The news of the mysterious rappings continued to spread abroad, and the
house was filled with anxious seekers for the unknown and invisible
visitor. Up to this time the noises had only been heard at night, but on
Sunday morning, April 2nd, the sounds were first heard in the daytime,
and by any who could get into the house. It has been estimated that at
one time there were about five hundred people gathered around the house,
so great was the excitement at the commencement of these strange
occurrences.
On the Monday following, Mr. Fox and others commenced digging in the
cellar, but as the house was built on low ground and in the vicinity of
a stream then much swollen by rains, it was not surprising that they
were baffled by the influx of water at the distance of three feet down.
In the summer of 1848, when the ground was dry and the water lowered,
the digging again commenced, when they found a plank, a vacant place or
hole, some bits of crockery, which seemed to have been a washbowl,
traces of charcoal, quicklime, some human hair, bones (declared on
examination by a surgeon to be human), including a portion of a skull,
but no connected skull was found.
[Interesting facts relating to the missing portions of the human body
were announced in the public newspapers as recently as December, 1904,
for which see Appendix.]
Such were the results of the examination of the cellar; such the only
corroborative evidences obtained of the truth of the spirit's tale of
untimely death. The presence of human remains in the cellar proves that
someone was buried there, and the quicklime and charcoal testify to the
fact that attempts were made to secretly dispose of the body of the
victim.
The Fox family did not immediately quit the scene of this mysterious
haunting, but remained to witness still more astounding phenomena. The
furniture was frequently moved about; the girls were often touched by
hard cold hands; doors were opened and shut with violence; their beds
were so violently shaken that they were obliged to "camp out" as they
termed it, on the ground; their bedclothes were dragged from them, and
the very floor and house made to rock as in an earthquake. Night after
night they would be appalled by hearing a sound like a death struggle,
the gurgling of the throat, a sudden thud as of something falling, the
dragging as of a helpless body across the room and down the cellar
stairs, the digging of a grave, nailing of boards, and the filling up as
of a new made grave. These sounds have subsequently been produced by
request, and spontaneously also, in the presence of many persons
assembled in circles at Rochester.
It was perceived that "the spirits" seemed to select or require the
presence of the two younger girls of the family for the production of
the sounds, and though these had been made without them, especially on
the night of the 31st of March, when all the members of the family save
Mr. Fox were absent from the house, still as curiosity prompted them to
close observation and conversation with the invisible power, it was
clear that the manifestations became more powerful in the presence of
Kate, the youngest daughter, than with any one else.
As the house was continually thronged with curious inquirers, and the
time, comfort and peace of the family were consumed with these harassing
disturbances, besides the most absurd though injurious suspicions being
cast upon them, they endeavoured to baffle the haunters by sending Kate
to reside with her eldest sister, Mrs. Fish, at Rochester; but no
sooner had she gone than the manifestations re-commenced with more force
than ever, in the presence of Margaretta. In course of time Mrs. Fox,
with both her daughters, went to live in Rochester, but neither change
of place nor house, nor yet the separation of the family, afforded them
any relief from the disturbances that evidently attached themselves to
persons rather than places as formerly.
Although the Fox family had for months striven to banish the power that
tormented them, praying with all the fervour of true Methodism to be
released from it, and enduring fear, loss and anxiety in its
continuance, the report of its persistence began to spread abroad,
causing a rain of persecutions to fall upon them from all quarters. Old
friends looked coldly on them, and strangers circulated the most
atrocious slanders at their expense.
Mrs. Fish, the eldest sister, who was a teacher of music in Rochester,
began to lose her pupils, and whilst the blanching of the poor mother's
hair in a single week bore testimony to the mental tortures which
supra-mundane terrors and mundane cruelties had heaped upon them, the
world was taunting them with imposture and with originating the very
manifestations which were destroying their health, peace of mind, and
good name. They had solicited the advice of their much-respected
friend, Isaac Post, a highly esteemed Quaker citizen of Rochester, and
at his suggestion succeeded in communicating by raps with the invisible
power, through the alphabet (an attempt had been previously made but
without success). Telegraphic numbers were given to signify "Yes" or
"No," "Doubtful," etc., and sentences were spelled out by which they
learned the astounding facts that not only "Charles Rosna" the murdered
pedlar, but hosts of spirits, good and bad, high and low, could under
certain conditions not understood, and impossible for mortals yet to
comprehend, communicate with earth; that such communication was produced
through the forces of spiritual magnetism, in chemical affinity; that
the varieties of magnetism in different individuals afforded "medium
power" to some, and denied it to others; that the magnetic relations
necessary to produce phenomena were very subtle, liable to disturbance
and singularly susceptible to the influence of the mental emotions. In
addition to communications purporting thus to explain the object and
something of the modus operandi of the communion, numerous spirit
friends of the family, and also of those who joined in their
investigations, gladdened the hearts of their astonished relatives by
direct and unlooked-for tests of their presence. They came spelling out
their names, ages and various tokens of identity correctly, and
proclaiming the joyful tidings that they all "still lived," "still
loved," and with the tenderness of human affection and the wisdom of a
higher sphere of existence, watched over and guided the beloved ones who
had mourned them as dead, with all the gracious ministry of guardian
angels.