0:01

Hi everyone, it's mo. I hope you're

0:03

enjoying Season three of Mobituaries.

0:06

Now, if you know anything about me, you know

0:08

that I'm pretty proud of my presidential

0:11

memorabilia collection, my Benjamin

0:13

Harrison campaign, Neckerchief, my ticket

0:16

to the Andrew Johnson impeachment trial.

0:18

I don't do first tier presidential

0:20

memorabilia. I'm all about the guys

0:22

you can't remember were president, which

0:25

is why I was pretty shaken when years

0:27

ago it was brought to my attention

0:30

that my giant Grover Cleveland bust

0:33

might not actually be Grover Cleveland.

0:36

Then in the summer of I

0:38

was invited on PBS's Antiques road

0:41

show. This was my chance to

0:43

find out who this guy I've been living

0:45

with for over twenty years really was,

0:48

and it all came to a head, a

0:50

very big plaster head. This

0:53

is a detective story with clues, suspects,

0:56

and a whole bunch of historical connections,

0:59

including Grover Cleveland's grandson,

1:02

all of it documented on an episode

1:04

of Detours, a podcast

1:06

that reveals what happens to all that stuff

1:09

on America's favorite antiques show. Here

1:12

is that episode of Detours from

1:14

g H and pr X when

1:21

we set out to film in the summer of two

1:23

thousand twenty. For the first time

1:25

in the history of gb h's Antiques

1:28

Road Show. We couldn't go out on

1:30

the road. It was a pandemic, after

1:32

all. But we still had to make

1:34

a TV show, so we tried something

1:36

a little different, what we call Celebrity

1:39

Edition. We went and visited the homes

1:43

and or near the homes of celebrities

1:46

to find out more about what they

1:48

are. Here's my boss, Marcia

1:50

Beemko. The promise that we made

1:52

to get them to come to shoot with road

1:54

Show is that we're here

1:57

to answer the questions about whatever

1:59

you're cure us about. One

2:03

of our stops, New York City, for

2:06

a visit with humorist Mo Rocca. I

2:08

was thrilled and I knew exactly

2:10

where I wanted this to go and

2:13

perfect for road Show. Mo had an

2:15

object that he had questions about.

2:18

I looked right at my bust

2:20

of who I then thought was President Grover

2:22

Cleveland, and I thought, you and me, baby,

2:25

we are going to find out your

2:28

worth and

2:31

well who you are. I'm

2:37

Adam Monahan, a producer with g v H

2:39

is Antiques Road Show, and this is detoured

2:43

today. Mo's mystery bust.

2:57

Yeah, let's be clear. This is basically a

3:00

big mound of plaster that

3:02

I that I managed to balance on

3:04

top of a column. Moe's

3:07

object is a large bust of a stern

3:10

faced gentleman painted in a

3:12

coat of bronze. A chip

3:14

on his face reveals plaster beneath

3:16

the paint, but that doesn't detract from

3:18

the air of importance he gives off. He

3:21

sports a three piece suit, a tie,

3:23

and his defining feature a large,

3:26

bushy mustache. Moe

3:28

remembers the day he came across the bust

3:30

well here he describes it while filming

3:32

our celebrity series. So cut

3:35

to the summer of two thousand and

3:37

I went to visit my friends Christ and Madeleine

3:40

on the North Fork of New York's Long Island

3:42

on a rainy afternoon. Chris

3:44

took me into Greenport, nice town,

3:47

and we saw a place called Capel real

3:50

Estate and antiques, not

3:52

a typical combination, but we went inside

3:55

and that's where I saw him. We

3:58

passed by this ju the full old

4:00

building on a corner with gigantic

4:02

windows. Most friend Chris,

4:05

and I'm pretty sure the bust was in the window.

4:07

Um, so we pulled over and

4:10

went inside, and they sold very little

4:13

in the way of antique, like I think there may have been

4:15

a giant model ship and

4:17

a couple of pots and this bust.

4:20

And Moe was

4:22

intrigued by the bust, and I think he

4:24

started talking to the proprietor about

4:26

it, and I don't think I was paying attention, and it really

4:28

did not occur to me that he was going to buy this

4:31

thing. There was a tag and

4:33

it's a Grover Cleveland a hundred

4:35

and fifty dollars, and

4:37

I thought, I just have to have him.

4:43

To really get why MO had to

4:45

have a bust of Grover Cleveland,

4:48

you first have to understand most unique

4:50

interest in presidential history. I'm

4:53

particularly interested in the presidents

4:55

that you can't remember were president, the guys

4:57

between Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. They've got

4:59

a lot of faith shill hair. A couple of them were knocked

5:01

off, one by an anarchist. The other one among

5:03

those guys is Grover Cleveland,

5:06

who had the distinct honor of serving

5:08

as the twenty second and twenty

5:11

four president of the United States.

5:13

And Grover and Mo go way back.

5:16

My attachment to Grover Cleveland goes back to when

5:19

I got on a bus to visit Caldwell, New

5:22

Jersey and the birthplace of

5:24

Grover Cleveland. The docent there

5:26

Sharon Barrell. She raised her family

5:29

inside of the Grover Cleveland birthplace.

5:32

I was so taken with the whole experience.

5:34

I began going and visiting all

5:36

these homes, and from there most

5:38

love of lesser known presidents

5:41

only blossomed. So

5:43

I bought a one way ticket on US airways

5:46

in to Indianapolis

5:49

to visit the home of Benjamin Harrison,

5:51

our twenty third president. He's sort of the

5:54

kind of the meat in the Grover Cleveland sandwich.

5:57

So a few years later, when MO sees

5:59

the bus tag Grover Cleveland at

6:01

the Long Island real estate slash

6:03

antique shop, it was like bumping

6:06

into an old friend and well worth

6:08

the asking price of a hundred fifty dollars

6:10

to bring him home. I bought a pedestal

6:13

because I couldn't have him on the floor. I mean, he had

6:15

been president for two nonconsecutive

6:18

terms. He doesn't belong on the floor. Um,

6:20

And he became a part of my life

6:26

since that fateful encounter, over twenty

6:28

years ago. Moe has amassed a collection

6:31

of presidential memorabilia in his Greenwich

6:33

Village apartment. What was sold

6:35

to me as a cocktail clock commemorating

6:38

the end of Prohibition in featuring

6:41

FDR captaining the Ship

6:43

if you Will, a campaign neckerchief

6:46

from the campaign of Benjamin Harrison

6:49

and his running mate Levi Morton, the Republican

6:52

team that ran in an

6:55

admission ticket to the Senate

6:57

impeachment trial of our seventeenth

6:59

President Andrew Johnson in

7:01

April eight. And

7:04

the anchor to the collection, the Grover

7:06

Cleveland that inspired it all, who

7:08

overlooks the city from his perch where

7:11

he's basted in domestic bliss

7:13

for almost fifteen years, without

7:15

his authenticity ever coming

7:18

into question. Cut to in

7:20

The New York Times came to do a piece about

7:23

my apartment on a short little feature, and

7:26

I introduced them to Grover Cleveland. They

7:29

took a picture of me next to Grover Cleveland. But

7:33

then I got a call from the writer of

7:35

the article and she said, um,

7:38

hey, we're just doing a little back checking,

7:41

just want to make sure that's Grover Cleveland. And I sort of reacted

7:43

defensively, and I said, well, of course, it is who else would

7:45

it be? Sor? Okay, fine, fine, But

7:48

then she called back the next day and she said, you know, there's

7:51

some concern that this isn't

7:53

Grover Cleveland. My editor has some questions

7:56

about it. And I said, now listen, I'm

7:58

telling you the tag on it said Grover Cleveland

8:00

back in two thousand when I bought him. So she

8:02

said okay, And then she called back

8:04

the next day again and she said, this

8:07

has gone way up the chain and there

8:09

is concern at the highest levels that this

8:11

is not Grover Cleveland. And she said,

8:13

why don't we just call this a bust that Rockets

8:16

says is Grover Cleveland. I

8:18

thought, all right, I can live

8:20

with that, I guess, but the seed of

8:23

doubt had been planted. Was

8:26

he living with Grover Cleveland or

8:28

with a stranger? And then

8:31

I went to the Marshfield, Missouri Cherry Blossom

8:33

Festival um where I

8:35

met George Cleveland, the grandson of

8:37

Grover Cleveland. I thought, this is my chance,

8:40

once and for all to prove to myself

8:42

in the New York Times that this is Grover Cleveland.

8:44

I showed him a picture of the bust on

8:47

my phone. He looked at it. He turned to

8:49

me and he said, that's

8:51

not my grandfather. When

8:55

we come back, Road Show teams up with Mode

8:57

to figure out once and for all whose

8:59

lightness Mo has been living with for

9:01

the past twenty years. One

9:10

of the most satisfying parts of my job

9:13

is helping guests get answers to their

9:15

burning questions about the objects they

9:17

bring in. So, of course, when Mo agreed

9:19

to be on the show, I was eager to

9:21

make good on our promise to find out who

9:24

the Grover Cleveland bust was, if

9:26

not Grover Cleveland. To

9:28

do that, I asked Mo to meet me at Lillian

9:30

Nassau Gallery in New York to visit with the

9:32

praiser, Eric Silver. Moe pulled

9:34

up for the appraisal bust into on

9:36

a little red wagon secured by suspenders

9:39

no less. So Moow, what did you bring

9:41

me today? Well, I brought

9:43

you Grover Cleveland or

9:46

a bust of someone who I thought was Grover

9:48

Cleveland. Very much so. The piece

9:51

has quite a bit of quality and

9:53

has a presence. So it was done by a professional

9:56

artist. It's not the work of an amateur.

9:58

I don't know if it's American, it could be French.

10:01

Italian, and so we just don't

10:03

know. I mean, I don't know if he looks like

10:05

any particular nationality, but

10:07

there's no no way of knowing, and that's

10:10

going to make the search that much more difficulty.

10:13

So you don't know who it is. I don't know. I wish I

10:15

did, you know, and I was trying, you know, I

10:17

tried to look up the artist, you know, see

10:19

what he you know who he was, and I just, uh,

10:22

come, I didn't come up with anything. So there's

10:24

just no way of knowing. Moo

10:27

took the news graciously, especially when

10:29

Eric's adjusted a way forward. If

10:31

you expose it more, somebody might recognize

10:33

it. I mean that's that's the remote possibility.

10:36

So what you're saying is there could be a sequel episode,

10:38

right exactly, right.

10:40

I mean, you can include in the bottom of your emails,

10:43

you can have a little photo of him, and

10:45

you know, as people if they

10:47

know who this person is. So it's just where

10:50

we have a lower third graphic. This is if

10:52

you know who this is, right to exactly

10:54

Eric at anw dot com, right exactly,

10:58

and we'll solve it because millions

11:00

of people watching Antinks road shows, So you have a you

11:02

have a great chance. Maybe

11:04

someone could pinpoint that exceptionally

11:07

bushie mustache, or maybe they'd

11:09

noticed the little clues the sculptor left behind.

11:12

We see his first initials, and we see

11:14

a date, and then we see his first

11:16

three letters of his last name, the

11:18

name of the artists, would no doubt be a step

11:20

in the right direction. On the side

11:23

of the bust are the letters P and S,

11:25

followed by A B, B,

11:28

and right underneath the letters is a date, and

11:33

then it disappears. The

11:40

thing is about that a little insert on

11:42

Eric is that Eric happens

11:44

to be one of the best generalists

11:47

we have. Again, my boss,

11:49

Marsha Beemko, when he told

11:51

you, Adam that he couldn't figure it

11:54

out, our hearts sank because it was like, oh

11:56

no, if he If Eric can't

11:58

do it, we might be in a

12:00

tough spot here. Yeah.

12:05

When the episode aired in May of two

12:07

thousand twenty one, we put out a call

12:10

for leads, and our viewers were

12:12

quick to share their theories. Perhaps

12:14

it was Cecil John Rhodes, founder

12:17

of de Beers, the Diamond Company and

12:19

the Rhodes Scholarship, William

12:21

Faulkner and Mark Twain, and even

12:23

John Ringling of Ringling Brothers Circus,

12:26

all mustachioed, but none

12:28

checked out as our guy. So

12:30

we were watching and I like a challenge. Two

12:33

people weren't giving up yet, and

12:36

they weren't the random history buffs

12:38

we thought might write in for these

12:40

viewers. Most not Grover Cleveland.

12:42

Bust was more personal. I

12:45

worked on his podcast. I was connected

12:47

to him through a mutual friend. Megan

12:50

Marcus, was a producer from mose podcast

12:53

Mobituaries. He once referred to

12:55

her as all of Agatha Christie's

12:57

detectives in one when you guys

12:59

couldn't cure it out. I love

13:01

to get to the bottom of things, and

13:04

a knack for sleuthing runs in the family.

13:06

So Megan's sister Zoe got on the case

13:08

as well. I

13:13

mean the first thing that we started working off of

13:16

was the crowd sourcing that existed

13:19

right after. And there was a name that came

13:21

up on Twitter and Zoe went to town on this.

13:23

Yeah, I think I went off to town. I went to town in the wrong

13:25

direction. Here's Zoe. But

13:27

I saw someone had said, oh you know who

13:30

is It's Benjamin Barker O'Dell, who

13:32

was a governor of New York. That's

13:34

Benjamin Barker O'Dell Jr.

13:36

Governor of New York from nineteen o one

13:39

to nineteen o four, not to be confused

13:41

with his father, Benjamin Barker O'Dell

13:44

Senior, who also held public office.

13:47

It's plausible both had portrait bus

13:49

made, but O'Dell senior died

13:51

five years before most bus was made,

13:54

so he's out. His son, on the

13:56

other hand, lived until ninety

13:58

six, and he did have a mustache.

14:01

And I think they had a photo and I was like, you know what, it

14:04

does look like that, which, by the way, a lot

14:06

of men with a mustache and BET are like they're all going

14:08

to kind of look like that. So that was like that,

14:10

that's got to be him, to be fair, Benjamin

14:13

Barker O'Dell Junior's mustache looks

14:15

to be about the same density as our bus.

14:18

But Megan wasn't fully convinced. I

14:20

looked at the photo. He looked too skinny,

14:22

like this was a heftier. I thought it was artistic

14:24

license that maybe you know, they were just you

14:26

know, well, it's

14:29

hard because like all the mustache

14:31

thing is deceptive, so I

14:34

was doubting it, but I had nothing else to go off

14:36

of and then somebody tweets

14:39

out with the sculptor's name. That

14:42

name came from viewer Mark McCarron.

14:45

It might have been a message that flashed up on the

14:47

screen that said help Morocca

14:49

identify the sculpture, and

14:51

I think it directed me to a Twitter site.

14:53

I don't remember exactly, but

14:55

you know, I got out my device and I started frantically

14:58

trying to act. Mark

15:01

McCarron is the executive director of the

15:03

Historical Society in Torrington, Connecticut,

15:06

and he's likely the only person watching

15:08

that night, possibly the only person

15:11

period for whom P S

15:13

A B B rang a bell.

15:16

When mo was visiting the appraiser, I

15:19

think the appraiser said, well, there's obviously a

15:21

professional sculpture, but you

15:24

know, I can't make out the signature and it's not somebody

15:26

I'm familiar with. And at that point

15:28

the cameras zoomed in on the sculpture

15:31

and I immediately recognized

15:34

it as Paulo as Sabate because

15:37

he worked in Torrington for many,

15:39

many decades, and we have a

15:41

pretty good collection of his work and

15:44

his he signed everything. Mark

15:46

revealed just enough new information

15:48

from Megan to make some progress, because

15:51

remember the thinking at that point is

15:53

that it's Benjamin Barker O'Dell.

15:55

So I'm trying to connect Odell with

15:58

Abote, not finding any

16:00

connection at all. So then I just

16:02

do this is my usual trick. I go on newspapers

16:04

dot com and I just put in the sculptor's

16:07

name and bust, and I'd

16:09

give a time here. We knew it was, so

16:12

I'm like, let me do a little bit before and a little

16:14

bit after. So

16:17

the first hit that comes up on newspapers

16:19

dot Com is from March the

16:22

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and there

16:24

is a photo of this exact bust,

16:27

and it says, a bust portrait of

16:29

Police Commissioner Richard e. Enright

16:32

has just been completed in bronze by Paolo

16:34

Esabate. The bust is of heroic

16:37

size and will be presented to the Commissioner

16:39

sometime during the summer. Its

16:41

final resting place has not been decided

16:43

upon. Mr Abat is well known

16:45

in congregational circles in Brooklyn,

16:48

where he is in charge of the Italian Church of the

16:50

Redeemer, Clinton and Carroll Streets.

16:53

I mean, there's your proof, of

16:55

course, Megan and Zoe were communicating

16:57

every development to MO. It

16:59

really was while to see that

17:02

sculpture, which is in my apartment

17:04

and has been with me for so long, in

17:06

an archival photo um,

17:09

because I come to believe

17:11

that he just sort of via

17:13

spontaneous generation, kind

17:15

of was born in that shop

17:18

on the North Fork of Long Island where I bought him.

17:20

I mean, I'd given up even

17:22

imagining him in other settings, but

17:25

to see him in this setting with the sculptor um

17:28

was really exciting. It was it was kind

17:30

of thrilling that made the hairs

17:32

in the back of my neck stand up. So

17:35

we got our full circle moment, the

17:37

satisfying answer we were all craving

17:40

and a name to the face, Not

17:42

Grover Cleveland, but Richard E.

17:45

N Right, a man I had never

17:47

heard of, but

17:50

I did find someone who had. So

17:53

my name is Larry Sullivan, and

17:55

I'm Professor Emeritus and also

18:00

Team Chief Flight Brian and Professor

18:02

Criminal Justice from the John

18:04

J. College of Criminal Justice's The

18:07

Lloyd Seeley Library at John J College

18:09

of Criminal Justice is home to

18:11

an archive of Richard E. Enwright materials

18:14

and it's only a few miles from most

18:16

place. Now. Who who was Richard

18:19

E. En Right. All Right was

18:21

the first police commissioner

18:23

that came to the racks. Five

18:26

year old and Right joined the NYPD in

18:28

eight eventually becoming

18:31

the first officer to rise through the ranks

18:33

from lieutenant to police commissioner in

18:35

nineteen eighteen and serving through

18:37

nine when he retired.

18:40

If you look at the list of the years

18:43

of New York Police commission she was one

18:45

of the longest last. So with

18:47

the with our bus with Moroccos bust

18:49

having the year one inscribed

18:52

on it, can you just paint the picture of what was

18:54

going on in New York City in the twenties.

18:57

In New York was three. Then

19:00

he speakeasies all over the place to crooked

19:02

politicians, and

19:04

he had to deal with us. And that's probably

19:07

one of these, uh, you know, his legacies.

19:09

I guess he was honest, which,

19:12

as Larry pointed out, was not a typical

19:14

quality of Prohibition era police

19:16

officers. I mean, most of them

19:19

would take payoffs. Two

19:21

years into en Right's career as commissioner,

19:23

the National Prohibition Act took effect.

19:26

En Right, who was known for not tolerating

19:29

graft, cracked down on organized

19:31

crime that became rampant during

19:33

this period and later when the police

19:36

came under criticism for ineffectively

19:38

enforcing the National Prohibition Act, and

19:41

Right made the controversial decision to

19:43

bring charges against members

19:45

of the force. But that wasn't

19:48

all and Right is remembered for and

19:50

there may be two or three points

19:52

that stand out. One is ninety

19:56

two he hosted

19:58

the International Conference from Police Choot.

20:01

This was the first time such a conference

20:03

had been held in the US, uh

20:06

that the next year. Digipol

20:10

Interpol is the organization that

20:12

coordinates between local police departments

20:14

in countries all over the world, and

20:17

its founding can be traced back to n. Right.

20:20

And also he was a very advocate

20:23

of printing. Fingerprint

20:25

identification for criminal investigation

20:28

had only just been introduced in Europe

20:30

by the time and Right joined the police force

20:33

in the eighteen nineties, but it

20:35

didn't take long for the novel system

20:37

to spread internationally, and

20:39

by oh three, New York State

20:41

prisons were using the technique for criminal

20:43

record purposes, and Right

20:46

envisioned fingerprints resolving identity

20:48

questions of all kinds, not

20:50

just within the context of crime. In

20:53

nineteen n Right wrote an

20:55

article for Scientific American titled

20:58

Everybody should be Fingerprinted? Where

21:01

he advocated for a universal system

21:03

of fingerprinting. Early

21:07

into retirement, and Right dabbled in

21:09

fiction writing, publishing his first

21:11

book, Vultures of the Dark, a

21:14

detective story based on his own

21:16

experiences in the NYPD.

21:19

And although his career as a crime novelist

21:21

didn't take off commercially, he

21:23

did receive high praise from a

21:25

fellow law enforcement official turned

21:28

writer, William J. Flynn, who

21:30

described and write as a holy

21:33

new writer whose prolific brain can

21:35

evolve and depict fresh, sparkling

21:37

detective situations. While

21:45

we were learning of en rights foray into crime

21:47

fiction, Megan and Moe were doing

21:49

some research of their own. Well,

21:51

Megan Marcus ended up sending me an

21:53

article about his sentent becoming

21:56

a cop on Long Island. I think

21:59

the first um since Richard

22:01

N. Right in that family to do so

22:04

um. So I thought that was pretty

22:06

cool, and I thought, well, we could keep this thing going if

22:08

I introduced this young

22:11

cop to the to the bust um.

22:13

And of course I was pleased to find out that he was

22:15

a particularly celebrated esteemed

22:17

chief of police during Prohibition, at a time

22:20

when, of course, as anyone

22:22

who's seen the untouchable as the movie or

22:24

the TV show can tell you, it was a time of a

22:26

lot of crime. So I'm happy

22:28

to have him in my home. I'm

22:36

glad we are able to solve the mystery from at

22:38

the end of the day. Like I can't even

22:40

believe this is the most unsatisfying appraisal

22:43

that we might have done. Listen,

22:45

sometimes stuff like this happens. He

22:47

was such a good sport about us failing

22:50

to answer the question that day. We don't

22:52

have all the answers we have of them,

22:55

but sometimes we don't. I

22:57

love that this one was such a group

22:59

effort to get to the answer. No

23:09

yin

23:15

It's store,

23:22

we never in

23:29

all. Watson Si

23:35

de Tours is a production of g b H in

23:38

Boston and pr X. This episode

23:40

was written and produced by Isabel Hibbert.

23:42

Our editor is Galen Bebe. Our

23:45

senior producer and sound designer is

23:47

Ian Coss. Jocelyn Gonzalez

23:49

is the director of pr X Productions. Devin

23:52

Maverick Robbins is the managing producer

23:54

of podcast for g d H and Marsha

23:56

Benko is executive producer of Detours.

23:59

I'm Your Host and co executive producer

24:01

Adam Monahan. Our theme

24:04

music is Once in a Century Storm

24:06

by Will Daily from the album National

24:08

Throat. Thank you all for listening. Have

24:11

a good one,

24:32

g B A. I

24:36

hope you enjoyed listening to this episode

24:39

from season two of Detours from

24:41

G B H and pr Rex. We'll

24:43

be back soon with new episodes of

24:46

Mobituaries, available on Amazon

24:48

Music or wherever you get your podcasts.