I have to say I absolutely love your aesthetic. The single cam, lower resolution, 4:6 nature of your videos gives me nostalgia for old PBS shows that I used to watch growing up.
My family is from Buffalo (really grand island and tonowanda) but I swear I could tell that was your hometown within the first few minutes. lol. You have a gift in story telling and I LOVE those old stories connecting the gravestones. I remember my aunt talking about stuff at Amherst cemetery! Thanks for the content Correction you’re from the New England area? Sorry was seeing Amherst.
@@Adrieballard44 Cool! Both my parents graduated from Kenmore High before there was an "East" and a "West". 😉 I still have a lot of close family in the area and go back a few times a year.
I can only hope that the circumstances of my death are interesting enough that a hundred years later some random guy shows up and stands over my grave talking about it.
Very cool video! I appreciate the research and thought you put into it. This reminded me of a headstone I found in Alabama years ago- I looked through my pictures just to find the one I took of it. It said "Lewis G Wilson. Born May 19, 1837. Murdered on the night of Jan 24, 1895. Such was the sad fate of one whose honesty and integrity were unimpeachable." I was never able to find anything about what happened, beyond a findagrave site with a picture of the headstone on it. It's always super interesting to learn about these local legends, and this one still bothers me.
Always cool to see a smaller creator with a good amount of talent. It's not easy to make a compelling 20 minute video, so seriously good job there. Good music choice too, it's a small thing, but I think it added a lot of charm.
Great video. Would have loved some more info though e.g. how the other brother died who married her afterwards. "Poisoned" as well or just plain old age? And what about Mary herself? Did she live happily ever after?
Good questions! Mary died of a sinus infection at the age of 74. Her grave is in the nearby town of Belchertown. I wasn't able to find out what happened to her second husband, but I haven't really looked too hard into that either. Maybe something to research further one day!
Innocent until proven guilty seems like such a good idea, I wonder why we stopped believing in it. Maybe there was an unintended consequence or something. Maybe it was just to difficult for humans to stop kneejerking their way through life. Idk, but its a really interesting transition from back then to now.
Everyone assumed it was the oysters, because everyone thought it was obvious that they would have been bad--don't you think Mary would have had as much sense to know she was serving bad oysters?
Murdering someone with bad oysters is a terrible plan, because most people don't die from food poisoning - even back then. I've had food poisoning 6 times, never had medical treatment for it and was just sick and on the toilet a lot for a few days and then recovered on my own. Obviously food poisoning CAN kill you if you get it, but it's not likely and I doubt anybody would try and murder someone like that because they would understand the person is likely to recover. And I don't see why people would think she should have known the oysters were bad. Her husband ate the oysters and didn't see, smell or taste anything wrong with them - how is someone merely preparing and serving them supposed to know? Can you judge if food has gone bad if it doesn't look, smell or taste funny? I know I certainly can't.
Love your channel, history, visiting our historic cemeteries, and oysters. I bet the oysters would have traveled alright in March. Especially back when they actually had winters.
eighty miles to New Haven, CT. probably would have done it by train, but it's still a long trip from Northampton (5 hour walk one way) or Amherst (2 hours) to Pelham. so, given the changeability of March weather, likelihood of freshness could have varied considerably day to day, and much would also depend on how well they were stored from ocean bed to store to plate before being eaten.
I'm so glad I ran across this today! Utterly fascinating and well presented. You pulled together a difficult and long history on this. (In Bayville, LI, NY, we had an old cemetery with gravestones from the 1700's and early 1800's which I've always found fascinating.) It's a godsend that we now have the ability to do in-depth research on ancient gravestones and their history.
Just watched my second of your offerings and immediately subscribed. Fasinating stories. Thank you for your effort and hard work in providing us with these interesting bits of history.
Not as overt as the Chestnut Hill church from your previous video, but it looks like the Pelham Historical Society building also follows the Greek Revival style architecture of the time. Cool to see.
You want home town cemetery stories. Well I know of few. Alamosa Cemetery in colorado for starters. The grave of Wihelmina Becker simply statrs “Died Oct 36, 1913.” The statue atop the grave is believed to look at people walking through the grave yard. Over the years people have stolen parts of the statue and others leave coins at its base as an offering. Ok the other strange grave I know of is in near by in Rio Grande County, Rock Creek Cemetery. Way back in the west a man was ride on a coach that was carrying valuables. The story goes the something happened (hit a bump or dip in the road) and his shotgun went off. The blast blew his arm off. He survived and supposedly had a funeral for his arm. There was a head stone for it and everything. He would live on with the rest of his life passing away later and being buried in a completely different cemetery. So he is literally buried in two places. Next home town cemetery story is about a cemetery back in Alamosa County. The cemetery’s name is “Bad Boozer”. It got its name in the most messed up way. There was a small mining community up in that area way back in the day. Well one day after a good year they decided they were going to celebrate. So they purchased a large shipment of alcohol. Well when it arrived they all started drinking and it turns out they did not get drinking alcohol but rather industrial. A lot of people died as a result and were buried at the cemetery. That’s how it was started and got its name. And finally a personal family story. I had an uncle who died in a plane crash. His body was never found. So as a family we buried a casket filled with bricks and his flight jacket. No one is actually buried in his grave but it a place to remember him. Since it’s on a military base I won’t say where. Now and then people get a little weirded out by the fact he was never found. I guarantee his casket is not the only one filled with bricks there.
My family owned the house across the street near this cemetery at 166 packardville rd (built in 1870) from 1959-2022. I was the one that sold the house in 2022. I grew up playing ghost in the graveyard, with my cousins, in that graveyard, and had many a scary nights afraid of being poisoned.
My father who moved into the house when he was 13 years old in 1959 claims that they found the headstone in the basement of the house when they moved in. I did my own research about the stone when I moved into the house in 2012, and found the same book as you with the story about the doctor’s basement. Weather or not my fathers story is true, or stolen from the book, and there was a headstone copy in the scary, dirt floor basement, it was scary thinking about it when I was a kid. Mission accomplished dad, rest in peace.
I take it Albert Valentine (mentioned in one of the newspaper clippings shown) woulda been your grandfather, then? I bet it's kinda interesting to see a family member who's probably been dead for years mentioned on the internet.
This is super interesting, thanks so much or sharing!
Woah that’s so neat!
May I ask why you did end up selling the house though?
@@ShadowOfDeadRhodes21 140 year old houses have too many problems
I wonder about Mary's headstone and where she is buried. Someone should make one for her: "I didn't do it."
Dwight Cemetery in Belchertown, about 10 miles south of Pelham. It just has her name on it (Mary Gibbs), and the dates of her birth and death (14 May 1827 - 24 Jan 1902), no further inscription.
I think this is a brilliant idea. And "Walter was a dick."
@@penthesilia Perfect. Walter was a dick, wasn't he.
@@penthesilia More like William was, as Wm. Gibbs put the poem and accusation up publicly on that headstone.
@@KabobHope Walter was the guy who died. The dick was his brother, William. I wonder what his tombstone has to say.
They found the body of an ancient Chinese Empress who had died of a heart attack but rather than rotting away she became what is called a "wet mummy."
Her body, though very very old was so well preserved there were able to learn her cause of death. The woman was extremely obese and as such she had advanced heart disease All of her coronary arteries were all nearly stopped up by cholesterol. and hear cause of death was a heart attack.
The food in her stomach was also well persevered, so well they could tell that she suffered the heart attack while eating her las meal.
At the time there was no way the doctors of her era could have identified her cause of death. But as she died while eating, I'm thinking this could be most unfortunate for her kitchen staff.
Xin Zhui is her name.
They had testers! So I doubt the kitchen staff was blamed. They were amazingly advanced in healthcare and medicine, and I’m sure they knew what heart attacks were.
@@-MaryPoppins-maybe
Arsenic is a preservative
she doesnt look obese
Taking into account the symptoms of pain and thirst, he may have had gallbladder stones causing bile duct blockage. Anecdotal reports claim that vinegar which contains malic acid may temporarily relieve gallbladder symptoms. Then -spoiler alert- shellfish can aggravate gallbladder stones. He may have been being poisoned by his own blocked bile ducts! So that would probably have been a difficult to treat problem at that time even if doctors were aware of gallbladder symptoms. Very interesting video and really appreciate all the research work you put into it.
Interesting, never knew! Thanks
Exactly what I thought (as someone with gallbladder issues and keeps apple cider vinegar on hand at all times).
But it’s easier to blame the wife duh
@@LampebruderOnly one person seems to have blamed the wife. Too bad the "only one person" also was the engraver.
Considering that gallstone disease mainly occurs in women (the effect of estrogen on the smooth muscle of the bile ducts and on the properties of bile), your statement that a 36-year-old man has cholelithiasis is absurdly ludicrous!!🙄🙄
Arsenic tends to persist in soils being a metal. As the alleged poisoning of Mr. Gibbs took place in one day, it would not have entered tissue or bone massively but traces should still be present in the grave area. Zachary Taylor was exhumed in 1989 to see if he died of arsenic poisoning (he didn't) and he died in 1850. Might be an interesting project for an enterprising Medical Examiner.
It binds to proteins, and I'd expect that until the body decomposed, it could be found in the liver. There probably wouldn't have been time for much to get "locked" into the hair. But by now, I'd expect that the tissue would be completely decomposed. I don't know how much would have made it into the bones. At any rate, I'd expect that modern analytical techniques would be able to determine the arsenic levels in the soil, and could be compared with the "background" level naturally present elsewhere in the graveyard. What I'm not sure about is how mobile arsenic is in soil, with rain and groundwater passing through.
Much depends on the water flow, for sure -but I know they can measure 'plumes' of arsenic from old orchards after more than a century. In reality, it is unlikely an investigation will be done now. @@jpolowin0
Given the history of the headstone being replaced, it might be prudent to check whether it's even in the correct spot.
@@JH-wd6dpit may also be prudent to check that mr. Warren is *there.*
@@firstcanonkill1767ummmm that’s what he said what tf 😂
In New Hampshire there’s a woman buried in the same graveyard as her murderer. Her headstone calls him out by name!!
Where is this?
When people go that far to state what they know to be true- it's true. A town can all slander one person- doesn't make it true.
What's the name?
I think this might be a lesson in maybe don’t gorge on Oysters coming off some intense stomach pain that you quelled with cider vinegar.
I mean honestly, he was already ill in his belly. He needed gruel or pap or other invalid food.
I’m thinking she didn’t do it. He was sick already and whatever that was likely killed him. The Gibbs brother was just carrying on with stirring trouble.
@NilZed1 knowing women how dare you say she didn't...she probably worked hard to earn that poem!
@@NilZed1 shes the one that fed him the bad oysters knowing they werent fresh. She could have fed him any of those other things. Where did she get oysters? Where was she when he was sick? A neighbor had to give him something to drink. Where was she? Seems like she poisoned him, left him to die and when she came back found that he had somehow survived after days alone. So then she whips out aome bad oysters and gives them to a ravenous man who hasnt eaten in days? Still think she is innocent? Oh, and then she marries his brother....a younger brother who otherwise wouldnt have inherited. Now, as her husband, he gets the house, the wife and the land he was not going to get before. Yeah...he was murdered.
Oh, btw, arsenic poisoning makes you insanely thirsty and burns your stomach as described. The cider probably counter-acted the stomach acid. Vinegar is a treatment for acid reflux.
@@smokejaguarsix7757 You and i are thinking the same scenario.😀 I had alarm bells ringing all over my head when i heard about the younger brother who married her after this brother died. "Qui prod est"? ("who benefits"? in Latin, the first question any investigator asks in case of suspicious death or murder). In this case, the answer would be his wife and the younger brother. I would go as far as to say that his younger brother could have killed him with the arsenic, not Mary. Mary took part in the scheme by serving the potentialy "dangerous" oysters, that were just a front to muddle the matters more(yes, oysters can cause food poisoing and potential death in those days, therefore they had to be blamed). And yes, arsenic poisoning causes masive thrist and fever, which means he had already been slowly and gradually poisoned for an indefinite period of time before his death. The oysters, when foul, have a horrible distinct smell, so he wouldn't have eaten them if they had been foul. Again, they had to be served and then blamed, to cover the murder and the prior poisoning. Arsenic could have been found in the house, i think it was an active ingredient in substances against rats.
@@smokejaguarsix7757 I have another scenario in mind: Warren had already eaten the bad oysters before and that was what got him sick in the first place.
Arsenic complications due to prolonged exposure are really characteristic and would have been easily spotted, while acute arsenic poisoning would have killed him much quicker. Arsenic also isn't known to cause fever.
However, every symptom does match food poisoning. Not only that, we have to consider that it happened in a town far away from the shore in the 19th century: there was no easily accessible information about proper preparation of oysters. From this point of view, it seems likely that the oyster were already spoiled or that Mary did not know how to prepare them properly in the first place.
But why would she serve oysters then?
It was the 19th century, so the likely scenario is that Warren requested the oysters, and Mary just complied.
Also, vinegar is acidic, which makes it less effective than a glass of milk as treatment for acid reflux. Some people say it helps, some people say it makes it worse.
However, it was weird William never forgave her for marrying his brother, as it was Warren who chose her as his bride.
Unless William wanted to marry her.
If all three brothers where infatuated with Mary, suddenly it all makes sense: William hated Mary for not marrying him, Warren suspected poisoning both beacause his mind was foggy due to the sickness and knowing the other brothers also wanted her, leading to jealousy and paranoia and the third brother marrying her after Warren died.
Of course, this is all just conjecture and the scenario that makes the most sense in my mind. We have few testimonies and zero evidence to actually know what happened.
Great story. You really do your homework. There is a headstone in a graveyard here in SE Michigan that has the Enterprise carved in it and the phrase: “ Beam me up Scotty, there is no intelligent life down here” I chuckle every time I see it.
We have one in the Allegheny cemetery in Pittsburgh that has the jaws movie poster shark as the headstone 😂🖤
Chad misanthrope
branding yourself for all eternity with some trite ass pop culture reference is the cringiest thing I’ve ever heard
@@cashnelson2306i don't think the dead care much about what's considered cringe nowadays
🧤
So glad Jacksfilms told the world about you. Your videos are like having a personal tour guide who just leads you places every once in a while. Very casual and friendly. Keep it up!!
Didn’t know Jacksfilms shouted him out, I found out about him through Tom Scott’s newsletter.
Oh sweet two RUclipsrs shouted him out
Never heard of Jacksfilms so, no they didn't tell the whole world about him.
the youtube algo is also at work! I found this independent of Tom Scott or Jacksfilms
oh, thats cool. I found this video just through recomendations
Knowing how social media twists information into knots of misinformation and outright lies, I can only imagine how bad the gossip was back then.
There’s one in my local churchyard (Wolstanton, Staffordshire, England),a headstone of a girl accusing the father of her unborn child of poisoning her.
Ooooh, I'm from Staffordshire (Rugeley), I may have to go and take a look!
@@Davey-Boyd - Just had a look this morning, it’s a bit hard to read now but it says-
“It was C---s B---w
“That brought me to my end.
“Dear parents, mourn not for me
“For God will be my friend.
“With half a pint of poyson
“He came to visit me.
“Write this on my grave
“That all that read it may see."
Her name was Sarah Smith and she was buried in 1763.
@@bjorntoulouse7523 Wow thanks! Poor girl and her baby.
@@bjorntoulouse7523 Very interesting. I just googled it. I was expecting the "C----s B---w" thing to be the result of erosion or vandalism, but that is exactly the format in which it appears on the stone. Looks to me as if that was the only way permission could be granted to have the stone erected, since directly naming the guy would cause a lot of trouble. I did a bit of further digging and it turns out a local historian filled in the blanks, saying the accused was a wealthy local farmer named Charles Barlow.
@@elennapointer701 - Yeah, disgusting that he was never held accountable.
A forensic autopsy could find the answer even at this date and time . But that would cost someone a good amount . Great history lesson .
I don’t think she did poison him. Especially since bad oysters can cause death even today.
He died in March... that's a month with an 'r' in it. Supposedly, you should never eat oysters in months with an 'r' in their name. which would mean the only months they are safe to consume would be may, June, July and August.
@@sylvisterling8782 so just summer
@@sylvisterling8782
Superstition is dumb...
@@theimperfectgod7140I don't think it's superstition, it's just a general rule of thumb to only probably eat oysters in summer and conveniently, those months don't have 'r's in their name. Unless you're from the southern hemisphere lol, then it would be November, December, January and February.
She def did it.
As a part of the Gibbs family, even i didnt know this about my family's history, the most i know is the part we have in Kentucky and a little about our not so good history. Thank you for enlightening me n.n
Hopefuly they don't ruin your tomestomb next
Lol, dont worry, they wont.
My father is a Gibbs where as i have my mothers last name, though both sides are pretty stubborn.
what is the possibility of meeting your family history in a single youtube video?@@SylveonSlays
Its very likely, the Gibbs have extensive history. You'll probably never come across my moms side since we actually have a german last name@@tommarnt
imagine the history goes deep into the hadean era@@SylveonSlays
I loved the bit at the end with the town meeting hall. I judge Mary as innocent too, but I wonder how the oyster dialogue went down. My feeling is that Warren suggested it. “Mary, I know I’m still reeling from gastritis, but you know what sounds good right now? A heaping pile of oysters.”
"Ripe, out-of-season, nasty ones... Mmmm-mmmm, delicious."
He died in March and it's common knowledge you shouldn't eat Oysters out if season (Summer - June, July, August).
Was it common back then?@@thecommissaruk
@@AbstractTraitorHero It was known in the 18th and 19th c in Britain as Oysters were a popular cheap workers food in the summer. In the US? Perhaps not. Evidently someone was selling those out of season oysters in order for them to get to a town 80 miles from the coast in March, so presumably it wasn't widely known in that area at that time. Or, more likely, the consumer's didn't know and the sellers didn't *care*. (Bald eagle screech)
Actually it was super common. People back then ate so many oysters they made them nearly extinct on the east coast and destroyed the market. Everyone ate them all the time
@@mellie4174 Exactly despite the risk it was a poor man's food along with any other shellfish, I think the risk was why it was poor man's food but hey people in poverty gotta eat.
Someone should make a small epitaph stone and install it at the base of the head stating “The rumors surrounding Gibbs’ death may have been greatly exaggerated.”
Or not
the rumors behind the circumstances...* otherwise you're implying he's still alive or something
@@citrus_sweet It's a reference to Mark Twain
There's a very old head stone in a local Cemetery dad showed me 60 yrs ago. I'm be 69 on my birthday, here's the inscription as best as I remember.
" Take care my friends as you pass by, as you are now so once was I, as I am now to soon you'll be, prepare yourself to follow me" that's as close as I remember anyway.
I went looking for this stone 7-8 yrs ago and found it. It was carved on marble and is weathered and barely readable now, and covered mostly by lichens now.
I think if I went back with paper and charcoal I could get a rubbing and recover the name and dates, and the cool verse. Maybe I'll do that before I "pass by"
I love that
There was the same or similar inscription on a gravestone in Wirksworth, Derbyshire.
I think it went "As I am now, you too (or soon?) shall be..." I can't remember more.
@@Enoo-Wynn Amazing the one I know about is in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery in the southwest part Oklahoma City, in Oklahoma USA, dates to the middle 1800's
Yours is in England, is that correct? What date, do you remember?
@@kevinpurcell7452 I don't remember, but I would guess the 1800s. The church is 5-700 years old (ie different bits), but I doubt older grave stones would be legible. (And possibly were removed. Some were actually in the path and I always used to jump over them due to fear of a skeletal hand reaching up!)
Edit: I forgot to say, yes, it's in England. It's called St.Mary's.
@@Enoo-Wynn Ha. It was fun being young.
Good health to you in this new year.
When my mom was alive, we would go around to the older cemeteries and write down the names/info off the much older headstones, then take that info home and research it to find out the history of the place and the people buried there. There's so much history out there in those older parts of the cemetery, or the older cemeteries themselves. We found out a lot about the town we lived in by visiting the older cemetery and researching the family that had started it and was ultimately buried there. I love history, and finding out interesting facts about people's lives just from the headstones. There's so much that has changed for the better in this world over all these years, but there are still quite a few things that were amazing, simple, and truthfully full of life and wonder, that are gone due to the change of time. Thank you for doing what you do. If my mom was still alive, she'd have loved your channel :)
When my mom was around she'd take me to cemeteries with crayons and paper to trace over gravestones and make fun of people's names
You really hit a home run by going the extra mile with your research and being able to tell quite a story. I'm a veteran cemetery walker, and I've seen all kinds of interesting causes of death on headstones in my travels, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma. Rabies, killed by lightning, railroad accidents, "bit by rattlesnake", families buried together where the headstone(s) reference a tornado/cyclone, and "Killed by Indians", with a few references to "scalping." One up in Wizard Wells, TX notes ""killed by base ball", and a few in Calvert, TX note "yellow fever."
If you're ever in Salt Lake City, their main, historic cemetery has a famous burial, Lilly E. Gray, whose headstone refers to her as a "Victim of the Beast". If my memory serves, she didn't suffer any kind of unusual death, but her husband was a strange character who imagined that she'd been killed by the government or some such. And while you can no longer find the headstone, as someone made off with it, Katherine Cross is buried in Konawa Cemetery in Konawa, OK, and her headstone read that she'd been "Murdered by Human Wolves", possibly a botched operation, maybe an abortion.
"Murdered by human wolves" that's metal as hell!
@@cupidwxings It's a Biblical description. The Bible has a term, "wolves in sheep's clothing." In other words, it means "people who appear innocent but are not, and who consume terribly at others' expense." An example of that would be the pedo _Jimmy Saville._
I can't imagine marrying into a family that hates you, just to poison one of the enemies. There's a lot less motive for murder when you consider they stayed together, regardless of the feud. Sounds like they loved each other a lot.
I was wondering how long they had been married, since he was in his 80’s when he died. How old was she? If I was going to do my husband in, I wouldn’t wait until he was that old!
@@susanleggieri2342 he was 36
@@inspector5122 oops! I read it as 86. Lol
She married his brother. That's a huge red flag.
@@slthjawa5062gggghhjjjjjkkkk It was actually very common in those days. Have to take the time period and setting into account before casting moral judgement on someone's character.
Your videos make me want to keep a record of all of the old graves in my local graveyards before they become unreadable and destroyed. There are a lot of stories that need to be preserved.
I always want to do that too
You should. After finding some ancestors burials learned majority of their stones are now illegible, toppled, broken, or missing. Then we found a reprint of transcriptions that one local wrote over 170yrs ago, listing the text on each stone, where they were, descriptions & condition. If stones weren't legible they recorded fragments of words, so the souls laid there could be remembered. A copy of their work was gifted to the Parish which survived, it's now the most complete preserved record of inscriptions for this old (long closed) church and its graveyard.
That sounds like an interesting idea. There’s a little graveyard near my home. It’s old, so old that some gravestones have been lost to time and are little more than stone nubs sticking out of the ground.
I’m fascinated with that place, went there one night with my partners to look around. It was peaceful, but we left since one of them got a little spooked.
Maybe once the weather warms up I’ll go back there and do that for the hell of it.
@J.IsOkay you definitely should! My mum took some crayon rubbings of old old family headstones in our local graveyard. She’s so glad she did, the headstones are completely weathered away now. Luckily nowadays we can just take photos with our phones!😊
There's a website called find a grave that does exactly that. My dad used to be pretty active there.
In mortuary school we learn about early formulations of commonly used embalming fluids. Mr. Gibbs died during a period of time where arsenic was a primary ingredient in many embalming solutions. Assuming he was embalmed, even if he were to be exhumed and autopsied arsenic would likely be present whether or not he died of arsenic poisoning.
During that time there were cases of deliberate arsenic poisoning. However the presence of arsenic in embalmed bodies left reasonable doubt in these cases, making it nearly impossible to prosecute alleged offenders. Once the general public caught onto this, there was somewhat of an epidemic of accusations of arsenic poisoning against women by family members who disliked them, using the inability to distinguish the reason for its presence as a sort of faulty evidence to support their accusations of murder. This actually supported the move away from arsenic as an ingredient in embalming solutions!
Great video!
I live out in the Black Hills and there's lots of fun little stories out here. My favorite story is probably of the Thoen Stone, a semi-headstone thing. It recounts the tale of a settler group that found gold in the hills before Custer's expedition. The stone ends the tale by saying that everybody in the group had been killed by Native Americans except for one survivor, who decided to carve the story into stone while be chased down. It always makes laugh because it reminds me of Monty Python's Holy Grail "The Castle of Aaaahhhh" bit. Anyways, the story doesn't quite finish there, as the guy who "discovered" the stone was the local stone mason, and I believe he put it up as an attraction after that, and there is now a replica on the hill where it was "found" in Spearfish, and the original is in Deadwood now.
"Carving a stone while being chased!" 😂 he was a very capable fellow! 😂
He was a Mason, I don’t doubt it.
Shades of Alonzo Typer!
@@cjthebeeskneesMason discovered the stone not carved it. Well. I mean allegedly anyway
Tom Scott's absence has left a power vacuum
so happy and excited to see the growth and appearance of other Scott-Type channels
I love how you bring these little pieces of history to life. You are so gifted at making these tiny dusty corners of the past in some tiny New England town feel larger than life and for just a few moments it’s almost like we are right back there with our heroes and villains of yesteryear witnessing them in full color living out their melodramas. Your storytelling is magic! Keep em coming!
Also neat showing the old meeting house! Very cool!
Thanks for leaving such a nice comment! Means a lot!
Olde England is better though
@@myview5840 In what way?
We had a story of a wife poisoning her first husband on my mom's side of the family, but she actually did it. He survived the poisoning, and she never did any time for it, although they divorced, and each of them took one son to raise. Times were different, that's for sure.
Sounds like pancreatitis. My first thought was diabetes but he would have complained about other impossible to miss symptoms, like his vision going blurry. So he gets pancreatitis, his body isn't producing insulin and THAT causes his extreme thirst. Without insulin, the body tries to get rid of all the excess sugars in the blood by peeing it out... losing all the body fluids... making you thirsty.
I did a master's in marine biology and i took an entire semester long class on different types of shellfish poisoning caused by toxic algae blooms in the water where the oysters lived. This would be another angle to look into if *any* data exists on water quality/algae in whatever the nearest source(s) of oysters would be at the time.
Kudos to you!!!!!
I spent my time working in a historic cemetery and my life learning the history of my area. I have always said that the cemetery was a place of fabulous forgotten stories and unwritten tales.
THANK YOU for shining some light on them
Sounds like someone could make a movie based on this headstone and the family drama involved.
Sound similar to the Hatfield - McCoy Feud
While she may not have been trying to kill him, she didn’t do her husband any favors serving up a huge tray of oysters when he was already sick, I mean why not a nice soup broth & crackers or something? 😂
I know what would've helped: a nice oyster soup
oysters are still somewhat pricey probably even more back then, and she or even he didn't what them to go to waste
if they were bought before he got sick the extra day or two could have been what set the oysters off
@@HappyBeezerStudios😂😂😂💀💀💀⚰️
Because, he wanted and asked for oysters! I think she was trying to make him happy, as a wife usually does. Especially, knowing they had five children!
Maybe he demanded it and she did what she was told or else. It's not unheard of that men were and are abusive to their wives.
As an ER nurse the number of people who come into the ER with abdominal pain while eating never ceases to amaze me.
Food poisoning, especially if you eat enough, will kill you. It's not a nice way to go.
I almost died of it in basic training. Had to be hospitalized, given morphine and saline, because I had vomited up basically all of the water in my body until I couldn't move a muscle under my own will. That was a fun evening.
@isaacjones7809 omg this happened to me too ^-^ The weird thing is that my mother and I ate the exact same food (except she ate even more than I did) that day but only I became afflicted and had to be hospitalized.
My Father, as far back as I'm aware, always has been very *strong* against old food that has gone off (or the "in doubt" possibility of it having gone off.) I don't blame him, it's a wonderful practice. Though sometimes it also makes conversations that we only just put something in the fridge a few days ago.
I wonder if chunks of the destroyed headstones can be found along the wooded edges of the cemetery.
I was saying the same thing if you look hard enough i bet you would find a piece of headstone some where in the cemetery
Funny how William didn't have money to spend on an autopsy and investigation, but could sit at the gravestone every night and even hire armed guards. It sounds like William was unemployed, just like his brother.
Love the aesthetic of this video. It's like you're a museum guide telling this story
When you mentioned the neighbor brought over Apple cider (Vinegar) my first thought was Food Poisoning. Apple Cider Vinegar is an old home remedy to help with food Poisoning. During that time, oysters were super popular, so it could have been multiple accidental food poisoning 😊
would it also help with wife-poisoning? I bet it would. seems it did.
Love the ending and the thought of 'town meetings' and how the people living in Pelham gather to keep 'their' tradition and reputation alive. Evidently, community effort pays off. Maybe the rest of us should take note?
nuh uh that'd be communism >:( we can't actually do anything withcommunity just 15 minutes once a year then let the gov do the rest and act like we are actually mad at the government or we'd be ebil
Annual town meetings are still a common form of governance in New England.
With all the stories around about people being sick or dying from bad oysters...I suspect the Mrs. took the blame for something HE insisted on eating. 🤨
Probably his favorite food or something like that. I know I have given myself trouble by eating something I enjoy too soon when sick with a stomach bug.
Most likely!
No women are evil and will kill men when possible since they don't get the same punishment as men
Hello from the England /Scotland border. I found your channel by chance and I am pleased I did. You have centuries of history but many people seem to forget it. I live in a small town that was begun as a Roman supply fort for Hadrian's Wall. Tales like this are so important whether they are 160 or 1900 years old. I subscribed.
As an American, I've been trying to impress this on Americans. Less than 250 years of actually being a country. We're a baby country.
@@athenathegreatandpowerful6365 It could be said that your history starts in 1585 with the founding of the Roanoak Colony which is 438 years ago. Or, with a more conservatory view, from the founding of Jamestown in 1607. Those were the very first pioneers , to be followed a generation later by the Pilgrims. There was considerable contact between the old word and the new, and many of us in Europe have pre-revolutionary American roots. Many have Native American genes too. I've taken part in archeological digs in both the USA and UK and there is a big difference between how they begin. In the UK we often use a backhoe to get down to the layers we are interested in, but in the USA it's hand told from the grass down. I think that is in part because the sites in the US are far fewer and so more valuable for research. The USA and UK share much more than many people realise. Many of the political and social views behind the Declaration of Independence were as much British as American. The best example of this is Thomas Paine, the English author of Common Sense on which much of the D o I is based. I specially like Thomas Paine, not least because he was both a teacher and a Customs Officer in Lewes, Sussex, England - as was I. Many people in Britain held similar views but were suppressed. The Americans really did it, and good for them.
@@athenathegreatandpowerful6365 That's as skewed a view as counting the age of the United Kingdom as very old because you include the years it wasn't a nation yet. The US is young politically but not historically. Now Canada, that's our half sib who hasn't managed to get out of our parents' basement to set up living on its own. :)
if you can count Roman history in your country as your own then he can count Native American history as his, which goes back even further IoI
@@Jeremy_the_unfallible_n-a If you think that way, our species inhabited these UK Islands tens of thousands of years before our ancestors got to the Bearing Straight/Americas. And before Homo Sapiens these UK Islands had Neanderthals and before them Homo Erectus. Roman history is practically modern history to our Islands.
"By the 1840s, oyster canning became a booming business in coastal cities such as Baltimore. Canned oysters and fresh oysters packed in ice were shipped inland to Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, and other Midwest cities."
Speaking of stories, I was doing some research concerning the Peninsula Campaign and happened to stumble onto a weird story.
Long story short, on May 30th, 1862, a large thunderstorm had blown through the city of Richmond, Virginia. Both the Confederate and Union army noted this storm and it’s effects.
The most peculiar factor about this storm was the amount of lightning it produced; enough lightning that at least four men from the 4th Alabama were killed by a bolt of lightning.
Nearby Hanover Courthouse, the Quartermaster for the 44th New York was killed instantly when a bolt of lightning struck his tent. The same bolt of lightning stunned at least twenty others in close proximity.
It’s the latter case I wish to talk about because I found out who the quartermaster was. His name was Henry C. Howlett; Quartermaster Sergeant of Company C, 44th New York. After the war, they exhumed his remains and had them shipped back north. He’s buried in Mohawk Cemetery in Mohawk, New York.
Great video! Pieces of history really come alive when you walk through a cemetery and hear some of the stories they have been around for literally centuries. My mother used to do that regularly. Whenever we passed an old cemetery, she would jump out of the car and start walking through it. It was something she like to do alone so I sat in the car and read and she came back and told me wonderful stories.
On a final note, I looked up the symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Then I looked up food poisoning. I think there is enough evidence to say that the dude probably got food poisoning- TWICE!
Therefore you can't reasonably accuse the wife of deliberately killing him, but you definitely can say she was a TERRIBLE cook.
OR you can say they were poor and just weren't able to afford proper food and weren't educated enough to how to properly handle food.
@@lunova6165 I wrote for effect, so yes. You can say this in a way that doesn't impugne the wife
Stumbled on this randomly thanks to RUclips and I dig this content Just.. talking about interesting historical stuff. No clickbait, no exaggerations, no rumor and innuendo, just information. Awesome stuff, definitely excited to binge and watch more!
This was quite interesting to say the least. There's also the option that was not mentioned that Mary may have surmised the oysters were bad and gave them to him anyway! Back in the day they were not blind to the fact that food goes bad after a certain amount of time and won't use it. Also, seafood will have an off odor when it starts to turn. Just my 2 cents.
Aye, fresh fish doesn't smell fishy
Why though? Seems a very odd plan, if it even was a plan. “I’m going to order a whole bunch of oysters, keep them until they just slightly go off so that I can notice but my husband can’t, and coincidentally my husband will get sick at just the right time and then be very hungry so that he eats them all without expecting to share the meal with me…”
And if it was spur of the moment, what was it? “you know what, I’m tired of listening to how much his stomach bothers him. Hungry is he? What do I have in the pantry that just happens to have spoiled and will kill him.”
Came to say the same thing.
@@bookcat123 you notice when raw, depending how they are cooked you'd never know. Hence people that get sick from seafood present day at restaurants. She just may not have realized they were bad.
@@bookcat123For a possible motive, she did marry her husbands brother. Falling in love with the brother and wanting out of the marriage could easily be a motive for murder.
The saddest thing about these feuds. They go off into obscurity, and eventually, nobody remembers or cares. People have short lives, and they waste their time on useless pursuits of vengeance. Until everything becomes an obscure history of stupidity and arrogance. The Bible explains the human condition as a "chasing after the wind." It's insane that people treat each other so horribly for something that won't matter later on.
I get what you mean but if you truly thought someone murdered your brother and got away with it it'd be hard to just up and move on.
@@kevinkanzler495 I never claimed that anything is easy. But, the reality is even if you get revenge? You've solved nothing and you have taken God's ultimate authority away from him, and now you have God looking at you with displeasure. Is it really worth losing a chance for everlasting life that the bible talks about, and also losing the chance to see your bother again? Yes, I can't guarantee that God exist, I've never heard his voice or witnessed the miracles, but I do know that God is the only hope for the human race. I've watched human history, and the human race is running around like a tornado with no real answers than they had a thousand years ago or any time period for that matter. Personally, I'll take my chances with Jehovah God and Jesus Christ.
can we take a moment to appreciate how peaceful that cemetery is? its not beside some major road or stuck in the middle of a loud city but peacefully in the woods surrounded by trees
Most of the cemeteries in Western Massachusetts are like that, I am from that region and besides the major cities like Springfield, most towns have at the most 1,500 residents
Quabbin Reservoir is just east of Pelham, MA.
when it was made, in the 1930s, it cut travel through town drastically, as east-west traffic now has to go to the north on Route 2 or to the south on Route 9 or even I-90.
given the landform, though, it was probably always a bit of a backwoods.
I just discovered you last month & thought “why doesn’t this informative, funny, interesting & very entertaining young man have more clicks?” Finally the algorithm gods have discovered you!
You’re very unique, excellent comedic timing & accuracy is my favorite combo. I’m elated to see the numbers on this video, congratulations!
Thank you for making such amazing videos informing on such odd stories/graves. Makes me want to go around the weird graves/sites in my neck of the woods.
So glad I found this channel! I love exploring historical graveyards as well as going to the "back room" of my local library to dig up local history and folklore in my area. It'll be just as interesting learning some of the same stuff about different places in your videos. New sub!
I'm so glad that you're able to dig through all of those sources to find and connect the juicy bits and weave them together to form a fantastic story!
I think it was a bit distracting to have you on the very edge of the shot, though.
I’m having a little trouble with your phraseology:”……..dig through……juicy bits…”. Just saying 😬
Yes there was someone in my family two generations back who died from eating a bad oyster. My grandfather always told the tale whenever he found the opportunity
What an amazing story. Of course I checked the symptoms of arsenic poisoning, and being very thirsty is not one of them. 😊
I love this American stories about the past. The algorithm sent me this one and I immediately subscribed.
Greetings from The Netherlands.
Those are... not the symptoms of arsenic poisoning... and he was already sick. Seems like they should not have been allowed to put that on the tombstone.
A quick Google shows that ptomain poisoning leads to excessive thirst (amongst other symptoms). Arsenic poisoning does not. He was on his way out before he drank the cider vinegar!
This was the first time RUclipss algorithm gave me a glimpse at your channel…. Quite an interesting story sir! I think I may stick around and check out other videos ya got up here…. I really enjoyed the tone to your voice as you guide the story… Wishing ya good juju going forward in 2024, thanks again for the content!
When you said a neighbor brought apple cidar, which had almost turned to vinegar, I thought there's where the arsenic came from. Apple cidar can have 4.8 parts per million of arsenic. Currently, there is worry about hard apple cidars containing large amounts of arsenic.
Actually there is more arsenic in pure apple juice than there is in any cider and you would have to drink a heck of a lot for it to be toxic. Also its parts per billion not million.
Actually that amount is so low it is totally harmless. There is zero debate...
@@littleannie390 when he mentioned vinegar, i wonder could it be the acid provided some temporary relief in case of As poisoning? i am not a doctor, i would like to hear from a toxicologist about that.
Stumbled across your videos by accident, but I appreciate your video style, and the fact that you cite your references so clearly! This was really interesting, definitely sticking around for more. Thank you for sharing!
You are a good investigator and storyteller. I am glad to have discovered your channel.
What a treat to stumble upon something like this! I love finding out about local history like this
Hi, great video! There's a cemetery here in Michigan that contains the grave of a Navy Seabee that was killed in a nuclear reactor explosion. Richard C. Legg died in 1961 from the meltdown of a nuclear reactor in Idaho. There's a mystery around how it could have happened and also the other man killed in the accident. Allegedly Legg had been fooling around with the other guy's wife. After the accident Legg's body was so irradiated that he had to be buried in a lead lined coffin and encased in concrete. He's buried in Kingston, MI
i dont watch Jacksfilms much and just found this channel on my own. i feel like a pioneer seeing the channel at this size. fully expected it to be well over a million subs after listening to the video as i cleaned. keep it up man, youre an outstanding storyteller
I said it before and I'll say it again, everything in life has a history and story that's what makes life worth living 🤙
You can stop repeating it now.
I don't know who you are and I've never heard of this channel but nowI"m a subscriber. You took a 1 min video and made a VERY INTERESTING almost 20 min video. I have had a drought in content I enjoy lately and finding this was a pleasure. I am going to go ahead and slam watch your channel over the next couple days.
I guess I should hit the bell too. I hope more ppl find this channel. The way you just wondered around while talking made it seem so more like we're there too. The sound of the leaves on the ground.
AA+ homie
Yet another banger! Keep up the amazing work preserving and sharing these stories with the world.
What an absolute gem of a video. This is such incredibly high quality content.
I was actually lucky enough to act in a film that had a scene shot in the Pelham Town Hall a couple years back -- genuinely are inspiring building. I hope you are brought back to it for another video and future, would love to know more about its history!
Great video. Would have loved to have heard about when and how Mary died and where her headstone is. Has it been subjected to any "additions" (such as "murderer") by anyone/anytime. Keep up the great work.
I really like your style. You show text sources on screen and you reference them in the description. You give detailed info and you're a good story teller. Many other channels take the info of a 2 minute wikipedia read and stretch it to become a 15 min video with cliffhangers. More success to you!
All I know is if my gut was fucked up already, a jug of bad apple cider and oysters would _not_ be my first choice of next meals
This is a really beautiful piece of local history that should be preserved for posterity. It spices up the local identity, I love it! Maybe putting up some information board of some sort for tourists would be a good idea 😊
The word mean used to be synonymous with being miserly. If William was anything like his father he probably got the oysters for cheap and didn't have the good sense to not eat them.
You’re so calming and just overall chill. Not in like a vibe way but more like you are the poster child for calm. It’s as if every molecule in your body is made of ocean waves and lavender.
Does that make sense? He genuinely seems like that’s how he is in person, not an act or anything for the channel. Like How we see him is how he truly is.
If so, I need that. Having someone that reminds you to slow down and enjoy the life around you is something everyone needs
Warren Gibbs - was a descendant of the Thomas Gibbs lineage, that got lands in Greenwich. Thomas being the Grandson of Mathew Gibbs, of Charlestown and Sudbury. I also am a descendant of Mathew, via Thomas. Most of the Gibbs' of this area are buried in the Quabbin Park Cemetery. David C. Gibbs
Id like to take a moment to appreciate what this person does, he goes out of his way, exploring gravestones from people who suffered obscure laws, unique burial requests, or just forgotten in time, some of these graves aren't even on any map, but he shows them off anyways, a handful of these people would be lost in time if these videos didnt exist
Mad respect
You might want to check that stone after some time, because somebody who just watched this video might get the idea to destroy again.
I just stumbled upon your channel and i love this kind of stuff, just weird, mundane, day to day experience from the past. Thank you
In one video you mentioned the "Leatherman" but was referring to one I hadn't heard of. The one I'm thinking of was in western CT and NY wandering from Ridgefield through Kent and into NY around and around. Several 'caves' in the area, one in Salem, NY I think, are known as Leatherman caves and one, perhaps the one I mentioned, was a confirmed cave home.
Option 3. You have a bunch of period sources saying how likely it would be that oysters would be poisonous. They're also an unusual food to just have lying around in a region lile that. What if he was intentionally poisoned, just not with arsenic?
Seeing the meeting house is awesome. Maybe you could do a history of an old building like that. Places where interesting things happened and that still exist.
If he was murdered by arsenic his gravesite would have elevated levels compared to the other soil in the area. This was used to close 150 200 year old cold cases in the 1970s already and our techniques are much more sensitive now so yeah just test the soil
Love real small town stories like this.
That cemetery with the orange autumn leaves looks just like those little small town locations from halloween shows.
America has some really cool locations outside of the drab cityscapes.
Holy crap! I love this channel man! This intro alone drew me in, Didn’t even realize it’s a 19 minute long video! Incredible information here, As a Cape Codder myself, these stories close to home are amazing!
You should check out North Carolina's Blue Ridge mystery lights. Basically down here you can occasionally see lights in the sky fly up from the mountains and disappear. No one's really sure why. I haven't seen it myself but I don't live near the Blue Ridge as much anymore. I would visit in fall, definitely a great time to see the parkway too
I should mention that some people theorize that it's gas deposits being released, some people obviously think aliens, or government stuff it's really interesting
This is the first video of yours that I have seen after it popped up in my recommended, and I have to say I absolutely love your aesthetic. The single cam, lower resolution, 4:6 nature of your videos gives me nostalgia for old PBS shows that I used to watch growing up.
My family is from Buffalo (really grand island and tonowanda) but I swear I could tell that was your hometown within the first few minutes. lol. You have a gift in story telling and I LOVE those old stories connecting the gravestones. I remember my aunt talking about stuff at Amherst cemetery! Thanks for the content
Correction you’re from the New England area? Sorry was seeing Amherst.
GO BILLS! 😁 Ken-East grad here 👍
@@arweninnj my aunt went to Ken-west. I think my mom too! My aunt teaches in grand island now at the elementary school
@@Adrieballard44 Cool! Both my parents graduated from Kenmore High before there was an "East" and a "West". 😉 I still have a lot of close family in the area and go back a few times a year.
I can only hope that the circumstances of my death are interesting enough that a hundred years later some random guy shows up and stands over my grave talking about it.
Very cool video! I appreciate the research and thought you put into it. This reminded me of a headstone I found in Alabama years ago- I looked through my pictures just to find the one I took of it. It said "Lewis G Wilson. Born May 19, 1837. Murdered on the night of Jan 24, 1895. Such was the sad fate of one whose honesty and integrity were unimpeachable." I was never able to find anything about what happened, beyond a findagrave site with a picture of the headstone on it. It's always super interesting to learn about these local legends, and this one still bothers me.
One of the most interesting channels on you tube . You are a brilliant presenter and researcher Well done look forward to seeing lots more
That space deserves a historic marker
Always cool to see a smaller creator with a good amount of talent. It's not easy to make a compelling 20 minute video, so seriously good job there. Good music choice too, it's a small thing, but I think it added a lot of charm.
Great video. Would have loved some more info though e.g. how the other brother died who married her afterwards. "Poisoned" as well or just plain old age? And what about Mary herself? Did she live happily ever after?
Good questions! Mary died of a sinus infection at the age of 74. Her grave is in the nearby town of Belchertown. I wasn't able to find out what happened to her second husband, but I haven't really looked too hard into that either. Maybe something to research further one day!
Innocent until proven guilty seems like such a good idea, I wonder why we stopped believing in it. Maybe there was an unintended consequence or something. Maybe it was just to difficult for humans to stop kneejerking their way through life. Idk, but its a really interesting transition from back then to now.
Everyone assumed it was the oysters, because everyone thought it was obvious that they would have been bad--don't you think Mary would have had as much sense to know she was serving bad oysters?
Murdering someone with bad oysters is a terrible plan, because most people don't die from food poisoning - even back then. I've had food poisoning 6 times, never had medical treatment for it and was just sick and on the toilet a lot for a few days and then recovered on my own. Obviously food poisoning CAN kill you if you get it, but it's not likely and I doubt anybody would try and murder someone like that because they would understand the person is likely to recover. And I don't see why people would think she should have known the oysters were bad. Her husband ate the oysters and didn't see, smell or taste anything wrong with them - how is someone merely preparing and serving them supposed to know? Can you judge if food has gone bad if it doesn't look, smell or taste funny? I know I certainly can't.
Love your channel, history, visiting our historic cemeteries, and oysters.
I bet the oysters would have traveled alright in March. Especially back when they actually had winters.
1860s didn't have refrigeration as we know it but they did have ice. They could have easily kept oysters cool for a eight mile trip.
eighty miles to New Haven, CT.
probably would have done it by train, but it's still a long trip from Northampton (5 hour walk one way) or Amherst (2 hours) to Pelham.
so, given the changeability of March weather, likelihood of freshness could have varied considerably day to day, and much would also depend on how well they were stored from ocean bed to store to plate before being eaten.
I'm so glad I ran across this today! Utterly fascinating and well presented. You pulled together a difficult and long history on this. (In Bayville, LI, NY, we had an old cemetery with gravestones from the 1700's and early 1800's which I've always found fascinating.) It's a godsend that we now have the ability to do in-depth research on ancient gravestones and their history.
The other brother married the widow is pretty wild.
Just watched my second of your offerings and immediately subscribed. Fasinating stories. Thank you for your effort and hard work in providing us with these interesting bits of history.
Not as overt as the Chestnut Hill church from your previous video, but it looks like the Pelham Historical Society building also follows the Greek Revival style architecture of the time. Cool to see.
You are correct! Good eye
You want home town cemetery stories. Well I know of few.
Alamosa Cemetery in colorado for starters. The grave of Wihelmina Becker simply statrs “Died Oct 36, 1913.” The statue atop the grave is believed to look at people walking through the grave yard. Over the years people have stolen parts of the statue and others leave coins at its base as an offering.
Ok the other strange grave I know of is in near by in Rio Grande County, Rock Creek Cemetery. Way back in the west a man was ride on a coach that was carrying valuables. The story goes the something happened (hit a bump or dip in the road) and his shotgun went off. The blast blew his arm off. He survived and supposedly had a funeral for his arm. There was a head stone for it and everything. He would live on with the rest of his life passing away later and being buried in a completely different cemetery. So he is literally buried in two places.
Next home town cemetery story is about a cemetery back in Alamosa County. The cemetery’s name is “Bad Boozer”. It got its name in the most messed up way. There was a small mining community up in that area way back in the day. Well one day after a good year they decided they were going to celebrate. So they purchased a large shipment of alcohol. Well when it arrived they all started drinking and it turns out they did not get drinking alcohol but rather industrial. A lot of people died as a result and were buried at the cemetery. That’s how it was started and got its name.
And finally a personal family story. I had an uncle who died in a plane crash. His body was never found. So as a family we buried a casket filled with bricks and his flight jacket. No one is actually buried in his grave but it a place to remember him. Since it’s on a military base I won’t say where. Now and then people get a little weirded out by the fact he was never found. I guarantee his casket is not the only one filled with bricks there.