A Dollop Crossover | Ben Naddaff-Hafrey on Staten Island and the Revolutionary War

8:59Dave Anthony:Like, not a lot known about his boyhood. You're like, this is going to be bad. Oh, boy.

9:05Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Christopher Billup. He has two Ps on the end of his name, which really throws me off. I want to go Billup. It's like Verrazano with the N's. That's right. Was born on Staten Island, New York. He would be the oldest of eight alive kids born to Thomas and Sarah Farmer Billup. Now, we always say alive kids because they had a lot more. Like if you had eight alive's, there were some that didn't make it.

9:28Dave Anthony:Yeah, we don't count the dead ones here. I don't know about you, Ben, on yours. I don't know. It's the pre-vaccine world. There's so many that passed. You know what I mean?

9:39Gareth Reynolds:There were eight living descendants in this family? Eight living. Yeah, he had eight. That's remarkable.

9:44Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:He had seven brothers and sisters. That's what's more affordable on Staten Island.

9:48Dave Anthony:That is numbers, too. That really has to be. You're batting above average. You've got to be putting out 20 to get eight.

9:54Gareth Reynolds:There's also a robust mosquito population on Staten Island in that era. A lot of disease from mosquitoes. They're really crushing it.

10:06Dave Anthony:Mosquitoes have really hung in there with their disease. They really don't like them. I was driving here and there's one in my car.

10:11Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:I'm like, what's happening right now?

10:13Dave Anthony:I'm leaving town. Keep going. Keep going. Let's go to Tijuana. Get me out of here.

10:20Gareth Reynolds:Get me to Staten Island.

10:21Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:You live for half a day. Okay, so Christopher's dad, Major Thomas Billup, was the son of Ann Billup, who married a colonel. And Ann was the daughter of a Royal Navy officer, another Christopher Billup, who was awarded 932 acres of land on the southern tip of Staten Island. And he builds a big stone manor house. The land is named Bentley Manor. So they're loving it. It's pretty sweet. Yeah. It's a lot of land.

10:54Dave Anthony:Yeah. 930 acres on Staten Island is two on regular trip.

10:59Gareth Reynolds:One two-bedroom apartment. Yes. Deeper one.

11:02Dave Anthony:It's a studio with a stove.

11:06Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So young Chris is destined to be in the military. He's from a military family. And eventually he does and he becomes a colonel, which is what everyone on Staten Island eventually starts to call him. So by the 1770s, he's known as Colonel.

11:24Dave Anthony:By the powers of deduction, you would say there were not a lot of colonels from Staten Island. Otherwise... Remember, we're the Scooby-Doo part. So I just want to be very clear. We're the Scooby half.

11:38Gareth Reynolds:Does that mean I have to, like, growl Batman voice this? No, you can be

11:43Dave Anthony:what Dave's kid called the wacky Batman. Yeah, I'll be wacky

11:47Gareth Reynolds:Batman. I'll be 1960s, like, kapow bazinga Batman. Watch out.

11:54Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So Bentley Manor had been built up over the years, and now this Christopher Billup owns it. So there's the Stone House on the Water that's Grandfather built. There's four more houses that he would rent out, and a neighbor remembers him. He's a very tall, slim man. Sure. Staten Island at this point, mostly farms. Okay. If you can believe that. I can't. Everything else there's agriculture there's wheat and orchards what is a staten uh oh well it's a dutch term is it for what i think so i don't know wow look at you asking questions that can't be answered what is this stat there's there's a place called the staten on staten island that's very famous staten oh it was probably at the time

12:42Gareth Reynolds:called, like, it's Richmond for a while, too. There's Richmond Town in this, yeah.

12:48Dave Anthony:A weird change. Okay.

12:50Gareth Reynolds:Staten Island by Dutch Explorers. Staten. Name honored the Staten General, which was the Parliament of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands.

13:00Dave Anthony:I thought it had something to do with the Seven United Netherlands. You should have known that, yeah.

13:04Gareth Reynolds:That's his specialty.

13:06Dave Anthony:Thank you, Ben.

13:10Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Okay, so there's Wheat Orchards Cattle, salt hay off the marshes Oysters and clams

13:16Dave Anthony:Big player back then

13:17Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Out of the shallows They sell everything in New York City mostly But they also would sell it to the British Sure Have you ever read about the oysters in New York, Ben? The whole oyster situation?

13:30Gareth Reynolds:I knew about the oysters on Staten Island But I didn't know about the rest of New York

13:35Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:There is an amazing book Which I wish I knew the title of right now About oysters in New York It's incredible

13:41Dave Anthony:Oh, you also wanted to mention the book that you based a lot of your stuff on. Yeah. But who is that?

13:48Gareth Reynolds:Well, so yeah, this, this, all of everything we know about Staten Island and the American Revolution comes from this historian named Phil Pappas, who is himself a Staten Islander born and bred and wrote this amazing book called That Ever Loyal Island. Oh, wow. And he's condescending. Well, you'll see why when you get further into, into the story. But it's a fantastic book.

14:12Dave Anthony:The oysters in the Hudson were insane, right?

14:16Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah. I mean, we Americans just lived on oysters for a long time and ended up just decimating the oyster population. It's like everything else that we get where you're like, if you just did it a little slower, it could be forever.

14:32Dave Anthony:And we're like, no, we will eat it all and then no one will have anything. But I'm hungry now. I'm hungry to eat all the oysters now and make money.

14:41Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah, it was really nuts.

14:43Dave Anthony:My only complaint, no indigenous people have died on this venture.

14:46Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:We did two episodes on it. It's really crazy. Okay, so they're selling to New York City. And then in the years leading up to the revolution, a lot of what they're producing is sold to the Royal Navy. A warship anchoring there. That means hundreds of men who need bread and beef and fresh water. and the Navy pays in silver. So it's a good deal.

15:11Dave Anthony:Okay.

15:12Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:And when a king's ship needs water, it fills its casks at a spring on the island's northeast shore, a spot that is called the watering place.

15:21Dave Anthony:Very good title. You know what you're getting into. Yeah. I thought this was a brothel.

15:27Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:It's very much like a surfer. Any surf spot is named after what the restaurants, big rock. Like it's all what you see from the surfboard.

15:41Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Colonel Billup has been in charge of the Islands of Militia now for about three years, which is called Billup's Corps of Staten Island Militia.

15:51Gareth Reynolds:Okay. Once again, we're just naming things extremely aptly.

15:55Dave Anthony:It's also how book titles were, you know, what it would just be like. He actually wrote a book about it called The Endless Forests in the Area where I lived for five years and eventually left because my wife had tuberculosis.

16:07Gareth Reynolds:See, I don't need to read the book now.

16:09Dave Anthony:Yeah, exactly.

16:13Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So that's a peacetime appointment. Obviously, there's no war when he gets appointed. Now, on the island, there's five churches. The biggest is St. Andrews, which is the Angelican Church at Richmond Town.

16:24Dave Anthony:Nice.

16:25Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah, that's what we were just talking about.

16:26Dave Anthony:Yeah, you don't need to yell about it.

16:27Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:I'm gonna. Out of New Dorp,

16:32Dave Anthony:Oh, come on.

16:33Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah, there's a place called New Dorp.

16:35Dave Anthony:I don't want to even know where Dorp came from. Dorp? Could not sound more of like the Carlos Mencia sound he made when he was calling Dorp.

16:45Gareth Reynolds:Dorp. You stub your toe. Dorp! It was the alt to Homer's dough. It's either dough or Dorp. What is the alternate universe Simpsons thing? This just triggered some deep Simpsons knowledge. It's like the Shelbyville Simpsons or something. Oh, right.

17:03Dave Anthony:Oh,

17:05Gareth Reynolds:no, no. When he's replaced by Russians, there's a film version of The Simpsons that they're trying to pass off as the real Simpsons family.

17:14Dave Anthony:Oh, I kind of remember that. That just takes me to when the Flanders have a family reunion. Sure, yeah. But yeah, I can't remember.

17:22Gareth Reynolds:There's like the fake Homer goes, duh, oh, or something like that. I know the English Flanders goes,

17:32Dave Anthony:great googly moogly

17:36Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:moogly

17:41Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:so at a new Dorp there is a Moravian church and the minister lives beside it with his family his name is Hector Gambold and Gambold writes a lot of letters and so that's a lot of those survived and that's a lot of what we know okay that's helpful uh yeah so write letters people yeah didn't help comey but no

18:05Dave Anthony:comey was like but my journal they were like yeah get out of here

18:09Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:my diary definitely diary unless your name's fauci then don't doubt it don't don't don't keep i met barbara streisand uh on the island there's five oh i already did that um so the trouble the trouble starts right over taxes the colonies are paying to the crown sure right uh there's a big shopping boycott as we'll call it the british parliament closed the port of boston because of the boston tea party continental congress answers by agreeing that no colony will buy british goods until parliament backs down okay uh and so of course richmond county on satin island wants nothing to do with this they want they're not going to change anything right like

18:48Gareth Reynolds:but can't we still buy just maybe just a little like what's so nice to sell to the british that's That's the problem. It's a big market, guys.

18:56Dave Anthony:Pete Davidson, Colin Jost are like, now's our time. Anyone want to buy this?

19:03Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So Staten Island refuses to join this. And the colonel does that personally. He sits in the New York Assembly and votes down every measure that favors the Congress. And when the Assembly refuses to... You got to love it. Yeah.

19:18Dave Anthony:No. No. No. No. No. No. No. that one

19:26Gareth Reynolds:no

19:28Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:oh that's a no when the assembly refuses to send delegates to Philadelphia somebody proposes going around it and putting the question straight to the people of Richmond County but the colonel goes to that meeting and beats it there too by a large majority so it's clear Staten Island wants nothing to do with any of this business they just want to be able to sell their stuff

19:52Dave Anthony:Yep, they're happy.

19:53Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:And they're happy with the British.

19:54Gareth Reynolds:They're like, this is not so bad. Yeah, it's pretty good. I'm making money already.

20:01Dave Anthony:You guys keep doing that. That's helping.

20:04Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Then in April of 1775, the shooting starts outside Boston at Lexington. And the first thing the colonel does after Lexington is to write to the British Army and ask them not to come.

20:18Dave Anthony:Okay.

20:18Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:And he signs a letter to General Gage, who is the British Army's commander, requesting that no troops be sent into New York. And his explanation given nine years later said he was, quote, hoping the flame would blow over.

20:35Gareth Reynolds:Let's just ride this one out.

20:38Dave Anthony:So good.

20:39Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Some guys got shot. Some other guys got shot. I don't see this lasting very long. It's going to blow over.

20:45Dave Anthony:I don't think this is going to go on for too much longer. If you could give us a week, that would be really helpful.

20:54Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So he spent a year, in his words, quote, keeping the inhabitants of the island quiet till the arrival of British troops. Meanwhile, Staten Island will not stop selling to the British Navy.

21:06Dave Anthony:Oh, God.

21:08Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:They're the king's ships, right? And as far as Staten Island is concerned, this is the king's island.

21:12Dave Anthony:The king would request more oysters. It's called peckish again. We're going to just leave all these oysters in the water? Yeah. Come on. Secret oyster handoffs.

21:23Gareth Reynolds:There's also like, don't they, somewhere in here, they're also like, they propose like a truce. They're like, can't we just like make friends with the British again? It might be just a way to work this out.

21:32Dave Anthony:We made a side truce. We are an island. I want to remind everyone of that.

21:41Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So, of course, the colonies are now pissed that Staten Island won't join the boycott. so they start another boycott new jersey stops buying staten islands produce until the island appoints an enforcement committee so the island appoints an enforcement committee but then just

22:02Gareth Reynolds:ignores it this this committee when i when i went around the island with phil the guy who wrote the book that was all this he took me on like a tour of all these sites it was amazing like every single one of them is like next to like a no fault divorce like lawsuit clinic but there's we went to the place for this it's final form we went to the place where this committee met which is still preserved and i was like what did they do here and he's like you know just kind of he just kind of like threw a ball against the wall sort of like just like it was just kind of like like met to meet they were just sort of like yeah we're not gonna look into that report of disloyalty or we're not going to...

22:42Dave Anthony:So just pure, yeah, just purely just like, yeah, we're working on it.

22:48Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Most of our LA government committees.

22:50Dave Anthony:I was going to say, it reminds you very much of like the parliamentarian role or something like that, where you're like, here's what I think. And everyone's like, cool. Go fuck yourself. Here's the point.

23:01Gareth Reynolds:It's just like letting it die in committee. Yeah, right.

23:04Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Oh, that's very interesting. Is this the first let it die in committee? Oh, man!

23:11Gareth Reynolds:I love that this is just all under the framework of let it blow over Let it blow over Let's just let this cool down

23:17Dave Anthony:Two, three weeks Probably two, maybe three It's called an excursion

23:24Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Right, so they're ignoring it They're just trading with the crown still And in February 1776 The Continental Congress writes the county into its minutes for quote, enmity and opposition to the system and measures adopted for preserving the liberties of America. That's not good. You don't want to be written in for that. No, it's pretty targeted, honestly.

23:47Dave Anthony:Hey, traitors. So they put us in the minutes. Always bad news. Never great, but we are officially in the minutes. I can still sell oysters, though, right? I mean, yeah, but we're on notice. I mean, we're in the minutes and that's never good.

24:06Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So we got to get these oysters going.

24:08Dave Anthony:It's not. I think you're taking them out the door. It's not. Again, I'm sort of saying we're in a dark spot. But yeah, let's sell them.

24:15Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah. Get the oysters out there. At this point, the rebels, as we'll call the us, the Americans.

24:23Dave Anthony:Sure. The mainlanders.

24:25Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:The rebels hold New York City. So that April, Continental soldiers take up posts at the watering place, standing with rifles between the Royal Navy and the island's drinking water.

24:37Dave Anthony:That's got it. I mean, you don't want to parched, you know, the Royal Navy. You don't want them parched.

24:43Gareth Reynolds:You can't even get to the no fault divorce place anymore.

24:46Dave Anthony:No. Well, we're going to have to behead her.

24:52Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:But what the Islanders do Is just row out to the warships To do business with them anyway

24:59Dave Anthony:When you watch that You're just like What the hell are they doing?

25:04Gareth Reynolds:It's just like a tiny sailboat inching On the horizon Loaded up with a cartoon level of oysters

25:10Dave Anthony:They're gonna go bad They're fucking eating the oysters Are they shucking?

25:19Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:By June, Washington, that's George, Washington is demanding an investigation into reports that his own riflemen are taking bribes to row the islanders out.

25:33Dave Anthony:I just... This is actually the first ferry. I can't. Yeah, it's not a bad idea. I'm often, I would say, Ben, the thing I've learned on this show more than anything, which is why we say that history repeats itself, or at least rhymes. I can never get over that it always has existed. That it's just like.

25:56Gareth Reynolds:It's just always been thus.

25:58Dave Anthony:Bribes find a way. Yeah, always. No matter what.

26:02Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah.

26:03Dave Anthony:It's just so funny.

26:04Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:You're going to give me 10 bucks?

26:06Dave Anthony:Okay, I'll roll you out there. Yeah, I have no principles. Let me take off a uniform.

26:09Gareth Reynolds:It's like our new country sounds nice, but I mean, really.

26:12Dave Anthony:But also, my country sounds really good, too. That'd be great.

26:17Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:so Washington is pissed he's just across the water in New York and he writes that the people of Staten Island quote after the fairest professions have shown themselves are inveterate enemies wow now this is yet is that bad

26:34Dave Anthony:is that bad when George Washington calls your island an enemy

26:42Dave Anthony:rowing out oysters

26:43Gareth Reynolds:we've really put our chips down now guys

26:47Dave Anthony:Look, are we in or are we out, guys? I don't know. How far do we want to take this shit?

26:53Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:I am amazed that Staten Island ever became part of New York City.

26:57Dave Anthony:It is crazy.

26:58Gareth Reynolds:It is geologically a part of New Jersey. It's like spiritually and geologically, it is New Jersey. It's much closer. It's way closer to New Jersey. I understand fighting that, though.

27:08Dave Anthony:I understand fighting that.

27:10Gareth Reynolds:There's an annexation movement. Oh, to join New Jersey? In 2025. I think it's still afoot, maybe. The Republicans in New Jersey are like, it would be helpful to have that island. Oh, yeah. I bet it would. At some point, they'll blow up the Verrazano Bridge. That was floated during the secession movement. They were like, when this happens, we'll blow up the Verrazano Bridge.

27:34Dave Anthony:It's kind of awesome. In 2025, to be like, we would like it.

27:42Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Let's blow it up.

27:43Dave Anthony:Is that crazy?

27:46Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:on July 3rd, 9 ,000 British soldiers begin landing on Staten Island. Led by General William Howe, commander of the British Army in America. On July 4th, 1776, now it's a big day. Is it? You know what happened then?

28:01Dave Anthony:Oh, that was when we wrote the song that I got to stand for.

28:05Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:That's right. In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress declared the colonies independent. And on July 6, 1776, in Richmond Town, Staten Island, 500 men gather in the road. Richmond Town is right in the middle of the island. There's a courthouse, two churches, a tavern, a few dozen houses, so not a big place. A divorce. Divorce. Divorce. Hut. That was at fault. At fault divorce. At fault divorce, yeah. Governor William Tryon watches them. Tryon is the royal governor of New York, and he has been running the king's government off the deck of a ship in the harbor for a better part of a year because the rebels hold the city.

28:45Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:He's trying his best.

28:47Dave Anthony:Yeah, he is. Yeah, yeah.

28:48Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:And next to him there is General Howe. In front of them, the 500 Staten Island farmers are sworn into the service of the king. They are from Billups Island Militia.

29:00Dave Anthony:This feels traitorous. Very much so. Do this.

29:04Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Go ahead. Go ahead.

29:05Dave Anthony:Go ahead.

29:05Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:I was going to say, but there are still a lot of loyalists around.

29:10Dave Anthony:So, but this is just a giant group of them in one place.

29:15Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:But there's a ton of loyalists hoping to bring it.

29:17Gareth Reynolds:In New York at large, but like Staten Island is like remarkably so.

29:21Dave Anthony:Yeah.

29:22Gareth Reynolds:Remarkably.

29:23Dave Anthony:Honey, I think we're Britain again.

29:26Gareth Reynolds:I'm not sure.

29:27Dave Anthony:They're taking some kind of oath out there.

29:29Gareth Reynolds:My favorite thing that Phil told me is that the Islanders burn the Patriot leaders in effigy after word of the Declaration of Independence comes out. And also that there's like all of these letters from the British soldiers when they arrived there where they're writing home and they're like, this island is amazing. And they're greeting us as like saviors from the rebel mob. And it's like they can't get over how happy they are that we're here.

29:58Dave Anthony:They got effigies in their government. This is a real vibe. This is awesome. They really like us. This is really going good. Babe, I'm famous here.

30:13Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So the 500 men are out of a total population of 2 ,847, and that includes children and slaves. Well, if memory serves, are not considered people.

30:26Dave Anthony:Yeah, correct.

30:27Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So that's a pretty big chunk of the population.

30:32Dave Anthony:Yeah, it's a good hunk.

30:33Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:For the colonel and his men, job very easy at first. They watch 15 miles of shoreline facing New Jersey.

30:42Dave Anthony:Okay.

30:43Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:You got to keep an eye on New Jersey.

30:44Dave Anthony:Sure. Still the same. Yeah. Still the same.

30:48Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:They arm and assemble every time an alarm goes up with the colonel at the front. They dig dirt walls into the hills For the British to put cannons behind

30:59Dave Anthony:Really?

31:00Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:They got the good job

31:02Dave Anthony:Is it an island or a pirate ship now? It's taking on that vibe

31:07Gareth Reynolds:Column A, column D

31:08Dave Anthony:Yeah If you're watching them Be like, Jesus Christ They're putting cannons in the dirt There's the skull and crossbones flag Oh my god, look at that How did they get parents?

31:20Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:They round up several hundred of their neighbors to drive wagons and haul artillery. The island's moving.

31:26Dave Anthony:There's a sail moving the goddamn island.

31:29Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:It's getting farther from New Jersey.

31:30Dave Anthony:I think they're going to Britain.

31:33Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:They haul artillery for the British Army, and the horses and wagons go with them. They find the army. It's forage and it's firewood. So they're doing everything. They're the suppliers of the British Army.

31:44Dave Anthony:Okay.

31:44Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So the colonel's mansion sits at the southern tip of the island, right on the water, facing...

31:49Dave Anthony:That says a lot.

31:50Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Facing Perth Amboy.

31:52Dave Anthony:The colonel's mansion. Really just sort of justify a lot of this, if you think about it.

31:56Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Back then, all colonels had mansions.

31:58Dave Anthony:Yeah, that's cool.

32:01Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So they're right across this narrow channel from New Jersey. You can row across in a few minutes.

32:06Dave Anthony:Okay.

32:07Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:And New Jersey is rebel ground. So the colonel's house is visible from New Jersey, as is the colonel when he just stands outside. What the fuck? Like you can see him.

32:17Gareth Reynolds:It's like how Sarah Palin describes Russia. I can see Russia from my house. I can see New Jersey from my house.

32:23Dave Anthony:But you're able to see him like, what is he doing? He's in a robe. He's having some hot beverage. He's really stretching. Oh, he's waving.

32:30Gareth Reynolds:He's enjoying himself. Years from now, we'll call it yoga.

32:39Dave Anthony:He's counting gold again.

32:43Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Across the water in New Jersey is a rebel named Nathaniel Fitz Randolph. Everyone calls him Captain. I'm going to call him Fitz.

32:52Dave Anthony:Okay.

32:53Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:He's about 30 years old. He spends the war rowing over to Staten Island in the dark. Okay. And he does it often enough that papers on both sides are writing about how, you know, he's famous to the rebels and infamous to the loyalists.

33:06Dave Anthony:So everyone knows who this guy is. We have like a rowing Batman? Yes, a rowing Batman.

33:10Gareth Reynolds:It was a slow news period. There wasn't, nothing big was happening in, you know, world historic events. Who is Roman?

33:21Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:But even the people who hated him conceded that he was decent to the many captured and did not let his people rob houses.

33:29Dave Anthony:Sorry, who is he capturing?

33:30Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah, I'm a star. So he is rebel American going over and grabbing whatever, a soldier or whatever, or an important person from Staten Island.

33:39Dave Anthony:Okay, so he's anti-Staten Island, obviously.

33:43Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:He's anti-British and therefore anti-Staten Island.

33:45Dave Anthony:Yes, because Staten Island is part of Britain. He rose over and he does a comedy set. He comes back. They boo him.

33:52Gareth Reynolds:That did not go well.

33:54Dave Anthony:So he's rowing over there, and he's grabbing someone of note, and then he's bringing them back to the mainland, and people are like, oh, it's good.

34:03Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:That's right.

34:03Dave Anthony:And they're like, what the hell are you doing? He's like, it's a vibe. Staten Island, it's popping.

34:10Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:This is how bad comedy is in Staten Island. David Tell went before me, and he got off stage and was like, oh, God, get me out of here. It is bad.

34:21Gareth Reynolds:I want to hear more about these Staten Island sets you guys did. I didn't even realize there was a comedy circuit that went through there.

34:28Dave Anthony:I one time did, I think I did stand up on the ferry to Staten Island. And it was a death sentence.

34:39Gareth Reynolds:They're just slamming on the accelerator. It was the first trip that took 10 minutes.

34:43Dave Anthony:I was like, that's a lot of smoke. You're really cooking.

34:47Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:That was, oh God, I know who books that gig.

34:50Dave Anthony:or did the guy who booked it for me was a guy named pudge i believe oh okay that's different yeah and it was it was horrible i bombed and then i bombed and then could hear people talking about how i bombed i i literally at one point said to someone i go i can hear you she was like oh sorry i was like yeah it's okay but keep your voice down uh yeah so grandpa's was in new dorp

35:16Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Grandpa's Comedy Club and Grandpa was Al Lewis from the Munsters that's who owned it that's why it was called Grandpa's

35:22Dave Anthony:Dave's 80

35:25Gareth Reynolds:Dave fought for the British

35:27Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:I did, a little bit I still am

35:30Gareth Reynolds:Dave took an oath after his set should we reconsider? 250 years, it's been long enough it's not a bad idea

35:39Dave Anthony:the rogue guy grabs him oh come on you're going back to the mainland

35:45Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So the colonel puts a hundred pound bounty on Fitz's head.

35:51Dave Anthony:Okay.

35:52Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So then Fitz, in response, put a hundred pound bounty on the colonel's head.

35:56Dave Anthony:He's not allowed to do that.

35:56Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:And he one ups it and said he was going to have to go get the colonel himself. Wow. So I guess he gets his own bounty.

36:04Gareth Reynolds:Yeah.

36:04Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Do you pay yourself for taxes? Self-dealing.

36:08Gareth Reynolds:That doesn't happen until 250 years later in American history. You got to be president to do that kind of thing. insider rowing

36:16Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:he then gets a tip that the colonel will be attending a ball on Staten Island

36:22Dave Anthony:who's the tip from? this guy keeps looking over there and he can see everything with bald eyes how do I know? there's actually a ball going on right now and the colonel's at it

36:35Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:so it's several miles inland from his estate so Fitz heads to Staten Island And he goes to the house Where the ball is happening

36:44Dave Anthony:This guy's wife, by the way, definitely was like, he's cheating He's 100 %

36:48Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Oh, you're going to Staten Island again?

36:51Dave Anthony:What's her name? I'm going to Staten Island again to try to get the key Uh-huh

36:57Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:And he So he goes to the ball, he peeks inside So he can get a look At the colonel and see what he's wearing Worried that he might Grab the wrong guy in the dark So he wants to see poorly lit ball

37:12Dave Anthony:what a setup I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to go by feels did we immediately option this to be a movie a major motion picture this is like a Marvel plot Roman

37:26Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:so so Fitz he's a wanted rebel he has a price on his head 100 bucks or pounds and he goes into a ball of a room full of loyalists on an island held by the British army. Did he dress up? I don't know how he pulled it off but some people did recognize him, acquaintances, but they didn't say anything.

37:54Dave Anthony:He must have been playing the part a little bit.

37:58Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Don't you imagine he's just winking at a lot of people? How good are the British, huh?

38:02Dave Anthony:Look at all these oysters. This is awesome. This is living. This is great, huh? I hope the mainland rower never comes this way. Colonel, nice outfit.

38:14Gareth Reynolds:Wait, how do we know that some people recognize him? It's like after the fact, if you're like, oh, yeah, I saw that guy. I knew who that was. You don't get invited back.

38:21Dave Anthony:It's got to be in the letters.

38:22Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah, I don't know how else you'd know.

38:23Dave Anthony:That's all we got. That is a weird thing to put in your letter, though. Some people knew him. Others didn't.

38:30Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Definitely people wrote about it years later, so maybe that's why. The next morning, the colonel is riding home from the ball. He's tired. He's half asleep. So he did an all-nighter at the ball. He's probably hungover.

38:40Dave Anthony:He did an all-nighter at the ball? Yeah.

38:42Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah. And when Fitz steps into the road right in front of him and seizes him. And the details have been lost to history. But for some reason, by July 27th, he's back on Staten Island. The colonel is? Yeah. What? They caught him. He caught him, which he's been trying to do for a while. And then all of a sudden he's free and we don't know why.

39:05Dave Anthony:What is the time difference between when he caught him to when he was back on the island? I don't have the date.

39:09Gareth Reynolds:Wait, the colonel never wrote like an extremely self-aggrandizing book about all this? He just – He tweeted a bit. He assumed history would. No, he didn't. He assumed that history books would be like – And he never anticipated this. No, he never was like, this won't work?

39:26Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:He was probably exchanged because he was kidnapped for the sole purpose of trading in a prisoner exchange. Okay. So he was probably traded. Okay. But this is not close to over.

39:38Dave Anthony:I would hold on to that one.

39:38Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah.

39:39Dave Anthony:Yeah.

39:39Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:This is not close to over. In February of 1779, a waiting party from Staten Island comes for Fitz in Jersey. Okay. At 3 o 'clock in the morning, a party of loyalist troops cross from the island. They land. They walk into town. Nobody sees them because it's 3 a.m. Nobody's up. And they go straight to the house where Fitz lives.

40:01Dave Anthony:This is going to be very validating for the cheating thing, though, for him. He'll be like, see? I've been wrong. I'm telling you. They're coming to get me.

40:12Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Unbeknownst to the raiding party, a rebel scout from a nearby post has stopped to spend the night at the house.

40:18Dave Anthony:Okay.

40:19Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So there are 12 rebel soldiers inside with Fitz Tough

40:24Dave Anthony:That is brutal

40:26Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:It's not what it looks like

40:27Dave Anthony:No, no, yeah, he's like Jason Borning the room He's like, there's only candles

40:32Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So the sentry does not see the loyalists Until they have nearly surrounded the building Okay And then he fires a musket once and runs away

40:43Dave Anthony:Wait, who does Fitz?

40:44Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:No, the sentry

40:44Dave Anthony:Oh, that guy, I love that guy

40:47Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:That's me, that's what I'm doing I'm shooting at once and I'm taking off.

40:50Dave Anthony:Well, to be fair, I mean, he's like, it's going to take 20 to reload. Yeah, absolutely. Words out. I'm going to get a coffee.

40:57Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So when the gun goes off, the loyalists storm the house and they just take Fitz and the other 12 guys easily with that incident. They're just like, ah. They're probably all laying on the floor to sleep. Yeah. On the way out, they steal the buckles of the shoes of the women in the house. Smart. Tough. You got to get your stuff.

41:15Dave Anthony:That's just economics, obviously.

41:18Gareth Reynolds:I'm like, how is everyone arranged? There's like one room with like 12 guys on the floor, and then there's like bedrooms with the women of the house.

41:26Dave Anthony:When I picture these times, I always just imagine the three stooges. Sleeping caps, one of them's like...

41:34Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Oh, there's definitely a couple. If there's a bed, there's definitely three or four soldiers. Oh, yeah, yeah.

41:38Dave Anthony:They do the 69 sleep.

41:40Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:When up until, I don't know when, the fire departments in the late 1800s, it was just always two dudes in a bed. That's just the way it was.

41:50Dave Anthony:Which is what I say we should do in the tour. Moving in fast motion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

41:58Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So he's put in a provost prison in New York, and then the British put him in irons.

42:03Dave Anthony:Oh, dear.

42:04Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Now, the rebels keep coming for the colonel. And in March, the New York Gazette reports that two or three different parties have lately been at his house, quote, in order to captivate him once more with a view to get him for an exchange. So they're trying to get him to swap for Fitz.

42:24Gareth Reynolds:They just think he's valuable. They're not like this guy is quarterbacking the whole thing. They don't think he's like the linchpin of the British effort. They just think they'll do anything to get him back. Yeah.

42:35Dave Anthony:Why don't they take him? Why don't they? The colonel? Yeah.

42:38Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:They can't. They just haven't been able to steal him.

42:41Dave Anthony:Seems like it couldn't be that.

42:41Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:It's hard to grab a guy.

42:43Dave Anthony:It isn't. We can see him from New Jersey.

42:45Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah, I mean, it's hard to grab him.

42:48Dave Anthony:He's right there in front of his house. I could go get him.

42:53Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:How can we not get this guy? He's doing yoga every morning at 9 a.m.

42:58Dave Anthony:We can see him.

43:03Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So they do a couple of raids. They both fail. But then a third on June 23rd, 1779, does not. As previously mentioned, the colonel's house can be seen across the water. So the rebels station men in the steeple of the town church and give them orders to watch for the colonel to come home. Is this a Trojan church? Literally like, you guys, I got a great plan. Hear me out. How did this take years? We watch his house.

43:33Dave Anthony:Huh? So someone on the mainland invented hiding. And this is going to be, this is a huge technology. It's going to be huge. This is a huge technology, a huge breakthrough. What this is is not revealing where you are right away.

43:47Gareth Reynolds:It works better in summer when there are leaves.

43:50Dave Anthony:You guys remember surprise parties? It's that, but for kidnapping, okay? This is going to change all war. This is big. Peter Thiel has the copyright.

44:00Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So he comes home, the rebels head across. So they wait for him. It's not like they're waiting in Staten Island hiding. they're still across in Jersey just watching the house the rebels

44:14Dave Anthony:how was nobody like we could do this over there

44:18Gareth Reynolds:to be visible from New Jersey you have to be at the most extreme like outer edge of Staten Island like he must have been the farthest south point of New York I believe it is

44:31Dave Anthony:he is taunting at this point you really I mean if there's only like a little bit you can see. And you're like, I choose to live there.

44:40Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:You would think he would just be going out, dropping his pants and slapping his butt cheeks. He's spreading.

44:45Dave Anthony:He's doing the spreading again. He's spreading.

44:48Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So they head across in a boat in silence, muffling the sound of the oars, as you do.

44:54Dave Anthony:They land? It's probably quite ineffective, but you maybe just have to lay it flat. It's really taking a long time to get there.

45:04Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:They land, they walk up to the house in a single

45:07Dave Anthony:We're back on the mainland.

45:08Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:In a single file, they walk up to the house. They give the countersign and go inside without anybody raising the alarm. And the colonel's in bed. He's sleeping. Sure. So they just grab him. And when they're taking him out of the home, he asks for time to grab his hat.

45:28Dave Anthony:Well, I mean.

45:29Gareth Reynolds:It was really different back then.

45:31Dave Anthony:There are rules of engagement. And there are war crimes. and obviously you've got to let the guy get his hat.

45:37Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:We do. There's a lot of hat stuff on the column. Hat fetching.

45:41Dave Anthony:Yeah, well, we've gone through a lot of the hat respect.

45:45Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Like if someone is in disarray, the papers are always like, he was without a hat. Like that's to describe how messed up things were.

45:53Dave Anthony:No, if you think taking your hat off for the national anthem is a pain in the ass, you have no idea how lucky you are.

46:01Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:They don't allow him to grab his hat. What the actual fuck?

46:05Gareth Reynolds:Oh, man, things have changed Well, that's not good

46:09Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Well, that is just, I mean, that is not gentlemanly Death His own guard is posted a short distance away But never noticed a thing Tough

46:19Dave Anthony:They got comfy

46:20Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:One rebel goes into the stable and takes the colonel's horse Beautiful animal, takes it down to the water But the horse, because he's a jerk, will not get in the boat So the man shoots the horse Jesus

46:32Dave Anthony:I don't know why. I don't think we need that detail.

46:34Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:What else are you going to do with the horse? I mean, look. If it's not going to get in the boat, what other options are there?

46:41Dave Anthony:So I just killed it.

46:43Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:What?

46:43Dave Anthony:Yeah, yeah. Just let the thing go. It's a nice horse.

46:46Gareth Reynolds:Yeah, I should have.

46:47Dave Anthony:I should have.

46:48Gareth Reynolds:What are you doing? It's all happening so fast.

46:50Dave Anthony:Yeah, there's so many moving pieces. It's not happening fast. This is the slowest thing ever. I know. Hiding, hiding.

46:55Gareth Reynolds:I'd kind of turn my mind around.

46:57Dave Anthony:And I did stomach, so it's a slow one. Why would you shoot him in the stomach? We walked through a lot of versions of this. We never talked about that horse.

47:06Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Well, you're not supposed to take a horse.

47:07Dave Anthony:What is with a horse not getting on a boat?

47:09Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Who thinks a horse will get on a rowboat?

47:12Gareth Reynolds:I completely agree. Completely agree. Can you do stealth mode rowing when you have a horse passenger? The oars are quiet, but the neighing is very loud.

47:25Dave Anthony:I'm trying to get a horse on a rowboat. It's making it harder to row.

47:31Gareth Reynolds:Horse was definitely behaving rationally A you don't need me B absolutely not I'm not gonna go

47:41Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So the gunshot alerts the British That something's going on

47:44Dave Anthony:The idea that you could have just left the horse Not only for ethical reasons But to seek off better Well I shot the horse The British know I buckled He looked mean He was really mean. He was looking at me weird. What do I want me to do? I buckled like a lady's shoe out there. I shot the horse twice.

48:06Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:But it's too late because Jersey's so close that by the time the British organizing get down there.

48:12Dave Anthony:All right, we're ready. They're back on the mainland.

48:14Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah, they're in Jersey already. So Colonel's now a prisoner. But it's not so bad. Basically, he promises the Continental Army he will not escape and will not take up arms. In exchange, they let him do his thing in New Jersey. So he's basically just cruising around in Jersey now, and he promises not to do anything bad. That's the prisoner situation. I don't understand. That's how it works with officers. It's a gentlemanly agreement.

48:41Gareth Reynolds:But then why not let him take his hat? Exactly where I was going.

48:44Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Well, here we go.

48:45Gareth Reynolds:Exactly where I was going.

48:46Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:He's going to hold a grudge, isn't he?

48:47Gareth Reynolds:As he should.

48:48Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Just walking around all that time.

48:50Gareth Reynolds:I mean, he can see it from where he's being. It's right there. Right there on the hat rack.

48:55Dave Anthony:Right there. I can grab it.

48:57Gareth Reynolds:Right next to the yoga mat. Yeah.

49:02Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So as long as he keeps his word, he stays out of his cell, right? So for four months, that is Colonel Christopher Billups' sentence. Exile in New Jersey. Yeah.

49:15Dave Anthony:May I go in the jail now?

49:21Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:But then in October, New York State blows that agreement up. The legislature convicts him of loyalty to the king.

49:30Gareth Reynolds:Yeah.

49:30Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:We knew this.

49:32Dave Anthony:Yeah.

49:32Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:We all knew this. Yeah.

49:34Gareth Reynolds:What are we doing? We knew that.

49:36Dave Anthony:The four months is the issue.

49:38Gareth Reynolds:He's in the legislature being like, we should all.

49:41Dave Anthony:Yeah. And you are sentenced to no hat. Well, guys. Guys.

49:47Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So the colonel is banished, and everything he owns is taken by the state.

49:53Dave Anthony:You're going to Staten Island.

49:54Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So they take his 1 ,078 acres, the stone house, his grandfather built, the dead horse they take, they take everything.

50:02Dave Anthony:The hat. Jesus.

50:04Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:In New York, the British are holding.

50:06Dave Anthony:Put it on in front of him. No.

50:09Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:In New York, the British are holding two American prisoners in irons. One is Nathaniel Fitz Randolph. so new jersey decides to answer that by doing the same thing to a loyalist and that's and that's uh colonel billup okay so the governor of new jersey wrote a letter saying the state had no personal resentment against the colonel quote it is his particular misfortune to be in our position at this melancholy juncture so to do it we gotta we gotta put this guy in prison the amount of

50:44Dave Anthony:things that were emotionally written back then and the amount of things that weren't and this is one where he's like, it's melancholy. We're down.

50:52Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:I'm really sad I gotta put this guy in a prison. It's tough.

50:55Gareth Reynolds:He was just like bopping around New Jersey and then they were like, things have changed. That's right. Events are such that now you must be in manacles.

51:06Dave Anthony:That was tough. But it is where he wrote, boredom to run.

51:11Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So on November 6th, the colonel is actually sent to prison. There are two letters that are sent with him. The first is for the jailer. Quote, you are hereby commanded to receive into your custody the body of Colonel Christopher Billup, prisoner of war, herewith delivered to you, and having put irons on his hands and feet, you are to chain him down to the floor in a close room in the said jail, and there so detain him, giving him bread and water only for food.

51:40Gareth Reynolds:Comma with melancholy.

51:43Dave Anthony:That feels very standard As far as Doesn't it?

51:47Gareth Reynolds:Yeah

51:49Dave Anthony:So he's a prisoner, got it

51:51Gareth Reynolds:It's like the hiding thing They're like we gotta really spell this one out

51:55Dave Anthony:Don't get him wet Don't feed him after midnight

51:57Gareth Reynolds:New Jersey, Earth

51:59Dave Anthony:Yeah

52:04Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:The second letter is for the colonel

52:06Dave Anthony:By the way, bread and water You give me that for three days I'm not upset. Really? That sounds pretty good.

52:14Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:I think it was longer than three days.

52:15Dave Anthony:Yeah. No, eventually I'd be like, can I get some butter? But for the first few days, I'm carving and loving it.

52:23Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So the other letters to the colonel, the official who signed the first one, says he is sorry. He writes, quote, to be under the disagreeable necessity of treating him this way, but retaliation is directed, and the colonel can end it anytime he likes by writing to New York and arranging better treatment for the two American prisoners. So they're saying they just want Fitz and the other guy out of irons. Right. And he can do that. Yeah. He's like, yeah. How about you get involved?

52:51Dave Anthony:Wow.

52:52Gareth Reynolds:We can unmanacle the right hand or the left if you're a lefty.

52:57Dave Anthony:That is such a strange situation to be in. So he is chained to a jail floor eating bread and water in order to improve the living conditions of the guy who kidnapped him in the first place.

53:12Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So weeks go by and a message comes to the colonel from George Washington. George tells him to resign his command of the militia and he can go home. Nobody will touch you or your property during the war or after it. So that's a pretty good deal.

53:26Dave Anthony:That is the perfect deal. Take it.

53:29Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah. He says no.

53:30Dave Anthony:What?

53:31Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:He likes being in charge of the militia. Men have never been sane. He's like the king.

53:40Gareth Reynolds:This is the rather than go to therapy.

53:42Dave Anthony:Yes. Exactly. This is just like, dude, look, just say you miss your dad. No. No. Chain me tighter.

53:52Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:He says no. It's psychotic. But regardless, in December, the two sides work out a trade, and the colonel gets to go home on the 26th. 19 days later, the water freezes. Now, the winter of 1779 into 1780 was the hardest of the century. Water rays around New York froze solid enough to carry infantry, artillery, and cavalry across.

54:16Dave Anthony:Roman was like, this is tough.

54:18Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Just on foot.

54:20Dave Anthony:I've been made redundant.

54:22Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah. So on the night of January 14, 1780, Washington.

54:27Dave Anthony:They thought everyone was Jesus? Another Jesus!

54:31Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So on the night of January 14, 1780, Washington sent 2 ,500 men across the ice into Staten Island on 300 sleds borrowed from New Jersey farmers.

54:42Dave Anthony:Whee! Whee! This is fun!

54:45Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Huh? Yay! The whole British force on the island was 1 ,800 men, so not enough to...

54:52Dave Anthony:Yeah, so Washington's done fucking around. Yeah.

54:55Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So the British Army asked the colonel to call out his militia. In town, the militia is mostly, up until now, they've been mostly just doing the grunt work, right? Right. Building stuff and bringing the supplies. Digging. Yeah. Yeah, diggin'. Mainly diggin'. Mainly diggin'. A lot of holes.

55:10Dave Anthony:What are we diggin' for? Not sure. Keep going.

55:13Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So combat like this is something new. So the colonel goes to his militia, and he asks them to come into the fort at Richmond, and then he begs them. He tells them what the Americans will do to this island if they take it, which is hang some of them, right? Uh-huh. And ruin the rest. Sure. Hang some. And then do a set.

55:37Gareth Reynolds:burn some.

55:41Dave Anthony:May I be hanged?

55:43Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:And then he walks into the garrison like, let's go. And then nobody, nobody follows. Not one man would join the garrison. They then go to the public houses and said, instead to drink and hear the news, or they just went home to see about their cattle or their land. And these are not secret rebels. They were men the American government had marked, many of them refugees out of New Jersey. Some who had every reason.

56:14Dave Anthony:That is just remarkable. New Jersey refugees. That's what they call them in New York City. We've been through so much. Aren't you just doing this to make money on oysters? Yeah. Our home is gone. It's there.

56:30Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So some of them have every reason to expect to be hanged if the Americans win. and lose everything they had, right? But they're still not going to step up and fight.

56:41Dave Anthony:Wow.

56:42Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:The truth is the British had overstayed their welcome and then abused the island and its people badly.

56:48Dave Anthony:Yeah.

56:49Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So a man named Blake interviewed years later said, quote, the soldiers in general behaved at first very well, paying for everything that they took. But when they came back from Jersey, they stole everything they could lay their hands on. They started with fences They started with stealing fences

57:11Gareth Reynolds:That's right They fenced fences Wow You guys are being too literal

57:18Dave Anthony:Now this is how you fence right If we put this up on the battlefield

57:23Gareth Reynolds:They'll never get us

57:24Dave Anthony:Look at all these posts Idiots

57:29Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Fences are very important For a farm community like Staten Island to keep the livestock from eating the crops, but the British soldiers needed firewood, so they just used the fences.

57:39Dave Anthony:So wait, so the British just took it. My cow's over there. It's chaos. Oh, my God. So, yeah, we got all this wood for our fences, and we're quite cold. Is that possible?

57:57Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Local Isaac Simonson, quote, the fences were all destroyed. not a rail being left in three months. At that time, things were very cheap. After the British came, prices more than doubled.

58:08Gareth Reynolds:Can I say, in the eternal Staten Island-ness of this story, this is like 18th century NIMBYism. They're like, literally not in my backyard. You took away what demarcated my backyard. That was the taxes also.

58:24Dave Anthony:You think NIMBY's bad now.

58:27Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:I mean, the British were so... The thing my mind always goes back to is when they took Philadelphia, they just took over houses, and instead of using an outhouse, they just cut holes in the floor.

58:42Dave Anthony:Oh, my God.

58:43Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:And would just use that as their toilets. Oh, my God. So they're not great. Not good guests. That's tough.

58:50Dave Anthony:There's an outhouse. There's also an in-house. Christ.

58:55Gareth Reynolds:And that's how bathrooms are invented. We call it the Louvre.

58:59Dave Anthony:Yeah. By the way, the pitch was good. The pitch eventually.

59:04Gareth Reynolds:Directionally, yes. Yeah, eventually we got there. A pipe and maybe.

59:09Dave Anthony:There's nothing worse than the long hike. Dad's pooping. He's taking that long walk of shame.

59:18Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:The first time the army went to New Jersey, a proclamation went out.

59:22Dave Anthony:Or if there was no toilet paper in the outhouse, that weird walk back to the main house. That is a rough one. Daddy, were you shot?

59:30Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:No. Without a teepee. They just used their jacket and throw it away behind. It's tough. It's a good conversation, though. The first time the army went to New Jersey, a proclamation went out telling everyone to put their fences back up.

59:47What?

59:48Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:We found the issue that really gets them going.

59:50Dave Anthony:It's just like how we get an Amber Alert. I've got it. It's a fence alert.

59:54Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Then the army came home and destroyed the fences again.

59:57Dave Anthony:Damn it.

59:58Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:What did the British use for firewood once they used up all the fences, you ask? Well, the churches, of course. Oh, my God. They're like literally the stuff that's most important. Like, let's do that first. What about the trees? Is there a church here? There was a reformed Dutch church at Richmond Town. a frame building finished right about when the war started. A minister named Van Pelt, quote, the British used it gradually up for firewoods. They just used up the whole church. Wow.

1:00:30Dave Anthony:Well, now take the priest.

1:00:33Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:A Presbyterian meeting house became a hospital and was then destroyed.

1:00:37Dave Anthony:This might be how they started burning people at the stake. Seriously.

1:00:41Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:We need more firewood. What about that lady?

1:00:46Dave Anthony:Can't use a good stake for that.

1:00:47Gareth Reynolds:Yeah.

1:00:48Dave Anthony:All right. Not the stake. We'll burn them on her. The two women. Tape them together. Dolores, stand as long as you can. Do you understand?

1:00:56Gareth Reynolds:You've had tape this whole time? Yeah.

1:00:59Dave Anthony:You guys don't have tape?

1:01:01Gareth Reynolds:And yoga?

1:01:02Dave Anthony:Yeah. You guys don't have tape and yoga?

1:01:06Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:The Dutch church at Port Richmond had a balcony, a steeple with a bell on it, and shingles from the ground up. Those are gone. Good night. Right. Soldiers lived in it, lived in it until eventually it blew over in a storm. No one is inside, but it blew over at New Dorp, which is a name I'll never get over. No one should.

1:01:26Gareth Reynolds:And when it blew over, they all said Dorp. A chorus of voices rose up.

1:01:34Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Oh, Dorp. Soldiers set fire to Gamble's Moravian Church, then came into the parsonage one evening, frightening his family, destroying their furniture, and carried off the congregation's records, probably to burn. Gamble wrote that a complaint by civilians to British officers commonly makes bad worse. One islander said he obeyed the two officers quartered in his house without ever objecting because there was no use in it. Quote, if I'd done so, we should have been requited with a curse and a blow of their swords. Awkward. It's just amazing that they're treating the people that they're helping, that are helping them like this.

1:02:15Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah, right.

1:02:15Dave Anthony:And that the people are taking it like, well, okay.

1:02:18Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So civil government is...

1:02:20Dave Anthony:There's an outhouse, guys.

1:02:21Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:No. No. Civil government has stopped existing at this point. The courts were closed. The courthouse was burned. Jesus.

1:02:29Dave Anthony:Can we get that gavel?

1:02:33Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:And yeah, these are their allies. So by this point, the militia members aren't really feeling particularly inclined to lay down their lives for the crown.

1:02:40Dave Anthony:You guys don't seem to have that. You're not excited anymore. Am I crazy? What's going on?

1:02:46Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So when the American rebels arrive, nobody is there to stop them. But the garrison held. The British spies had warned them Americans were coming, and they were ready. And the soldiers stood on a frozen island in a blizzard for a day and a half and went home without incident. But after the army came hundreds of American civilians with sleds. They were dead set on looting the hell out of Staten Island. This is how it happens. Stop saying we. Not an invading army. People like getting stuff. They emptied a man's store while he stood in it and burned another man's two sloops. His two sloops? Sloops.

1:03:30Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Sloops ships. Ships, some kind of ship. Small ships.

1:03:33Dave Anthony:Sure.

1:03:33Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:They took cattle, horses, carriages, bedding, and furniture. They took people. long after the war, a man named Pompey Prowl remembered that night. He said ice was so strong that quote, the Americans come over and steal colored people and sell them for slaves.

1:03:49Dave Anthony:Oh, sweet God. Never, never good.

1:03:52Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Got to make a buck, right?

1:03:54Dave Anthony:Never good.

1:03:54Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:At all costs. Wait,

1:03:55Gareth Reynolds:the first part of that is ice, ice was so strong.

1:03:58Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah. Well, so they could just run across. Their funding was in the Homeland Security bill. You're thinking, yeah, I get, I get the, in today's environment, I get the mix of this. I was just trying to parse. What was being claimed about the climate?

1:04:11Dave Anthony:This is, imagine a time when Tom Homan had teeth. That's what was happening in this area.

1:04:17Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:No such time. The colonel's house was looted to, of course. Quote, the severe frost at last gave the rebels an easy access to his farm on the ice when they carried off a black man, his cattle, horses, carriages, bedding, and other furniture to a large amount. Not the bedding, yeah. No! Wow. Magistrates valued the lot at 944 pounds. It also, he said, compelled him to move his family out of so exposed a situation. So he's like, well, I got to go.

1:04:51Dave Anthony:He's lost it all, I think. I got to get out of here. This is full repossession.

1:04:54Gareth Reynolds:I also... No, go ahead. This house, I believe, in... I think it is Billup's house where the attempt at a truce conference in the beginning of the revolution is held like after after the like the british launch the big battle in new york city from staten island on september 11th i think 1776 they're like all right now you've seen what we can do do you want to make nice and they invite i think it's ben franklin and maybe adams over to bill's house on staten island and they're like we can make this all disappear you just like agree that nothing happened and you love the king and it can all go back to as it was and that's like that's the moment when we all we could have just remained part of great britain and we chose not to oh my god that's so great they were probably like this is the most important thing

1:05:54Dave Anthony:that'll ever happen on 9-11 exactly this is huge history will remember this they will never forget Phil Pappas remembers this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right, yeah.

1:06:07Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So the colonel moves. After he comes back from prison, he stops sleeping in his house. Every night he walked up from Bentley to his father-in-law's to sleep. And every night somebody sat up to watch over him while he slept because the colonel was a very hard snorer and he was worried he would sleep through another kidnapping attempt.

1:06:28Dave Anthony:Oh, my God. Come on. That's REM I've never experienced.

1:06:33Gareth Reynolds:That's amazing. You're stressed enough that you're worried that you're going to be kidnapped at any point, but you're still sleeping deeply enough that you need someone to watch you. I would be up all night.

1:06:42Dave Anthony:I get 12 hours. Yeah, all night. I mean, once I'm out, I'm out.

1:06:49Gareth Reynolds:Snoring. Also, the logic of that makes no sense. It's like he's snoring loudly enough that he can't hear. That's probably what he thinks. Yeah.

1:07:00Dave Anthony:This is a different time.

1:07:04Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:They didn't know a lot of sleep apnea back then.

1:07:06Dave Anthony:He's still got a Casper mattress. Actually, Helix is actually the mattress he probably had. Not to jump on your sponsors, but even back then, if you want a mattress, you could be kidnapped off of. You know what? If he's sleeping that deeply, it's probably a Helix. Sounds like he had the California Duxlux, which is quite up in. The Staten Island Ducks Lux use promo code Staten Island or promo code Billups.

1:07:30Gareth Reynolds:It's filled with wooden fences. Yes, nice and comfy.

1:07:35Dave Anthony:The new Helix horse meat mattress. Filled with a whole horse.

1:07:41Gareth Reynolds:It's one of a kind.

1:07:43Dave Anthony:Listen, why did we shoot it? We don't know, but we stuffed it in some felt. Now you're going to felt a good night's sleep.

1:07:50Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:So Staten Islanders are now refusing to serve in the loyalist militia, and they go further. What's their problem? Some are passing the Americans information about the strength and condition of British troops. A private complained that the residents were spying for the enemy, ambushing patrols, and taking every opportunity to shoot at the soldiers of the kerosene. You're not on the same side anymore. It's pretty clear.

1:08:18Dave Anthony:It feels like it's turned.

1:08:19Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:It feels like when they're actually shooting at you.

1:08:22Dave Anthony:I'm starting to understand how Staten Island became a part of New York.

1:08:27Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:the British had had enough and they evacuated Staten Island on December 3rd, 1783. We've all done it. Residents came down to the shore to watch the fleet go. One wrote quote, we are very boisterous in our demonstrations of joy. We clapped our hands. We waved our hats. We sprang into the air and some few who had brought muskets with them fired a foot of joy, a few others in the exuberance of their gladness indulged in gestures which though very expressive were neither polite nor judicious the old fingers

1:09:06Dave Anthony:one guy from Philly ate horse poop to celebrate and everyone felt pretty weird about it that is so funny to listen to how they wrote about euphoria

1:09:18Gareth Reynolds:boisterous demonstrations of boisterous joy

1:09:22Dave Anthony:There were demonstrations of boisterous joy. We were waving our hats. A few gentlemen shot muskets. Hey, hey. Remember, we have nothing.

1:09:32Gareth Reynolds:Some people left some sleds on the island, but other than that.

1:09:36Dave Anthony:Some people didn't realize it was the spring and tried to sled to the island.

1:09:39Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:This was great. I shot a horse.

1:09:41Dave Anthony:Why?

1:09:42Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:What do we have? Woo! Nobody knows how many loyalists left with the fleet, but the island came out of the war with more people than when it started. Wow. 2 ,080-47, and it was now 3 ,835. So they gained 1 ,000 people. And Colonel Christopher Billup left, and in September 1783, he filed his claim in London.

1:10:10Dave Anthony:His claim?

1:10:11Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:For losses from incursions. One hat.

1:10:17Gareth Reynolds:Three good night sleeps.

1:10:20Dave Anthony:My mommy gave me that hat. One yoga mat and block.

1:10:27Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Wow. Horse, obviously. Yeah. That was a tough one. Unnecessarily shot. That hurt. Okay, so losses from the incursions of the enemy, 1 ,500 pounds. Losses. Wait, I thought they were saying it was valued at 944 pounds. Did you say? Where is that inflation? Losses of the ice in one night, 944 pounds. So that's when all the people came after, when all the people just ran over and stole everything. On sled. Yeah, on sled. Losses to the British military, 1 ,441 pounds. For living away from his family for seven years, 1 ,500 pounds.

1:11:11Dave Anthony:That was very tough. You could have just stopped. Yeah, it was a tough time.

1:11:17Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:For the forced sale of his land, 4 ,752 pounds, to prove it all, he brings deeds going all the way back to 1687. He's got orders from three generals about him having to stay there and an American newspaper reporting on his spirited conduct in the only battle he was in. So that's his record. Sure. Two generals swear for him his claim for loss of property entered in the commissioner's ledger is 5 ,171 pounds and 10 shillings.

1:11:50Gareth Reynolds:That's like the rest of your life, right? Like you're set. That's a nice chunk.

1:11:54Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Well, then they just give him 400 pounds. Huh? What? And they offer him 80 pounds a year, I guess, in a pension or whatever.

1:12:04Gareth Reynolds:Oh, my God. The British are not looking good in this. No, they're not. Maybe the revolution was a good idea.

1:12:10Dave Anthony:For the first time ever, the British are coming out a little scared. That is crazy. All that. They're like, we'll give you$490 a year. How's that sound? It's terrible. It's a bad deal.

1:12:26Gareth Reynolds:Almost averted the entire thing.

1:12:27Dave Anthony:I gave my life up for what you were doing. Yeah, anyway, get out.

1:12:35Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:One sentence was added to the decision, quote, quote, at the time we think it is necessary to say that on his going to Nova Scotia, we mean the said allowance shall cease. So he goes to Nova Scotia, the 80 pounds is over, because they know his plan is to move to Nova Scotia. And when he does, he gets no more money.

1:12:54Gareth Reynolds:He does move?

1:12:55Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah.

1:12:56Dave Anthony:He isn't moving anyway.

1:12:58Gareth Reynolds:That's a lot of crisscrossing. It's like, why go to London from Staten Island just to ping pong right back again? Right? Yeah.

1:13:04Dave Anthony:That's how you don't make small talk with the decision makers. I was thinking Nova Scotia is pretty nice. They're like, got it. No, Tidge.

1:13:13Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:I hate flying to the East Coast. I can't imagine.

1:13:16Dave Anthony:Oh, it's your life. Yeah. My life's been pretty much three boat rides. That's been pretty much it.

1:13:24Gareth Reynolds:Or he was sleeping there. In a couple months in New Jersey. Yeah.

1:13:29Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Billup does very well in Nova Scotia. He sat in the first New Brunswick Assembly and then on the province's council by appointment of the king. And he died at St. John in 1827, age 90, worth at least$75 ,000. That's a lot of money.

1:13:47Gareth Reynolds:That's a real.

1:13:48Dave Anthony:Ninety, too.

1:13:49Gareth Reynolds:Are those Canadian dollars?

1:13:51Dave Anthony:Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's a difference. Never mind.

1:13:53Gareth Reynolds:So it's$7. He was a proper.

1:13:56Dave Anthony:Living to 90 with all that.

1:13:58Gareth Reynolds:That's really impressive.

1:13:59Dave Anthony:of 90 and 90 and those that's like yeah that's crazy those are solid stats his headstone says that his uncompromising loyalty his headstone at the end says turnover for more second episode to

1:14:13Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:follow his headstone says that his uncompromising loyalty during the american rebellion obliged him at the termination of that contest to abandon without compensation his heredity hereditary property on Staten Island. That's what you're saying about book titles. The headstone is still just like bitter. It's a bitter headstone.

1:14:32Dave Anthony:Also just like, you're like, wait, what? He was a traitor.

1:14:37Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Staten Island was under occupation for seven years and five months, longer than any community in America during the revolution.

1:14:44Gareth Reynolds:Wow, that is crazy. Yeah, but at what point did they start calling it an occupation? I know, right?

1:14:49Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Yeah, like three years in. All right, wait, fuck this.

1:14:53Gareth Reynolds:No, no, no, you know what? This is bad for me.

1:14:56Dave Anthony:all right wait a minute wow that is so i i you know that's what's so funny about this sort of stuff at least for me is i never think about these little wrinkles of how difficult this was to actually get done like i feel like it's just like yeah one day it was done and then instead you're like no no no staten island like a traitorous island well and they had like obviously

1:15:22Gareth Reynolds:it was the right position. They were just like, we have access to the British Empire. Rocking the boat is going to mean there's going to be guys on sleds coming over and kidnapping.

1:15:32Dave Anthony:I mean, it's like a mini Hormuz.

1:15:36Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Well, it's almost like medieval or before. You just think of all of a sudden the river's frozen and then all these people just running across the

1:15:46Gareth Reynolds:ground. Sledding!

1:15:48Dave Anthony:Sledding!

1:15:48Gareth Reynolds:It was actually the invention of the Ice Looge.

1:15:52Dave Anthony:Yeah, yeah, those are Bob Slade.

1:15:54Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Sources, Philip Pappas, that ever loyal island, Staten Island in the American Revolution, Charles Anthon. Anthon, who dropped the Y off there?

1:16:05Dave Anthony:Dave Anthony, so he's obviously taking issue with that. It's personal now. Completely personal. The Y is the whole thing.

1:16:17Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:Interview, notebook, Staten Island, history of Richmond County, Richard Bales, History of Richmond County J.J. Clute, Annals of Staten Island and William Davis, the conference or Billup House, Staten Island, New York

1:16:33Dave Anthony:Wow, that's wild Amazing Now you didn't really know any of that which also surprises me

1:16:40Gareth Reynolds:I didn't know anything about the Billup story I knew about Staten Island's preferences during the American Revolution but Billup is really an amazing as they say in story terms he's a great donkey he really is

1:16:59Dave Anthony:well Ben thank you so much for joining us this was great

1:17:04Gareth Reynolds:thank you guys

1:17:05Dave Anthony:so just remind everyone again where they can go if we've wet the palate if you're just like

1:17:12Gareth Reynolds:what I need is more Staten Island stories if you want to hear this happen in 1989 to 1993 and think about it as a parable for what's going on in the country now, then you should come listen to the Staten Island problem on revisionist history.

1:17:29Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:All I was thinking reading this is like, oh, so you supported a king-like sort of thing, and then you cut shit all over, and now you're mad? Huh, interesting. How did that go over time? Interesting. How did that go in the long run? Layers.

1:17:47Dave Anthony:Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you, Ben. And yeah, enjoy what Ben does. And your Ben listeners enjoy what we do. Yeah, this was great.

1:17:57Gareth Reynolds:Thank you, guys. This was really, really fun. Thank you.

1:18:01Dave Anthony:Part one, Dishonest Conversations. I want the wheels of time to jump the track. I want to leave all my troubles and not look past.

1:18:19Chapter One, A Shooting Lesson

1:18:23Dave Anthony:Forty minutes outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, deep in the piney woods, there is an outdoor shooting range. Nothing fancy. A winding gravel driveway, a little shed where you sign in, a series of long shooting alleys hollowed out of the side of a hill. A man named Greg Wallace drove me there one day in his SUV. A big bag of guns and equipment in the back. Wallace is a law professor and a competitive shooter. Gray hair, thoughtful, friendly. We set up cardboard targets in the shape of a man's head and torso and put on ear protection.

1:19:01Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:All right, we're going to start off with this one right here. This is a custom-built AR-15. It has the adjustable stock. It has a 14 1⁄2-inch barrel.

1:19:17Dave Anthony:He handed me the gun. It was much smaller than I thought it would be and much heavier, a solid block of metal.

1:19:24Gareth Reynolds:All right.

1:19:25Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:You want to shoot it? Yeah. Okay. All right. I will. Let's get you comfortable on this here. So see if that works. Now what you need to do is to hold it up here, okay?

1:19:38Dave Anthony:He adjusted the rifle so it fits snugly against my shoulder.

1:19:42Gareth Reynolds:All right. And then you need to lean your head over a little bit where you can see with your... You keep looking with your right eye. You want to find the red dot in there. I see the red dot.

1:19:54Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:You see it?

1:19:54Dave Anthony:Yep.

1:19:55Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:I want you to bring your left foot forward. Get in that kind of boxing stance. There you go. There you go. All right. Bend forward just a little bit. All right. Now, I'm going to take it off of safety. Now, once you touch that trigger, once the safety goes off, it will fire. Okay?

1:20:12Dave Anthony:I fired once and then twice. I missed the target badly. Wallace stepped in and made some adjustments. My feet were in the wrong place. I had taken my eye off the target. I hadn't been prepared for the way the rifle moved after I pulled the trigger. Then I fired again, much better. Wallace gestured towards the cardboard cutout of a human torso at the end of the range, now with a neat bullet hole to the chest. He seemed pleased with my progress. He told me, would have put him down. Guns are the great distinctive feature of American life. No other country has such a wide variety of firearms owned by such an enormous share of its population.

1:20:56Dave Anthony:For generations, Americans have struggled to make sense of this fact. If you've ever seen a bumper sticker on a gun enthusiast car saying something like, guns don't kill people, people do, you'll have a sense of what the argument is about. Are guns the cause of America's ills or the symptom? In this book, we will come to a consideration of those questions in due course. But in this, the first section of the American Way of Killing, I want to focus on how dishonest this argument has become. By dishonest, I don't mean that one or both sides in the fight over guns are deliberately lying. Dishonesty comes in many more subtle flavors than that.

1:21:40Dave Anthony:A conversation that starts with the best of intentions can become dishonest for any number of reasons. When either side pretends that something is consequential when it is not. When either side avoids the right conclusion because it is too difficult. or when either side blinds itself to the truth through laziness or indifference. The American conversation about guns is rife with these kinds of dishonesties. We know kids don't hold back, and I wouldn't want them to. Get in there, make a mess, slide for home, bring on the stains.

1:22:17Ben Naddaff-Hafrey:I've got OxyClean Versatile Stain Remover. It works on over 100 stains, and it's America's number one stain fighter additive brand. It's color-safe and chlorine-free, So I use it on whites, colors, and dark fabrics. And OxyClean isn't just for laundry.

1:22:30Dave Anthony:Mix it with water for use all around the house, kitchens, bathrooms, and even floors. When my kids go all in, I say go for it. Because I've got OxyClean to get the stains out. It's not clean unless it's OxyClean. I love the little everyday moments with my dog. Especially treat time. But dental care? Not always so fun. Until we found Greeny's Dental Treats. These are more than just tasty. They're vet-recommended and designed to support the four areas vets check the most— plaque, tartar, gums, and breath. Their unique texture cleans down to the gum line and supports cleaner teeth after 28 days when fed daily.

1:23:05Dave Anthony:It's a simple daily habit that supports their health and gives us another moment to enjoy together. Greenies make health a treat. Shop now at greenies.com.

1:23:14Gareth Reynolds:Honey, Felipe sent another photo. From Argentina? How? With T-Mobile, of course. Mira, he's video calling us. Hola familia, did you get my photos? We did They're so pretty Here to share every moment with T-Mobile Enjoy data roaming at no extra charge in 21 Latin American countries Switch now on the T-Life app or T-Mobile.com slash connectate Qualifying plan required not for extended international use You must reach out in the U.S. and primary usage must occur in our network Visit T-Mobile.com