"Know well my soul, God's hand controls
Whate'er thou fearest."
From the time the Fox family entered the house at Hydesville, about
December, 1847, they were incessantly disturbed by similar noises to
those heard by Lucretia Pulver and the Weekmans. During the next month
however (January, 1848) the noises began to assume the character of
slight knockings heard at night in the bedroom; sometimes appearing to
sound from the cellar beneath. At first Mrs. Fox sought to persuade
herself this might be the hammering of a shoemaker in a house hard by,
sitting up late at work. But further observation showed that the sounds
originated in the house. For not only did the knockings become more
distinct, and not only were they heard first in one part of the house,
then in another, but the family remarked that these raps, even when not
very loud, often caused a motion, tremulous rather than a sudden jar, of
the bedsteads and chairs--sometimes of the floor; a motion which was
quite perceptible to the touch when a hand was laid on the chairs, which
was sometimes sensibly felt at night in the slightly oscillating motion
of the bed, and which was occasionally perceived as a sort of vibration
even when standing on the floor. After a time also, the noises varied in
their character, sounding occasionally like distinct footfalls in the
different rooms.
In the month of February, the noises became so distinct and continuous
that their rest was broken night after night, and they were all becoming
worn out in their efforts to discover the cause of the annoyances. These
disturbances were not confined to sounds merely,--once something heavy,
as if a dog, seemed to lie on the feet of the children; but it was gone
before the mother could come to their aid. Another time (this was late
in March) Kate felt as if a cold hand was on her face. Occasionally too,
the bedclothes were pulled during the night. Finally chairs were moved
from their places. The disturbances, which had been limited to
occasional knockings throughout February and March, gradually increased
towards the close of the latter month, both in loudness and frequency.
Mr. Fox and his wife got up night after night, lit a candle, and
thoroughly searched every nook and corner of the house; but without any
result. They discovered nothing. When the raps came on a door, Mr. Fox
would stand, ready to open the door the instant the raps were repeated.
Though he opened the door immediately there was no one to be seen. Nor
did he or Mrs. Fox obtain any clue as to the cause of the trouble,
notwithstanding all the efforts they made and the precautions they
exercised.
The only circumstance which seemed to suggest the possibility of
trickery or of mistake was, that these various unexplained occurrences
never happened in daylight, and thus notwithstanding the strangeness of
the thing, when morning came they began to think it must have been the
fancy of the night. Not being given to superstition, they clung,
throughout several weeks of annoyance, to the idea that some natural
explanation of these seemingly mysterious events would at last appear,
nor did they abandon this hope till the night of
FRIDAY, MARCH 31st, 1848,
a date which was destined to be indelibly imprinted on the minds of the
coming generations as the daybreak of a new era in the spiritual
development of humanity, a date which has since been regularly observed
as marking the advent of the greatest spiritual revelation of modern
times, and recognised as the anniversary of the Spiritualist movement in
all parts of the world.