From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is Unfictional.

Unfictional is KCRW's program of stories and original documentaries, part of the Independent Producer Project,

and today on the program Five Stories from the Memory Palace.

It's created by producer Nate De Mayo, a podcast of historical stories that are too small for the history books, but too weird,

emotional and fascinating not to know about.

On KCRW's Unfictional, especially curated from the Memory Palace.

This is a pack, a flock, a herd, a murder.

One.

She first set foot on America in November of 1795. We know this.

It says so in the logbook of a trading ship called America,

which set sail from Calcutta a month later.

And we know the ship's captain paid $450 for her, which was a big investment.

Add to that figure the cost of food and of revenue lost by taking up space

that could have been stocked with barrels of spices and bolts of fabric and non-perishable

things instead of using it to transport a live elephant.

The captain had big plans for her.

You know this from letters he wrote to his four brothers.

He thought people would flip out about an elephant back home, because there had never been one back home,

never been a single elephant on the whole continent of North America.

He figured that had to be worth more than a crate of Darjeeling tea or cardamine.

He bet he could turn his 450 bucks into 5,000 easy.

We don't know if he did.

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