The Violent Legend of Aunt Jenny

Monday. com AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. I stay in the loop only when it matters. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday. com Hey, it's Ran Renold here from Mit Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for fifteen dollars a month is back So I thought it would be fun if we made fifteen dollars bills, but it turns out It's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at midmobile dot com slash switch Upront pay forty dollars for months ninety dollars for months or one hundred eighty dollars for twelveth plan reired fifteen dollars month equalent to taxes fees extra. initial planerm only greater than fifty gigabtes me slow netor is busy terms are created equal In fact, most are completely misleading Since the sixteenth century, the majority of cartographers have used the Mercator projection when designing maps Originally created to help in marine navigation, it became a major resource for sailors. And considering that for a few centuries, those were some of the only people who actually needed to use a world map on a day to day basis. That's the version that stuck But if you're not a pirate, then those maps are just a headache. They may be helpful when you're on the high seas, but they also distort the sizes of all the actual continents. The farther a landmass is from the equator, the bigger it appears. Warm countries seem smaller than they actually are, while cold places seem much larger For example, in the Mercatur prorojection, Greenland looks significantly bigger than Africa, when it's actually the other way around Europe looks to be roughly the same size as South America, when it's significantly smaller. I think you get the idea The problem goes a little deeper than simple factual accuracy These incorrect images can subtly influence people to believe that their country is bigger and therefore more important than it actually is. An easy trap for most people to fall into It's a powerful misconception. All of us have a tendency to believe our neck of the woods is the most important, that our perspective isn't mere opinion, but definitive fact. And naturally, people throughout history have allowed that inflated sense of self importance to drive their actions, no matter how many people they hurt, In the process And if the stories that are whispered down in the state of Alabama are any indication, a lot of darkness and tragedy can be created when small men It's big I'm Eron Mankey This is Lore Legends Daniel wasn't just a hard worker. He was a visionary, an altruist, a shining example of what a southern businessman really could be. if that is you ignore all the enslaved human beings that he owned Daniel Pratt didn't start his life in Alabama though. He was born in New Hampshire, and he didn't move south until he was twenty years old. In fact, his southern neighbors probably called him a Yankee He may not have had much formal education under his belt, but he did just finish a four year architecture apprenticeship. And as it turns out, that would be more than enough Daniel undoubtedly had talent for the field, but he was also in the right place at the right time In the early nineteenth century, the Anttebell himself was experiencing an economic boom like never before Two decades before Daniel found himself in Georgia, Eli Whitney had invented the cotton gin. This contraption would change agriculture and human rights in the South for nearly a century to come It seemed that more people used the cotton gin to make money off the backs of enslaved workers, the better the economy became, and the more the economy improved, the bigger cities grew, which all translated into more business for Daniel. whichich is how, after less than a decade on the job, he became one of the South's leading architects Even so, Daniel wanted more. Th in the late eighteen twenties, he got it. That's when Daniel was offered a position as the manager of a cotton gin factory in Alabama. And by eighteen thirty three, he had set up a factory of his own Daniel Pratt had suddenly become one of the few businessmen who produced the machinery that ran the entire southern economy His business grew so rapidly that by the eighteen forties, the Pratt Gin Company had become the largest supplier of cotton gins in the entire world, shipping them as far away as Russia, although of course, his favorite clients were always his neighbors in Alabama By eighteen forty eight, he owned two three story factories, and by eighteen fifty, he employed nearly two hundred workers. When he died in eighteen seventy three, he was remembered as an incredible businessman, a devout husband and father, and a generous philanthropist. The only problem with his legacy was that it was built atop hundreds of enslaved children and adults According to the eighteen forty census, two thirds of his workforce consisted of enslaved human beings He didn't personally own most of them outright though, choosing instead to lease the majority of them from their traffickers But that didn't mean that he didn't have any. In fact, in eighteen sixty, he was on record as owning over one hundred The rest of his employees were most likely children, who were the next cheapest option, and sadly, their age wouldn't shield them from the harsh realities of factory work For example, in eighteen ninety three, a ten year old boy named Willie Youngblood worked at the Pratt Cotton Gin Factory. He was stationed on the third floor of the cotton mill in what was called the spinning room On Friday, march twenty fourth, Willie was on his assigned floor talking with a few of the elevator operators Hearing chatter come from the floor below, he turned toward the open elevator shaft entrance to see what was going on But as he turned, he lost his balance and fell thirty feet to the bottom Remarkably, Willie was alive when his body was recovered But he died the very next day surrounded by his loved ones Now, you might expect me to tell you that Willie Spirit has been seen running around the old factory. But he never has. It would seem that Willie, as far as we know, at least is fully at peace But definitely not his mother If Vinie young Blood never recovered from the loss of her son In her grief, she mourned him for a full year And then she threw herself off the Patmill dam into the river below And ever since her death, employees and visitors alike have reported seeing and I quote, a sad and sullen woman around the area. She is described as being dressed in all black like she is still mourning her loss Those who have seen her suspect that she's still looking for Willie, as though her son might suddenly reveal that he'd been playing an elaborate game of hide and seek this entire time But nobody has ever reported seeing the apparition of the little boy himself Especially not since the old factactory burned down in two thousand two All that's left today is an empty lot And occasionally woman in black. After the Civil War, slavery didn't go away They just changed clothes. The cotton field didn't wither, the mines didn't dry up. There was still work to be done, and you can be sure that white landowners weren't about to do it themselves, so they did everything they could to get their labor at the cheapest price possible The most popular way to do that was simply to low ball the formerly enslaved folks who were now looking for paid jobs. They were given a pittance for the exact same work they'd been doing before the war, that is to say, barely enough to live on Other white business owners got a bit more inventive and found ways to pay their workers even less. It was simple, really? They just leased convicted criminals from the local jail Both of these methods were obviously deplorable, sacrificing human dignity for the Almighty dollar whichich is why the ever thrifty businessman, Colonel James Withers Sloss, indulged in both After the war, the cololonel had set up shop in Jones Valley right up against the Red Mountains. The region was chocked full of rich iron ore deposits, and he figured that as the South began to industrialize, the men who control the iron would be the ones to make their fortune Which is why, in eighteen eighty one, Colonel Sloss established the Sloss furnace Company. He and his two sons built two furnaces in easastern Birmingham to process iron for the nearby railroad lines. The company ran in some capacity or another for a full century, and by the time World War one hit, they had even become one of the largest producers of pig iron Those two simple furnaces eventually turned into seven, and they were joined by thousands of ovens, acres full of coal, and even a few mines Clearly, Sloss and his sons had built an empire. the ones who were toiling over the hot furnace fires day in and day out. During the first few years of the company's existence, it employed, and I'm using that term loosely here, as we've already discussed, over five hundred formerly enslaved people After the cololonel sold his ownership in eighteen eighty six, that number only increased One source claimed that the factory had such an abundance of cheap labor that they didn't even bother installing machinery until their workforce began to migrate north in the nineteen twenties in seek of better paying jobs. whichich means that whenever there was a workplace accident It wasn't the Sloths furnace compomany's revenue or white owners that got hurt It was their black workforce Now, sadly, there were too many accidents to name here, but a few standouts In November of eighteen eighty two, for example, two men tumbled into one of the furnaces Ten years later, the scaffolding fell out from beneath eight men, sending them plummeting sixty feet to the ground Just a few weeks after that, another worker was crushed pile of coal. In eighteen ninety seven, one man fell into a vat of water and was boiled alive A woman's shoe was found floating near his disfigured body and his neck was covered in bruises, leading some to speculate that foul play was involved Those who suffered most though, were the convicts who worked down inside the mines In the year eighteen ninety alone ninetinety out of one thousand prisoners died, nearly ten percent pattern repeated year after year, with no escape in sight for the men who are forced underground every day. Over the years, so many incidents ended in tragedy, explosions, fires, men falling to their death. It was practically a house of horrors. So given its terrible history, it's probably not a shock that the Sloths Furnace Company is considered by some to be the most haunted spots in America The factory closed in nineteen eighty and in nineteen eighty one, the site was labeled as a national historic landmark. As a result, over the last forty years or so, the public has had the opportunity to tour the location, and of course to see the ghosts The blowing engine building is said to be the most haunted building on the property. Workers and visitors alike have seen doors open and close on their own. And some have claimed that their belongings were moved to the other side of the room When they weren't looking One of the most commonly spotted apparitions is a man walking along the catwalk by the water tower. In fact, elevated spots seem to be popular with many of the factory spirits, because visitors have also spotted what they describe as a glowing humanoid shape on the catwalk of the boiler room And while we don't know who most of these spirits were in life, we do know the name of at least one ghost Theophilis Calvin Jowers. Allegedly sightings of this spirit go all the way back to the early nineteenth century. After his death, he would sometimes appear when one furnace was producing molten iron Then after it was torn down in nineteen oh five, he moved on to the next furnace. When that furnace was torn down He just wandered around the campus Some locals think that he won't leave until the very last stacks are demolished And honestly, Who could blame him After all, how could he pass up the chance to see his own personal hell Destroyed forever It was the second time the place had burned down, in a decade. Not the best track record, that's for sure. But to be fair, the locals couldn't have done anything to stop either disaster The Pickens County courourthouse had been burned to the ground by Union troops in eighteen sixty five There had been no reason for it, whether the purpose was logistical or military. As far as anyone could tell, the soldiers did it just because they could And that was a sore spot for the residents of Carrolton, Alabama. Even after it was rebuilt, they never really let go of their grudge. Northerners had marched into their hometown, bold as brass and destroyed one of their most prized government buildings. They weren't going to get over that anytime soon, certainly not before the century was out So it was unfortunate for everyone involved when just a few years after the completion of Pickens County Courthouse two point zero, it too was reduced to a pile of ash. But things got really heated, no pun intended, I swear when investigators identified at least four separate spots where the fire had been started. This wasn't your average accidental chimney fire It was a targeted attack someone somewhere had deliberately committed arson Without revelation, all reasoning flew out the window Still burning with anger over the loss of their original courthouse, the locals jumped from concerned to outright murderous. They didn't just want justice. They were desperate for revenge The sheriff did his best to give the people what they wanted. He investigated the matter to the very best of his ability, but he was a small town cop, and he didn't have all the resources in the world at his disposal Even months later, no suspects had been arrested. The locals were starting to get antsy. In the sheriff who is starting to sweat Finally though, over a year after the fire They got to lead The night the courthouse went up in flames, two formerly enslaved men had fled Carrollton Henry Wells and Bill Buckhalter had both been living on the lamb ever since, becoming the main suspects in a string of burglaries across Alabama. And finally, in January of eighteen seventy eight, the law caught up to bill On the stand, Bill confessed to several of the robberies, but he insisted that he hadn't done anything to the courthouse. His friend Henry had been the one to burn it down. Just a few days later, with the aid of a few gunshots to his back, Henry was captured. The authorities soon brought him, beaten and bloody to the newly rebuilt Pickens County courthouse. And just in case you've lost track at this point, this would be the third iteration of the building The local paper has reported that Henry confessed almost immediately to having set the courthouse on fire According to the Pickens Court Herald, Henry claimed that he and Bill had broken into the place in search of cash, but unable to crack the safe open, they had run Henry claimed that he accidentally left a candle burning by a stack of papers. He didn't realize what he'd done until it was already too late. It was exactly what the townspeople had been looking for They didn't care that their suspect was trembling from pain while he was on the stand. They finally had their scapegoats, and now they would have their justice They would never get the chance though, because just a few days after the trial, the papers reported that Henry had passed away inside his jail cell No one ever gave a specific cause of death The most likely scenario is that his gunshot wounds became infected But one local legend claims that God himself struck Henry dead with a bolt of lightning as divine punishment for his crimes According to another version, an angry white mob took matters into their own hands, storming the prison and lynching him. This particular legend claims that the next day, one of the murderers was walking by the jailhouse when he felt a pair of eyes on him. He looked up to see Henry's face staring down at him through the window of his cell Terrified, the man screamed that Satan had come to haunt him. His hysterics drew a crowd who all saw the same thing, the image of Henry's face clearly imprinted onto the window pane Nobody was ever able to scrub his likeness from the glass. The window pane that bears his image never breaks, not even after hailstorms or vandalism. To this day, you can still see him staring out at the community that condemned him to death Lics claim that on stormy nights you can sometimes hear Henry's wails rising from the jailhouse still screaming his innocence Long after anything could ever be done about it History is full of powerful men who have gotten away with murder When we hear the term powerful men, we tend to think of politicians, nobility, business moguls. That's the sort of influence we focus on today But the men from today's stories were hardly royalty. They lived in tiny, largely unimportant towns They were local businessmen laaw enforcement, and most importantly They were white These men from Alabama didn't have much power outside of their little bubbles But even presiding over their own tiny kingdoms, they could always find people who were less fortunate than them to crush beneath their feet They could work children to the bone. They could stick their black employees in unsafe work environments. And of course, they could bring a suspect into court, riddled with bullet holes to force a confession to a crime that he most likely didn't commit But justice or what counted as justice back then, has already had its say It's too late for history to give up the ghost now Now that being said, Historians don't believe that Henry was actually killed by lightning or lynched by a crowd In fact, many think that his murder may have been confused with another lynching that happened the year before his death. One local newspaper reported that back in September of eighteen seventy seven, a man named Nathaniel T. Peerce was taken from his jail cell by an angry mob dragged through the streets and hanged It was an event that would mark the start of a terrible pattern. Between Nathaniel's murder and the beginning of World War I in nineteen seventeen, a total of fifteen African Americans were lynched in Pickens County, most of them right there in the seat of power itself. courourthouse Square And speaking of that courthouse, it looks like the third time was the charm. That iteration of the Pickens County courthouse is the one that's still standing today. The blood may have since been scrubbed from its front steps The terrible reputation remains, staining an otherwise beautiful building And on the courthouse walls, pointing proudly It is a huge arrow, identifying the window with a face forever imprinted on the glass constant reminder of and an eternal witness too The worst that humanity has to offer hope you enjoy today's trip into the American South. Clearly the villains we meet in real life are nothing like the ones in storybooks. Oftentimes They're worse We've all met our fair share of folks who act like they're bigger than they actually are But if you look hard enough, you might just find the occasional person whose terrible reputation isn't just deserved, It's worthy of a novel Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. This episode was made possible by Mint Mobile. There are things in life that you don't want to be transparent, like your swimsuit or your search history. But when it comes to your wireless bill, transparency is everything. That's why MintMobile's wireless plans have no gimmicks and no gotchas, just high speed data and reliable coverage on the TMobile five G network right now All plans are fifteen bucks per month, even unlimited MintMobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right with premium wireless for fifteen bucks a month. You can even bring your current phone and your number, choose from three, six or twelve month plans, and say goodbye to a monthly bill. If I was shopping for a new wireless provider today, this is the option I would pick without question. I have watched Grimmen Muild team members set up their Mint plans and it is wild just how simple and easy the process was To get your new wireless plan for just fifteen bucks a month, go to mintmobile dot com slash lore. That's mint moobile dot com slash lore. Cut your wireless bill to fifteen bucks a month at mintmobile d. com slash lore. That's it. There's no catch. Upfront payment of forty five dollars for three month, ninety dollars for six month or one hundred eighty dollars for twelve month plan required. fifteen dollar per month equivalent, taxes and fees, extra, initial plan term only, greater than fifty gigabyte may slow when network is busy, includes up to twenty gigabyte hotspot capapable device required, availability, speed, and coverage varies, see mintmobile d. com This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We talk about mental health a lot more openly these days, which is definitely a good thing. But asking for help can still feel hard, and BetterHelp's latest research confirms it BetterHelp's twenty twenty six state of stigma repeport surveyed two thousand Americans and revealed that eighty five percent of Americans believe getting support is wise, yet seventy four percent say society discourages people from doing so Those numbers highlight the problem, don't they? 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The agents wrote the copy and managed the timelines, while our human creative director made sure it all made sense. Easy Create your own AI agent today on Monday. com When it comes to Aunt Jenny, nobody can seem to agree on her story One of the few facts about her life that we absolutely know is true is that she was born as Louisa Elizabeth Jane on january twenty second of eighteen twenty six. She married a man named Willis Brooks, and together they had several sons who they raised in the mountains of Northwest Alabama. That's it. Everything else people say about her is a hodgepodge of rumor and Legend People seem to agree that Jenny's spouse and her eldest son John were both killed during the Civil War But nobody can quite decide how One version of the legend claims that Willis and John resisted being drafted into the Confederate arrmy, and so they were shot Another version says that no, actually her husband had joined the fight when the war came to Alabama, and he survived every battle he participated in too, only to be killed when he finally came home Allegedly, a neighbor had harassed Jenny while Willis was away When he heard about her stalker, Willis killed the man. In return though, the man's family shot Willis and then threw their son John into a sinkhole. What followed was a sixty year blood feud between the two families Now there's another version of the story that claims that Willis Sr. and his son John, had actually opposed Alabama's secession from the Union Eventually, they were accused of aiding the resistance and were summarily executed by the Confederate arrmy In response, Jenny swore that she would kill the men who murdered her family and made all her children do the same, enlisting them into her plot for revenge Regardless of how she got to that point though, the legends all seem to agree that Jenny wanted revenge for her husband's and her sons's untimely deaths. And to aid in her quest, she taught her sons how to shoot By the time they were old enough to fight, she had the makings of a small private militia put them to good use too. In the end, it's said that she and her boys managed to kill almost all of her targets. Some said that Jenny poisoned most of them, while others claimed that she and her sons hunted them down one by one It was a nont traditional childhood, that's for sure. And unfortunately, it would seem that Jenny's single minded goals had put all of her boys on a violent path They only knew how to solve their problems with a shotgun And so that's exactly what they did.