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Neither Here Nor There [Melungeons]

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

Release Date: 01/22/2024

#106: Cloud Dongs [George Gray Barnard's Pennsylvania State Capitol sculpture groups]

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

George Gray Barnard's sculptures have been installed in front of the Pennsylvania State Capitol since 1911... but the story of their creation is a long and tortured one, featuring the strangest act of self-censorship you'll ever see. Key sources for this episode include Dan Williams' "George Grey Barnard"; Ingrid Steffensen's "Toward an Iconography of a State Capitol: The Art and Architecture of the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg"; Ruth Hoover Seitz's Pennsylvania's Capitol; Samuel W. Pennypacker's The Desecration and Profanation of the Pennsylvania Capitol; the catalog of...

#105: Wild Frantics [the Sanctified Band of Chincoteague Island]

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

The Sanctified Band was driven from their homes on Chincoteague Island, forced to live in floating arks, and persecuted up and down the Eastern Seaboard... and all they really wanted was freedom to worship as they pleased. Key sources for this episode include Harry J. Collins, Jr. and Floyd L. Hagan, Sr.'s History of Christ's Santified Holy Church; Kirk Mariner's Once Upon an Island: The Story of Chincoteague; Vinson Synan's The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States; and contemporary newspaper reports. This week we're promoting our friends The Apocrypals -- a podcast where two...

#104: Rapscallions! Part 3 "Surprised and Excited" [the St. Albans Raid and more] Take 2

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

This week we wrap up our look into Confederate skulduggery with a grab bag of smaller plots: Staging fake peace conferences at Niagara Falls! Robbing banks in Vermont! Burning New York! Kidnapping the vice president! (This episode is the third and final part of Rapscallions!, a series about Confederate cloak-and-dagger operations in the final year of the Civil War.) Key sources for this episode include Adam Mayers' Dixie and the Dominion: Canada, the Confederacy, and the War for the Union; Michelle Arnosky Sherburne's The St. Albans Raid: Confederate Attack on Vermont; Oscar Arvle...

#103: Rapscallions! Part 2: "Resist at Your Peril" [the Philo Parsons Incident]

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

The only thing standing between John Yates Beall and the Confederate prisoners-of-war on Johnson's Island was the USS Michigan... Well, that and a terrible con man and the cowardice of his own men. (This episode is part two of Rapscallions!, a three-part series about Confederate cloak-and-dagger operations in the final year of the Civil War. Part three will be released on 10/7.) Key sources for this episode include Adam Mayers' Dixie and the Dominion: Canada, the Confederacy, and the War for the Union; John Bell's Rebels on the Great Lakes: Confederate Naval Commando Operations Launched...

#102: Rapscallions! Part 1: "Patience is Sour" [Thomas Henry Hines and the Great Northwestern Conspiracy]

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

Thomas Henry Hines had a cunning plan to free Confederate prisoners-of-war and break the Northwest off of the Union. All he needed were sixty good men, fifty footsoldiers, and friends on the inside. Too bad none of those groups existed. (This episode is part one of Rapscallions!, a three-part series about Confederate cloak-and-dagger operations in the final year of the Civil War. Parts two and three will be released on 9/23 and 10/7 respectively.) Key sources for this episode include Adam Mayers' Dixie and the Dominion: Canada, the Confederacy, and the War for the Union; David C. Keehn's...

#101: Universally Detested [Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury -- the worst governor in New York history]

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

Legend says Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury (1661-1723) was New York's worst governor: a nepo baby failson; a bully and bigot; a corrupt spendthrift; a sex pest with an ear fetish. Was he really all that awful? And was he actually a transvestite? Key sources for this episode include Patricia Bonomi's The Lord Cornbury Scandal: The Politics of Reputation in British America; Alan Taylor's Writing Early American History; Charles Worthen Spencer's "The Cornbury Legend"; John Grant Wilson's The Memorial History of the City of New York from Its First Settlement to the Year 1892; and Shelley Ross's Fall...

AEOTJ Series 14 coming August 19!

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope is a secret society devoted to sharing strange stories and amazing facts. No topic is off limits -- Hidden history! Hollywood! Hoaxes, frauds, and scams! Weird science, cults, and clones! If it's interesting or entertaining, we'll do an episode about it. This series join us for episodes about Civil War spies, boat cults, fake mediums, cloud dongs, and more. (What's a cloud dong? You'll just have to listen to find out!) Join us for our first episode, "Universally Despised," on August 19! Look for us at order-of-the-jackalope.com, or wherever fine...

Errata #4

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

This errata contains corrections, clarifications, and discussion of the following episodes: The Hot House Bound in Mystery and Shadow Exceeding Great The Spirit of Capitalism Made Flesh Suffer Little Children Scarlet Billows A Warning To Future Man 520% Unto Us A Child Is Born Errata #3 Fruitcake Subculture Conspiracy Revisited The Realest Housewife of Beverly Hills The First Battle of the American Revolution Steampunk Google and the World City Fuller Houses We're going on hiatus for a few months. We'll be back in mid-August with a fresh series of all-new episodes! Discord: Bluesky: ...

Nothing But A Number

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

For our milestone episode #100 we contemplate one of the most confounding conundrums of our age... How old is Charo, really? 00:00 Intro 00:32 Banter 02:00 Nothing But A Number 02:32 God I Feel Old 05:09 All That Matters is How Young Your Feel 07:44 I Don't Actually Care 10:28 Sources 10:48 Special Thanks 12:56 Outro Key sources for this episode include Wikipedia and contemporary newspaper reports. Full sources, transcript, links, and more at A special thanks to everyone who helped us reach this amazing milestone, including: A.J. Sutton, Alex Baumans, Charlotte Lochinski, Chris White, David...

Jackass Forever [Joe Magarac: folklore or fakelore?]

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

In the early Twentieth Century, Joe Magarac was the American steel industry's answer to Paul Bunyan. And then it was discovered he might not be an authentic folk tale, but a relatively recent invention... Key sources for this episode include Owen Francis's "The Saga of Joe Magarac: Steelman"; Jennifer Gilley and Stephen Burnet's "Deconstructing and Reconstructing Pittsburgh's Man of Steel: Reading Joe Magarac Against the Context of the 20th-Century Steel Industry"; Kevin J. Patrick's "Joe Magarac and the Spirit of Pittsburgh"; and Marshal W. Fishwick's "Sons of Paul: Folklore or Fakelore?"....

More Episodes

In which a mysterious lost people living in the mountains of Tennessee turn out to not be so mysterious after all... and maybe not even all that lost, if the Internet can be believed.

Transcript, sources, and more: https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/neither-here-nor-there/

Key sources for this episode include Anita Puckett's "The Melungeon Identity Movement and the Construction of Appalachian Whiteness", Ariela Gross's "Of Portuguese Origin: Litigating Identity and Citizenship among the Little Races in Nineteenth-Century America", Brewton Berry's Almost White, Jean Patterson Bible's Melungeons Yesterday and Today, Katherine Vande Brake's Through the Back Door: Melungeon Literacies and Twenty-First Century Technologies, Melissa Schrift's Becoming Melungeon: Making an Ethnic Identity in the Appalachian South, N. Brent Kennedy's The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People, Tim Hashaw's Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed America, and Will Allen Dromgoole's The Malungeon Tree and Its Four Branches.

Part of the That's Not Canon Productions podcast network. https://thatsnotcanon.com/

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