SPOOOOOKY LADIES-TOBER - SMALL MEDIUMS WITH A LARGE FOLLOWING

 

October 21, 1888 - the New York Academy of Music - a diminutive woman stands on a stage, popping her ankle and toe joints. Is this some new craze, some avant-guard form of entertainment? The woman, Margaretta (Maggie) Fox is debunking her abilities as a psychic medium. In 1848 when she was 14 and her younger sister Kate was 11, they convinced their parents, friends, and the village of Hydesville New York that they could speak to the dead. What followed was a life of fame, money, sorrow, and questions still unanswered 176 years later.

The Fox family - father John, mother Margaret, daughters Margaretta and Catherine (Kate) were a close-knit family - almost too close, as they lived in a small house near the river. A house long reputed to be haunted.  John and Margaret occupied one bed, and Maggie and Kate the other in the same room. One night in April the four Foxes hear knocking - but not at the door. Kate repeats the knocks and knocks a different pattern. Who - or- what - ever is knocking follows. Maggie joins in, knocking a whole new pattern. The entity follows her knocks. The family interacts with this spirit, asking questions and setting up a procedure for answering - three knocks for yes, no knocks for no. They ask if the spirit is an injured person - 1 - 2 - 3 knocks. Were they injured on the property? One - two - three knocks.

As yes or no questions will get them only so far, Maggie and Katie asked the spirit to spell out his name, knocking once at the correct letters of the alphabet. The spirit spells out Charles and says he was a peddler murdered by a former owner of the house and buried in the basement. By morning most of the village has heard of this startling turn of events and descend upon the Fox home. Some decry 'tis the devil, others ask about the dearly departed or what lies ahead for them. Two little girls with big abilities just stumbled into what will make them famous, rich, miserable and eventually infamous.

Their older sister Leah lived on her own as a single mother. She offered to take the girls into her home where Maggie, Kate, and Leah hold private seances. Skeptics tried to debunk the girls. Some skeptics became convinced that the girls were truly blessed with the ability to speak to the dead. Others believe their abilities were no more than the cracking of joints.

Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune, offered himself as a protector to Maggie and Kate, still very young teens. Notables of the era like William Cullen Bryant, James Fenimore Cooper, Sojourner Truth, and William Lloyd Garrison attended their seances. Frederick Douglass expressed a desire to meet them. On November 14th, 1849 in Rochester's Corinthian Hall Maggie and Kate gave the first demonstration of spiritualism for a paying audience. The sisters are dubbed "mediums," the first usage of that word the context of para-psychology.

Skeptics debunked the girls from their beginning. In 1851 Mrs. Norman Culver, a relative of the girls, swore a statement that she "assisted" in their seances, watching the crowds and subtly touching the girls at the correct moment to knock. Other skeptics held a private investigation, holding down the girls feet while asking questions only the spirits could answer. After an inconclusive test, they assembled a new panel who questioned the girls while they laid still. A third panel, all women, stripped the girls while querying the two. Maggie was 18, Kate 14. In 1857 the Boston Courier offered a prize of $500 to any medium who could demonstrate real psychic abilities. The Foxes failed, as the judging panel believed the raps of the ghost were generated somehow by the girl's feet.

Failure did not deter Leah, Maggie and  Kate. They continued to make a great deal of money for decades. Spiritualism boomed after the Civil War, with thousands of families losing loved ones to sudden violent deaths far from home. In 1852 Maggie met Elisha Kane, a dashing Arctic Explorer from a prominent family. A Catholic, Kane decried spiritualism and begged Maggie to convert in order to marry him. She agreed and left spiritualism behind. Kate and Leah continued without her. Elisha Kane died in 1857 and Maggie, in need of a way to support herself, rejoined her sisters.

Kate traveled to England in 1871 to perform private seances for prominent clientele. In London she married barrister and spiritualism enthusiast H.B. Jencken.  The couple had two sons and Jencken died in 1881. Like Maggie before her, Kate needed money and returned to the family fold. Leah continued to hold private seances herself. Leah claimed her abilities came from seeing spirits in her dreams. Leah wrote a book about herself and her sisters, but left Maggie and Kate out of the profits.

By this time Maggie and Kate were alcohol dependent, cash poor, and angry at Leah for manipulating them nearly all their lives. A reporter offered Maggie and Kate $1,500 to expose their secrets. On October 21, 1888 Maggie went on stage at the New York Academy of Music. Maggie stated it had all been a lie - every knock, every soothing word from the departed ;  there never was a murdered peddler.  Two little girls had pranked their parents and that prank got so far out of hand a movement gained momentum. Maggie cracked and popped the truth on stage with doctors verifying every noise as Maggie, and not spirit made. Maggie signed a confession that was published in the New York World.

Barely over a year later Maggie recanted her confession, saying she was pressured by Catholics and rich skeptics to denounce spiritualism. She once again returned to seances, but the spell had been broken. The sisters died in obscurity, poverty stricken alcoholics. Leah died in 1890, Kate at her home in 1892, and Maggie, living alone and on charity, in 1893. But what  was really true in Fox Sisters' lore? The girls often answered questions they could not know the answers to. And what of Charles the peddler, their first ghost that sent them down a road fame, riches and ruin? In 1904 the basement of the Fox's Hydesville home was dug up. Some bones were found but dismissed as animal matter. Diggers did find a peddler's tin pail. Did it belong to Charles? Maybe if you hold a seance, the spirits of Maggie, Kate, and Leah Fox will tell you the truth.

 

SOURCES :

Fox Sisters. Wikipedia.

Flowers, Ashley, host. MYSTICAL : The Fox Sisters. Supernatural. Parcast, 7 July 2021. Episode 31.

FURTHER MEDIA ~ 

BOOKS :

Talking to the Dead : Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism ~ Barbara Weisberg 

VIDEO :

The Fox Sisters (6:55) ~ Drunk History