In 1848, in the town of Hydesville, New York, two sisters claimed to communicate with a peddler haunting their family home. Kate and Maggie Fox, ages ten and fourteen, asked questions and the spirit produced rappings to signal "yes" or "no." According to the sisters, the peddler was murdered by a former owner of the house and the body was hidden there. The news of their communication with the dead brought hundreds of visitors to Hydesville to witness the demonstrations.
Spiritualism - A New Religious Movement
Kate and Maggie were soon sent to live with their older sister, Leah, in Rochester to remove them from the Hydesville spectacle. However, the rapping noises followed, the spirits multiplied, and the messages became more sophisticated. Leah recognized the possibility of capitalizing on the girls' ability to summon the spirits. She began charging a fee for private sittings. The sisters became famous mediums virtually overnight. In November 1849, they appeared at Rochester's Corinthian Hall before 400 attendees who paid 25 cents each to hear the spirits communicate.
The Fox sisters were not the only spiritual mediums in America at the time, but were certainly the most popular. Many powerful people supported them. One was the influential writer Horance Greeley. Greeley publicized their success and coined the term "Modern Spiritualism" to describe a new religious movement. Spiritualists believed that death was a transition in which the physical body was released but the spirit remained, able to return and communicate with the living. During a time when death was common among children and young adults, it was a particularly comforting thought for those left behind. The movement spread rapidly, gathering followers across America and Europe.
However, the success of the movement spawned ardent disbelievers who worked tirelessly to expose mediums as frauds. Kate and Maggie were frequently subjected to humiliating tests, but were never officially denounced or exposed.
The Fox Sisters' Decline
In 1852, Maggie held a seance attended by the Arctic explorer Elisha Kent Kane. They began an illicit affair. Knowing his family would not accept Maggie as a suitable wife, Kane convinced her to leave Spiritualism, convert to Catholicism, and attend school. Maggie did everything he asked, but Kane died in 1857 without having offered a public proposal. A distraught Maggie turned to alcohol for consolation.
Kate continued to perform seances and lectures on her own. Her skill improved beyond spirit rapping into visual manifestations. In 1859, she began readings for the industrialist Charles Livermore. Livermore kept detailed diaries of the miraculous experiences, including the appearance of his dead wife and his opportunity to see and touch her spirit on many occasions.
Kate's success set a high standard for other mediums. As patrons demanded more spectacular manifestations, more mediums were revealed as frauds. Through it all, Kate's abilities were never debunked. However, in 1865, the demands of her career, her grief over both parents' recent deaths, and her separation from Maggie, coupled with devastating headaches, led to opium and alcohol addiction. Her success began to wane.
In the early 1870's, Kate met and married Henry Jencken, a devout Spiritualist. He helped her to briefly overcome her addictions and regain some success as a private medium. However, in November 1881, Jencken died and a melancholy Kate descended once again into alcoholism.
The Devastating Confession
In 1888, Maggie Fox admitted to a reporter that she and Kate were frauds, having produced the spirit rappings using their leg muscles. She denounced Spiritualism, claiming she had tried to contact Elisha Kane to no avail, proving to herself the dead did not speak to the living. She repeated her confession to a huge crowd at the New York Academy of Music on October 21, 1888.
A year later, Maggie recanted her confession, claiming she had been pressured by powerful religious leaders determined to destroy Spiritualism. Spiritualism had already begun to decline because of changing cultural and technological factors and the scandal dealt an additional blow to the movement.
The sisters were left to falter on the fringe of society and died penniless alcoholics under the care of friends. Kate died on July 2, 1892 and Maggie on March 8, 1893. They were buried at Cypress HIlls Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
Retribution?
In 1904, an inside wall crumbled at the former Fox home in Hydesville. The Boston Journal reported that a skeleton was found behind the wall. It was determined to be approximately 50 years old - just about the right age to belong to the murdered peddler.
Sources
Conan-Doyle, Sir Arthur. Wanderings of a Spiritualist. Berkeley: Ronin Publishing, Inc., 1988.
Owen, Alex. The Darkened Room - Women, Power and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England. Philadelphia: Universisity of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
Weisberg, Barbara. Talking to the Dead - Kate and Maggie Fox and The Rise of Spiritualism.San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2004.
 |
