This is the first in a series of posts that will appear at intermittent intervals on this blog, interrupted by other posts on entirely different topics. Each of the posts in this series will look at some year in which there were reports of very spooky things happening. To a very large degree today's academia and today's mainstream press have enforced a certain type of historical amnesia, in which accounts of the paranormal are a kind of "forbidden history" that is "kept hidden in sealed boxes"; and this "Spookiest Years" series will try to do a tiny bit to lessen such amnesia by discussing important reports made long ago of hard-to-explain events.
An extremely important principle when dealing with claims of the extraordinary or paranormal or supernatural is: search diligently for all the earliest known eyewitness accounts, and study them very carefully. The quality of evidence for claims of the extraordinary or paranormal or supernatural often depends on how quickly preserved eyewitness accounts were written or filmed. For example:
- An account by someone who had a near-death experience written or recorded within a week or two after the experience occurred is very good quality evidence. But if the account is merely someone telling what happened to him twenty years ago, such evidence is of much lower quality. During that twenty years the person may have gradually embellished his account. Also, a firsthand account is much better evidence that someone telling you that he was told something by someone else.
- A year 2023 account of what happened in Roswell, New Mexico in July, 1947 is of much less value than newspaper accounts written in July, 1947. Any serious student of the famous Roswell incident should study the exact text of the earliest newspaper reports, such as the text of the original Roswell Daily Record account of the crash, and the reports a few days later in the same paper claiming that the crash was a mere balloon crash.
- Anyone attempting to seriously study the anomalous events in Fatima, Portugal in 1917 should concentrate on finding the text of the earliest known reports and eyewitness statements, rather than basing his opinions solely on things written about such events decades later.
Anyone should follow such principles when trying to sort out what happened in upstate New York in 1848, the case of the famed mysterious raps that were the beginning of decades of intense interest in spiritualism in the United States, with the interest spreading to other countries such as England and Brazil. First involving the Fox family including the famed Fox sisters, the relevant events first occurred in Hydesville, New York in March, 1848, with the phenomenon soon being reported in nearby Rochester, New York, later that year. You could form an opinion on this series of incidents by reading Volume 1 of Arthur Conan Doyle's "The History of Spiritualism," written in 1926, which can be read here. But that would not be the best approach, because who knows what embellishment of the original account may have occurred between 1848 and 1946. Better yet, you could form an our opinion on this incident by reading the 1870 book "Modern American Spiritualism: a Twenty Years' Record of the Communion Between Earth and the World of Spirits" by Emma Hardinge, which can read here. But that would still not be the best approach, because who knows what embellishment of the original account may have occurred between 1848 and 1870. The best approach is to seek out the earliest written documents on this affair.
I was able to find the earliest document written about the mysterious raps reported by the Fox family. The document is an 1848 booklet 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 by E. E. Lewis (1848), which you can read here. We have eyewitness testimony cited here, and the testimony is the most reliable type of testimony: testimony recorded only a small number of days after the described incidents. Based on the dated reward offer at the end of the book offering $50 (quite a bit of money in those days) to anyone who could disprove the claims made, a reward offer which has a date of April 20, 1848, we may presume the document was published about April 20th, 1848, which is only three weeks after the start of the claimed paranormal phenomenon.
On the first page of the book, the author (E. E. Lewis) gives us some reasons for trusting what he writes:
(1) The author has no ax to grind. His purpose is not to convince anyone of any doctrine or even convince anyone that some supernatural events were occurring. Indicating a very open mind on this topic, he states this on the first page:
"But whether it be owing to supernatural means or not, will probably be developed in time. It maybe the result of trickery, or fear, or superstition, or all combined."
(2) The author has interviewed all of the witnesses soon after the events occurred. He states this on the first page:
"We have spent several days in that place [Hydesville], for the purpose of investigating this strange affair, and if possible to solve the mystery. During that time, we had an opportunity to converse with scores of the most respectable citizens of that place, who had themselves spent no little time in endeavoring to satisfy their own minds as to the cause of these noises.. They had all heard them at different times. during the past two weeks, and manifested a strong desire that the truth should be made known,—that the noises should be accounted for as the effect of some natural causes."
This is all very good from the standpoint of the credibility of the account. The author has shown up only a few days after the spooky events started happening, and has interviewed all of the witnesses. Moreover, the witnesses aren't even people with any interest or motive in spreading false stories about the paranormal. It must be emphasized that at the time E. E. Lewis recorded the testimony of the witnesses, there was zero financial motivation for any of them to be telling false stories about the paranormal. No one at this time could ever dream what would have resulted as an aftermath from the strange reports. At the time Hydesville, New York was a "one horse" town "in the middle of nowhere," and the prospects of anyone financially profiting from the tales told would have seemed like zero at the time. In April 1848 no one had any idea of the astonishing phenomenal events that would follow the Hydesville rap reports, and no one had any idea that the Hydesville events would seem like the seed of a major new development in American spirituality. No one in 1848 had any idea that there would several years later be mediums who charged fees for claimed contacts with the dead, or people who made money from books on the topic of spiritualism, which no one had heard about in 1848.
The first eyewitness account given by E. E. Lewis in his 1848 booklet appears on page 6. We have an account dated April 11, 1848 given by Margaret Fox, the wife of John D. Fox and the mother of the famed Fox sisters. Here are some quotes from the account (I will make no attempt to correct any of the sentences that seem like writing style shortfalls):
"We moved into this house on the 11th December, 1847, and have resided here ever since. We formerly resided in the city of Rochester. We first heard this noise about a fortnight ago. It sounded like some one knocking in the east bed-room, on the floor; sometimes it sounded as if the chair moved on the floor ; we could hardly tell where it was. This was in the evening, just after we had gone to bed. The whole family slept in that room together, and all heard the noise. There was four of our family, and sometimes five. The first night that we heard the rapping, we all got up and lit a candle; and searched all over the house. The noise continued while we were hunting, and was heard near the same, place all the time. It was not very loud yet it produced a jar of the bedsteads and chairs, that could be felt by placing our hands on the chair. or while we were in bed. It was a feeling of a tremulous motion, more than a sullen jar. lt seemed as if we could feel it jar while we were standing on the floor. It continued this night until we went to sleep. I did not go to sleep until nearly 12 o'clock. . The noise continued to be heard every night.
On Friday night, the 31st of March, it was heard as usual, and, we then for the first time called in the neighbors. Up to this time we had never heard it in the day time or at least did not notice it at all."
Mrs. Fox said that one of the two Fox daughters, aged 12 and 15, tried to imitate the rapping sound by cracking her fingers; and that a rapping noise was soon heard, as if response to such a thing. We then read Mrs. Fox say this:
"The other girl, who is in her 15th year, then spoke as in sport and: said: 'Now, do this just as I do. Count one, two, three, four,' &c., strikiing one band in the other at the same time. The blows which she made were repeated as before. It appeared to answer her by repeating every blow that she made. She only did so once. She then began to be startled ; and then I spoke and said to the noise, 'Count ten,' and it made ten strokes or noises. Then I asked the ages of my different children successively, and it gave a number of raps, corresponding to the ages of my children.
I then asked if it was a human being that was making the noise ? and if it was, to manifest it by the same noise. There was no noise, I then asked if it was a spirit / and if it was, to manifest it by two sounds. I heard two sounds as soon as the words were spoken. I then asked, if it was an injured spirit ? to give me the sound, and [ heard the rapping distinctly.. I then asked if it was injured in this house ? and it manifested it by the noise. If the person was living that injured it ? and got the same answer. I then ascertained, by the same method that its remains were buried under the dwelling, and how old it was.
When I asked how many years old it was? it rapped 31 times ; that it was a male; that it had left a family of five children-; that it had two sons and three daughters, all living. I asked if it left a wife? and it rapped. fits wife was then living ? no rapping; if she was dead? and the rapping was distinctly heard how long she had been dead? and it rapped twice."
Mrs. Fox then tells how she called in a Mrs. Redfield to observe the phenomenon, with similar results occurring when Mrs. Redfield was there. Mrs. Redfield then called in "Mr. Duesler and wife, and several others." They were followed by a Mr. and Mrs. Hyde, and a Mr. and Mrs. Jewell. Mrs. Fox reports that in questioning by asking for raps, Mr. Duesler seemed to get an account that the rap originator was murdered five years ago in the house, by a slitting of the throat. We read Mrs. Fox say that the house soon had many visitors:
" On the next day the house was filled to overflowing all day. This was on Saturday. There was no sound heard through the day: but in the evening the noise commenced again. Some said that there were three hundred people present at this time. They appointed a committee, and many questions were asked. I did not know much what was done that night, only by hearsay, as I went to Mr. Duesler's to stay all night. On Sunday morning, the 2nd day of April, the noise commenced again, and was heard throughout the day by all who came here."
Mrs. Margaret Fox concludes her account with this statement:
"I am not a believer in haunted houses or supernatural appearances. l am very sorry that there has been so much excitement about it. It has been a great deal of trouble to us. It was our misfortune to live here at this time ; but I am willing and anxious that the truth should be known, and that a true statement should be made. I cannot account for these noises; all that I know is, that they have been heard repeatedly, as I have stated. I have heard this: rapping again this (Tuesday) morning, April 4. My children also heard it.
I certify that the above statement has been read to me; and that the same is true ; and that I should be willing to take my oath that it was so, if necessary. (Signed,)
April 11th, 1848 MARGARET FOX."
We have here several indications of a high reliability: (1) the mention of very numerous witnesses, many named, who reported the same phenomenon; (2) the indication that the original statement dates from April 11, 1848, only a few days after the reported events; (3) the statement by the author that she is "not a believer in haunted houses or supernatural appearances," and is thereby reporting evidence contradicting her own belief tendencies; (4) a lack of any motive for lying about such a matter, with the whole matter seeming to be just a nuisance. I may note that the author of this statement is not to be confused with her daughter of the same name.
The next statement we have in the document is from John D. Fox, Margaret's husband. He states the following:
"I have heard the above statement of my wife, MARGARET Fox, and hereby certify that the same is true, in all its particulars. I heard the same rapping which she has spoken of, in answer to the questions, as stated by her. There have been a great many questions besides those asked, and answered in the same way. Some have been asked over a great many times, and they have always received the saine answer; there never has been any contradiction whatever.
I do not know of any way to account for these noises, as being caused by any natural means. We have searched in every nook and corner in and about the house, at different times, to ascertain if possible whether any thing or any body was secreted here, that could make the noise, and have never been. able to find any thing which explained the mystery. It has caused a great deal of trouble and anxiety... Hundreds have visited the house, so that it is impossible for us to attend to our daily occupations ; and I hope that whether caused by natural, or supernatural means, will be ascertained soon. The digging in the cellar will be resumed as soon as the water settles ; and then it can be ascertained whether there are any indications of a body ever having been buried there; and if there are, I shall have no doubt but what this is a supernatural appearance. I am willing to make the statements which I have made about this matter, under oath, if you wish to have me do so. The rapping has been heard again to-day in answer to the questions.
April 11th, 1848. (Signed); JOHN D. FOX."
The document then gives a statement of a William Duesler of Acadia, who says that he was first very skeptical but also heard the strange rapping noises. The most relevant part of Duesler's account from an evidence standpoint is the part below in which he asks questions at the Fox house:
"I then asked it to rap my age ? the number of years of my age. It rapped 30 times. This is my age, and I do not think that any
one about here knows my age, but myself and my own family.
I then told it to rap my wife's age ? and it rapped 30 times,
which is her exact age : several of us counted it at the time.— I then asked it to rap A. W. Hyde's age? and it rapped 32, which he says is his age : he was there at the time, and counted, it with the rest of us :—then Mrs. A. W. Hyde’s age ? and it rapped 31, which she said was her age : she was also there at the time. I then continued to ask it to rap the ages of different persons, (naming them, ) in the room ? and it did so correctly, as they all said.
I then asked the number of children in the different families
in the neighborhood ? and it told them correctly in the usual way, by rapping. Also, the number of deaths that had taken place in these families? and it told correctly."
The answers above are relevant to all claims that the raps were produced by one of the Fox daughters rapping her knuckles or cracking her joints; for here we have the mysterious rapping effect producing many correct answers that should have been unknown to such daughters. Such claims about knuckle rapping or joint cracking were never credible. The original report by Mrs. Fox mentioned a strong tremulous effect, which innumerable subsequent witnesses of such an effect in the next years would repeat, often reporting thunderous shakings. Such effects cannot be explained by knuckle rapping or joint cracking.
Duesler ends with this statement:
"I can in no way account for this singular noise, which 1 and others have heard. It is a mystery to me, which I am wholly unable to solve. I am willing to testify under oath that I did not make the noises or rapping which I and others heard; that I do not know of any person who did or could have made them; that I have spent considerable time since then, in order to satisfy myself as to the cause of it; but cannot account for it on any other ground than it is supernatural... I never believed in haunted houses, or heard or saw any thing but what I could account for before ; but this I cannot account for as yet.
April 12, 1848. (Signed, ) WM. DUESLER."
The document then contains numerous accounts by other witnesses, all of them reporting the hearing of mysterious raps. None of the witnesses have any theory to advance of a natural cause of the sounds, and several of them state they can think of no natural explanation. Repeatedly the witnesses state that the answers were consistent, and that when the same question was asked, the same answer was given. The material in the last part of the document is not very relevant. It includes:
(1) One of more statements of a previous occupant of the house (before the Foxes) saying they witnessed something rather spooky, but nothing as dramatic as what the document reports.
(2) A not-very-relevant statement by quite a few people saying they can vouch for the character of one John C. Bell, who some thought might have had something with a murder occurring in the Fox house before they occupied it.
All in all, the 1848 booklet 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 by E. E. Lewis (1848), which you can read here, makes a remarkably powerful testimony in favor of a paranormal event. The testimony of the witnesses is in agreement on the reality of the mysterious raps, and the lack of any natural explanation for them. The testimony is written testimony from the eyewitnesses, written down and sworn to within days (or at most two weeks) after the reported events. I may contrast this account with the Ariel school UFO report in Zimbawe. The event involving child witnesses took place on September 16, 1994, and Harvard professor John Mack showed up to interview witnesses on December 2, 1994. Mack's evidence is pretty good, involving a gap of only 6 weeks. But the evidence published by E. E. Lewis is even better, as he has taken sworn statements within two weeks of the reported incidents; and all of the witnesses quoted by Lewis are adults.
It was interesting for me to compare the account of Mrs. Margaret Fox in the 1848 document above, and an almost identical account cited in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1920 "History of Spiritualism." The words quoted are almost identical, but in the beginning Doyle's version is slightly different in a few sentences. The differences are all trivial. In a case of a textual diversion like this, we should regard the earlier document as being the more accurate account. Doyle states this: "The author has in vain attempted to get an original copy of the pamphlet, 'A Report of the Mysterious Noises heard in the House of Mr. John D. Fox,' published at Canandaigua, New York, but he has been presented with a facsimile of the original." It is such a "facsimile" that he is quoting, but it has a few minor divergences from the original. On www.archive.org we have the original pamphlet that Doyle sought in vain to get, the one I have been quoting from in this post, which you can read here; and that should be quoted as the original account, not Doyle's "facsimile." Similarly, the 1870 book "Modern American Spiritualism: a Twenty Years' Record of the Communion Between Earth and the World of Spirits" by Emma Hardinge, which can read here, tells the story of March 31, 1848 in Hydesville with some slight differences from the 1848 booklet by E. E. Lewis I have quoted above. It is that booklet which we should regard as the better source, since it was written very soon after that day in 1848, rather than 22 years later. The 1855 book here quotes very much of the account quoted above from the 1848 booklet by E. E. Lewis.
In judging the credibility of the account quoted here, we should ask ourselves: did anyone else in some other place or time report a similar phenomenon? In this case we must answer "yes" in a very loud voice. There is modest evidence that such mysterious raps occurred before the phenomenon at Hydesville. For example, a nineteenth century author states being told this by a member of the Shakers religious community:
"It seemed that manifestations of spiritual presence, through rappings, movings of furniture, visions, trance, clairaudience, and clairvoyance, had been common amongst the Shakers since the time of their foundation, some seventy years ago ; but the particular visitation to which the visitors desired to call attention, took place about 1830, when a multitude of spiritual beings, with the most solemn and forcible tokens of their presence, in a variety of phenomenal ways indicated the approach of a great spiritual crisis, in which they designed for a season to withdraw the special gifts enjoyed by the Shakers, and pour them out in mighty floods upon the ' world's people,' who, for the realization of certain divine purposes, faintly shadowed forth, were to be visited by unlooked-for and stupendous tokens of spiritual presence."
An 1824 book ("Memoirs of the Wesley Family") concerns the family of John Wesley, the distinguished clergyman who was founder of the Christian denomination known as Methodism. In a document entitled "An Account of Noises and Disturbances in my House at Epworth, Lincolnshire, in December and January, 1716" by Samuel Wesley, we hear of a family observing all kinds of mysterious noises and raps. Below is an excerpt:
"The next night but one we were awaked at about one by the noises, which were so violent, it was in vain to think of sleep while they continued. I rose, and my wife would rise with me. We went into every chamber, and down stairs; and generally as we went into one room, we heard it in that behind us, though all the family had been in bed several hours. When we were going down stairs, and at the bottom of them, we heard, as Emily had done before, a clashing among the bottles, as if they had been broke all to pieces, and another sound distinct from it, as if a peck of money had been thrown down before us.... It began with knocking in the kitchen underneath, then seemed to be at the bed's feet, then under the bed, at last at the head of it. I went down stairs, and knocked with my stick against the joists of the kitchen. It answered me as often and as loud as I knocked....When we were at prayers, and came to the prayers for King George and the Prince, it would make a great noise over our heads constantly, whence some of the family called it a Jacobite. I have been thrice pushed by an invisible power, once against the corner of my desk in the study, a second time against the door of the matted chamber, a third time against the right side of the frame of my study door, as I was going in."
Later in the same 1824 book we have a long account by the distinguished John Wesley of mysterious raps heard by quite a few family members, sometimes so loud "it seemed the house shook from top to bottom." Below is one part:
"We then heard a knocking over our heads; and Mr. Wesley catching up a candle, said, ' Come, Sir, now you shall hear for yourself.' We went up stairs ; he with much hope, and I (to say the truth) with much fear. When we came into the nursery, it was knocking in the next room ; when we were there, it was knocking in the nursery. And there it continued to knock, though we came in, particularly at the head of the bed (which was of wood) in which Miss Hetty and two of her younger sisters lay. Mr. Wesley, observing that they were much affected though asleep, sweating, and trembling exceedingly, was very angry ; and pulling out a pistol, was going to fire at the place from whence the sound came."
The main reason we must answer "yes" to the question of whether anyone else in some other place or time reported a similar phenomenon is that following the incidents in the spring of 1848 in Hydesville, New York there occurred a huge abundance of similar reports of mysterious raps, from a very large variety of different places in the United States and different countries, some of which were recorded by distinguished scientists, along with abundant reports of many other types of inexplicable paranormal phenomena such as levitations and tables moving around inexplicably when no one touched them. The January 1, 1853 edition of a periodical publication (The Spiritual Telegraph) describes the spread of the manifestations like this:
"The 'Manifestations' were not long
confined to the Fox family. They were soon
beard of in different towns of Western New York; then in Western Ohio; then in Providence, R. I. , and various parts of Now England; and in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis...and recent letters speak of them as quite extensively witnessed in California ; while late advices chronicle their outbreak in Hull, England."
Most of the times such things happened when the Fox sisters were not present, and many of the times such raps seemed to answer questions as if some mysterious agency possessed knowledge the Fox sisters could not have had. A later 1853 edition of the same periodical would report this about one of the spooky phenomena that seemed like an aftermath of the Hydesville events: "There is hardly a house in Paris that the phenomenon has not invaded." To read about that, you can read some additional installments of this "Spookiest Years" series, which will be published at various irregular intervals in the next few months. I may note that there is no question that the E. E. Lewis 1848 booklet quoted above, which you can read here, is an authentic 1848 publication and the earliest account of the Hydesville events. In researching this topic I have by now read quite a few other documents published in the next few years which quote the Lewis booklet as I have quoted it, citing is as the earliest known account.
Beyond Hydesville lay a spooky path
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