Selects: Who was America's first murderer?

has changed tremendously in the last decade. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as we do, because it's a great one. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you Should Know, Episode three. No, it's not why I'm saying it is, Okay, So now it's episode episode three something three nineer eight or that's good, Josh? Is that your intro? Rocking and a rolling splitshing in

the splashing over the horizon? What could it be? Look like it's gonna be a new country? You remember that one? What are you talking about? That was genuinely have no idea. That was the the schoolhouse rock for the Mayflower Voyage, really rocking in a roll and splitsh it in the splash, and you remember that over the horizon, what could it be? Look like it's going to be a free country or new country. Either way, it was both new and probably

knew because that was not free for everybody. That's true. Yeah, So you're talking about this because we're going to talk about the first murderer, right, Yeah, And before we start, I want to ask why has no one ever made a modern film about the Mayflower Voyage. It seems like a no brainer, you know. Yeah, I don't know, especially after gotting around to it yet, like the awesomeness of Master and Commander. Did you ever see that, the one

with um Russell Crowe? Yeah, it was very good, surprisingly good. Yeah. It surprised me too. Actually, I didn't get the colon. It made it sound like it was a franchise, but it was like the first of the franchise. It wasn't like, Oh, I guess, I guess Pirates of the Caribbean did have a call in the first one, didn't it, I don't know, huh.

But Master, that was Peter Weir master and commander. So it makes sense that it was awesome because he's such a great director and related to Bob we right, I think, really, I don't know. I don't think so. I've always suspected. Did he do the Treuman Show? Uh? That was written by we did Gatica. I don't know who directed that. That That might have been Peter Weir, But he did Gallipoli and uh, like scores of great movies. Well cool, Well, thank you for joining us at this discussion of Peter

Weir's films. He should direct the Mayflower movie was what I'm say. For goodness sakes, Okay, they need to do it like a realistic because you know, when you learn about it in school, at least I did. I thought, you know, you learned about it from Schoolhouse Rock, and you get the picture. They just sang songs and kind of rock and rolled over the ocean and then ran into Plymouth rock and shared Thanksgiving with the Indians. And they need to make a real movie about how it

really was. Well, yeah, because you know, that whole Schoolhouse Rock impression is pretty widely held even among adults educated adults, And the reason why it is because there's a very small amount of firsthand information that left Plymouth Colony right um, and was allowed to stand. There was a small group of people who were controlling all of the info about that place, and they were trying to paint it in as good a light as possible because they were trying

to attract investors. And these firsthand accounts that you know, basically painted the Puritans as you know, these hard scrapple people who were um guided by a divine hand in the wilderness. Has stood all these centuries, hard hard scrapple. So let's talk about Let's talk about the Pilgrims the voyage, right they landed in sixty just as a quick primer, so says you, um. And they were Pilgrims. They were

Puritans and separatists, as they were often called. They were people who were so pious that no one in all of Europe was pious enough to contend with them. And they were like, I'm sick of all you sinners. Were going to go found a new um, a new republic in the in the name and for the glory of God, and we're going to be really, really good, and we're going to do it in the new world, and that that's what they did. They sailed over to Massachusetts and

landed in Plymouth. As it turns out, nice place to land, I imagine. And uh, well, che, I mean, are we going to get to the murder a guy right away or should we just ease into that. Well, let's talk a about who was there. It wasn't just Puritans, it wasn't just separatists. There's a whole other group of people who don't get talked about a lot. Uh. And they were called the strangers. Yeah, that sounded really creepy when I read it. For some reason, I think it sounds cool.

I think it sounds creepy, Like they look like they should have been dressed in like like the pilgrim black, like with why brim hats so you can't see their eyes. Yeah, what was the the deal with them? Were they Catholic? They were anything but the separatists of the Puritans. So they were Catholics. They were sailors, they were um Africans, they were whoever kidnapped Indians. I don't know if all those people were on the main Flower, but there it was.

There was a bunch of people, you know, got them over there. He went with them and the Puritans were pretty rigid. Obviously they didn't like Catholics at all. They were indeed extremely rigid, but to this degree, as we'll see, Um, they they they found that like, no, nobody's this rigid. And there were a lot of strangers who broke all out of laws, but um, there are a lot of Puritans who did too, um and they just kind of

glossed it over. They kept records, but these things just didn't get promoted, right, Yeah, Mort's Relation, Yes, So what you're talking about Mort's Relation written in sixteen twenty two by William Bradford, who was clearly the governor, longtime governor of Plymouth. His cousin George Morton wrote he was a separatist and he wrote this book or an account, and that was that sort of looked at as the account

of Plymouth. But as it turns out, as you point out, because you wrote this, Mortz Relation was written to attract funding, right for Plymouth. So it was basically like a lengthy, in depth brochure to attract investors. And what are you going to say. You're not going to say, we're starving to death over here, we're having a really hard time we're probably not going to make it. People are committing bestiality. Yes, buggery is what they call that. Huh, we'll get to that.

Of the okay, um and the not going to say this, they're going to say things are great, we're really you know, living and by God's will, we're really just making it over here, and we need some more money. Yeah, yeah, they did, so that means take take it with a grain of salt. They but they didn't just pretend like the strangers weren't there, but they painted some of the

strangers in possibly less than flattering light. Right. Uh yeah, I mean, are we at the Billington's Inn, might as well be the Billington's the family, John Billington's, his wife um eleanor his son's little John John Jr. And Francis, who was a boy his other son. They were sort of painted as like reading your reading your article. They sort of seem like, on one hand, like the first white trash, you know, that's one way to put it, And then they also sort of seem like, no, you know,

they might have been kind of cool and just rabble rousers. Yeah, or yes, I think that that's very accurate. But they definitely weren't any friends of Bradford that he did not like these people? No, he didn't. He called Um. He wrote in a letter to a Mr Cushing. I believe uh that who had some sort of authority I guess in the over the colony in back in England. But he basically says that Billington still rails against you, and that he's a nave, which means a scoundrel. And he'll

always be a nave. He'll live and dies so and and as so he'll live and die. Yeah. That was Kushman, by the way, thank you, the same thing. And uh he also said that he quote he said they were one of the profanest families to come to the colony. And it wasn't just John, I mean they didn't. He didn't like any of them. His kids were a bit of a handful too, well, one of them. It doesn't

say who in the records. But on the way over Um decided that he was going to shoot off his father's musket right gun in a cabin filled with people, which is bad enough, but he did it right next to a open, half filled keg of gunpowder, right so he almost just blew the whole Mayflower up and history would have changed forever. Probably. So that was the first thing that happened with the Billington's and the rest of the people on the Mayflower. No, actually it wasn't. There

was part. There was a mutiny that John Billington's, the father, was involved in um and he was he was let off the hook because it was his first offense. But he uh he that that started. Tensions were already high. And then one of his sons, either Francis or John Jr.

Shot off the gun in the cabin. So you start to get an impression of this family, especially when you look at you know, when you think of them bristling, not just the average persons, you know, ire, but a puritan's ire, right, yeah, because you can screw up like innumerable ways in the eyes of a Puritan, sure, especially if you're not a Puritan, That's right. And then once they got to the New World, Uh, they continue their shenanigans.

John Jr. Kind of wandered off one day twenty miles worth and wandered into a Native American village, and then he was taken to another village by those Native Americans, and eventually they sent out a group to go find him and took him a little while. They set sail, actually ended up on Cape Cod what is now Cape Cod and uh said, you know you're gonna have to come back, Yes, And they found him because of Massive Swat, who was the great statum of the Wappanoag Wappag. Yeah,

well panalog or get an email for that one. Um who was involved in the first Thanksgiving with these same people. So he might have had something to do with that then, huh, well he did. He was already like he he basically was Um trying to use the Englishman against his rivals, I think the Abenaki um to basically run them out rather than consolidate with the other Indians against the English.

And basically that turned over the whole continent to Europe like that one act is largely considered as the the turning point. So he was already pals with him, um and uh yeah, so he helped him find the boy. And if you're from Plymouth, if you live in the Plymouth area, then you might know Billington Sea, which is a pond and that's name for John Jr. Yeah, who wandered off right. Yeah, I think that he might have

found that. I mean you know, he discovered the pond, but he may have discovered it on his wonder right his sojourn. Yeah, but they found him and he was quote be hung with beads. So apparently they you know, kind of adopted him a little bit like he was the mascot. Yeah, and then they gave him back. Yeah, and then the I think that the colonists gave the Indians and a couple of knives and said thanks and went back to Plymouth, thanks for the beads and the guy.

But you have to imagine that mounting a ten man sailing expedition into Indian country. Um, because your kid wandered off, it's gonna you're gonna You're gonna rub the back of your neck and be like thanks a lot, you know. Yeah, you know, if you're at Billington's and you're like, thanks for getting my kid back, you know, can I do I owe you anything? Or you know? Not so though, because Billington uh had a bad reputation in that he scoffed at Captain Miles Standish and you don't scoff at

Standish Miles Standish. Proud Miles Standard was trying to get people to UH to you know, serve in the military, and Billington was like, no, dude, ain't I'm not doing that. He was a part of anti government groups government subversion. Well, there was in there was called what's called the olderman Lyford Conspiracy. That was the name of two main conspirators.

He was named as a co conspirator. And reading his history and then this, you know, the the actual history of this conspiracy, which is a lot of secret meetings about how they should overthrow this Puritan regime and start governing this colony the right way. Um, he was probably a part of it, but he denied it and was let off the hook again. Well, and he he was also apologized for the UM for standing up against Standish and they said they threatened him with hog tying, which

can actually kill you. I didn't realize that I could see that because what you'r all your weights on your chest, right, Well, it's they tie your legs together, they tie your arms behind your back, and then they tie your ankles to your neck around your neck. What So, unless you stay completely arched like that, you're gonna start cutting off circulation. Like it's a form of torture. It's not just how we're gonna tie you up. Well, the that whole second step has been kind of lost to history as I

understand it. Well, now is it just tying the hands and tie your your hands and your ankles, your wrists and your ankles together behind your back, and yeah, you're arched, But I don't know anything about tying the ankles around that. That's horrible. Apparently the old hog time is a little more brutal. Yeah, which makes total sense. Which also makes sense why he's described as basically like pleading for mercy not to have that happened to him, and which is

why they let him go. Yeah, Miles Sands is like, all right, but get out of my site, Billington Diet, and I mean, like there's really there's there's we can't forget. We can't leave out the fact that these people were original plymouth colonists, like they were the first he's on the charter, the first European, the first English European Americans, and the first what would become one of the first states of America. Like, these are important people, no matter

what their reputations are. He was the signer of the Mayflower Compact, which is the first um European based governing law. I guess you would call it state of laws. Um, and he was he was. He helped Hugh the colony out of the wilderness. He was one of the colonists, right yeah. And there's a pdf online I found that traces his family tree and apparently James Garfield, the President, was a descendant of Billington's and it it. I mean, if you're I wish I would have written down some

of the last names. I A. Witten was one of them. But I mean there were people that have staid like still alive today. Oh yeah, there's an apparently I remember researching this. I couldn't find it when I reresearched for this podcast. But there's like a whole group of people who are into that kind of thing. We are proudly ancestors of Billington's, this rabble rousing, the first like real troublemaker in America. Well, people are proud period just to

be descendants of the Plymouth colonists for sure. So um, but you you, I hopefully everybody has like kind of an idea of how Billington and his family were regarded. Right Well, we didn't get to his wife and daughter. I know that was after what he could, but his wife was Eleanor was locked in the stocks and whipped at one point. She was also had to pay fines of five pounds sterling because she was found guilty of slandering her neighbors and his granddaughter Dorcas. I love that.

There's only one way to pronounce that, right, Yeah, d O R c As. I'm gonna bring that one back. If I ever have a daughter, she's gonna be Dorcas. Bryant uh Orcis apparently was sentenced to whipping because she um had sexual intercourse when she was twenty two years old, and you didn't do that. So um, yeah, the whole family was definitely not They didn't fall in line with with the rest of the crowd. Although that's that's not true because a lot of the rest of the crowd

was doing even worse things. As it turns out, you just didn't read it in the brochure, right, So can we talk about some of the stuff that people were doing please? Okay, So remember by there's still only seven and fifty five people in Plymouth Colony. Okay, so this this stuff is happening like twenty fifty years before that. The way fewer people, and yet there were incidents where people like Thomas Granger, who was a servant UM was

indicted for buggery which we established before. It was beastiality with a mayor, a cow, two goats, diverse sheep, two calves, and a turkey who he fell in love with. He he was sentenced to hang by um or sentenced to die by hanging. Uh. John Walker the next year turkey he yes, UM, he was. He laid with a bitch, as it's put and of course we mean the the well the pilgrims meant the dog, the female dog. Um. Another guy was was he was held on suspicion of

buggery with the beast. Another guy had buggery with the mayor. And it just keeps going on and going on. So basically somebody would get caught sleeping with a dog and would be whipped, put into the stocks, pilloried, um. And it was just recorded but never talked about. Yeah. There was also rape in sodomy against humans going on. Yeah. The way they put sodomy was that they were um. These John Alexander and Thomas Roberts back in sixty seven were called um and they got the hot irons, which wow,

is that's rough. So you hear about this stuff and you think Dorcas doing, you know, sleeping with a man, I presume is a very normal thing for twenty two year old middle aged woman to do right at the time. Yes, she's not that, she's not laying down with the turkeys. No, so Eleanor got put in the stocks for slander. Right, Yeah, there's no recording of what she said or basically, we've reached this point here where we should probably talk about

what John Billington did. Okay, because now that we've debunk the fact that not everyone was super pure, and you can't necessarily read uh Mort's relation and the brochure and say, you know, everything was just hunky dorry over there. This maybe actually, maybe this is why the movie hasn't been made, because he wants to see a guy sleeping with the turkey. I don't know. I think there's a market for movies.

You paid a lot for it, you know, it's a market for that, but it's not box office grossing record breaking numbers. Peter Weir wouldn't touchdown or what the in football? So um, we should probably talk about how Billington became America's first murderer. It took it took place what ten years after he got there, So you have to think like, this guy's an original settler and he's been farming and hewing uh inn existence out for himself and other people.

And as a UM, an original Mayflower compact signer, he got a bunch of land parcel to him, like this is tens Land now. So but while he made an enemy, clearly one real enemy. He made quite a few, Bradford being one of him. But he made one enemy named John Newcomen, who was a newcomer as it turns out, to Plymouth. UM. He hadn't been there for ten years. And it seems like history is a little sketchy because, like you said, it's not all like recorded at that point.

But one thing I read was it was possibly over hunting rights. And don't know how true that is. It is very true, it is. Yeah, there there's I when I was going back in UM reading the the source material for this, I'm like, why did I Why was I so vague when I wrote this article? Because it did that confirm? Did it confirm that? Yeah? Well so in the Bradford's version basically is like this he wayed

at Billington Waylade. Newcoming, which we should explain what whyalate is Waylade is like basically lying in wait and then murdering, like hiding in the bush as it premeditated. It's huge if you read a stranger's account. There was an account

by a stranger and I don't know who. Um it's not in this, not in the source I cited, but um it talks about how Newcoming was already known to Billington's because he um, he used to steal from Billington's traps, he poached on his land, and um, Billington had chased the kid off a bunch of times. Newcomings seventeen at

the time, gotches. He was jerk basically, and he was what the strangers called a saint, which meant you were in good with Bradford because you were a Puritan, and compared to a stranger, you had exponentially more rights and

you got away with exponentially more stuff. Okay, so here's Billington, who already has a bad reputation, and there's some little seventeen year old punk kid stealing from his traps who's chased off time and time and time again, and um, he catches him there, so he goes after him with his gun, and the kid goes and hides behind a tree, and Billington shoots at the tree. I don't know if he meant to shoot at the kid. Apparently he was a pretty good marksmant, but he hit the kid in

the shoulder, not exactly a lethal shot today. Well, the kid died in like three days of an infection. That's how the America's first murder took place, and it was apparently with a blunderbuss. Have you ever heard of these guns? Is that the one with the big sort of like you see fund as a pilgrim hunting with Yeah, a little bit. I mean it's not like an elephant gun, but if it does flare out at the end, and it's sort of like, um, what would be considered today,

it's sort of like a sawt off shotgun. So like it was a musket, but it was short and flared, and so I imagine it it had a wider uh spray, even though it wasn't well, it wouldn't be a spray because they didn't use pellets. But they compared it to a sawt off shotgun. And what I read hand on the pump exactly. So, Um, that's how the first murder took place. I get the impression. Billington, who was also

um described as um beloved by many. In another account by a stranger, kind of a satirical take on Plymouth colony, Thomas Morton in the New English Canaan said that he was a beloved dude. He was beloved by many. Basically, if you were a stranger, you probably like Billington. He sounded like a kind of a fun guy. To be honest. I know he's the first murderer, but he's a rebel rouser. I tend to associate with those types. Well, Billington thinks that because of the the fact that they need people,

they're still each individual is very important. Um, And that this kid had been Really it was the kid's fault that he was on his property. Billington had warned him, all warned him all that he would he would be spared his life. Well, no, Governor Bradford himself was the one who ordered him to death, and he didn't like

him to begin with, so he had his chance. So this is um what you could call unfair to a certain extent perhaps, And not only did Bradford sentence his longtime enemy or somebody he disdained for many years to death. He was also the one who literally wrote the history. In addition to what is it Morts? What Mort's retort? Uh?

Not Mort's retort. I was kidding Mort's relation. Okay. So in addition to morts relation, the other probably largest cited um firsthand account of Plymouth Plantation is called of Plymouth Plantation. It's Bradford's own journal. So he literally wrote the history for Plymouth. And of course he's going to paint it in his He's going to paint himself and his fellows in the best light, and that's what we go on, and Billington in a poor light because he sent it

him to hang. So I think, if anything, this Um was the episode inten ended too. Tell you to always take historical accounts of the Green install especially the old ones. There's always two sides to every story, and the three stooges actually get better as you age stuff. You should know you got anything else. Nope, If you want to learn more about America's first murderer, type America's first murderer, America gonna be trouble saying that at these days. You

can type that in the handy. You can type wherever you want, but you're gonna get the best result if you type it in the handy search bart how stuff works dot com. Sure uh, and that, of course brings up listener mail. Yes, Josh, I'm gonna call this nicotine poisoning from Aaron. A couple of years ago, guys who came home from university to find my key wei roommate working away in the kitchen. He decided to bake brownies for the first time, and I hurried upstairs to try

something because he wanted to support his friend. Quickly, I was overwhelmed by a sour taste, which was only mildly canceled out by the cherries which were mixed in with the batter. It was very close to spitting it out when my roommate walked in and said, what do you think. I didn't want to insult them, so I popped the rest of it in my mouth and said I could use a little more sugar. I left the room, and that's when everything got hazy. What I do remember is

my roommates bursting into my room. This is crazy. They found me curled up into a ball, with my head between my knees, rocking slowly. I was covered in sweat and muttering to myself, letting out loud moans, which is apparently what alerted my roommates when they opened the door. They flooded the room with light, caused intense pain in my head and for some reason, in my stomach. Not really thinking, I bolted to the bathroom and induced vomiting

trying to get all the evil out of me. I was exhausted laying on the floor trying to figure out what was wrong. Apparently there were two boxes on the table, did you read this? One one containing brownies and one with shisha tobacco destined for the hookah that they kept in their house. Far could in my haste, I accidentally consumed about three ounces of cherry tobacco mix that was

destined for the hookah. I'm not sure exactly how much nicotine my body absorbed in the hour or so it was in me, but when I stood up, I promptly passed out and, according to my roommates, started convulsing on the floor. They wanted to take me to the hospital, of course, but I refused. Being the bull headed midwesterner I sometimes can be or the college student who doesn't want to pay for that kind of ning. When I did go to the hospital the next morning, explained the

situation to the e R Tech. They immediately took my vitals and said I was lucky, lucky to have survived without any serious complications. Uh, that it very well could have been a fatal dose. And all I can say is, if you're ever in the same situation, air on the side of caution, called poison control right away. And he's lucky that his roommates one of them had E M T training because it could have gone the other way.

And Aaron might not be a fan of our podcast today man the ate who gets tobacco pot it in his mouth and said it needs a little more sugar. Wow, Aaron, I'm glad you made it. Um if you had a yeah, I'm very glad he's around so okay. And if you are a member of the Billington clan by blood somehow or marriage, whatever, we want to hear from you, send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff works dot com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit

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