Off the Path

It's here! The hour-long Off the Plank special aired this fall on stations nationwide, distributed by American Public Media. Hear about sea shanties, pirates, lighthouses, white whales and more.

Over two centuries ago, a sea serpent showed up in Gloucester Harbor, swimming and playing and splashing in full view of the townsfolk. It’s one of the most well-documented sea serpent sightings in history. But what was the mysterious creature?

Pirates terrorized the Atlantic coast in colonial times during what was called the Golden Age of piracy. But there was one place where pirates were welcomed with open arms — for a while. That place was Newport, Rhode Island.

This season of "Off the Path" has featured music from the Ranzo Boys, a New York City-based traditional folk music trio. In this episode, Davis Dunavin sits down with the Ranzo Boys to learn more about the stories behind the songs.

One of history’s most notorious pirates is Captain William Kidd. His legend is tied to rumors of the buried treasure he supposedly left up and down the Atlantic coast, from the Caribbean to Canada. But Captain Kidd insisted he wasn’t a pirate — and in reality, he may not have buried much treasure at all.

A lighthouse keeper in Newport, Rhode Island, became nationally famous in the late 1800s for rescuing sailors. Her name was Ida Lewis — and she drew the attention of a sitting president and the early suffragette movement.

There’s a 27-acre island off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire called Smuttynose Island. The population in 1873 was six: a family of Norwegian immigrants who rented the only house on the island. So it shocked the country when two of them were brutally murdered. The murder still inspires wild theories — and a bestselling book and movie — a century and a half later.

William Fly’s pirate career was short and brutal — and his death in 1726 is sometimes considered to mark the end of the days when pirates ruled the Atlantic. It began with a mutiny — led to a last-ditch conversion attempt — and ended with a gruesome display on an island in Boston Harbor.

Herman Melville published one of the great American novels in 1851. Just in case you missed it in high school, a quick refresher: we follow Ishmael. He’s a crew member aboard the whaling ship the Pequod. Its captain, Ahab, is a menacing figure obsessed with catching a whale he calls Moby-Dick. This book is all about whaling, which used to be one of the most lucrative industries in the world — and it was partially inspired by the author’s time in the seaside whaling town of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

America's first submarine dates to the Revolutionary War. Built by a Connecticut inventor, it sailed into New York Harbor in 1776 with a mission to blow up a British warship. It was ahead of its time — maybe a little too ahead of its time. There are a few places you can see replicas of the Turtle — and one of them is at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex.

One of the most successful pirates of all time died at sea in a dramatic storm, leaving all his treasure buried under the ocean floor. Hundreds of years later, a Cape Cod man followed a real-life treasure map to find it — and now you can go to his museum to see real-life pirate booty. Featured song: “Jolly Sailor Bold,” performed by the Ranzo Boys.

Host Davis Dunavin previews his upcoming adventure at sea! Among other things, you’ll hear about quite a few pirates in this series, which is why we decided to call it Off the Plank.

In 1820, Washington Irving wrote a short story steeped in the ghostly folklore of New York’s Hudson Valley. Its simple premise and terrifying climax has spooked and entertained people for two centuries. It was set in North Tarrytown, but Irving called it Sleepy Hollow.

Barney and Betty Hill claimed they had an encounter with aliens more than 60 years ago. Their story became the launching point for alien abductions in popular culture. And it happened — supposedly — late one night on a lonely road in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

The state of Maine has deep forests and rocky shores. It also has one small stretch of sandy dunes in the town of Freeport — that looks more like the Sahara than northern New England.

Andrew Wyeth’s 1948 painting “Christina’s World” shows the reality of life for his longtime friend, a woman with a disability, on her farm in coastal Maine.

A small museum on an island in Maine boasts the world’s largest collection of a specific kind of artifact: umbrella covers. Not umbrellas — just the covers.

There are six words spray painted on a rock along a highway near Newbury, New Hampshire. How they got there is still a mystery. Davis Dunavin took a drive up Route 103 to see the mystery rock — and maybe get some answers.

The Appalachian Trail stretches more than 2,000 miles from Maine to Georgia. It was the brainchild of an idealistic forester who drew inspiration from a mountain top in Vermont.

The beloved poet bought a home in Vermont — where he wrote some of his most famous poems, weathered family tragedy and picked lots of apples.

Host Davis Dunavin is back on the road as he previews his next set of adventures on a new season of Off the Path!

Most New Yorkers might be a little skeptical about eating something they found on the street — if it’s not from a food cart. But one New Yorker has made it his life’s work to convince his neighbors that nature’s bounty is accessible even in the heart of the city.

Take a look through your medicine cabinet — from skin cream to body wash and deodorant. Many of these products share an ingredient: witch hazel. And the witch hazel industry has deep roots in the Connecticut River Valley.

The first colonial governor of Massachusetts planted a pear tree in the 1600s. It’s now believed to be the oldest cultivated fruit tree in the Americas.

A few LGBTQ families met up on the tip of Cape Cod one summer in the mid '90s. Their fun beach week had a bigger impact than they expected. Family Week — as it’s called — has helped redefine ideas of marriage and family for more than 25 years. And it still takes place every summer in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

One of America’s most beloved artists kept a secret. Andy Warhol — pop artist and gay icon — was also a lifelong Catholic who went to mass regularly at a church in New York City’s Upper East Side.

A few years before the Stonewall riots, a protest took place at another New York City gay bar, just about a block away. It didn’t draw as much attention, but in its own way, it was a milestone for gay rights.

Musician Nicole Singer, the organizer of Youth Traditional Song Weekend, which took place online this month due to the pandemic, is trying to bring young people and non-traditional audiences into folk music.

Sea shanties have enjoyed some renewed attention on social media. A lot of them have strong ties to New England’s maritime culture and whaling industry.

A group singalong has hopped from bar to bar in New York City for years — and in the age of the pandemic, it lives on Zoom. It’s called Exceedingly Good Song Night.

There’s a camp in the woods of Massachusetts where traditional styles of folk music and dance from around the world are kept alive. It’s the oldest continuously operated folk dance camp in the United States. It’s called the Pinewoods Camp.

At least 11 people were executed for witchcraft in Connecticut. And they’re far less remembered than the victims of Salem.

Some of the first European settlers in Connecticut heard mysterious rumblings that came from a small mountain in the town of East Haddam. Those sounds have inspired centuries of spooky tales about witches, ghosts, demons and a mysterious wizard. Davis Dunavin reports as part of the WSHU series Off the Path from New York to Boston.

There’s an old abandoned hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York City. It was built for smallpox patients in the mid-1800s, but no one's used it for more than half a century. Today, its ruins loom over the southern edge of the island, looking out on the East River. And it’s become a playground for wayward cats.

There’s a tiny 27-acre island off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire called Smuttynose Island. The population in 1873 was six. So it shocked the country when two of them were brutally murdered — an event that led to the publication of the book "Mystery on the Isles of Shoals," by J. Dennis Robinson. WSHU’s Davis Dunavin brings us the story as part of the podcast ‘Off the Path from New York to Boston.’ And a caution — this story contains disturbing details about two murders.

Pop star Taylor Swift’s songs often draw from her own life. For her new album, Folklore, Swift turned to a new muse: an eccentric heiress who once owned Swift’s multi-million-dollar beachfront mansion in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. WSHU’s Davis Dunavin brings us the story as part of the podcast Off the Path from New York to Boston.

The oldest drag shows in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood may date back to 1869 — four years after the Civil War and a century before the Stonewall Riots.

It’s one of the world’s great literary mysteries: a 15th century book full of bizarre illustrations of imaginary plants, astrological signs, surreal figures and landscapes. Its origins are unknown, its creator anonymous. And it’s written entirely in an unknown language that’s stumped the world’s greatest codebreakers.

This story first aired in 2018. It was inspired by a line from the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical “Hamilton,” now streaming on Disney Plus. It's a real line from a letter written by George Washington: "Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid."

Until we get fully back on the road again, I’m checking in with a few establishments that are a little closer to home. Here's one just down the road from me. Bloodroot is a vegetarian restaurant and feminist bookstore on the banks of Long Island Sound in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Off the Path is slowing down a bit for the summer (as are we all.) In the meantime, we're revisiting some classic stories. This episode originally aired February 1, 2018.

I don’t say this lightly – The Book Barn might top my list of all-time favorite establishments.

Thirteen brothers and sisters made up the Hutchinson Family Singers. They toured the United States and Europe. And they drew crowds of thousands of people.

Cesar Beman marched and fought with black and white soldiers during the Revolutionary War up and down the Hudson River. But he wasn’t supposed to be there.

An economic genius is remembered for predicting the 1929 stock market crash that led to the Great Depression. His last words of wisdom live on – stenciled on a series of boulders in a Massachusetts ghost town.

Note: The area today known as “Boston Corners” was once known as the singular “Boston Corner” – no “s.” To avoid confusion, this story refers to the area by its contemporary name throughout.

McSorley’s Old Ale House opened in the 1850s – it’s one of the oldest bars in New York City.

Travelling portrait painters were common in the 1800s, but many didn’t even sign their work. There are hundreds of these paintings attributed to one artist: a man named Ammi Phillips.

It’s probably the most reprinted newspaper editorial in American history, written over 120 years ago. Francis P. Church responded to a question from an 8-year-old who wanted to know if Santa Claus was real, writing famously, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” And the spirit of the letter lives on in Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Davis Dunavin joins The Full Story host Ron Ropiak to talk Dylan, Casablanca and Alice’s Restaurant, plus previews of upcoming stories and more.

William Gillette was one of the most famous stage actors in America in the late 19th and early 20th century. He brought Sherlock Holmes to the theatre. Gillette was an eccentric man with an unusual house – actually, a castle full of theatrical flairs. It towers on a cliff overlooking the Connecticut River.

For the Vietnam War generation, one song has become a thanksgiving staple: “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” by Arlo Guthrie, commonly known simply as “Alice’s Restaurant.”

Danbury, Connecticut, calls itself Hat City, USA. It was the biggest hat manufacturer in America for more than a hundred years. The industry eventually left Danbury, but you can still see bowlers and fedoras on signs and billboards all over its streets. Those hats also left behind another – more complicated – legacy.

There are lots of beautiful historic cemeteries in New England. The oldest headstones date back to the 1600s. Many are faded and mossy. And a few harbor a dark secret. Some people used to believe these were the resting places of the malevolent undead.

The enduring legacy of Humphrey Bogart – and his most famous film – is deeply entwined with the story of a one-room theater not far from Harvard Square.

Two 19th century artists defined American landscape painting. Their art took them all over the world. But they always returned to the mountains and valleys around New York’s Hudson River.

Today’s story idea came from a listener – 7-year-old Emmalyn Paulsson. She wanted to show me her favorite place: Watch Hill in Westerly, Rhode Island, with its famous merry-go-round.

Nikola Tesla spent years obsessed with a dream to bring wireless communication to the world. He built a laboratory and a huge tower to harness the earth’s energy — but he eventually lost it all — in the village of Shoreham, on Long Island.

Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Jimi Hendrix have something in common – aside from being music legends. They all performed as unknowns on a small stage in a basement club in Greenwich Village.

Off the Path host Davis Dunavin speaks with WSHU Morning Edition host Tom Kuser for a sneak preview at some upcoming stories in the next season.

Off the Path host Davis Dunavin speaks with Morning Edition host Tom Kuser about the funniest, weirdest and most poignant moments from season two of the podcast.

Dozens of indigenous tribes once lived in the Northeast. And there are places that still share their music, storytelling and agricultural traditions. In Washington, Connecticut, a group of native people celebrate the festival of the Strawberry Moon in mid-June.

Mark Twain lived all over the country – but spent his last years in the small town of Redding, Connecticut. One of his final acts before he died was to set aside a little money to build the Mark Twain Library.

The highest point in Rhode Island isn’t very high. It’s more like a slight incline. But it was a tricky point to reach for many years. You can find it in a small clearing just off a state road – at a place called Jerimoth Hill.

A 60-foot cross looms on a hilltop above the city of Waterbury, Connecticut. It once welcomed visitors to a popular religious tourist attraction. It was abandoned and decrepit for decades. But there are still people who want to rescue Holy Land, USA.

For centuries, people have tried to translate the markings on a 40-ton boulder found on the banks of a New England river. That rock, with its mysterious message, is now housed in a small museum in Berkley, Massachusetts.

Hundreds of crossword puzzle enthusiasts from around the world gather once a year for two days of intense puzzle solving. And it happens in a pretty unassuming place – a Marriott hotel in Stamford, Connecticut.

An eccentric 19th-century New Yorker had a strange fascination -- he wanted to bring every bird mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays to North America. He was very successful with one of them. A little too successful.

The ghostly remains of four towns can be found at the bottom of Boston’s drinking supply. The townsfolk were forced to leave in the 1930s when the state of Massachusetts flooded the area to create a reservoir. But there are many who keep alive the memory of the Swift River Valley.

Two 19th century paleontologists spent decades in a bitter feud to find as many new dinosaur species as possible and destroy each other in the process. Their rivalry led to the discovery of many important dinosaur species we know today.

A young dentist in the 1840s is believed to be the first doctor to use nitrous oxide – laughing gas – to dull pain. But the father of anesthesia met a tragic end. His story begins in Hartford, Connecticut, and ends in New York City.

There’s a place in Manhattan that makes you feel like you just took a trip on the Wayback Machine – to the 1600s, when European settlers first arrived. And you can find it all the way up on the northern tip of Manhattan Island in Inwood Hill Park.

In this special crossover episode, Davis spends some time with Ron Ropiak, host of WSHU’s The Full Story, to share some of his favorite stories, including the history behind the folk song "Charlie on the MTA," the Connecticut connection to "The Great Gatsby" and the notorious Lizzie Borden's Massachusetts home...that's now a B&B.

The durian is said to be the world’s smelliest fruit. It’s a delicacy in Southeast Asia, but many also find the smell too disgusting – even unbearable. You have to search out places in the U.S. to find durian. On the East Coast, a good bet is New York City’s Chinatown.

You’ve probably seen them – and maybe even dropped in a quarter to look through them at some scenic overlook. They’re at the top of the Empire State Building, next to the Golden Gate Bridge and Niagara Falls. Essentially, they’re binoculars on poles. The factory that’s made them longer than anyone else is in Norwalk, Conn. And its employees crisscross the country to service the machines and collect those quarters.

One of the most notorious crimes in American history was memorialized in a grisly playground chant — Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one. The Borden family home, the scene of the crime in 1892, is now a bed and breakfast — not for the faint of heart — in Fall River, Massachusetts.

The musical "Hamilton" has a lot of catchy music and memorable lyrics. Some of the most memorable come from President George Washington. They’re taken almost verbatim from a letter Washington wrote to the oldest synagogue in America, in Newport, Rhode Island, in which he rebuked bigotry.

T.S. Eliot chose four places to write about in his poem “Four Quartets.” Three of them are in England, but one is a nondescript cluster of rocks off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Eliot’s childhood vacation home is now a retreat for writers. The T.S. Eliot Foundation says it hopes other writers can be inspired by the same idyllic seaside setting that inspired Eliot.

F. Scott Fitzgerald set his novel The Great Gatsby on Long Island’s North Shore – with its opulent mansions, beautiful gardens and decadent parties. But some people think Fitzgerald might have been inspired by another location – across Long Island Sound in Westport, Connecticut.

There might be only one Fourth of July parade that has no live music accompaniment. That’s not to say there isn’t music though. And you can find this parade every Independence Day in Willimantic, a neighborhood in Windham, Connecticut.

Cemeteries are not places where you’re likely to find a library – except perhaps one that deals with death. This library is the result of one woman’s quest to change how we think and talk about the subject of death. And you’ll find it – at least for now – in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Lots of songs have been used as anthems for particular causes or movements. But probably only one for a transit system. The song is the story of Charlie, a hapless commuter who finds himself trapped on the Boston subway.

The National Park Service has awarded a $750,000 grant to historic Colt Park in Hartford, the factory Samuel Colt started in the 1800s to make his iconic gun. But in 2018, being a gun manufacturer is not so easy. Remington Firearms recently filed for bankruptcy. But the making of guns has been an intricate part of our history. Back in the mid-1800s, one gun maker went beyond just the making of firearms. He wanted to create a workplace utopia at his factory in Hartford, Conn.

Most people have no idea there’s a state park named for Donald Trump. It’s a patch of untended weeds and brush that’s been described as an abandoned wasteland in Westchester County, New York. And it’s pretty hard to find.

There are lots of stories and rumors about secret societies at elite colleges. Skull and Bones is the oldest and most notorious secret college society in America. Not much is known about what goes on at Skull and Bones, but you can easily find its headquarters on the campus of Yale University in New Haven.

It’s one of the world’s great literary mysteries: a 15th century book full of bizarre illustrations of imaginary plants, astrological signs, surreal figures and landscapes. Its origins are unknown, its creator anonymous. And it’s written entirely in an unknown language that’s stumped the world’s greatest codebreakers.

Most people think of the Men in Black as the cool, stylish heroes of the movie franchise. They kept the world safe from aliens. But among the UFO subculture, the Men in Black are entirely different. They’re shadowy figures who come after people who claim to experience paranormal activity. The idea of these Men in Black started in the 1950s – and one of the most notorious encounters happened in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Annabelle is an ordinary Raggedy Ann doll. But some people believe she’s possessed by a demon, and terrorized a bunch of college students in the 1970s. Movies like Annabelle and The Conjuring tell this story.

Stephen King’s novels usually take place in small town Maine. But one of King’s most famous novels might contain a call-back to his childhood in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

The first circus elephant in America didn’t start with Barnum & Bailey. It was more than a generation earlier. And it ended in bloodshed – not once, but twice. The saga began in the early 1800s with a man who came from the town of Somers, New York.

You probably know about the phenomenon of Stonehenge – an ancient alignment of giant slabs that acts as a cosmic calendar. There’s something like that here in the U.S. too. It’s called MIThenge. And yes, it’s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT – in Cambridge.

The city of Providence, Rhode Island, mostly celebrates the legacy of author H. P. Lovecraft – one of the fathers of horror fiction and, increasingly, a pop culture icon. But there’s a lot to grapple with – and his bleak, wordy prose about incomprehensible interstellar monsters is far from the most difficult thing about Lovecraft.

In the early 1820s, a pair of Native American students fell in love with two white women in the hills of northwest Connecticut. Their parallel lives ended in personal and national tragedy. In this episode, WSHU reporter Davis Dunavin travels to Cornwall, Connecticut, for the story of the Foreign Mission School.

Matt Farley may be one of the most prolific recording artists of all time – that you have never heard of. He has produced hundreds of albums you can stream on iTunes and Spotify, all from his basement in Danvers, Massachusetts.

There’s a tiny island off the coast of Connecticut. Its residents are more than ten thousand little white seabirds called terns. They have long orange beaks and sometimes ominous black tufts on their heads. There might be more terns on this island than anywhere on earth. And for fifty years, one woman has served as steward and caretaker.

A grisly construction accident in New England in 1848 left railroad worker Phineas Gage with severe brain damage – but gave scientists valuable clues about how the brain functions. Gage survived the metal spike that went clear through his head and has since become an icon of both science and pop culture. His skull is on display at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

There are questions that might stump even the most dedicated country music fan: Who kickstarted the country music industry in the 1920s, even before big names like Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family? And why is this Texas musician buried in Bridgeport, Connecticut?

The Institute for Advanced Study doesn’t have any students or classes. There’s no regular daily agenda full of meetings and conferences. The scholars here don’t even have to research any specific topic.