It's Valentine's Day in 1842 and in New York City anybody who is anybody has totally abandoned the idea of a quiet dinner date at home with their spouse. And instead, they're heading to the Park Theater for the biggest party of the decade.

The party is the Bo's ball,

Bo's being the nickname of Charles Dickens,

the famous British writer.

You know, please, sir, can I have some more? That Charles Dickens. Dickens is the

guest of honor and he's also the party's theme. The decorations include a giant portrait of Dickens, giant portraits of his characters, and there's this thing they are called living pictures,

Tablo Vivand. They are basically actors in frozen scenes from his books. They are just people

holding very still like, you know, street performers pretending to be tin men. The whole scene is just wild.

No expense has been spared for this But the real star of the show, the real star of this massive extravagant banquet is

oysters.

More than 30,000 oysters.

28,000 stewed oysters, and 10,000 pickled oysters.

And for Charles Dickens, he was not just getting any oysters.

He was getting the very best New York City oysters

because the Bo's ball was being catered by a man named Thomas Downing. Thomas Downing was the undisputed oyster king of New York

city and Downing's life it was as dramatic as any of the characters in Charles Dickens books.

I'm Doolan Thuris and this is Atlas Obscira, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

And today we are meeting Thomas Downing, the black entrepreneur who arguably invented fine dining in New York City and on top of that

what he was doing underneath his restaurant was even more noteworthy.

They had a secret that no one else knew about.

The oyster seller was doing more than just selling oysters.

That's after this. The This story starts not in New York City, but in Virginia on Chincatee Island, this marshy barrier

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