Every March 15, flocks of buzzards converge on Hinckley Township, Ohio.
The town has named it “Buzzard Day,” marking the return of spring.
Determined Optimism
Oddities
Capsule Summary
On May 17, 1817, Samuel Jessup died. That was bad news for his apothecary, who had been suing him over an unpaid bill — over the course of 21 years, Jessup had taken 226,934 pills, an average of 10,806 a year. Between 1812 and 1816 he took 78 pills a day, 51,590 in 1814 alone. With the addition of 40,000 bottles of mixture, juleps, and electuaries, the druggist’s bill filled 55 closely written columns.
Despite all this — or perhaps because of it — Jessup lived to age 65.
Animal Lover
Paleontologist William Buckland (1784-1856) proposed to eat his way through the animal kingdom — he served panther, crocodile, and mouse to his dinner guests, and he claimed that the most unpleasant dishes he had tried were mole and bluebottle.
Raconteur Augustus Hare recalled that at Nuneham Buckland was presented with the heart of a French king in a silver casket: “Whilst looking at it he exclaimed, ‘I have eaten many strange things, but have never eaten the heart of a king,’ and before any one could hinder him he had gobbled it up, and the precious relic was lost for ever.”
Easy Money
In July 1891, an engineer named Charles Wells went to Monte Carlo with £4000, broke the bank 12 times in 11 hours, and came away with a million francs.
He returned in November and made another million.
The casino never discovered his system.
Fair Enough
A man of the name of Desjardins was tried on his own confession, for having admitted that he was an accomplice of Louvel, the assassin of the Duke de Berri. The case was clearly proved. Desjardins set up, as his defence, that he was so notorious for his falsehood, that nobody could give credit to a word he said, and produced a whole host of witnesses, his friends and relatives, who all swore to the fact with such effect, that he was declared Not Guilty.
— Annual Register, 1822
An Inadvertent Effigy
In 1813 Samuel Coleridge received the news of his own death. A gentleman in black had hanged himself from a tree in Hyde Park; authorities had found no money or papers in his pockets, but his shirt was marked “S. T. Coleridge.”
According to Charles Robert Leslie in Autobiographical Recollections, “Coleridge was at no loss to understand how this might have happened, since he seldom travelled without losing a shirt or two.”
Low Mass
What is it with salt miners? Apparently inspired by Poland’s Wieliczka mine, which features a salty Last Supper, Colombia has built an entire salt cathedral, complete with 14 chapels representing the stations of the cross. Don’t they have work to do?
The Crawfordsville Monster
The Indianapolis Journal of Sept. 5, 1891, reports that two icemen were hitching a wagon in Crawfordsville, Ind., at 2 a.m. on Sept. 4 when they saw in the sky “a horrible apparition approaching from the west.” A headless monster, 18 feet long and 8 feet wide, floated 300 feet overhead, apparently propelled by fins. It circled a nearby house, disappeared to the east, then returned, emitting a wheezing, moaning sound. The men fled, but the noise awakened a Methodist pastor, who saw the creature from his window.
Reportedly it returned on the following evening, when hundreds of witnesses saw a flapping “thing” that “squirmed in agony” and made a “wheezing, plaintive noise” as it hovered in the sky.
That’s all we know. The creature, if it really existed, never returned to Crawfordsville.
A Sign
In 1612, John Donne accompanied Sir Robert Drury to Paris, leaving his pregnant wife in London.
Two days after their arrival there, Mr. Donne was left alone, in that room in which Sir Robert, and he, and some other friends had dined together. To this place Sir Robert return’d within half an hour; and, as he left, so he found Mr. Donne alone; but, in such Extasie, and so alter’d as to his looks, as amaz’d Sir Robert to behold him: insomuch that he earnestly desired Mr. Donne to declare what had befaln him in the short time of his absence? to which, Mr. Donne was not able to make a present answer: but, after a long and perplext pause, did at last say, I have seen a dreadful Vision since I saw you: I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: this, I have seen since I saw you. To which, Sir Robert reply’d; Sure Sir, you have slept since I saw you; and, this is the result of some melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake. To which Mr. Donnes reply was: I cannot be surer that I now live, then that I have not slept since I saw you: and am, as sure, that at her second appearing, she stopt, and look’d me in the face, and vanisht.
Donne and Drury immediately sent a messenger to London. He returned to say that Mrs. Donne had borne a dead child at the hour her husband thought he had seen her in Paris.
(From Izaak Walton, Life of Dr John Donne, 1675)
John Carter
Paralyzed in a fall in 1836, John Carter discovered a talent for art, holding a brush in his teeth and working in bed. The figures below are after Albrecht Dürer.
See also No Handicap, Sarah Biffen, and Prince Randian.