An IHOP at the center of a Revolutionary War feud?!

Hello everyone. Welcome back to By Amara. This is a weekly news show where we'll discuss some of the weird, strange, and just downright odd things that have happened in the art and history fields.

I'm your host and personal curator, Amara Andrew. This week, we're talking about an amazing art historical thrift store find, an entire, ultra rare dinosaur skeleton was found and it's going to auction, and an IHOP at the center of a Revolutionary War feud. Yes, it is a very juicy stories, so get ready.

That'll be at the end of the episode, so stay tuned. I guess, I don't know why I'm saying this, but anywho, that is what you're in store for, so let's just get the hell to it.

I think I might just be in a rambly sort of mood today. So, hello, welcome back to By Amara. Like I said, this is a weekly news show where we look at some weird, strange, and downright odd things.

Sorry, my headphones are extremely loud right now, and I'm trying to play it cool, but I'm like going deaf as we speak. Okay, that is much better. It is a normal volume for me.

I don't want to hear myself that much, and I'm sorry you have to hear me, but welcome to the show. I hope you've had a good week. I must've fit everywhere, I'm so sorry.

I hope you've had a good week. It is, what is it? This is Episode 42 of By Amara.

We are almost at Episode 50, which means we're almost at Episode 52, which means that will be one year of this podcast existing. So exciting! I can't wait.

It is like I don't know. I feel like I need to plan something special, so stay tuned. I'm going to have some ideas for that.

Normally at the start of the show, I do updates. I don't have any related to any of the stories, nor do I really have any for myself.

It's been pretty boring. We've just been doing all of our house renovation stuff and just kind of staying in with that theme. And of course, when one thing falls apart or you start on one project, it leads to like 700 others.

And now, our washing machine is not working, so that's something very fun. I know you give so many shits about what I'm talking about. But anyway, that's just been a little like ugh.

But we have some exciting travel coming up. We've had a lot of fun shooting with people this past week. And I think that's basically it.

Oh, I dyed my hair yesterday, as you can probably tell. It's probably like, woah, it's like super blonde now. Yeah, I do it all myself, and you can definitely tell.

Anywho, yeah, I'm just wasting time right now, so let's just get into the show cuz I don't think I have anything else. Let me think. No, it's been pretty boring.

I mean, I don't really want to talk about like all my work stuff just because that's not super interesting, so I think we're just going to get straight into the show. So, let's just go.

You know I love a good thrift store find. And if you've listened to this podcast before, you know that we've talked about, I think, a woman who purchased a series of four Picasso like very rare Picasso plates. She bought them for $8 at a thrift store and then was able to sell them for $40,000 while keeping one of the plates for her young daughter.

We also talked about an ancient Roman bust that was purchased for $34.99, still no idea how much that's going to sell for eventually if it does, depending on what the person decides to do. Well, this week we're taking a look at yet another amazing art historical find, and this, I think, actually might be one of my favorites.

It's just so cute. So, this was purchased in the UK at a UK thrift shop for £2.50, or about $3.30 USD. And it is a small ceramic vase.

Now, this might not look like much, but this is actually a very important art historical piece of ceramic.

This small vase was spotted by a couple who were wandering around a charity shop. One half of the couple, Aled, spotted the vase and noticed some etchings on the bottom that he thought might be significant. After some researching, the couple found out that this actually was a vase that was created by Namikawa Yasuyuki, who is one of the most prolific and famous artists of the Meiji period, specifically because of how he would make his pottery and ceramics and things.

So, he was well established in the art of cloisonne, and apologies for my pronunciation, which is a really beautiful method of producing ceramics and pottery. Basically, what it is you take this really thin metal wire, and typically gold, but I think there's also silver that you can do, and you use that to trace the outline of things, and then you fill in the outline of the wire with enamel, so then it has like a color to it and everything.

It's really beautiful. It is a very beautiful way of creating ceramics and things. And then, obviously, that's fired in a kiln and then polished, and it just looks very beautiful and really pretty.

And throughout his career, Yasuyuki produced a wide variety of different vases and like lacquer boxes and things like that, so it's just very beautiful. Like, I'm not really kind of it's not really my style of art. I like very weird things.

But you can still tell that this is a very beautiful piece of artwork. This particular vase has a really brilliant like gold mouth opening. I'm looking at it right now.

And that leads into this really beautiful like floral repeating pattern around the neck of the vase, which is like in a an assortment of different colors. And then the main body of the vase is black, and then it has I think a rooster or a chicken, or maybe both, some flowers, like various different types of flowers, and a few other birds on it.

So, it's like it's very elegant and luxurious, but still has a lot of detail to it. And you can see the flecks of gold from the wiring and everything in it. It's It's very beautiful.

I actually wouldn't mind owning something like this, especially considering how much that they are going to be expecting to fetch at auction.

So, the couple that purchased this vase at the thrift store, they are selling it at auction where it's supposed to expected, rather, to fetch almost $12,000 USD. And the auction is on July 29th, so if you want to buy this vase, go right ahead. The couple also states, the couple who found it, they state that they're actually going to give some of the proceeds to the charity shop, just as a generous donation or something like that.

So, I guess that's good. But anyway, so I guess why I always bring these stories up is just because keep your eyes peeled whenever you're at a thrift store, something like that, because you never know what you might find. So, on to our next story.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's an ultra-rare fossilized skeleton of a Pteranodon!

Duh. So, there is this really rare It's like so rare for many different reasons which we'll talk about in a second, but just actually really quickly, what the hell is a Pteranodon? So, a Pteranodon is a winged reptile that lived during the Late Cretaceous period, so about 100 to 66 million years ago, somewhere in there.

This specific creature resided in present-day Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Alabama. This specimen, though, the one that we're talking about today, was uncovered in Kansas in 2002, and it's actually nicknamed Horus after the ancient Egyptian god Horus, who is like the god of kingship and sun and all that wonderful stuff.

Sun S-U-N. And then, he actually had a falcon head, so that is part of the reason why, or I would assume the only reason why.

On average, Pteranodons had a wingspan of at least 7 m or 23 ft. Now, I am five six or seven, somewhere around there. That would be almost five of me laying down.

That's huge. That is absolutely insane. I'm really glad we didn't live around that time.

I'm really glad these aren't flying around anymore because I would lose my shit. Anyway, the it would also be a very different story. We wouldn't be as sort of calm as we are.

Anyway, so wingspan of about 23 ft, and it had a toothless long pelican-like jaw, or jaws rather. So, very similar to a Pterodactyl, you're probably thinking, right? Yes, there are a lot of similarities, except the Pterodactyl was way smaller, but they both did walk on land.

Like they both have a similar sort of shape, except I think the Pteranodon has a squishier head, like a softer head, versus the Pterodactyl, or I might have reversed those. Sorry.

And then also, the they both can actually walk on land, or could walk on land with their hands. But also, two of the major differences are that they existed at very different time periods. Like I said, the Pteranodon existed in the Late Cretaceous period, Pterodactyls during the Jurassic period, hence Jurassic Park and all that fun wonderful stuff.

Pteranodons, like I said, also are much larger than Pterodactyls, and Pterodactyls actually had teeth. So, very different, but also very similar.

So, back to the specific fossil, like I said, it's extremely rare, and I want to talk about two reasons why, which they're very related, so just whatever. From the press release by Sotheby's, quote, "Almost all of the original fossil bones remain essentially unrestored, meaning that artificial filler was not used to replace missing bone sections." So, this level of preservation is extremely rare, especially given the size of the actual skeleton.

Most of the times when things are this well preserved, it's like smaller and a lot more compact, but this is like a huge fucking thing. What also makes this really rare, though, is that the Pteranodon, their bones are hollow and thin-walled, so a lot of times they actually get crushed, so you don't find entire skeletons.

This one, though, is basically entirely intact, which is crazy. Like, it is so cool.

So, Sotheby's is going to be auctioning off this skeleton on July 26th, and it's estimated to fetch, I'm doing a little drumroll, somewhere between $4 to $6 million. I don't know if I think that it should be higher or if it should be lower, I just think that's a crazy amount of money. You also You know my thoughts on that it should actually belong in an institution where there could be research done and have public access, but I digress.

That is my own my own two cents. So, in addition to this Pteranodon's skeleton, Sotheby's is also auctioning off a skeleton of a Plesiosaur, which is one of my favorite dinosaurs. And that was a marine reptile that has like a really long neck, a tiny little head, and flippers, and it actually, fun fact, may have inspired the legend of the Lock- Loch Ness Monster, Loch Ness Monster, whatever.

Loch Ness Monster, that would actually be really funny in like a comic. Anyway, so the Plesiosaur is 11 ft long and is estimated to garner between $600,000 and $800,000 at auction.

Super quick story. Again, like I said, I personally believe that these items should just go to institutions where people can access them publicly and then also for research, but that's just my own two cents. So, if you want to buy a Pteranodon or a Plesiosaur, head on over to Sotheby's by July 26th.

Okay, on to our last and final story, and this one is really weird and long, so just bear with me. There is a payoff.

Like I just teased, this is a very weird, long, strange story, but there is a payoff, I promise. It is so bizarre, like it just sounds fake, but this happened. Well, okay.

Some of it might Okay. I'm just going to talk about it. So, today we are going to talk about, for our final story, a story that involves the Revolutionary War, dead bodies, and IHOP.

This story also is longer than the actual Revolutionary War, which is insane when you hear what this actually is. Okay, so the main kind of character of the story is a guy named Dominic Brockley, and yes, Brockley is actually his real last name, possibly of relation to the James Bond Brockley, but jury's still out, I guess, right there.

So, Mr. Brockley, I love that last name. Mr.

Brockley has an entire IHOP empire in upstate New York. He also owns a lot of different property across New York. He has one specific property in Fishkill, which is what is the main, and apologies if I'm mispronouncing that, I don't know, I'm an idiot.

But he has property in Fishkill, which Fishkill, which is what is going to be the central location for this story. Fishkill is about an hour and a half north of Manhattan, and this is where, like I said, Mr. Brockley wants to put his next IHOP.

However, there is a huge problem. Allegedly, this is the site of one of the largest Revolutionary War graves in the country, however, nobody can find it. And that also might just not even be factual.

There's going to be a lot of he-said-she-said in this story. It's a little confusing, so just bear with me. I'm going to do my best to break it down.

There's a really excellent article that I read about this story that's very comprehensive. So, kudos to you who you wrote it. So, anyway.

So, this is an over decade long feud. This feud has been going on for over 10 years, I think almost over 15 years at this point, between Mr. Brockley, like I said, or Brockley, and a non-profit in Fishkill called Friends of the Fishkill Supply Depot, who are dedicated to preserving the town's Revolutionary War history.

And I'm very conflicted in the story because you know, obviously, my thoughts on preservation, as I was just yelling at people for not to not buy a dinosaur skeleton and everything. I'm actually very conflicted in this story, and you'll learn why as we progress.

So, the Friends, like I said, it's Brockley versus the Friends. The Friends believe, based on some evidence, that there are more Revolutionary War soldiers buried on Brockley's property than anywhere else in the country, anywhere else in New York, anywhere else in Fishkill, anywhere. Brockley, though, believes that this is incorrect, and that the Friends have actually gone so far as to plant human remains on his property so that he can't build there.

Like I said, very juicy story. We're going to get into it.

First, let's start back at the beginning. So, yes, we are going all the way back to 1776. Fishkill was a it was a really important part of the American Revolution, but not because any battles were fought there.

Actually, no battles were fought there. It was just where the kind of like large supply depot was located, so that was able to give Washington's troops supplies like muskets, shoes, rations, things like that. So, like I said, no battles were fought there.

When the war ended, the depot was actually torn down and then the materials for it were just repurposed into other things. So, no battles, but people actually did die on the site because there were a couple smallpox epidemics that raged throughout the entire area, so it killed hundreds of soldiers at the time. But nobody knows where these bodies are buried.

They're somewhere in Fishkill, and there are a few different theories as to where. So, I'm not going to get into that. That's like a whole separate other story, but basically there was there have been writings since the 1800s like post-Civil War where it's like, "Oh, they were buried by the this black walnut tree or this hill," or whatever, which that's like a whole other separate thing.

So, 1776, we're going to fast forward all the way to 2007 now, when Brockley, looking to expand his empire like I said, needed to get a study done of his land before he could start building a strip mall. So, he wanted to build a strip mall called Continental Commons that would have an IHOP in it. And actually, at the IHOP, they would have like colonial style garb and all this silly stuff.

So, the New York State Historic Preservation Office demanded that Brockley get this study done, especially because that cemetery was still at large, like I said.

So, Brockley hired Bill Sandy, who's an archaeologist, and he's going to be another main player in the story. So, you have Brockley, and then Mr. Sandy, and then the Friends.

So, Bill Sandy took a look at the land. He didn't really find much initially, but he found a couple small artifacts. I think he found a piece of a wall or something.

He found a couple different things, but at the end of the day, no graves until the day after Halloween, November 1st, he found seven graves. He was digging for 7 hours, he dug up 2 ft of dirt, and then he finally found a bone. The bone itself was powdery and in horrible shape, meaning that it was really old, but Sandy kind of was just like, "Oh, got It's just like with normal archaeology, like you have to stop when you find human remains to see, is this a crime scene?

No. Okay, now I can continue with my work." So, he stopped digging, called in the coroner, determined it wasn't a crime scene, so Sandy was back to work.

Well, we're kind of going to keep jumping forward a little bit just because otherwise we'll get way too in the weeds with things. A few months later, a different archaeologist was called by Brockley to do a study of the site. This group of archaeologists, they actually found hundreds of anomalies, quote unquote, that seem to be similar to the graves that were found by Sandy.

So, anomalies, very general, not really said that it's a grave, but it was similar to the grave that was found by Sandy. After word got out of these discoveries, Senator Chuck Schumer called for Brockley to completely halt development on the site, and then he actually, Senator Schumer, proposed to have this be a national heritage site through Congress.

In the meantime, though, Brockley wasn't sure what to do with the property, and Sandy kept finding bones. It's just like, "Okay, well, I guess we'll just kind of hang out for a little bit."

So, fast forward a little bit, Brockley actually wanted to work with them to figure out what to do with the space. So, at the time, he met with then president Lance Ashworth to offer them a lease to half of the acre or, I'm sorry, half an acre of the land that included the graves that were found, and then Brockley could build his like strip mall on the other half of the property.

So, it would literally be split 50/50 where you have this heritage site and then a strip mall, which is weird to me, but it does also make sense.

So, anyway, the Friends, though, they wanted the entire area of land because you don't know what is going to be underneath it. You don't know what else you could find. And they wanted to turn it into the Fishkill Living Historical Park.

I think they were also going to have petting zoos and ziplines and stuff like that, which is really weird to me, but I digress. Those are my own thoughts and opinions. So, Brockley then said that he would sell the property to them if they made a reasonable offer.

An appraisal was done, and the land was appraised at $1.25 million, but Brockley wanted more money out of the deal. So, then the Friends, they tried to raise funds, but they had a difficult time because that's just very difficult for any sort of non-profit to raise funds.

Brockley, though, this is what's really interesting, which still suggests that they were friends at this point, or friendly, on friendly terms. Brockley even allowed them to host a Revolutionary War weekend event on the property in 2014. But then, this is where things sort of devolved.

So, then Sandy, the archaeologist, was claiming that Brockley was damaging some of the graves somehow. It wasn't quite clear, and especially because you're getting people's accounts of different things, it's always going to be a little bit murky. But basically, Brockley felt attacked by Sandy, and then he was also getting irritated because both Sandy and the Friends So, Sandy and the Friends, well, that sounds like a '60s band, they were gangup on Brockley to give the land over to them and make it a cultural heritage site, which, you know, I would support.

However, I do have mixed feelings about the story.

So, then Brockley started getting irritated also because they were talking to the media and kind of shit-talking Brockley and just making him sound like this horrible person, even though it does seem like he's actually trying to work with them. But at the end of the day, he is a businessman, so he needs to make money on things.

So, anywho, it's just been a battle ever since. So, like I said, Brockley wanted to build this Continental Commons, which would be a strip mall and then have an IHOP in it where people would be dressed in colonial garb. The entire outside, like exterior of it, would be designed so it's like faux colonial, so it would match the vibe of the area, but he wouldn't build where the graves were found, and actually he would also make sure that the parking lot was nowhere near the graves that had been found and all these abnormalities or anomalies rather that were found.

At this point in the story, though, the Friends stopped trying to buy Brockley's property, I think because they were having so much trouble with trying to fundraise and get enough money and everything like that. And instead, they were trying to block him from building Continental Commons, so they switched their tactics from, "Oh yeah, we'll work with you," to, "We're going to attack you until we can take your property away from you." So, this goes on for years and years.

Brockley at one point even hires a spy to infiltrate the Friends. So, this guy, I think his pseudonym his pseudonym was Crosby or something like that, he rose through the ranks of the Friends because, obviously, being a non-profit, you want to have volunteers, you want to have dedicated volunteers, so they were just like, "Yeah, sure, sounds good." He rose through the ranks, he was getting all the secret intel.

He even got audio of members of the Friends asking each other, quote, and this is allegedly true, asking, quote, "Were you there when we buried…" dot "…we buried the bones by the foundation?" end quote. Pretty damning evidence, I would say.

So, during this entire time, Brockley had been wondering if the graves were actually fake and if the bone fragments that had been found within these graves were fake and if they were actually set up. So, hearing this audio, that immediately made Brockley feel totally validated and just be like, "Oh, okay. They are actually trying to plant false evidence." Supposedly.

Again, this is all alleged. It's he-said-she-said kind of stuff, so just take that into account when you're listening to this. Also, something else that made Brockley think that, you know, this was a true thing that they were planting evidence, was the fact that after all of these years, Sandy, the archaeologist, still had no definitive proof that the original grave he had dug into belonged to a Revolutionary War soldier.

It definitely could have been a grave, but it's not necessarily known if it was from specifically the Revolutionary War. Also, this is exacerbated by the fact that some of the bones that Sandy found were actually from deer and they weren't human bones.

Let's go back to those hundreds of anomalies that were found allegedly on the site by the other group of researchers. Sorry, this is getting very windy and complicated. Well, Brockley hired yet another team to look at the site, and it turns out that those weren't graves, allegedly.

Again, everybody's operating in their own best interests, so maybe this wasn't actually a team that was on the right side. I don't know. You never know what could be happening, but allegedly, that specific team found that these anomalies that were underground were actually just tree stumps, boulders, rodent burrows, but no graves.

And at this point, as you can imagine, Brockley again was thinking, "Okay, they're planting evidence." He even believed at one point that they were tapping his phone. So, in 2021, Brockley even sought to bring a RICO case against the Friends.

Like I said, this has been going on for over 15 years. Still, no one has any idea or proof of what lies underground, which is so weird to me. Like that just doesn't make any sense.

Again, I get it, because if Brockley is trying to keep it hush, then you can't have a bunch of people like You cannot It's weird. Cuz I would see I could see how the government would be like, "Well, no, we need to be able to excavate on this site," but then I don't know. I don't know how complicated or messy it's just very complicated and messy.

I've no idea what goes into what.

So, anyway, where does everything currently stand then? I said that there would be some resolution, and there is to some extent. So, sorry to get you all the way here, but there's a little bit of resolution.

Brockley did actually end up receiving approval from a New York State judge to build Continental Commons, his strip mall, even though the town, Fishkill, completely denied it. As of this spring, 2023, Brockley cut down a large grove of trees that were around the property, and he hopes to start construction this year. So, I don't know if he actually has started it, I wasn't able to find any stories that were talking about it.

Brockley does state, though, that this isn't about money or the Continental Commons anymore Continental. He states that this isn't about money or the Continental Commons anymore. Instead, now he believes that he's exposing corruption, which to me, it does sound like he's a little bit paranoid about everything, which rightly so.

I mean, this sounds very dramatic to have this stretch on for so long.

The Friends also feel super dejected by all of this. They didn't have enough money to purchase the property. They had a lot of people leave the actual organization, and they had a spy in their midst who ended up giving secret intel to Brockley, their nemesis at this point.

I'm trying to not take sides too much because, at the end of the day, I actually don't know who I believe, cuz I can see how it would benefit both sides to have it be in their best interest. Because I could see the Friends being like, "Yay, we finally did it! And like good for us." But then, I could also see Brockley, who's just like, "Well, no, they're like planting fake evidence," which I have no idea if they would actually go that far.

If you make documentaries, you really should make a documentary about this because I'm very confused, but also interested in what actually has happened. So, this is one of those stories where I genuinely, genuinely hope that there is some sort of some sort of update soon because I want to know where this goes.

As of now, it sounds like Brockley is building his Continental Commons, so maybe we will visit it in person and try to talk to him or something. I don't know. I'm not going to make any promises, but you know, we'll see, I guess, what happens with that.

It is wild, and I have a lot of thoughts. So, anywho, that will do it for this episode of By Amara. Sorry, it was a little bit longer, but that was just such a wild story.

I was like, "Should I talk about it this week?" But then I was like, "Oh, I have to, because this is just nuts. Like there's a lot of intrigue in there." So, anywho, hopefully in the future we can find out more about it. This was By Amara.

Please like this episode if you liked it. If you also enjoy the episode or the show, rather, please subscribe. That really does help, and it helps all your creators, so your favorite creators, rather.

So, if you have anybody that you absolutely love their stuff, subscribe, like it, whatever. That'll do it, so I'm Amara Andrew. Never stop creating.

I do want pancakes now.