Thereupon the noises became louder and more startling. The children sat up in bed. Mrs. Fox called in her husband. The night being windy, it suggested itself to him that it might be the rattling of the sashes. He tried several, shaking them to see if they were loose. Kate, the youngest girl, happened to remark that as often as her father shook a window-sash the noises seemed to reply. Being a lively child, and in a measure accustomed to what was going on, she turned to where the noise was, snapped her fingers, and called out, "Here, old Splitfoot, do as I do!" The knocking instantly responded. That was the very commencement. Who can tell where the end will be?

I do not mean that it was Kate Fox who thus, half in childish jest, first discovered that these mysterious sounds seemed instinct with intelligence. Mr. Mompesson, two hundred years ago, had already observed a similar phenomenon. Glanvil had verified it. So had Wesley and his children. So, we have seen, had others. But in all these cases the matter rested there, and the observation was no further prosecuted. As, previous to the invention of the steam-engine, sundry observers had trodden the very threshold of the discovery and there stopped, little thinking what lay close before them, so, in this case, where the Royal Chaplain, disciple though he was of the inductive philosophy, and where the founder of Methodism, admitting though he did the probabilities of ultramundane interference, were both at fault, a Yankee girl, but nine years old, following up, more in sport than earnest, a chance observation, became the instigator of a movement which, whatever its true character, has had its influence throughout the civilized world. The spark had several times been ignited,-once, at least, two centuries ago; but it had died out each time without effect. It kindled no flame till the middle of the nineteenth century.

31ST OF MARCH, 1848.

289

And yet how trifling the step from the observation at Tedworth to the discovery at Hydesville! Mr. Mompesson, in bed with his little daughter, (about Kate's age,) whom the sound seemed chiefly to follow, "observed that it would exactly answer, in drumming, any thing that was beaten or called for." But his curiosity led him no further.

Not so Kate Fox. She tried, by silently bringing together her thumb and forefinger, whether she could still obtain a response. Yes! It could see, then, as well as hear! She called her mother. "Only look, mother!" she said, bringing together her finger and thumb as before. And as often as she repeated the noiseless motion, just so often responded the raps.

"Count

This at once arrested her mother's attention. ten," she said, addressing the noise. Ten strokes, distinctly given! "How old is my daughter Margaret?" Twelve strokes! "And Kate?" Nine ! "What can all this mean?" was Mrs. Fox's thought. Who was answering her? Was it only some mysterious echo of her own thought? But the next question which she put seemed to refute that idea. "How many children have I?" she asked, aloud. Seven strokes. "Ah!" she thought, "it can blunder sometimes." And then, aloud, "Try again!" Still the number of raps was seven. Of a sudden a thought crossed Mrs. Fox's mind. "Are they all alive?" she asked. Silence, for answer. many are living?" Six strokes. "How many dead?" A single stroke. She had lost a child.

"How

Then she asked, "Are you a man?" No answer. "Are you a spirit?" It rapped. "May my neighbors hear if I call them?" It rapped again.

Thereupon she asked her husband to call a neighbor, a Mrs. Redfield, who came in laughing. But her cheer was soon changed. The answers to her inquiries were

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REPORT OF THE MYSTERIOUS NOISES.

as prompt and pertinent as they had been to those of Mrs. Fox. She was struck with awe; and when, in reply to a question about the number of her children, by rapping four, instead of three as she expected, it reminded her of a little daughter, Mary, whom she had recently lost, the mother burst into tears.

But it avails not further to follow out in minute detail the issue of these disturbances, since the particulars have already been given, partly in the shape of formal depositions, in more than one publication,* and since they are not essential to the illustration of this branch of the subject.

It may, however, be satisfactory to the reader that I here subjoin to the above narrative-every particular of which I had from Mrs. Fox, her daughters Margaret and Kate, and her son David-a supplement, containing

* The earliest of these, published in Canandaigua only three weeks after the occurrences of the 31st of March, is a pamphlet of forty pages, entitled "A Report of the Mysterious Noises heard in the house of Mr. John D. Fox, in Hydesville, Arcadia, Wayne County, authenticated by the certificates and confirmed by the statements of the citizens of that place and vicinity." Canandaigua, published by E. E. Lewis, 1848. It contains twenty-one certificates, chiefly given by the immediate neighbors, including those of Mr. and Mrs. Fox, of their son and daughter-in-law, of Mrs. Redfield, &c. &c., taken chiefly on the 11th and 12th of April. For a copy of the above pamphlet, now very scarce, I am indebted to the family of Mr. Fox, whom I visited in August, 1859, at the house of the son, Mr. David Fox, when I had an opportunity to visit the small dwelling in which the above-related circumstances took place; descending to its cellar, the alleged scene of dark deeds. The house is now occupied by a farm-laborer, who, Faraday-like, "does not believe in spooks."

A more connected account, followed up by a history of the movement which had birth at Hydesville, is to be found in "Modern Spiritualism: its Facts and Fanaticisms," by E. W. Capron, Boston, 1855, pp. 33 to 56.

Most of the witnesses signing the certificates above referred to offer to confirm their statements, if necessary, under oath; and they almost all expressly declare their conviction that the family had no agency in producing the sounds, that these were not referable to trick or deception or to any known natural cause, usually adding that they were no believers in the supernatural, and had never before heard or witnessed any thing not susceptible of a natural explanation.

ALLEGATIONS OF THE SOUNDS.

201

a brief outline as well of the events which immediately succeeded, as those, connected with the dwelling in question, which preceded, the disturbances of the 31st of March.

On that night the neighbors, attracted by the rumor of the disturbances, gradually gathered in, to the number of seventy or eighty, so that Mrs. Fox left the house for that of Mrs. Redfield, while the children were taken home by another neighbor. Mr. Fox remained.

Many of the assembled crowd, one after another, put questions to the noises, requesting that assent might be testified by rapping. When there was no response by raps, and the question was reversed, there were always rappings; thus indicating that silence was to be taken for dissent.

In this way the sounds alleged that they were produced by a spirit; by an injured spirit; by a spirit who had been injured in that house; between four and five years ago; not by any of the neighbors, whose names were called over one by one, but by a man who formerly resided in the house,-a certain John C. Bell, a blacksmith. His name was obtained by naming in succession the former occupants of the house.

The noises alleged, further, that it was the spirit of a man thirty-one years of age; that he had been murdered in the bedroom, for money, on a Tuesday night, at twelve o'clock; that no one but the murdered man and Mr. Bell were in the house at the time; Mrs. Bell and a girl named Lucretia Pulver, who worked for them, being both absent; that the body was carried down to the cellar early next morning, not through the outside cellar-door, but by being dragged through the parlor into the buttery and thence down the cellar-stairs; that it was buried, ten feet deep, in the cellar, but not until the night after the murder.

Thereupon the party assembled adjourned to the

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ANSWERS OBTAINED IN THE CELLAR.

cellar, which had an earthen floor; and Mr. Redfield having placed himself on various parts of it, asking, each time, if that was the spot of burial, there was no response until he stood in the center: then the noises were heard, as from beneath the ground. This was repeated several times, always with a similar result, no sound occurring when he stood at any other place than the center. One of the witnesses describes the sounds in the cellar as resembling "a thumping a foot or two under ground."*

Then a neighbor named Duesler called over the letters of the alphabet, asking, at each, if that was the initial of the murdered man's first name; and so of the second name. The sounds responded at C and B. An attempt to obtain the entire name did not then succeed. At a later period the full name (as Charles B. Rosma) was given in the same way in reply to the questions of Mr. David Fox. Still it did not suggest itself to any one to attempt, by the raps, to have a communication spelled out. It is a remarkable fact, and one which in a measure explains the lack of further results at Tedworth and at Epworth, that it was not till about four months afterward, and at Rochester, that the very first brief

"Report of the Mysterious Noises," p. 25. See also p. 17.

Mr. Marvin Losey and Mr. David Fox state, in their respective certificates, that on the night of Saturday, April 1, when the crowd were asking questions, it was arranged that those in the cellar should all stand in one place, except one, Mr. Carlos Hyde, while that one moved about to different spots; and that Mr. Duesler, being in the bedroom above, where of course he could not see Mr. Hyde nor any one else in the cellar, should be the questioner. Then, as Mr. Hyde stepped about in the cellar, the question was repeated by Mr. Duesler in the bedroom, "Is any one standing over the place where the body was buried?" In every instance, as soon as Mr. Hyde stepped to the center of the cellar the raps were heard, so that both those in the cellar and those in the rooms above heard them; but as often as he stood anywhere else there was silence. This was repeated, again and again. -"Report of the Mysterious Noises," pp. 26 and 28.