Talking to the Dead (31 page)

 

In 1904 schoolchildren playing around the Hydesville “spook” house ventured down into the dark cellar. A crumbling wall gave way: Eureka! a skeleton lay behind it. According to an article in the
Boston Journal,
a doctor was consulted who estimated that the bones were about fifty years old.
¹³

The man who moved into the Hydesville house shortly after the Fox family left became a devout Spiritualist, as did his children. His great-grandson, a stage magician named Gene Gordon, broke with the tradition yet helped keep the memory of Kate and Maggie alive by writing in his memoir about tales of the Hydesville rapper he had heard as a boy. The spirits may work in mysterious ways.
¹⁴

In 1916 the Hydesville house was dismantled, loaded onto a barge, and floated west along the Erie Canal to the town of Lily Dale. After
being reassembled, the house was inhabited by a medium who claimed to be in frequent contact with the Fox sisters, and some Lily Dale residents can still recall hearing the girls' spirits rap messages. Then, in the 1950s, the house burned to the ground in what was called a mysterious fire. A peddler's trunk, still on view at the Lily Dale Museum, was rescued from the remains, although skeptics question whether it actually belonged to the infamous Charles Rosna.

A decade later an enterprising Canadian bought the plot of land in Hydesville, and he erected a facsimile of the house. But it too was subsequently destroyed by fire. The National Spiritualist Association of Churches acquired the property, which had reverted to a wilderness of brackish weeds, in the last decade of the twentieth century, fittingly on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the movement's birth.
¹⁵

In tribute to the Fox sisters, Spiritualists also have created a memorial garden at Lily Dale, a peaceful circle of trees and flowers surrounding a small fountain. Two stone doves perch at the fountain's center, their beaks touching, their wings spread as though to soar to the reaches of another world.

Descendants of John and Margaret Fox have tended to guard their privacy, but a few matters are on public record. Kate's second son, Henry, died while still in his teens, most likely the same year as his mother. In 1899 the husband of Leah's deceased daughter, Lizzie Fish Blauvelt, sued his uncle, David Fox, in a property dispute and won.
¹⁶
Long afterward, in the 1950s, the wife of one of David's own grandsons wrote a book about the Fox sisters. A great-great-great-niece of the mediums is engaged in researching her famous family's background and is thinking about writing a new book today.

Ferdie Jencken, Kate's oldest son, died in his early thirties in 1908, his life a struggle with the same addiction to alcohol and possibly drugs that had afflicted his mother and his aunt Maggie. Although he had married and had children, by then he was living alone, having lost them perhaps to death or in divorce.

The stories of Ferdie's mediumship, while not widespread, never entirely disappeared. Kindhearted Titus Merritt sometimes visited him, helping him out financially and encouraging him to stay sober.
¹⁷

During one meeting in 1903, Merritt wrote, raps were heard, and Ferdie instantly seized a pencil and paper. After writing out the alphabet, he pointed to individual letters to spell an affectionate message from his mother. There was nothing special about it, Merritt said, nothing that the medium himself couldn't have invented. But then Ferdie communicated an extraordinary message. Through Ferdie, the spirit of Maggie asked Merritt if he remembered the time she had knocked off his hat.

The astonished Merritt did indeed remember the moment. He had been taking her to Brooklyn two days before she died. She was too weak even to walk. She had needed to be helped off the carriage, through the door of Mrs. Ruggles's State Street home, and into a chair. But frail though Maggie was, Merritt recalled, she was mischievous enough to reach up and purposely topple his hat from his head.

Merritt declared that he had never spoken of that teasing exchange and had forgotten it entirely himself until reminded by Ferdie, or the immortal Maggie.

I
HAVE NO DOUBT
that the manifestations produced by the Fox sisters could have been created by magic tricks. The phenomena often occurred under cover of darkness or when a sitter's eyes were closed or after hours of patient waiting, prolonged periods that may have induced a sort of shared, waking trance. Visible apparitions were often the work of a magic lantern or a willing confederate. While no one could ever convince me to remain in a room where a mahogany table was drifting overhead, I know that magicians and psychologists have explanations for table levitations as well, ranging from hidden wires to the imagination of an unreliable observer—such as me.

Most nineteenth-century Spiritualists, of course, were as familiar with a range of explanations as we are. They understood that mediums sometimes worked with accomplices; they knew about techniques such as cold reading, gauging information from someone's facial expressions or body language; they were well aware of the capacity of the human eye to see, not what's there, but what the mind expects or hopes to see.

But believers—and an occasional scientist or philosopher such as William James—continued in the face of rampant fraud to pose questions. If a medium sometimes commits deception, does it mean that he or she always does? If most mediums are fakes, does it follow necessarily that they all are? Many books on psychic or Spiritualist phenomena—and now this one as well—at some point quote James's opinion on the investigation of “wild facts”:

“If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black,” he wrote, “you must not seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.”
¹

Kate and Maggie gave seances and made public appearances for forty years, sometimes when they were sick or drunk or in despair. In all those years the sisters were never exposed in outright trickery the way so many of their colleagues were. The two youngest Fox sisters confessed—Kate to Mrs. Norman Culver, Maggie to an audience of hundreds—and in substantial detail. Yet Kate went on to boast about the accomplishments of the spirits, and Maggie herself recanted her harsh words.

Although I can be accused of brushing aside the mediums' own explanations, I find it difficult to make all aspects of the Fox sisters' lives fit into an orderly pattern. As Spiritualists and skeptics well know, supposition in the absence of proof can lead in many different directions. Perhaps what matters, then, isn't the degree to which the Fox sisters did or didn't believe in the spirits, or what tricks the mediums may have used to create the manifestations, or whether the spirits themselves occasionally paid a visit, or even how much the sisters contributed to the rise of a movement. Consensus will probably remain elusive. Looking at the Fox sisters' story is like peering through a kaleidoscope: the configuration is never fixed; it changes depending on the angle of the prism and the way the pieces seem to fall.

And perhaps change itself is what makes the story resonate, at least for me: the devices we use or the faith we rely on to ease anxiety in periods of significant transition. Everyone in the saga of the Fox sisters was in motion in one way or another: progressing, passing from childhood to adulthood; from sinner to saint; from lower to upper class; from an agricultural society to a commercial and industrial one; from life to death to
eternity. The children, Kate and Maggie, represented and embodied these many different and overlapping transitions, as did the spirits for whom they claimed to speak.

A time when I'm prone to seeing spirits is during moments of transition, when my own imagination has been freed by loss or change, or sometimes set wandering by as routine a passage as twilight. In the first decade of the twenty-first century the rate of change, we are told, is accelerating exponentially. Communications—only one example—has come to seem as miraculous in this new century as the telegraph did in 1850. One executive quoted recently in the
New York Times
described his vision of wireless technology as “a little bit like God. God is wireless. God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything.” Soon all of us, he said, will be able to find “anything, anywhere, anytime.”
²

Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that as many as 40 percent of Americans have voiced a willingness to believe in the possibility of contacting the dead.
³

I can't claim to be objective about the Fox sisters. I feel abashed and slightly guilty that I can admire three women who at the very least committed fraud part of the time. Whether they were nothing more than marvelous conjurers or (I am especially puzzled by Kate) something other, I enjoy the mediums too much to be critical of them: openhearted Kate, captivating Maggie, and bold Leah.

The fact that nineteenth-century America was rife with mesmerists, faith healers, and prophets of course doesn't excuse their dissembling. But the Fox sisters certainly fall within the American tradition of self-invented characters in literature and life. Like Benjamin Franklin, Barnum, Lily Bart, Gatsby, and even certain roguish past presidents of the United States, they were quintessentially American spirits. In the early twentieth century, a machine politician in New York City coined a credo with which any one of the Fox sisters might have agreed. “I seen my opportunities,” observed the irrepressible Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, “and I took 'em.”
⁴
To say that the Fox sisters seized their opportunities isn't to pass judgment on the role the spirits may have played in their lives.

Would popular belief in spirit communication have flourished in America without Kate and Maggie as its icons and Leah as its impresario?
Interest in spirit communication predated Hydesville, but the passion for it might not have spread so widely without someone coming along who telegraphed what these three sisters did. Splendid, noisy, tactile, amusing, theatrical, and enigmatic, their gatherings were filled with life, as were the sisters themselves. At a time when sound itself was in transition, the hoot of a locomotive echoing through the landscape, these three women turned unfamiliar noises into a provocative puzzle that drew national and international crowds.
⁵
Without doubt, a seance's countless questions, long silences, and hectic activities could be tedious, yet they were equally and paradoxically suspenseful: at any moment a spirit might speak or a fraud be unmasked.

The Fox sisters also had a genius for collaboration. With help from their mortal visitors and perhaps from immortal ones as well, the mediums constructed stories about the past, present, and future; they listened to voices from within and without and wove them into narratives in a process that—to use terms familiar today—was interactive and branching. They were storytellers who created an exciting, involving forum—the seance—in which all participants could tell themselves a different version of the tale.

And so can we. If exploring the Fox sisters' lives is a little like looking through a kaleidoscope, it's a lot like attending a seance. It's easy to catch oneself listening for spirits and watching for tricks, trying to deduce what's happening and how. After spending several years with Kate and Maggie, I still imagine different scenarios to explain the strange sounds that were heard one night in the little-known hamlet of Hydesville in Arcadia, that disrupted the sleep of two young girls' parents and changed how we think about immortality.

Mysterious Noises

1. Eleven-year-old Kate and fourteen-year-old Maggie lie in their bed together in the chilly dark, too sleepy even to whisper secrets. They hear soft taps, and they accuse each other of making the sounds. Neither one is doing so, but it's easier, less scary, for each child to believe that her clever sister has invented a game.

2. Maggie knocks lightly on the side of the bed, to annoy Kate for fun. Instead, she truly frightens her, so she guiltily confesses and stops. Just as her own eyes are closing: Bang! Snap! Her vengeful little sister startles her awake. The game widens to parents, then friends, and the challenge grows more elaborate, from apples to apparitions.

3. Kate has the nervous habit of cracking her knuckles. Almost silent in daytime, at night the hidden motion of the joints jolts like a rifle shot. The girls' mother, getting ready for bed, jumps like a rabbit; their father stirs from his bedside prayers. A compulsion. An amusement.

4. Sounds, more like humming vibrations, follow Kate, drape over her like a light quilt. Maggie decides to say nothing. She thinks Kate is somehow fooling her, and she wants to frustrate the little trickster. Kate, of course, knows differently, but for reasons of her own she also chooses not to speak. For the rest of the sisters' lives, Maggie devises ways to simulate the spirits, immersed as she is in sisterly competition. She never understands that Kate communicates with them day and night.

5. In the nineteenth century, two young girls with a bond between them like shining steel become mediums for the spirits, invisible beings who wish to announce to the world that death does not exist. The children do their best. Most mortals aren't ready to hear the news, and the spirits wisely retreat to bide their immortal time.

I
OWE A DEBT OF GRATITUDE
to many individuals and institutions. The American Antiquarian Society funded my initial research through a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Fellowship for Creative Artists and Writers, and it was a pleasure to work there. Ellen Dunlap, John Hench, James David Moran, Georgia Barnhill, Nancy Burkett, Joanne Chaison, Thomas Knoles, and Marie Lamoureux in particular were generous and creative advisers. A grant from the Parapsychology Foundation, the D. Scott Rogo Award for Parapsychological Literature, enabled me to complete the manuscript and to work under the guidance of the institution's dedicated directors, Eileen and Lisette Coly. My thanks extend as well to Richard Snow, the inspiring editor of
American Heritage,
for encouraging my interest in the Fox sisters.

Robert Hoeltzel, Arcadia town historian, was a lively guide through the early history of Spiritualism in upstate New York; Ralph and Frances Blauvelt of the Association of Blauvelt Descendants were skilled genealogical detectives; Celeste Oliver, a descendant of David Fox, graciously shared family anecdotes and documents; Neil Robertson, a
descendant of Henry Jencken's brother, provided an unpublished biography of his family; John Catanzariti of the Underhill Society supplied background on Leah's husband. Alison Blank opened her extensive files on the Fox sisters to me; Jim Murphy helped guide me through the Civil War; Veronica Herndon introduced me to the resources of the Parapsychology Foundation; Anne Schaetzke conducted valuable research; and Joanne McMahon of the Higgins Center served the double function of scholarly consultant and cheerleader. Mary Huth of the University of Rochester Library not only helped with this project but also urged me on to the next.

I had the opportunity to spend hours in conversation with many people on the subject of the Fox sisters; I spoke only briefly to others. Some of those who graciously and without hesitation spent time with me in person or on the phone may disagree with much of what I say in this book, but I hope they won't regret assisting me in my honest effort. Wherever they may have objections to the material, the thoughts are mine and not theirs. I'm grateful to the following individuals for sharing information, thoughts, comments, documents, photographs, and fruitful suggestions for further research: Robert S. Cox of the American Philosophical Society, a historian whose recent book on Spiritualism is illuminating at every point; Patrice Keane of the American Society for Psychical Research; Christopher Densmere of the Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College; Joyce LaJudice, chronicler of Lily Dale; the Reverend Cosie Allen, the Reverend Sharon Snowman, and Sylvia Kincaid of the National Spiritualist Association of Churches; Wayne Furman and Warren Platt of the New York Public Library; Leslie Price of the Society for Psychical Research; Kathy Hunt and Deborah Farrell of the Wayne County Historical Society; Simon Pettet of the Parapsychology Foundation; Valerie Scott of the Cobourg Library, Ontario, Canada; Elsa Dixler; Sarah Stage; Kenneth Silverman; Frank Dailey; Mark Salem; Joseph Gabriel; Richard Dreyfuss; and Michael Peterman.

The following organizations and institutions granted me access to their archives and in some cases gave me permission to quote from their collections: the American Antiquarian Society; the American Philosoph
ical Society; the American Society for Psychical Research; the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College; the Eileen J. Garrett Library of the Parapsychology Foundation; the New–York Historical Society; the New York Public Library; the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester Library; the National Spiritualist Association of Churches; the Wayne County Historical Society; the Society for Psychical Research Archive at Cambridge University; the Rauner Special Collections of the Dartmouth College Library; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; and the Houdini Collection at the Library of Congress.

As I've tried to indicate in notes and bibliography, I've incurred a great debt to the authors of many books, articles, and pamphlets on American history in general and Modern Spiritualism in particular. If my understanding or interpretation of some of that material is mistaken, my apologies to the authors.

My thanks go to Miriam Quen Cheikin, Forrest Church, Judy Collins, Peter Coyote, Tom Gelinne, Lisa Gornick, Douglas Hatschek, Donald Johnson, Richard Lourie, and Joan Keiser for taking the time to read and comment on drafts of this manuscript. Miriam Cheikin gave exceptionally detailed and always astute suggestions. Joan, my sister, shares those early, childhood memories of secrets whispered in the dark. I'm grateful to all the Keisers, including Richard, Lauren, and Matt, for their support in good times and bad.

I'm indebted to Leo Ribuffo, Society of the Cincinatti George Washington Distinguished Professor of History, George Washington University, for his thought-provoking opinions and comments throughout this project. Anne Bianchi remained a relentless and perceptive critic; her example and love were inspiring. Joan Erle also contributed insights that helped at every stage.

In my agent, Mel Berger, I found a wonderful friend as well as an extraordinary advocate for this project and a perceptive guide for others yet to come. My editor, Renee Sedliar, knew exactly how to improve this book, from the first page to the last. Her creativity, wit, and wisdom made every aspect of the process of writing and revising more interesting and fun.

I'm lucky to live in a household of writers, always willing to read and contribute. My love and thanks to my family, David, Tobiah, and Susannah Black, with special appreciation to Susannah, who, like a magician pulling an endless silk scarf from a little hat, kept producing wonderful books for my research from her rich and eclectic personal library.