Certificate. School. Tophet. Father's death.
Spirit Rappings.
At the age of seventeen, I sought the county school examiner that I
might procure a license to teach. I found him at his school
teaching. He had me wait until noon, then we went to the woods close
by. It was a warm beautiful day, and the examiner sat on one end of
the log and I on the other. Then the questioning commenced. Why he
even asked what reading was, and although I had been reading for ten
years I could hardly tell. He asked me how far it was from Dan to
BeerSheba, and then laughed at me because I did not know. He asked
me if I had never heard the phrase "from Dan to BeerSheba." I told
him it seemed to me that I did once hear an old preacher say
something about a young man named Dan who was handsome and strong,
but he got into a pretty dangerous place one time among some lions,
but he came out all right, the preacher said, because he would never
drink beer or wine or whiskey or anything that would make a man
drunk. I do not think the examiner ever heard that story before, so
he quit asking such irrelevant questions and got to business, asking
about vowels and consonants, and accent and emphasis, curves and
loops, Tories and Whigs, order and discipline, etc. etc. until he
said that will do, and wrote me out a certificate to teach. That
county examiner was my oldest brother, hence the fun. From then on,
I was a public school teacher for about 15 years. I stood the test
many times in Indiana, Missouri and Kansas, to secure a teacher's
certificate, but never failed to get the first grade. Of course, I,
in the meantime, spent about three more years at school. My
popularity as a successful teacher came at once, even at the first
term, so much so that they sent for me to come and teach for them in
a place called Tophet. Boys, if you do not know what that means look
it up in the dictionary. The place was so bad, that teachers for
several years had not been able to teach to the end of the term. The
bad boys and girls would run the teacher off. I knew all this. And
instead of going with a rod, as other teachers had I went with love
and firmness determined to win right in the start the respect and
confidence of the big boys and girls. I succeeded.
The first death to occur in my father's family was the death of my
father himself. In the early fall of 1854 father's health began to
fail. The disease was dropsy. Dr. Sam Elmore, the resident
physician of Clarksburg did all he could, faithfully attending father
all the fall and winter up to the day of his death. But about one
week before death, the doctor requested that we send for Dr.
McDonald, who lived in Newberry, a town about eight miles away. This
we did, and Dr McDonald, a skillful and learned physician, came to
see father twice that week. The last time was on the day before
Christmas. When he left to go home, he requested us to let him know
father's condition the next day after noon. The next day was
Christmas. Father seemed much better all afternoon. Many friends
and neighbors came in to see him. He talked more than usual. The
day was a cold, dark, drizzly one. We had no telephones then, so on
horse back in the afternoon, through cold and sleet, I made my way to
tell the doctor how father was. The errand was not hard for me,
because I loved my father and he was better, I thought, and I wanted
to tell the doctor. As soon as I entered the doctor's office, I
said, "Father is better." The doctor asked me several questions
about him which I answered. He then turned to get some medicine and
as he turned I saw him shake his head negatively. He gave me a
little phial filled with medicine and told me to give father two or
three drops every two or three hours and added, "If your father is
better in the morning, let me know." I went home with a sadder heart
than I had when I came to the doctor's, for I do not think the doctor
thought that father was better. And so it proved for when I returned
Mother said father had seemed better all afternoon, so much so that
his friends, and even my oldest brother and sister, (who were now
married, and lived, the one three miles distant, the other one mile),
had returned home to take rest.
But now, (it was about dark when I returned) said mother, "he seems
to be much worse, you would better go for your brother and sister."
So I went at once the one mile and the three miles, and sister and
her husband, Mr. Chas. R. Reyton, went at once and not long
afterwards brother and his wife and their two little children and I
returned, and we all stood around the bed of death. Father said but
little, but finally said to all. "Come near." We did so, and he
said, "Good bye, it is but a little distance between me and my
eternal home, and I can soon step that off." He closed his eyes and
was dead.
It was almost midnight, Christmas day, 1854. He went at the early
age of 49 years, 7 months 23 days. I was a little more than sixteen
years old. My youngest brother, and the youngest child of the
family, Rufus Wiley, was a little over five years old. Youngest
sister, Charlotte Ann a little over thirteen.
Father was a quiet, peaceable, Christian man, with a good many of the
Quaker ways about him.
The spirit-rappings, which originated with the Fox family of N.Y.
eight or ten years before, were still exciting the people in southern
Indiana. It so happened that a Mr. Wilson, a learned justice of the
peace, lived in Tophet, at the time I taught school there, and was a
medium. I boarded and lodged at his house a part of the time. Let
me state a few facts and these occurred in my experience while there.
That rapping kept up, especially if you paid any attention to it,
more or less, day and night. Every afternoon and evening after
school, when I returned to my boarding place, I could hear the
rapping on my chair, or desk, or somewhere in the room. Or, if out
of doors, on some object near me. If out after dark that rapping was
sure to get directly between me and the door. Was it good or evil,
saint or sinner, I knew not. I could explain nothing. I could
believe nothing. I could lay hold of nothing. I could let go of
nothing. I only heard rapping. And it made no difference whether
Mr. Wilson, the medium, was at home or not, the rapping went on all
the same.
One long afternoon as I was sitting at a window reading a book, Mrs.
Wilson was sitting across the room at another window, busy at work
and at the same time humming a tune. All at once, that rapping
commenced, on a cupboard standing in the corner, in a clear, distinct
musical way, so much so that it attracted my attention from my
reading and Mrs. Wilson saw me looking towards the cupboard. She
said, "Lizzie, is that you?" There came a loud, distinct rap. As
much as to say yes. Then Mrs. Wilson said, "Can you beat (play) that
tune I was humming." I suspect Mr. Hastings would like to hear it."
At once the beating (rapping) commenced and continued for quite a
while. It sounded very much like the tapping of a drum. It played
the tune. I do not think that I ever listened to any music with so
much interest and curiosity as I listened to that rapping.
One embarrassing and annoying part of the rapping was every night,
when I would retire to my bed that rapping would keep up its rapping
upon the head board of my bed, both before and after I would blow out
the light. When I found out they called it Lizzie I would say,
"Please Lizzie, let me o to sleep." And it would cease, and I would
sleep. To confess, boys, I often felt a little scared, especially
when out of doors in the dark and that--what shall I call it?--
thing got to rapping upon something between me and the door.
I could tell you other stories about these rappings but they are too
incredulous to believe. As I said before, I could explain nothing
nor can I yet. I simply heard the rappings, under the circumstances
as I have related.
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