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The SS Central America
230 Plays2 years ago
The tragic and epic tale of the so-called "Ship of Gold"!
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsors
00:00:04
Speaker
Today's episode of Killer Shipwrecks is brought to you by Terry's Turpentine offering natural solvents of unnatural quality. We're also brought to you by Choppy Streams, offering the latest technical solutions for those endless Zoom meetings.
Hosts' Progress and Listener Numbers
00:00:41
Speaker
Dr. Troyer. Dr. Geller, so good to be back with you. Episode three. Can't believe we're already at three. We're really starting to gather some momentum. I just hope that we're not reaching that point in the episode number in which our episode number exceeds the number of listeners. This week we will be drawing even, I think, as far as that goes. Okay. Three listeners, three episodes.
00:01:04
Speaker
So far so good.
Reflection on Caligula Episode
00:01:06
Speaker
So great episode last week learned a lot about Caligula. And I was just telling you before we began, it was awesome because I felt like I learned not only about a shipwreck or in this case, two shipwrecks, but a period in history that I was not incredibly familiar with. Great job.
00:01:23
Speaker
Well, thank you very much. I had a lot of fun talking to you about it. I had a lot of fun doing the research initially. And then it really just got me interested in that whole time period. Sounds like material for Lizzie to post. And notice she hasn't gotten around to posting anything. I think she was traveling, family issues she had to attend to, but I will say this for Lizzie. She has banked a lot of goodwill with us. She really was a workhorse in the first two seasons.
00:01:52
Speaker
I don't think she'd appreciate being called a horse. But yes, in the spirit of helping us, she was fantastic. Yes. I want to get right
Introduction to SS Central America
00:01:59
Speaker
to it. This week is your turn. You know, each week we take turns. And last week we talked about Ancient Rome. And this week we are talking about... We're talking about something, as I mentioned, or teased, if you will, if you listened to last week, something closer to home.
00:02:16
Speaker
closer to home. It's been bugging me. So let me start with the year that this ship went down and I think it'll be a little more relatable. 1857. Let's orient ourselves around that year. 1857. So that is hold on. That's right before the Civil War breaks out in America, right? That is
1857 Historical Context and Ship's Journey
00:02:35
Speaker
true. That's about all I got.
00:02:37
Speaker
Well, you're missing a few key facts. One of which is that James Buchanan was sworn in as the 15th president. Jimmy B. Yeah. I don't know much about James Buchanan. Elijah Otis. I don't know if that name rings a bell. He installed his first elevator at 488 Broadway in New York City. Very first elevator.
00:02:58
Speaker
No way. I still ride on Otis elevators all the time. Well, if you rode on that one, you'd be going about a half inch per second. It was a slow ride. The good news is that the building was only four stories high, maybe five. So didn't have to go that far.
00:03:15
Speaker
And it was installed more as an attraction because it was this sort of emporium. They had this glassware company in the building that hand-painted China. Turns out Mary Todd Lincoln ended up having them paint the China when she became First Lady. That's where the elevator was installed in that building in 1857, coincidentally, also the year of the first time someone got stuck in an elevator.
00:03:40
Speaker
So anyways, let's get even closer to home and why we're here today, but I'll leave you with one other fact about
Hurricane and Sinking of SS Central America
00:03:46
Speaker
1857. Of course, all kinds of Indian wars around the country, but let's not get into that. Queen Victoria, she decided Ottawa was going to be the capital of Canada. Interesting choice with that. I'm not sure it would have gone with Ottawa. Capital of Canada, you know, you could go Montreal, you could go Toronto, Vancouver. I don't know.
00:04:04
Speaker
something else from that year, which again, I'm sure there are entire podcasts dedicated to the topic. And you'll appreciate this being a lawyer. Dred Scott decision was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1857.
00:04:20
Speaker
So not good. Dred Scott is buried at the same St. Louis cemetery where some of my ancestors are buried. My family makes fun of me because I keep track of where all the different ancestors are buried. I'd like to visit a boneyard from now and again.
00:04:36
Speaker
You do. Yeah. And you also take photos at several of these tombstones. Find, find graveyards to be very peaceful. Um, if I could have, you know, you sit there and you meditate on, geez, what was this person's life? That one where they are in St. Louis has some super famous people. I think Tennessee Williams might be there as well. And that's, and that's land graveyards, but we haven't even gotten into the, uh, submarine graveyard.
00:05:06
Speaker
What a segue. Now let me just tell you that the last fact I will give you of 1857 will directly lead us into this week's shipwreck. 1857 had a panic. And when I say panic, I don't mean like a snake got loose. I mean a financial panic. Banks run on the banks type of thing. Financial panic. Yeah. New York closed their banks. Okay. Banks were like closed for weeks or months. Cause it was like 3 PM and they were like, okay, it's closed for today.
00:05:34
Speaker
Banker's holiday. So in 1857, there was a ship and the ship's name is the SS Central America.
Casualties and Significance of Shipwreck
00:05:41
Speaker
As if I needed more of a sort of a puffering of the title, it was known as the ship of gold. We're talking about a 280 foot steamer. It's a side wheel steamer. It's a steamer.
00:05:52
Speaker
And it primarily operated between Central America and the East Coast. So there's about 600 people on board, but there's also 30,000 pounds of gold. It's about $8 million in US currency in 1857. Do you want to know the math on that today? It sounds like a lot. 8 million in 1857. So I'm going to guess this is just a back of the envelope calculation. Let's say 200 million. It is $765 million.
00:06:22
Speaker
$765 million going into the water. And all of that gold was supposed to prop up the banks in New York. Now, where was the ship coming from? Coming from California, gold rush period went through the Panamanian port at the time it was called Aspinall.
00:06:37
Speaker
Now people know it as Cologne, and it was on its way to New York City. It went to Havana first because, I mean, why not? Lots of great shows, great things to do. So I'm sure it's like a little bit of like, hey, you know, before we drop off the gold in New York and let those bankers have their time. We've got 30,000 pounds of gold. We can get a mojito. 600 people, 30,000 pounds. You do the math. It's a lot of pounds per push. And it's coming from California, which is the Golden State.
00:07:04
Speaker
It is. So anyways, early September gets kind of near North Carolina along that coastline. If you want to picture it on a map again, if Lizzie posts a map, you can see exactly where I'm getting worried. September, October, it feels like is that still hurricane season?
00:07:20
Speaker
It encounters a hurricane. It turns out that the winds were shredding the sails. Wait a minute. Hold on. We had a steamer at the beginning of the episode. Well, the paddle wheel shafts were powered by the boiler. And because the ship was taking on water, they couldn't keep the boiler going. So they had these backup ideas.
00:07:38
Speaker
Anyways, at noon, the boiler could no longer maintain fire. So the steam pressure drop basically shut down everything. And so the paddle wheels that kept her pointed into the wind. And you know what? That's 30,000 pounds of gold isn't helping with the buoyancy. As you pointed out last week, buoyancy is part of the equation here too. So
00:07:59
Speaker
We're not forensically equipped to assess these things, but they did form a bucket brigade. I mean, by the time you're setting up at the bucket brigade, you know, what do you do? I can help out here on the bucket brigade or maybe just dive in and just try to swim for sure.
00:08:15
Speaker
So here's the thing. They did get a distress signal out. The flag on the ship was inverted, which is a signal to passing ships. We are up a creek without a paddle in this case, kind of literally. And a passing ship was able to save about a hundred passengers, primarily women and children. So they are able to then really fully tell the tale of how it all went down.
00:08:40
Speaker
The ship ended up sinking at eight o'clock at night. And when the ship sank, when the ship of gold went down, 425 people were killed. So at the time, that was the largest disaster at sea of passengers in United States history. It was an enormous deal. So believe it or not, the gold was not the headline story. It was the disastrous loss of life at the time.
00:09:03
Speaker
But before we continue, I believe we need to hear from one of our sponsors.
Sponsor Interlude
00:09:08
Speaker
First up, I believe is Terry's turpentine. Terry asked us to take a one week break where he's not a sponsor. He thought Susan maybe this week might file some sort of court paperwork. Oh, but he said maybe for a week at least or a couple of weeks, maybe take a break from the Terry's turpentine sponsorship. But I believe our trustee partners
00:09:32
Speaker
in technology and sponsorship are still with us. Wishing Terry well, but obviously supporting choppy streams. Take it away. Ever want to get out of those long, boring video meetings? Hell yes. Well, activate choppy streams from your browser and experience instant choppiness in your video stream. All you have to do is apologize and sign off. Choppy streams. All right. Choppy streams.
00:09:56
Speaker
Smart guy, smart product, really good stuff. So now, where we left off was the tremendous loss of life, but we have the stories of what went down. And it turns out that the ship's captain is almost worthy of his
Captain Herndon's Heroism
00:10:10
Speaker
own pod. His name is William Louis Herndon. Super cool guy. Two fun facts about Herndon. Herndon, Virginia is named after Captain William Louis Herndon.
00:10:20
Speaker
Herndon, Pennsylvania is named after him too. He has two towns and two different states. Did he behave admirably or? Yes, you do not get towns named after you for scrambling onto the lifeboats with the women and children. He also had a daughter and the daughter ended up marrying President Chester Arthur. Are you kidding me? Was she first lady of the US?
00:10:41
Speaker
Unfortunately, she died at age 42 from pneumonia just before Arthur became vice president and then of course president after Garfield's assassination. So sadly, she never got to live in the White House. Such a bummer.
00:10:57
Speaker
Okay, but speaking of bummers, let's get back to her dad, poor Captain Herndon. So I'm assuming he goes down with the ship? So he went down, but he was instrumental in getting the hundred people off of the ship. He was all about helping people. And apparently survivors reported seeing Commander Herndon in full uniform.
00:11:24
Speaker
Standing by the wheelhouse his hat was off and he just had his head bowed and they said it looked like in prayer as the ship gave a lurch and then just went down wow that's a very striking image very poetic kind of.
00:11:42
Speaker
Sad but romantic image the guy going down head bowed in prayer now it sounded like the ship went under very suddenly like whether
Tommy Thompson's Gold Recovery and Legal Struggles
00:11:51
Speaker
people are kind of just immediately swallowed up or if the The people who eventually died I want did they spend hours and hours in the water and you know My favorite question is always like the sharks the sharks. I want to know more about the sharks. I
00:12:05
Speaker
It's leftover from being a kid and watching that scene in Jaws with what's his name, talking about the USS Indianapolis. We got to do that one someday. Okay. So this is off the coast of North Carolina.
00:12:22
Speaker
It is. It was on its way to New York. It was going to offload all that gold to keep the banks running, solvent. That's exactly right. So now let's get into recovery mode because this is when things get interesting, right? All this water is holding all this gold, but no one can get to it. How deep is it? It's really deep. Right.
00:12:44
Speaker
So then in 1988, there is a group called the Columbus America Discovery Group of Ohio incident, and it's led by this guy named Tommy Thompson, which sounds like wasn't there a governor, Tommy Thompson? Dude, this is all starting to ring a bell. Did this guy end up being a total scam artist?
00:13:04
Speaker
Okay. Just like episode one, there is no fooling you. You are a hundred percent. Right. How do you do it? Tell the story. Cause I really, I just remember that there's some scamming going on here. Very exciting. Now that there's a tie-in to Ohio, I'm going to call back Terry and just like, just see if he'll let us use him for this week.
00:13:28
Speaker
You should. You got to get them on. Maybe we'll slip them in later and just gratis this one. Let's do that. Do we have to clear that with Lizzie? We don't. It's not the question of gratis. He's just paranoid that she's going to file for divorce and that just makes him look like he's rich and profligate and everything out, you know, spending on on, you know, not only a podcast, but doing ship dives of his own and the Great Lakes. And, you know, so he just wanted to sort of keep it off.
00:13:57
Speaker
Okay, but Tommy Thompson, he's from Ohio or? I guess so because that's where the company's from. Significant amounts of golden artifacts were brought to the surface by Tommy's company. This is the first attempt. They recover some gold that's estimated at around $100 to $150 million. One ingot they recovered weighed 80 pounds. Whoa. Yeah. All right, so anyways,
00:14:21
Speaker
39 insurance companies sued because they claimed that in the 19th century, they paid out damages for the law school. The insurance companies have a long memory, huh? Yep. They come after them. 39 lawsuits. So there's this protracted legal battle and 92% of the gold is then awarded to Tommy's company.
00:14:45
Speaker
In 1996. When you say 90% of the gold, you're saying 90% of the gold that they were capable of bringing up, most of it is down under the ocean. So he wins in court, basically.
00:14:57
Speaker
So he wins in court, but then there's a wrinkle. There's always a ring. He actually owes all the people that invested and he never pays them back. And there's like millions of dollars that people invested in this company. Yeah. Yeah. This is starting to, and he goes on the run, I think.
00:15:15
Speaker
He's on the run. He has offshore accounts in the cook Island. Don't you have to be involved with shipwrecks to put your money in the cook islands? I thought people go to the bottom. I don't even remember where the cook islands are, but that sounds cool. I aspire to have an account in the cook. Anyway, so yeah, he takes off. Okay. So his investors want the money and he disappears.
00:15:37
Speaker
He's eventually found and the marshals extradite him to Ohio and he agrees to surrender 500 gold coins, but then he claims he doesn't have access to the coins. So everyone's like, what? He loses all these lawsuits. So he's losing the investor lawsuits. He did well in the litigation with the insurance companies, but now the investors are like, dude, pay up.
00:15:59
Speaker
And also while all of this is going on, the any further recovery probably kind of is on on hold. No. So then guess. So let's flash forward to 2014 and the Odyssey Marine exploration.
Odyssey Marine's Role and Legal Issues
00:16:14
Speaker
Are you kidding me? You know, you know, my history with the Odyssey Marine Exploration Company. No way.
00:16:21
Speaker
I hope my wife is not listening to this. I invested money in that company. It's a publicly traded company. Do you have to recuse yourself from this podcast? What is the legal obligation? Listen, we can edit me out. If only I had those skills. Let's just put it this way. I'm not going to get into amounts, but enough money that it would be annoying to my wife. Back then, they were in the business of trying to find shipwrecks.
00:16:51
Speaker
Last I heard they had pivoted to trying to harvest phosphate fertilizer basically from the ocean bed near Mexico and they were getting sued for that. They couldn't even do that. It's just never a good sign when the company that you know you were excited because they were like finding shipwrecks filled with gold. They've pivoted to like you know harvesting fertilizer material off the ocean bottom and they can't even get permission to do that.
00:17:19
Speaker
And I looked at the share price and I was like, whoa, that is, is really low. That's not good. That's way below what I bought it at. And then I realized it was low, even though they did whatever the opposite of like a stock split is. So it was actually astronomically low compared to when I got it. That's like the, the inverse by low sell high. Yeah, I think, um, and I'm just keeping that in my back pocket to use as a tax tax loss. One of these years.
00:17:48
Speaker
Dr. Troy, let me just interject here. I am not an accountant. I highly recommend you consult with a tax attorney. Is that a good idea? I don't know about these tax losses.
00:17:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's probably a good point. I'm not an accountant either. I'm also wondering, are there other prior investments in your back pocket? So many. I am literally the worst investor. That's why at a certain point, we had to take this all off my plate and it wasn't court ordered, but we put it in the hands of professionals at a certain point.
00:18:21
Speaker
Again, I'm sure you know all about the different rules and laws. But didn't it sound like a great investment, a marine salvage company specializing in a one in a million shipwreck? Especially considering that every one of those companies ends up in years of litigation, no matter what they find. Then again, you know, more fodder for your back pocket. You realize my wife is going to cancel this podcast and make me get a job.
00:18:45
Speaker
What about the fertilizer? Is she a fan of that? She likes it when I clean my hands carefully when I come in from the garden. Maybe even with some turpentine. Nice. You're a pro. Anyway, so they did bring up a lot of the gold and they auctioned off some of it. One ingot sold for $528,000. They did recover the ship's bell. It was at the time considered very large compared to the average size bell for a ship that size. Wow. Also probably didn't help with the buoyancy.
00:19:15
Speaker
Too heavy, too big of a bell. 268 pounds, are you right? Dumb question. When they go down to these wrecks, I feel a little bit morbid looking for these details in the news stories, but I always wonder like, did you find some bones too? Did you find some skeletal material? I think they did. I read one article in which there was someone they may have unearthed. Oh, they did? Whoa.
00:19:39
Speaker
So how much of a connection can we make between the ship going down and then the financial panic? Like, is there a real tight connection there? I don't know, but they do talk about its impact. The degree of the impact is probably debatable. And then I wonder in turn, like, you know, the panic, then how much that feeds into the Civil War. I mean, I know fundamentally it's about slavery and states' rights and all that, but I mean, financial panic doesn't help.
00:20:06
Speaker
Oh boy. I want to know everything about, I cannot wait. Like I always say first thing when we sign off today, I'm going to be jumping online. Some great images, you know, some, some great depictions of the ship and what it looked like during the hurricane. Again, if Lizzie has a chance to post these tonight or tomorrow or, or any, anytime.
00:20:27
Speaker
This shipwreck has everything. It's got the captain with his head bowed, with hat in hand. You've got the shocking loss of life, 400 plus people. Dramatic. Why isn't there a movie? You've got all that gold, just a crazy amount of gold. I guess it's coming from the gold rush out in California. And then you even tie it into American history at that time. It's got all of those narratives. And then you end it on the dude who's like stashing money in the Cook Island.
00:20:57
Speaker
I feel like he was even on the FBI Most Wanted list or something at one point. Yes. But people are talking about him in the same story that they talk about Herndon, you know, who has the two towns named after him. Yeah. I want to tip my cap if I were wearing a nautical themed cap. That'd be cool. We should get those. You know, that's like our merch. Our merch should include nautical caps.
00:21:20
Speaker
If such a thing exists, we got to get on the merge. Okay, we got to get what we first we got to unload all the other emerge from our first two seasons. So first of all, I want to tip my imaginary captain's hat to Herndon. He did exactly what you're supposed to do. He went down with the ship. He helped the women and children and.
00:21:39
Speaker
also want to just tip the cap to those those 400 plus people horrible even
Episode Reflection and Next Episode Tease
00:21:45
Speaker
today that's a lot of people you know when you do the math on the money it's like whoa but it's not like you do 400 people and today that's 1500 people it's like it's so 400 people is a lot of people it's 400 people and it's like horrendous what they went through but then you think you multiply it by all their family members and all the families touched by that that tragedy
00:22:04
Speaker
So just incredible. I want to know more details that may be outside of our, uh, what we can get to here. But I, you know me, I want to get into like how deep it was, like how, how far down in the water it was. And so many rabbit holes.
00:22:19
Speaker
You know, cause you think of like all of that gold just sinking in the ocean, never to be seen again by anyone living at the time, a billion dollars just sitting at the bottom of the ocean. Unbelievable. But the Herndon stuff is awesome. Running a, running a little money run from California to New York. Dude, I can read the racing form and, you know, and steer this ship at the same time. This is no big deal. And then category one, two, and this is back before they were naming the hurricanes. This was old school back then.
00:22:48
Speaker
They're not playing around with Hurricane Iris, Hurricane Andrew. Just imagine how many ships around the world, how much gold is sitting down there. Lastly, I just want to remind you to reach out to Terry. It would be great to have him a part of this week's episode. I don't know if you think you'll have success.
00:23:06
Speaker
Let's just gamble on the fact that I'm going to be able to sweet talk terror. I might even just screw it, not call terror. I'm going to call Susan and say, we got to run the ad this week because it's got the Ohio tie-in. Exactly. And how many shipwrecks will have a Ohio tie-in? I don't know, but hopefully we can get all of that cleared up.
00:23:26
Speaker
Whether you're thinning varnish or paint, cleaning wood stains, making moth repellent at home, or just maintaining industrial equipment, Terry's Turpentine has you covered. Terry's Turpentine has been family owned and operated since 1993. Terry's Turpentine, natural solvents of unnatural quality.
00:23:44
Speaker
Listen, I do want to tease next week's rack plucked right out of my butt right now. Wow. Super tantalizing. I'm just going to tell you this one little clue. This shipwreck was off the coast of a place where my mother-in-law went to boarding school. And what would that be? Like the late 1940s?
00:24:06
Speaker
I have a sense of your mother-in-law's backstory. You told an amazing story today. What a great ship. All these tie-ins to history. Yet at the heart of it is a big ship of gold. Fantastic. Okay, let's get to the outro music. Can't wait to hear about the ship next week. Thanks for another great episode.
00:24:36
Speaker
Stretches regarding life check.