The Missing Link in Modern Spiritualism. A. Leah Underhill
this mob against the Spiritualists, as all others subsequently have ended. The Spirits, therefore, fulfilled their promise and protected us from all harm.
I might fill many a page with the experiences of the family in that house at Hydesville, during the period of about three months and three weeks preceding that March 31, 1848, on which the neighbors were first called in. From the very first night of their taking possession of it, they were disturbed and puzzled with the strange knockings and other noises. They had gone into it only as a temporary home, while my father was building the new house on the homestead farm, and the carpenter had estimated a couple of months as sufficient time for his work. All sorts of natural theories were imagined as to the cause of the sounds, nor did they, for some time, think of Spirits or of anything supernatural, or even important. Father insisted, at one time, that they proceeded from a cobbler in the neighborhood, hammering leather, and working late in the night. Then it was “some boards that must be loose and shaken by the wind.” Then it appeared that “there must be dancing going on at Mr. Duesler’s, or some other house within hearing;” then “the house must be full of rats”—though mother declared she had never seen a rat in it. Again, when the knocks would break out suddenly, close to some of the family, or at the table, one of the girls would charge the other with having caused them, saying, “Now you did that,” etc., etc. Father had always been a regular Methodist, in good standing, and was invariable in his practice of morning prayers; and when he would be kneeling upon his chair, it would sometimes amuse the children to see him open wide his eyes, as knocks would sound and vibrate on his chair itself. He expressed it graphically to mother: “When I am done praying, that jigging stops.” My daughter Lizzie used to declare that when she was writing, there would sometimes come a strong ticking on the paper. One night loud screams were heard from the children, Maggie and Cathie, in bed. “O mother, come quick. Somebody has lain down across the bed.” They were often so frightened that mother would have to take them to lie on both sides of her in her bed, and sometimes they would go, one to father’s bed and the other to mother’s. But these frights were attributed to bad dreams. Indeed, it now seems strange that so little serious impression was made on their minds for so long a time by these strange things, so persistent, so varied, and so inexplicable, which they instinctively abstained from talking about to the neighbors.
It was not till March 31st that they seemed to have culminated to the point which exhausted their patience, and which at last drove them to do so. On the preceding night they had been kept awake nearly all night by the knocking and heavy poundings about the house; and up to three o’clock in the morning they were occupied pursuing the sounds about from place to place, puzzling over them, and baffled in every attempt to discover a cause. The door would be pounded upon from the outside, and father would take hold of the handle, and on the return of the knocking would suddenly fling the door open, only to discover nothing. He and mother stood on the opposite sides of it, and each would hear the knocking on the side opposite to themselves, as though made by powerful muffled knuckles. Yet on neither side could be found traces of any person or thing to have produced them, while both would feel the strong vibrations of the wooden door.
It was afterward learned that, for several years back, strange noises had been heard by successive occupants of that house, none of whom had remained long as its tenants. Prior to its occupation by a certain family there had been no such disturbances; subsequently to then, they had been experienced by all their successors. It would be easy for me to name families of the highest respectability, and who are still my good friends, who would attest this.[2]
[1] The old Indian name of the creek.
[2] It would seem that none of the families who, in the course of several years, had preceded the Fox family in the occupancy of this haunted house, combined the highly mediumistic nature with the other characteristics specially qualifying them for the great work for which the time was ripe, so that the manifestations, which appealed for attention, had knocked in vain at doors which could not open to them. Dr. Franklin, great philosopher and inventor of his time, was also, in the Spirit life, one of the inventors of this mode of communication between the two worlds, through knockings given in correspondence with the letters of the alphabet. Through another medium, besides the author of this volume, he has told me that out of “millions” he at last found in the Fox family the instruments he wanted for its practical application and introduction. This narrative curiously shows how hard and long they too struggled against the mission to which the Spirits were leading and at last forcing them, as will be seen below. I asked him if Spirits had influenced them to take the Hydesville house. His reply was a curious one. Instead of three consecutive and decided raps, which would have expressed assent, he on two occasions answered with only two raps, followed after a moment’s pause with a third, completing a qualified affirmative. “You mean that it was partially so?” I said; which was immediately answered with an unqualified assent; and he added, “It was many, not one alone,” thus disclaiming the credit of its sole and individual authorship.—Ed.
CHAPTER III.
ROCHESTER
My First Knowledge of the Matter—Hasten to Hydesville—Rapping on a Canal Boat—Experiences—Mother Comes to Rochester—Calvin Brown—Devious Route of Projectiles Up-stairs from Cellar to Garret—A Death-knell Sounded All Night on the Keys of a Locked Piano.
This volume is not meant to be an autobiography, though I regret to be compelled to speak so much of myself in giving an account of the inauguration of the movement known as “Modern Spiritualism,” through the three sisters of the Fox family, of whom I was the eldest, and already married when my two sisters, Margaretta and Catharine, were children. I was not with the family, but at my own house in Rochester, during most of the events related above.
I was myself also at that time but little more than a child, for when I was married at Rochester, N. Y., I could count but fourteen years and five months. It will be seen below how I was twice widowed before the age of twenty-four, though my second marriage was on the supposed death-bed of one who had been a brother to us all from childhood, and who merely desired to bequeath me his name.
Mr. Fish discovered when too late that he had married a child, and soon became indifferent to his home and family. He left Rochester under a pretence of going on business to the West. The next I heard of him was that he had married a rich widow in the State of Illinois.
As he had left little means for the support of myself and child, I turned my attention to teaching music. I had many friends who assisted me in getting pupils, and I was delighted to find myself entirely independent. One day (early in May, 1848), I was at the house of Mr. Little, enjoying myself with the young ladies, when Mrs. Little came in with the proof-sheet of a pamphlet issued by E. E. Lewis, Esq., of Canandaigua, N. Y. Mrs. Little knew my maiden name was Fox; that my parents (at the time) were in Arcadia, Wayne County, N. Y., and concluded I must be the daughter of John D. Fox. She then introduced the printer, and he commenced questioning me about my family relations. He said, “Is your mother’s name Margaret? Have you a brother David?” I replied, yes. I began to be startled by his questions, and said, “For mercy’s sake, what has happened?” He answered by placing the proof-sheet in my hands, which gave me the first idea I ever had of the manifestations which had been taking place at the dwelling of our family in Hydesville. I read it, and cried over it. I knew not what to think, but I said to them all, “If my father, mother, and brother David have certified to such a statement, it is true.” All who heard me thus declare believed it, and never wavered for a moment. As soon as I could collect my thoughts, I called on Mrs. Granger and Mrs. Grover, old friends of mine and of our family, and related to them the account which I had read in the proof-sheet.
I told them I should take the night boat for Newark, Wayne County. I would visit my family, and learn for myself about the mysterious affair. They concluded