1 00:00:00,560 --> 00:00:03,800 Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. 2 00:00:11,280 --> 00:00:14,440 Speaker 1: It was six blocks from Amy's house to the publishing office. 3 00:00:15,120 --> 00:00:17,680 Speaker 1: In the morning, she and Isaac would even walk together. 4 00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:21,000 Speaker 1: His pharmacy was only one block farther. I like to 5 00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:24,720 Speaker 1: picture them walking side by side, Isaac's neatly trim beard 6 00:00:24,960 --> 00:00:27,760 Speaker 1: worn in what today might be called an Amish style, 7 00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:30,040 Speaker 1: and with a winter as cold as the one in 8 00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:33,880 Speaker 1: February of eighty eight, Amy no doubt would have worn 9 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:38,960 Speaker 1: a heavy rap when they reached Buffalo Street, today's main 10 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:42,320 Speaker 1: street in Rochester. We might imagine Amy holding a gloved 11 00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:45,280 Speaker 1: hand up to wave. As Isaac continued on to open 12 00:00:45,320 --> 00:00:49,280 Speaker 1: the pharmacy, where he filled prescriptions from Rochester's doctors and 13 00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:54,280 Speaker 1: sold oils, paints, dyes, salves, and various instruments. Amy would 14 00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:57,120 Speaker 1: have stepped into the publishing office for the North Star. 15 00:00:58,680 --> 00:01:01,480 Speaker 1: There was plenty of work to do. Through the doors, 16 00:01:01,520 --> 00:01:04,600 Speaker 1: Amy passed the office where Frederick Douglas and his business 17 00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:08,000 Speaker 1: partner William c Nell were preparing the print the next issue. 18 00:01:08,520 --> 00:01:12,000 Speaker 1: The summer before, Douglas had traveled west through Pennsylvania as 19 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:14,959 Speaker 1: far as Ohio, where he had been mocked attacked and 20 00:01:15,160 --> 00:01:19,200 Speaker 1: run off stages by white mobs. But across the Midwest 21 00:01:19,240 --> 00:01:22,520 Speaker 1: he had also been welcomed by black communities, and Douglas 22 00:01:22,560 --> 00:01:25,960 Speaker 1: knew he needed to continue supporting them. Rather than retreat 23 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:29,440 Speaker 1: to Boston, Douglas moved to Rochester, the point between the 24 00:01:29,480 --> 00:01:32,440 Speaker 1: coast and the frontier where the message could fly out 25 00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:36,360 Speaker 1: to a nation. When Amy stepped into the printing office, 26 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:38,679 Speaker 1: she could have asked Douglas how his family was doing. 27 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:41,640 Speaker 1: His wife, Anna had just arrived in Rochester with their 28 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:44,360 Speaker 1: three boys. Isaac had even helped them move into their 29 00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:47,240 Speaker 1: small apartment downtown, where they would live until they found 30 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:51,280 Speaker 1: a suitable house. After a chat with Frederick, Amy most 31 00:01:51,320 --> 00:01:54,200 Speaker 1: likely climbed the stairs to the second floor and unlocked 32 00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:56,720 Speaker 1: the new reading Room, an office for the Western New 33 00:01:56,800 --> 00:02:01,920 Speaker 1: York Antislavery Society. It was part library, part consignment shop, 34 00:02:02,160 --> 00:02:06,160 Speaker 1: where Amy worked with friends to plan meetings, supply local families, 35 00:02:06,360 --> 00:02:10,280 Speaker 1: and raise funds for anti slavery projects. Because she supported 36 00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:14,440 Speaker 1: Frederick's cause at every turn, and he supported hers as well. 37 00:02:16,440 --> 00:02:19,640 Speaker 1: You see, while Amy was working with the Anti Slavery Society, 38 00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:22,400 Speaker 1: she was also on the cusp of something new. She 39 00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:26,320 Speaker 1: and her friends like Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth County Stanton 40 00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:28,880 Speaker 1: were about to put out a call for a convention 41 00:02:28,919 --> 00:02:32,760 Speaker 1: to discuss equal rights for women. Frederick Douglas would immediately 42 00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:35,960 Speaker 1: print their announcement in The North Star. From the beginning, 43 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:39,640 Speaker 1: the papers front page carried the declaration that right is 44 00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:43,440 Speaker 1: of no sex, truth is of no color. God is 45 00:02:43,480 --> 00:02:49,600 Speaker 1: the father of us all. The North Star embodied the 46 00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:52,800 Speaker 1: fusion of movements at the center of Rochester life, and 47 00:02:52,840 --> 00:02:55,400 Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas and Amy Post both knew that they were 48 00:02:55,400 --> 00:02:58,679 Speaker 1: working at an amazing time. Thanks in no small part 49 00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:01,560 Speaker 1: to their efforts, the year would leave its mark on history. 50 00:03:02,080 --> 00:03:09,119 Speaker 1: Here's historian Molly McGarry. In the year alone, revolutions ignited 51 00:03:09,160 --> 00:03:13,119 Speaker 1: across the world, from France to Brazil, but also from 52 00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:18,840 Speaker 1: Sicily to the Austrian Empire, and revolutions swept the globe 53 00:03:18,919 --> 00:03:22,480 Speaker 1: during that year. Also in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 54 00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:26,000 Speaker 1: published the Communist Manifesto, opening with the line a specter 55 00:03:26,160 --> 00:03:29,280 Speaker 1: is haunting Europe, the specter of communism. And in that 56 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:31,760 Speaker 1: same year, two young girls heard communicates from a very 57 00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:35,520 Speaker 1: different sort of specter, giving rise to great different revolution. 58 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:41,840 Speaker 1: Had been a year full of surprises for many people, 59 00:03:42,600 --> 00:03:48,520 Speaker 1: but there was still one more on its way. This 60 00:03:49,080 --> 00:04:27,680 Speaker 1: is unobscured. I'm Aaron Mankey. It started as a small 61 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:31,120 Speaker 1: frontier village. In fact, the majority of its first settlers 62 00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:34,039 Speaker 1: were black when it was founded by Nathaniel Rochester and 63 00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:36,960 Speaker 1: the twelve people he kept in slavery. In fact, less 64 00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:40,480 Speaker 1: than two decades before Amy and Isaac arrived, Rochester had 65 00:04:40,520 --> 00:04:44,680 Speaker 1: been home to just over one thousand people, surrounded by 66 00:04:44,680 --> 00:04:48,560 Speaker 1: fertile land. Though Rochester was a bread basket, grain mills 67 00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:51,560 Speaker 1: popped up in clouds of fresh flower, and by eighteen 68 00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:54,279 Speaker 1: thirty four, when it was officially chartered as a city, 69 00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:58,599 Speaker 1: Rochester had become home to thirteen thousand people. The city 70 00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:01,480 Speaker 1: was booming, and that was due in large part to 71 00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:06,000 Speaker 1: the Erie Canal. Here's author and journalist Nancy Ruben Stewart 72 00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:10,080 Speaker 1: Upstate New York in particular, it was a very prosperous 73 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:13,839 Speaker 1: area because the every canal had opened, and so all 74 00:05:13,880 --> 00:05:17,599 Speaker 1: the produce and all the furs and all kinds of 75 00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:19,440 Speaker 1: other things that were coming from the north could now 76 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:21,920 Speaker 1: come down through the canal into the Hudson and down 77 00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:25,159 Speaker 1: to New York City. The farmland in the region made 78 00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:27,800 Speaker 1: it ideal for communities like the Quakers who wanted a 79 00:05:27,839 --> 00:05:30,200 Speaker 1: place where they could live on their own. So as 80 00:05:30,320 --> 00:05:34,200 Speaker 1: Rochester shipped out new tons of flower, the radical ideas 81 00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:37,640 Speaker 1: growing in that same soil traveled with them. Here's Molly 82 00:05:37,720 --> 00:05:42,159 Speaker 1: McGarry once again. Douglas's North Star Circle in Rochester was 83 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:46,679 Speaker 1: a key center in a global movement for freedom, and 84 00:05:46,839 --> 00:05:50,760 Speaker 1: that newspaper is crucially important. Douglass organizing was important, but 85 00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:54,080 Speaker 1: there are also figures like Harriet Jacobs, who went on 86 00:05:54,160 --> 00:05:56,039 Speaker 1: to write Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 87 00:05:56,080 --> 00:06:01,320 Speaker 1: who landed in Rochester. At the same time, while Isaac 88 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:04,320 Speaker 1: and Amy worked with Frederick Douglas at home in Rochester, 89 00:06:04,560 --> 00:06:08,279 Speaker 1: Isaac's brother served as the North Stars reporter on Long Island. 90 00:06:08,600 --> 00:06:12,480 Speaker 1: Through growing networks of friends, family, and correspondence, the cities 91 00:06:12,520 --> 00:06:15,960 Speaker 1: around the Northeastern United States were becoming more and more connected. 92 00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:20,039 Speaker 1: Of course, boomtowns don't make for the most stable homes. 93 00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:23,200 Speaker 1: When communities along the Erie Canal swelled with the ranks 94 00:06:23,200 --> 00:06:26,440 Speaker 1: of new residents moving inland, it made life around Rochester 95 00:06:26,600 --> 00:06:29,720 Speaker 1: difficult for families who wanted to establish farms and make 96 00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:33,440 Speaker 1: a life for themselves. People like John and his wife Margaret. 97 00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:37,080 Speaker 1: When they put down stakes in the eighteen twenties, John 98 00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:39,040 Speaker 1: fell in with a crowd of other men who arrived 99 00:06:39,080 --> 00:06:41,640 Speaker 1: hoping to strike it rich, and he picked up their 100 00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:46,760 Speaker 1: habits too, liquor cards, gambling on horse races. What little 101 00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:49,800 Speaker 1: money John and Margaret brought with them vanished into the night, 102 00:06:50,320 --> 00:06:55,640 Speaker 1: and soon enough John along with it. Now abandoned, Margaret 103 00:06:55,640 --> 00:06:58,599 Speaker 1: had retreated to Rochester, where her sister offered her a 104 00:06:58,680 --> 00:07:01,120 Speaker 1: room to stay in. She did her best to raise 105 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:04,600 Speaker 1: four children without their father, including the oldest Leah, and 106 00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:07,440 Speaker 1: a son named David, but it was a hard life. 107 00:07:07,720 --> 00:07:10,800 Speaker 1: Margaret's heart broke as Leah was entrapped by an older 108 00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:13,840 Speaker 1: man when she was just fourteen. He only stayed long 109 00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:16,760 Speaker 1: enough for Leah to take his last name Fish and 110 00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:19,680 Speaker 1: give birth to their daughter, before he tossed Leah aside 111 00:07:19,960 --> 00:07:25,119 Speaker 1: and traveled farther west. Eventually, John returned, arriving in town, 112 00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:28,040 Speaker 1: and he had a new outlook on life. A revival 113 00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:31,080 Speaker 1: preacher had swept through the countryside, and it brought the 114 00:07:31,080 --> 00:07:33,960 Speaker 1: man to his knees. He rejoined his wife and children 115 00:07:33,960 --> 00:07:37,480 Speaker 1: in Rochester, determined to rekindle their dream of farming their 116 00:07:37,480 --> 00:07:42,000 Speaker 1: own plot of land. David and Leah stayed behind in 117 00:07:42,120 --> 00:07:45,680 Speaker 1: Rochester while John and Maggie crossed Lake Ontario into Canada. 118 00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:49,440 Speaker 1: This time, John was determined not to get sidetracked, and 119 00:07:49,480 --> 00:07:52,160 Speaker 1: they started that new farm, but they started a new 120 00:07:52,200 --> 00:07:55,760 Speaker 1: family as well. Margaret gave birth to two more daughters 121 00:07:55,800 --> 00:07:58,600 Speaker 1: in the eighteen thirties, who they named Maggie and Kate. 122 00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:01,960 Speaker 1: But the fire of John his new religious devotion couldn't 123 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:04,800 Speaker 1: thaw that cold earth. After scraping out what they could 124 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:08,320 Speaker 1: from the Canadian soil and missing their older children, they 125 00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:13,040 Speaker 1: returned to Rochester's embrace in eighteen forty four. That's when 126 00:08:13,080 --> 00:08:16,040 Speaker 1: they found themselves welcomed by Isaac and Amy Post, who 127 00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:19,960 Speaker 1: hosted them on Sophia Street. The families became fast friends. 128 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:23,080 Speaker 1: Maggie and Kate also got to know their older sister, Leah, 129 00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:26,840 Speaker 1: and Maggie bonded with Amy Post. The older Quaker woman 130 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:29,520 Speaker 1: working so hard to bring a new world into being, 131 00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:32,800 Speaker 1: somehow found time in the midst of organizing to offer 132 00:08:32,840 --> 00:08:37,680 Speaker 1: attention to the younger daughters of an unstable family. For 133 00:08:37,760 --> 00:08:40,160 Speaker 1: a while, John was able to support the family as 134 00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:43,559 Speaker 1: a blacksmith, but the lure of working the land continued 135 00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:46,240 Speaker 1: to call, and by the mid eighteen forties, John and 136 00:08:46,280 --> 00:08:48,600 Speaker 1: Margaret's son, David, was a man with a family of 137 00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:51,840 Speaker 1: his own. After growing up in the city with Margaret, 138 00:08:51,840 --> 00:08:55,280 Speaker 1: he'd inherited a farm from an uncle in Arcadia, New York, 139 00:08:55,559 --> 00:08:58,240 Speaker 1: and eventually moved there with his wife and three children. 140 00:08:58,679 --> 00:09:01,800 Speaker 1: A host of relatives live within only a few miles. 141 00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:05,359 Speaker 1: A new center of gravity for the family began to form, 142 00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:08,439 Speaker 1: and it drew John and Margaret out into the countryside 143 00:09:08,480 --> 00:09:12,840 Speaker 1: more and more often. It did, not, however, have the 144 00:09:12,880 --> 00:09:16,200 Speaker 1: same appeal for young Maggie and Kate. During one visit 145 00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:19,400 Speaker 1: in eighteen forty seven, John and Margaret sat down with 146 00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:23,119 Speaker 1: David to discuss life in the country. Despite all their setbacks, 147 00:09:23,360 --> 00:09:25,760 Speaker 1: their eyes still lit up when they thought about living 148 00:09:25,880 --> 00:09:28,920 Speaker 1: in the rolling pastures. From her chair in the corner, 149 00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:31,640 Speaker 1: Maggie saw how much this dream meant to her father, 150 00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:36,360 Speaker 1: but for her it only despired creeping dread those rolling hills. 151 00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:40,280 Speaker 1: To her, they were crushingly dull. To her friend and mentor, 152 00:09:40,360 --> 00:09:44,320 Speaker 1: Amy Post. Maggie eventually wrote, I love the noise and 153 00:09:44,440 --> 00:09:47,360 Speaker 1: confusion of the city. I am like the woman who 154 00:09:47,440 --> 00:09:50,679 Speaker 1: becomes so accustomed to her husband snoring that I could 155 00:09:50,720 --> 00:09:54,400 Speaker 1: not go to sleep without it. If their mother saw 156 00:09:54,440 --> 00:09:57,079 Speaker 1: any of Leah in fourteen year old Maggie, the girl's 157 00:09:57,160 --> 00:10:00,000 Speaker 1: talk of husbands would only have made Margaret more determined 158 00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:02,320 Speaker 1: and to move the family out of the city. So 159 00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:05,120 Speaker 1: Maggie must have been upset when David told the family 160 00:10:05,160 --> 00:10:07,360 Speaker 1: that the Hides, who owned most of the land around 161 00:10:07,440 --> 00:10:11,920 Speaker 1: David's farm, needed a new blacksmith. In December of that year, 162 00:10:12,280 --> 00:10:14,920 Speaker 1: John and Margaret packed up fourteen year old Maggie and 163 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:18,640 Speaker 1: ten year old Kate, alongside what furniture and tools they had, 164 00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:22,080 Speaker 1: and took a wagon out on Wayne country Road, and 165 00:10:22,160 --> 00:10:25,320 Speaker 1: in doing so, they left the Posts and their circle 166 00:10:25,400 --> 00:10:34,320 Speaker 1: of radical friends behind for now, at least. It was 167 00:10:34,360 --> 00:10:38,040 Speaker 1: already winter. There was plenty of land on David's farm 168 00:10:38,120 --> 00:10:40,200 Speaker 1: to build a second house for his parents, but there 169 00:10:40,240 --> 00:10:43,760 Speaker 1: just wasn't time. So John and Margaret made a fateful decision. 170 00:10:44,200 --> 00:10:46,560 Speaker 1: They rented a little house from the Hides to wait 171 00:10:46,679 --> 00:10:49,880 Speaker 1: out the season. It was hardly more than a single 172 00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:52,680 Speaker 1: story box, but it would suit the family's needs for 173 00:10:52,720 --> 00:10:55,800 Speaker 1: the few cold months. John liked that it was conveniently 174 00:10:55,840 --> 00:10:58,199 Speaker 1: located near the Hides Forge and the rest of the 175 00:10:58,240 --> 00:11:00,760 Speaker 1: family appreciated the two stone is that would keep the 176 00:11:00,800 --> 00:11:03,839 Speaker 1: house warm. There was even a basement and attic and 177 00:11:03,920 --> 00:11:06,439 Speaker 1: a buttery off the kitchen, which meant a few nooks 178 00:11:06,440 --> 00:11:09,400 Speaker 1: and crannies to keep their belongings out from underfoot while 179 00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:13,040 Speaker 1: they hunkered down under the New York's nose. But the 180 00:11:13,080 --> 00:11:16,480 Speaker 1: girls there were also new chores, hauling water and wood, 181 00:11:16,760 --> 00:11:19,960 Speaker 1: helping their parents clear the snow. Other than that, though, 182 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:22,440 Speaker 1: there was very little else for a teenager like Maggie 183 00:11:22,520 --> 00:11:26,040 Speaker 1: to do besides attend the local Methodist Episcopal church and 184 00:11:26,080 --> 00:11:29,640 Speaker 1: the red clabored schoolhouse in the neighborhood. Those long cold 185 00:11:29,720 --> 00:11:33,800 Speaker 1: days left her dreaming of city life, dreaming of some company. 186 00:11:34,160 --> 00:11:38,040 Speaker 1: Here's Nancy Stewart once again. The whole family had come 187 00:11:38,040 --> 00:11:41,120 Speaker 1: from Rochester. So you have this fifteen year old board 188 00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:43,600 Speaker 1: Maggie Fox. She wants to be back in Rochester. She's 189 00:11:43,600 --> 00:11:46,720 Speaker 1: a teenager, obviously, uh and Katie who will a little 190 00:11:46,720 --> 00:11:50,479 Speaker 1: sister will follow her. And the mother is so superstitious, 191 00:11:50,559 --> 00:11:52,720 Speaker 1: and they'd live in this old farmhouse and they start 192 00:11:52,800 --> 00:11:56,400 Speaker 1: thinking about, well, who lived there before? People lived here before? 193 00:11:56,440 --> 00:12:01,640 Speaker 1: Did people die here before? Maggie's loneliness Maybe why John 194 00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:04,439 Speaker 1: and Margaret decided to add one more to their household. 195 00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:07,960 Speaker 1: Sometime after they arrived, they brought Leah's teenage daughter to 196 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:10,880 Speaker 1: come stay with them in Hydesville. She was only slightly 197 00:12:10,920 --> 00:12:13,760 Speaker 1: older than Maggie herself, so maybe she could keep the 198 00:12:13,800 --> 00:12:17,480 Speaker 1: girls occupied. And it was on one of those first 199 00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:20,120 Speaker 1: nights during their cousins stay in Hydesville that the Fox 200 00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:24,040 Speaker 1: family first heard the strange sounds. Creaking eaves and running 201 00:12:24,040 --> 00:12:26,440 Speaker 1: mice were all sounds they would have been familiar with, 202 00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:28,800 Speaker 1: but the sounds they began to hear at night were 203 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:32,960 Speaker 1: something different, something strange that they couldn't quite place. A 204 00:12:33,040 --> 00:12:35,440 Speaker 1: series of thumps in the room where the family would 205 00:12:35,480 --> 00:12:38,960 Speaker 1: lay down to sleep, almost as if someone was walking around. 206 00:12:40,520 --> 00:12:43,400 Speaker 1: Then the sounds moved into the wall. It was as 207 00:12:43,440 --> 00:12:46,080 Speaker 1: if someone was standing beside the beds where they slept, 208 00:12:46,280 --> 00:12:49,559 Speaker 1: knocking on the bed frame with an invisible hand. At 209 00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:51,880 Speaker 1: one point, while trying to figure out where the sounds 210 00:12:51,920 --> 00:12:55,520 Speaker 1: were coming from, John stood outside the bedroom while Margaret 211 00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:59,920 Speaker 1: stood inside. Suddenly the knocks rang out again, this time 212 00:13:00,120 --> 00:13:03,800 Speaker 1: from the door between them. A few months later, Maggie 213 00:13:03,800 --> 00:13:05,760 Speaker 1: would tell a lawyer that on the first night they 214 00:13:05,760 --> 00:13:08,400 Speaker 1: heard the rapping, they all got up, lit candles and 215 00:13:08,440 --> 00:13:11,640 Speaker 1: searched the house from top to bottom. The noise continued 216 00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:14,400 Speaker 1: while they were hunting, always coming from the same place 217 00:13:14,440 --> 00:13:17,199 Speaker 1: in the bedroom. It wasn't loud, but it was as 218 00:13:17,240 --> 00:13:20,240 Speaker 1: real as anything she'd ever heard. It shook the beds 219 00:13:20,240 --> 00:13:22,959 Speaker 1: and chairs too. In fact, when she held her hands 220 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:25,360 Speaker 1: against the bed frame, she said, there was a feeling 221 00:13:25,480 --> 00:13:30,240 Speaker 1: of what she described as tremulous motion. But that was 222 00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:33,880 Speaker 1: only the beginning. In mid March, Maggie and Kate said 223 00:13:33,920 --> 00:13:36,480 Speaker 1: goodbye to their cousin, who went back to her mother, 224 00:13:36,559 --> 00:13:40,400 Speaker 1: Leah in the city. Just before things exploded into action 225 00:13:41,440 --> 00:13:44,440 Speaker 1: on the night of Friday, March thirty one. Margaret said 226 00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:46,880 Speaker 1: that the family was determined to get a good night's rest, 227 00:13:47,280 --> 00:13:50,080 Speaker 1: so they decided to go to bed early. She was 228 00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:53,440 Speaker 1: anxious about the strange noises, but she set her jaw 229 00:13:53,720 --> 00:13:56,880 Speaker 1: and pulled up the covers. They were all still awake 230 00:13:57,280 --> 00:14:01,640 Speaker 1: when the noises began. At Margaret later described it. Kate 231 00:14:01,720 --> 00:14:03,840 Speaker 1: was the first to sit up in bed, and she 232 00:14:03,960 --> 00:14:06,480 Speaker 1: decided that when the knocks came, she would snap her 233 00:14:06,520 --> 00:14:10,320 Speaker 1: fingers in response. Come they did, and right on cue, 234 00:14:10,480 --> 00:14:14,760 Speaker 1: Kate snapped her fingers then, and this is what began 235 00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:20,520 Speaker 1: to really startle Margaret, the rapping sounds replied. Maggie sat 236 00:14:20,600 --> 00:14:23,640 Speaker 1: up too, and said out loud into the air, now 237 00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:28,280 Speaker 1: do as I do, count one, two, three, four, clapping along. 238 00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:32,240 Speaker 1: In time, the knocking sounds obeyed her, which left Maggie 239 00:14:32,320 --> 00:14:37,120 Speaker 1: frozen by fear and the girls silent. And that's when 240 00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:39,920 Speaker 1: their mother took over. She asked aloud that if the 241 00:14:39,960 --> 00:14:43,920 Speaker 1: sound was a spirit, it should knock twice. After a breath, 242 00:14:44,520 --> 00:14:47,560 Speaker 1: two knocks rang out, with the girls silent in the 243 00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:51,680 Speaker 1: opposite bed, Margaret haltingly asked a series of questions, and 244 00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:56,880 Speaker 1: each time the knocks answered her. Through these responses, they 245 00:14:56,960 --> 00:14:59,080 Speaker 1: learned that the specter had once been a thirty one 246 00:14:59,120 --> 00:15:02,400 Speaker 1: year old man. And as more and more details followed, 247 00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:05,440 Speaker 1: I can only imagine the panic that caught in Margaret's throat. 248 00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:09,280 Speaker 1: He'd been killed just two years before, he claimed, right 249 00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:13,560 Speaker 1: there in their house. When John stepped into the room, 250 00:15:13,560 --> 00:15:16,400 Speaker 1: he found his daughters paralyzed by fear and his wife 251 00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:19,640 Speaker 1: shouting questions to the wall. But he heard it too, 252 00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:23,760 Speaker 1: her questions, the knocking sounds answering back all of it, 253 00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:26,480 Speaker 1: and the couple knew that whatever they were witnessing it 254 00:15:26,560 --> 00:15:29,640 Speaker 1: was beyond them, so John bundled up and set out 255 00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:33,520 Speaker 1: to fetch the nearest neighbors. When he returned, he and 256 00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:36,400 Speaker 1: the neighbor found the girls still in bed, still terrified, 257 00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:39,640 Speaker 1: and still clinging to each other. With more witnesses in 258 00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:42,760 Speaker 1: the room, Margaret asked the same series of questions and 259 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:45,840 Speaker 1: got the same answers as before. By the end of 260 00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:48,160 Speaker 1: the night, a total of four families had been called 261 00:15:48,160 --> 00:15:51,840 Speaker 1: to the Fox's house, including the Hides and their adult son, David, 262 00:15:52,280 --> 00:15:55,680 Speaker 1: and before long they were all communicating with the knocking sound. 263 00:15:57,240 --> 00:15:59,680 Speaker 1: Through their questions, they sketched out a picture of the 264 00:15:59,680 --> 00:16:03,400 Speaker 1: man life and his death. The listeners crowded into the 265 00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:05,680 Speaker 1: room as the spirit wrapped out that he had been 266 00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:08,200 Speaker 1: a traveling pedlar, and that he had been murdered in 267 00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:11,480 Speaker 1: that very bedroom, his throat cut with a butcher's knife 268 00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:14,160 Speaker 1: before his body was buried beneath the dirt floor of 269 00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:18,640 Speaker 1: the cellar. The information set the group in motion. They 270 00:16:18,680 --> 00:16:22,040 Speaker 1: did with so many following waves of spiritualists would do too. 271 00:16:22,200 --> 00:16:26,080 Speaker 1: They put the spirit to the test. John, his son David, 272 00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:28,480 Speaker 1: and the Hides all went down to the cellar to 273 00:16:28,520 --> 00:16:31,400 Speaker 1: start digging. But the first weeks of spring of eighteen 274 00:16:31,480 --> 00:16:34,480 Speaker 1: forty eight had been wet. Their shovels sank into the 275 00:16:34,560 --> 00:16:38,280 Speaker 1: damp cellar floor and water oozed up, making any attempt 276 00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:42,360 Speaker 1: at discovery impossible. For the moment. With a story of 277 00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:45,160 Speaker 1: such a gruesome crime hanging in the air, the mood 278 00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:49,000 Speaker 1: that first night must have been somber. Fear and curiosity, 279 00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:54,320 Speaker 1: fascination and confusion, attired and dirty circle of neighbors asking 280 00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:57,800 Speaker 1: themselves if they'd really been speaking with the spirit, what 281 00:16:57,920 --> 00:17:00,280 Speaker 1: had they witnessed in the middle of that spring night. 282 00:17:01,960 --> 00:17:04,200 Speaker 1: It didn't take long for it to become clear that 283 00:17:04,320 --> 00:17:09,080 Speaker 1: something irresistible had burst forth. Word got out. Less than 284 00:17:09,119 --> 00:17:12,080 Speaker 1: two weeks later, John said that hundreds had already visited 285 00:17:12,119 --> 00:17:15,119 Speaker 1: the house. Among them was a lawyer who rushed to 286 00:17:15,200 --> 00:17:19,159 Speaker 1: Hydesville on April eleven and started taking statements from the witnesses. 287 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:22,760 Speaker 1: John told him that curious visitors were coming so often 288 00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:24,879 Speaker 1: that he couldn't even work at the forge, and his 289 00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:28,120 Speaker 1: family no longer had time to cook, clean and live 290 00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:32,720 Speaker 1: their daily lives. Maggie, though, must have loved it, but 291 00:17:32,840 --> 00:17:35,679 Speaker 1: John was still at a loss regarding the eerie phenomenon. 292 00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:39,720 Speaker 1: After two weeks of deep consternation, and scrutiny. He still 293 00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:43,280 Speaker 1: couldn't make up his mind about the sounds. He desperately 294 00:17:43,359 --> 00:17:47,280 Speaker 1: wanted to view them as something natural and explainable, which 295 00:17:47,320 --> 00:17:51,560 Speaker 1: was certainly the more sane path to take. The alternative, though, 296 00:17:51,960 --> 00:17:56,840 Speaker 1: while a lot less believable, was also more frightening. Something 297 00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:05,520 Speaker 1: supernatural was at work. Leah Fish hovered over the piano 298 00:18:05,600 --> 00:18:08,679 Speaker 1: bench her students plunked out the basics that she was 299 00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:12,359 Speaker 1: teaching them upright. Pianos were the centerpiece of every middle 300 00:18:12,359 --> 00:18:14,800 Speaker 1: class parlor, and Leah had carved out a living for 301 00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:18,480 Speaker 1: herself and her daughter by guiding the children of aspiring 302 00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:22,679 Speaker 1: Rochester families through the foundational elements of music. It was 303 00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:26,280 Speaker 1: a respectable profession for a single mother, one of only 304 00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:30,159 Speaker 1: a few that were. On that morning in May, the 305 00:18:30,240 --> 00:18:33,360 Speaker 1: music lesson was interrupted when a student's mother rushed into 306 00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:36,239 Speaker 1: the room and pulled Leah aside. She was followed by 307 00:18:36,240 --> 00:18:38,040 Speaker 1: a man who had just come from a visit to 308 00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:41,840 Speaker 1: see Leah's parents in Hydesville. With the introduction barely made, 309 00:18:42,119 --> 00:18:45,080 Speaker 1: he flipped open a fat notebook and started peppering her 310 00:18:45,119 --> 00:18:48,080 Speaker 1: with questions. But Leah had no idea what the man 311 00:18:48,119 --> 00:18:52,160 Speaker 1: was talking about. To answer her he introduced a set 312 00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:55,040 Speaker 1: of freshly printed pages. It was a pamphlet with the 313 00:18:55,080 --> 00:18:59,720 Speaker 1: headline Mysterious Noises, which reported on the various statements that 314 00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:02,560 Speaker 1: he had taken in Hydesville. It was the first that 315 00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:07,359 Speaker 1: Leah had heard of the uncanny visitation. Within a few hours, though, Leah, 316 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:10,320 Speaker 1: her daughter, and two friends were all on an overnight 317 00:19:10,320 --> 00:19:14,120 Speaker 1: package delivery boat steaming down the Erie Canal towards Hydesville. 318 00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:19,000 Speaker 1: Leah found her parents home abandoned. They had taken up 319 00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:21,879 Speaker 1: shelter at David's house nearby, and when Leah arrived, she 320 00:19:21,920 --> 00:19:24,920 Speaker 1: saw a ragged Margaret with a bible clutched to her chest. 321 00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:27,560 Speaker 1: The family had been thrown out of the local Methodist 322 00:19:27,640 --> 00:19:30,880 Speaker 1: Episcopal church. Word had gone around that Little Kate said 323 00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:34,000 Speaker 1: the spirit's name was Mr. Splitfoot, and the story had 324 00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:39,960 Speaker 1: shocked the minister. Blasphemy, he had said, devil worship. The 325 00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:43,600 Speaker 1: whispers were flying throughout the neighborhood. The blacksmith had brought 326 00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:46,199 Speaker 1: hammer and tongs to Hydesville, they all said, But he 327 00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:49,560 Speaker 1: had also brought something else too, his two daughters and 328 00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:52,840 Speaker 1: their bond with Satan. The church had accused the family 329 00:19:52,840 --> 00:19:55,800 Speaker 1: of witchcraft before telling them to leave and not come back. 330 00:19:56,640 --> 00:20:00,159 Speaker 1: Perhaps there wasn't much distance between Rochester and sale him. 331 00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:04,320 Speaker 1: After all, Leah and her parents put their heads together, 332 00:20:04,680 --> 00:20:06,800 Speaker 1: they all agreed that the girls should be split up. 333 00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:09,760 Speaker 1: If the spirit was real, maybe he was attracted to 334 00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:12,960 Speaker 1: one of the sisters in particular. Guessing that it was Kate, 335 00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:15,679 Speaker 1: they decided she would be the one to leave the farm. 336 00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:19,480 Speaker 1: Leah worked quickly, taking her youngest sister back to Rochester 337 00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:24,080 Speaker 1: with her. Separating the sisters didn't stop the troubles, though 338 00:20:24,640 --> 00:20:27,000 Speaker 1: years later Leah would publish an account of what happened 339 00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:30,080 Speaker 1: when they reached the city. The girls, she said, were 340 00:20:30,080 --> 00:20:32,720 Speaker 1: too scared to sleep alone that night, so Lea brought 341 00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:35,520 Speaker 1: them both into her bed before she could fall asleep, 342 00:20:35,560 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 1: though their screams of fear broke the silence. With Kate 343 00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:42,280 Speaker 1: in the bed beside them, her daughter said a cold 344 00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:45,320 Speaker 1: hand had passed over her face, and then another crept 345 00:20:45,359 --> 00:20:48,720 Speaker 1: down her back. Leah leapt for her Bible and began 346 00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:51,399 Speaker 1: to read it out loud, but as she would later recall, 347 00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:55,040 Speaker 1: the girls continued to feel something unseen touch their bodies. 348 00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:58,080 Speaker 1: When Leah put out the light and slid the Bible 349 00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:01,040 Speaker 1: under her pillow, something pushed it back out and onto 350 00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:04,639 Speaker 1: the floor. They had no peace and no sleep until 351 00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:07,040 Speaker 1: the light of dawn started to filter through the window 352 00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:10,879 Speaker 1: and the room fell blissfully silent. But other voices would 353 00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:14,040 Speaker 1: fill that silence as the Fox family tried to adjust 354 00:21:14,040 --> 00:21:17,119 Speaker 1: to their new life. That energetic lawyer wasted no time 355 00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:20,440 Speaker 1: distributing his pamphlet throughout the city. He had the sense 356 00:21:20,480 --> 00:21:23,439 Speaker 1: that a printed report of the rumors, full of eyewitness 357 00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:27,040 Speaker 1: interviews that he himself had recorded, would fly off the shelves, 358 00:21:27,760 --> 00:21:31,800 Speaker 1: and his instincts proved correct. His pamphlet, called Report of 359 00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:34,919 Speaker 1: the Mysterious Noises Heard in the House of John D. 360 00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:38,800 Speaker 1: Fox in Hydesville, poured fuel on the whispers, helping the 361 00:21:38,840 --> 00:21:42,600 Speaker 1: news spread like wildfire. But when Amy and Isaac Post 362 00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:45,760 Speaker 1: first heard the rumors about the hauntings in Hydesville, they laughed. 363 00:21:46,280 --> 00:21:48,679 Speaker 1: In a letter from that November, Isaac would tell a 364 00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:51,880 Speaker 1: relative that at first he and Amy paid no more 365 00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:55,200 Speaker 1: heed to the news than to the old Salem witch stories. 366 00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:58,240 Speaker 1: He said. Leah would write that the Posts had and 367 00:21:58,480 --> 00:22:03,320 Speaker 1: I quote, no little amusement at our expense. In reality, though, 368 00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:06,960 Speaker 1: Amy and Isaac were torn between two opinions because their 369 00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:11,720 Speaker 1: dismissive chuckles were slowly giving way to concern. Was it possible, 370 00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:15,200 Speaker 1: They asked themselves that the girls and their mother were 371 00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:20,800 Speaker 1: suffering under some psychological delusion, But they changed their tune. 372 00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:23,600 Speaker 1: A short while later, when Isaac and Amy dropped by 373 00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:26,480 Speaker 1: Leah's house to check in on their young friend, they 374 00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:29,840 Speaker 1: found the household in a panic. You see that piano 375 00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:32,840 Speaker 1: where Leah taught her music lessons. Well, the instrument was 376 00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:35,720 Speaker 1: closed and locked because it was the evening, and yet 377 00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:40,399 Speaker 1: it was somehow still playing music. One sound in particular too, 378 00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:45,600 Speaker 1: a low base key solemn and distinct, slowly tolling like 379 00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:49,639 Speaker 1: a death kneel. It shot the Posts so much that 380 00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:52,159 Speaker 1: they went out and brought back another couple to observe 381 00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:57,280 Speaker 1: the scene. Close friends, fellow abolitionists, and fellow Quakers. These 382 00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:00,639 Speaker 1: were the post's most trusted advisors, just kind of people 383 00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:03,000 Speaker 1: Isaac and Amy would want helping out in such a 384 00:23:03,040 --> 00:23:06,639 Speaker 1: sort of mystery. When they arrived, they settled in to 385 00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:09,400 Speaker 1: watch the piano, and then they listened as the note 386 00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:13,200 Speaker 1: continued to play. In response, they fell to their knees 387 00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:16,720 Speaker 1: and started to pray, their hands opening to Leah and 388 00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:20,479 Speaker 1: the girls as they said out loud, sustaining this family. 389 00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:25,359 Speaker 1: Oh God, you're chosen instruments for the benefits of mankind. 390 00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:34,800 Speaker 1: The dead have never really been silent. From the beginning. 391 00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:39,520 Speaker 1: Spiritualists were quick to point out that miraculous visitations, spirit messages, 392 00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:43,919 Speaker 1: and bedroom apparitions were nothing new. As we discussed in 393 00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:47,160 Speaker 1: the first episode, the fox sisters weren't even the first 394 00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:49,840 Speaker 1: people in the eighteen forties to speak with the spirits 395 00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:54,080 Speaker 1: of the dead. Far from it, here's historian Kathy Gutierrez. 396 00:23:55,320 --> 00:23:59,040 Speaker 1: Scholars do like to throw down about dating spiritualism to 397 00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,199 Speaker 1: the Foxes. There are always women in transits, right. That 398 00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:06,120 Speaker 1: is one of the few cross cultural truisms, and that 399 00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:10,000 Speaker 1: is clearly a way for women to find a way 400 00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:14,640 Speaker 1: to speak powerfully from the margins. What makes Nidsville important, right, 401 00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:18,080 Speaker 1: It's it's a haunting, It's a poltergeist. There were plenty 402 00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:21,919 Speaker 1: of people like the foxes own Hydesville minister who responded 403 00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:25,480 Speaker 1: in their own time worn way with fear, and that 404 00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:28,240 Speaker 1: was just as true in the bigger community of Rochester. 405 00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:32,119 Speaker 1: As the story grew from a whispered rumor to something 406 00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:36,000 Speaker 1: more persistent, local pastors continued to declare that these were 407 00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:40,119 Speaker 1: stories of witchcraft and demonology. Critics who didn't know the 408 00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:42,880 Speaker 1: Foxes the way Isaac and Amy did, well, they had 409 00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:46,480 Speaker 1: their own reaction. They laughed off the stories as a joke. 410 00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:50,240 Speaker 1: But it wasn't just friendship with Leah and Maggie that 411 00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:53,000 Speaker 1: made Amy willing to listen to the spirits. It was 412 00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:58,639 Speaker 1: also her Quaker beliefs. Here's historian and Browdie. Quakers in 413 00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:06,960 Speaker 1: particular had already a notion that the individual contains within 414 00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:12,119 Speaker 1: themselves a perfect transcript of ultimate truth, so we should 415 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:16,280 Speaker 1: look within ourselves to know the mind of God. And 416 00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:19,919 Speaker 1: that notion of what Quakers call the inner Light was 417 00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:24,919 Speaker 1: very close to what spiritualists would do when they looked 418 00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:30,679 Speaker 1: to individual mediums to hear the voices of spirits. So 419 00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:36,240 Speaker 1: the seance had some commonalities with a Quaker meeting, where 420 00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:40,439 Speaker 1: Quakers sit in silence to await the voice of God. 421 00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:45,600 Speaker 1: That's what spiritualists are doing. Also, they're waiting for a 422 00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:49,720 Speaker 1: spirit voice. In fact, you might even say that it 423 00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:53,360 Speaker 1: was these particular Quakers, Amy and Isaac Post who gave 424 00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:57,639 Speaker 1: spiritualism the flavor of Quaker spirituality, because in the days 425 00:25:57,720 --> 00:25:59,920 Speaker 1: after they heard the death knell from Leah's p n 426 00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,840 Speaker 1: know they may have heard the echoes of their own losses, 427 00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:06,280 Speaker 1: their own grief. The friends who advised them well, they 428 00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:09,400 Speaker 1: had also have been pushed out of their Presbyterian congregation 429 00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:12,919 Speaker 1: for campaigning against slavery, and all of them had started 430 00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:17,680 Speaker 1: to spend more time with the Fox sisters. One afternoon, 431 00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:20,040 Speaker 1: when they were all gathered at Amy and Isaac's home, 432 00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:22,880 Speaker 1: they tried to have a deeper conversation with the spirits 433 00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:26,479 Speaker 1: or spirits that were following the girls. Amy would later 434 00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:30,240 Speaker 1: recall watching her friends, a middle aged couple seated beside 435 00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:33,240 Speaker 1: Maggie in rapt attention. She said, it was as though 436 00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,479 Speaker 1: they stood before the judgment seats of God. They were 437 00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:40,840 Speaker 1: asking gentle questions, and the thumps and knocks were answering back. 438 00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:45,000 Speaker 1: A new form of devotion was beginning to take shape. 439 00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:48,800 Speaker 1: Amy and Isaac were beginning to see things in the 440 00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,920 Speaker 1: same way as their friends. We do not get answers 441 00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:55,040 Speaker 1: without one of the sisters present, Isaac wrote in a letter. 442 00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:59,320 Speaker 1: The girls were indeed the instruments of some spiritual power. 443 00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,520 Speaker 1: So Isaac said about devising a system to link the 444 00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:07,240 Speaker 1: tapping sounds to the alphabet, And that's when something even 445 00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:11,440 Speaker 1: more uncanny happened. You see. Leah had started suffering from headaches. 446 00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:14,240 Speaker 1: Isaac guessed that he could offer her some relief through 447 00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:16,840 Speaker 1: one of the common remedies he prepared every week as 448 00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:20,240 Speaker 1: a pharmacist. Amy was also known by her friends to 449 00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:24,080 Speaker 1: have a knowledge of herbal and traditional medicines. But nothing helped. 450 00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:28,199 Speaker 1: Leah continued to groan in pain until Isaac decided to 451 00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:31,560 Speaker 1: try the new science of the mind. He decided to 452 00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,080 Speaker 1: magnetize her. It should come as no surprise that when 453 00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:38,520 Speaker 1: Isaac followed the directions for mesmerism, Leah fell into a 454 00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:41,399 Speaker 1: trance in the dark. She suddenly found that she was 455 00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:44,120 Speaker 1: surrounded by the spirits of the posts, dead loved ones. 456 00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:47,000 Speaker 1: Their young children appeared, a son who had died in 457 00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:50,879 Speaker 1: eighteen forty four, and a daughter dead since eighteen thirty seven, 458 00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:55,159 Speaker 1: and then Amy's dead sister, And this sister had a 459 00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,840 Speaker 1: message to share with Isaac. She wanted him to know 460 00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:00,400 Speaker 1: that she was pleased by their marriage, by their love 461 00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:03,679 Speaker 1: for each other. It was right and good, and we 462 00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:07,240 Speaker 1: can only guess how much this meant to him. But 463 00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:11,040 Speaker 1: the questions came to Amy, and Isaac wanted to believe 464 00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:14,040 Speaker 1: these messages, and wanted to believe that their children were 465 00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:17,400 Speaker 1: content and happy in the spirit world. But how and 466 00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:20,960 Speaker 1: why were these spirits speaking now? What made it possible 467 00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:24,960 Speaker 1: that in past ages spirit visitors were so rare and mysterious, 468 00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:30,600 Speaker 1: while in the spirits could hold such easy conversations, and 469 00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,720 Speaker 1: the spirits didn't mind answering. In fact, in one of 470 00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:36,680 Speaker 1: the first seances, Isaac got an answer to this question 471 00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:40,040 Speaker 1: from the spirits of his dead mother. A reformation is 472 00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:43,120 Speaker 1: going on in the spirit world, she told him. These 473 00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:47,320 Speaker 1: spirits seek the company of honest men. They had messages 474 00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:49,880 Speaker 1: to deliver, and they were reaching out to reformers who 475 00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,120 Speaker 1: would be willing to act on their plans. Amy and 476 00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,600 Speaker 1: Isaac knew just the people. They gathered a small group 477 00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,240 Speaker 1: of friends to meet weekly and take down the messages 478 00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:02,520 Speaker 1: from the other I, Kate, and Maggie would open themselves 479 00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:04,800 Speaker 1: up to the spirits, who would flood the room with 480 00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:08,880 Speaker 1: knocking sounds. Leah would serve as an interpreter. Over the 481 00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,800 Speaker 1: next two years, a host of spirits marched into Amy 482 00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:14,960 Speaker 1: and Isaac's home and spoke to them. Through the Fox Sisters. 483 00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:20,400 Speaker 1: They heard messages from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They 484 00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,520 Speaker 1: heard from Quaker leaders like George Fox, and William Penn. 485 00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,120 Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin even showed up too, and he filled in 486 00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:31,560 Speaker 1: another piece of the puzzle. Death hadn't stopped him from inventing, 487 00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:34,400 Speaker 1: he said, and he had discovered a reliable way for 488 00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:38,080 Speaker 1: the dead to reach out to the living. Back in 489 00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:41,600 Speaker 1: seventeen forty eight, when he was still alive, Franklin had 490 00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:46,000 Speaker 1: sent electrical pulses through a wire across a river outside Philadelphia. 491 00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:50,440 Speaker 1: Exactly one century later, his work had bridged a deeper divide. 492 00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:53,840 Speaker 1: It had only required human instruments who were suitable to 493 00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:57,680 Speaker 1: carry their messages into the land of the living. Instruments 494 00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:02,760 Speaker 1: like Kate and Maggie Fox. These ghostly figures the founders 495 00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:05,400 Speaker 1: of the nation and the religious tradition that gave the 496 00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,160 Speaker 1: Posts their place in the world. They brought a message 497 00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:11,520 Speaker 1: and a challenge. They were dead, but not gone, because 498 00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:15,160 Speaker 1: the Posts who had inherited their work still had much 499 00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:19,240 Speaker 1: to do. In a time when Amy Post, Frederick Douglas, 500 00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:22,920 Speaker 1: and so many others were working diligently to reform society 501 00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:25,840 Speaker 1: in the material world, it somehow made sense to these 502 00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:28,920 Speaker 1: radicals that they would also be greeted by a great reformation. 503 00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:33,720 Speaker 1: Among those living after death. Frederick Douglas even published reports 504 00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:37,800 Speaker 1: about these new spiritual investigations in his paper The North Star. 505 00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:42,840 Speaker 1: Powerful news was heading out into the world. The spirits 506 00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:52,240 Speaker 1: were awake, and they had something to say. The telegraph 507 00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:56,880 Speaker 1: reached Rochester in eighty six. Sure, it was a system 508 00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,600 Speaker 1: under the control of inventors and investors who had profit 509 00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,200 Speaker 1: in mind, but to a city shaped by the religious 510 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:06,080 Speaker 1: revivals of the Second Great Awakening, well, it was as 511 00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:08,600 Speaker 1: much a miracle as it was a machine. In fact, 512 00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,960 Speaker 1: Rochester was the center of interest in building telegraph systems 513 00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,680 Speaker 1: all across the United States, especially for stagecoach operators who 514 00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:19,080 Speaker 1: lost their living with the new canal opened up. Gravity 515 00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,600 Speaker 1: and electricity were new marvels, proved to exist but barely understood. 516 00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:27,760 Speaker 1: Communication over telegraph lines came in code, a series of 517 00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:30,880 Speaker 1: pulses that needed to be interpreted by operators who knew 518 00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:35,560 Speaker 1: the cipher and mesmerists were revealing the previously untapped potential 519 00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:38,880 Speaker 1: of the human mind. What could be better suited to 520 00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:42,160 Speaker 1: these new horizons of science than the tapped out messages 521 00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:45,280 Speaker 1: of the spirits. Right from the start, Isaac post saw 522 00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:48,760 Speaker 1: the similarity. Soon enough, he and his fellow believers were 523 00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:53,520 Speaker 1: calling the Fox Sisters their spiritual telegraph, and they didn't 524 00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:56,680 Speaker 1: fail to connect the spirit rappings to the trans visitations 525 00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:59,680 Speaker 1: that Andrew Jackson Davis was receiving in New York City. 526 00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:04,520 Speaker 1: His book was on sale in Rochester bookshops. By making 527 00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:07,960 Speaker 1: it clear that the spirit of revelation hadn't limited itself 528 00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,560 Speaker 1: to one place. The spirits were everywhere on the move. 529 00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:16,960 Speaker 1: When the news of the mysterious noises reached Andrew Jackson Davis, 530 00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:19,600 Speaker 1: he was hardly surprised. In fact, he would later claim 531 00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:21,920 Speaker 1: that on March thirty one, when the spirits of the 532 00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:25,160 Speaker 1: dead Pedler revealed itself to Kate and Maggie, a voice 533 00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:30,480 Speaker 1: had spoken to him, saying, brother, the good work has begun. Behold, 534 00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:35,840 Speaker 1: a living demonstration is born. Here's Kathy Gutierres once again. 535 00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:40,920 Speaker 1: When he here's about the Fox Sisters and the so 536 00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:46,600 Speaker 1: called mysterious wrappings, he melds his world view with their 537 00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:51,840 Speaker 1: experiential ritual, if you will, and that was the marriage 538 00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:56,680 Speaker 1: that needed happening. He gave theology to their ritual, and 539 00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:02,160 Speaker 1: they brought ritual to his philosophy. As the post practice 540 00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:06,560 Speaker 1: that ritual new manifestations of spirit power appeared. Not only 541 00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:09,000 Speaker 1: did the circle of friends hear rapping sounds, but the 542 00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:12,080 Speaker 1: spirits grew powerful enough to start making the tables move, 543 00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:16,680 Speaker 1: rocking and rotating as the visitors asked questions. The spirits, 544 00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:22,120 Speaker 1: you see, wanted revolution, and they got it too. That July, 545 00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,320 Speaker 1: Amy Post and Frederick Douglas joined their friends and allies 546 00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:28,880 Speaker 1: like Elizabeth Caddy Stanton and Lucretia Mott at the Seneca 547 00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:33,320 Speaker 1: Falls Convention, where they made a landmark declaration of the civil, political, 548 00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:38,720 Speaker 1: and religious rights of women. They were just as concerned 549 00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:43,400 Speaker 1: with their rights in their religious spheres as in the 550 00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:47,360 Speaker 1: civic and political spheres. They cared about whether they could 551 00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:50,640 Speaker 1: vote in their churches as much as whether they could 552 00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:56,560 Speaker 1: vote for the school board or the Senate. That's an 553 00:33:56,640 --> 00:34:01,800 Speaker 1: browdie once again. The very table they right the famous 554 00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:06,760 Speaker 1: Declaration of Sentiments based on the Declaration of Independence that 555 00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:12,839 Speaker 1: gives the first real statement of women's rights in North America. 556 00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,480 Speaker 1: That table, which is now in the Smithsonian, had been 557 00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:21,239 Speaker 1: rocked by spirits at the convention. Frederick Douglas was the 558 00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,120 Speaker 1: only black attendee and the only black signer of the 559 00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:27,680 Speaker 1: Declaration of Sentiments. He published a report on that convention 560 00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,000 Speaker 1: in The North Star, probably declaring that winning equal rights 561 00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:34,160 Speaker 1: for women would be simple justice. It was news that 562 00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:37,160 Speaker 1: drew more and more new neighbors to Rochester who wanted 563 00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:41,000 Speaker 1: to serve the cause, including a young woman named Harriet Jacobs, 564 00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:44,600 Speaker 1: who had escaped from slavery in North Carolina. Here's Molly 565 00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:49,759 Speaker 1: McGarry in Harry Jacob's moved to Rochester to help run 566 00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:52,960 Speaker 1: the anti Slavery Reading Room, which was located above the 567 00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:56,839 Speaker 1: offices where Frederick Douglas published The North Star and at 568 00:34:56,880 --> 00:34:59,880 Speaker 1: that time and probably in that place, Jacobs also be 569 00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:05,160 Speaker 1: gan a lifelong friendship with Amy Post. In fact, Harriet 570 00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:07,719 Speaker 1: had recently left New York City when word reached her 571 00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:10,560 Speaker 1: there that mercenaries were on the way to recapture her. 572 00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:13,600 Speaker 1: When she arrived in Rochester, she was welcomed into Amy 573 00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:16,640 Speaker 1: and Isaac's home, and she joined them around the table 574 00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:22,240 Speaker 1: both for meals and for spiritualist seances. At Amy's urging, 575 00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:25,560 Speaker 1: Harriet began working on her memoir. When it was published, 576 00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:28,279 Speaker 1: her Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl would 577 00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:31,440 Speaker 1: be a landmark in American literature and a boost to 578 00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:35,560 Speaker 1: the abolitionist cause. But the Rochester circle also shared the 579 00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,600 Speaker 1: conviction that the living and the dead were working together 580 00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:42,080 Speaker 1: to launch a new age of spiritual reform. The Spirits 581 00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:44,319 Speaker 1: agreed with them. If they were going to really make 582 00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:46,920 Speaker 1: a change in the world, though, they needed to address 583 00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:51,000 Speaker 1: the public. It started small. Isaac and Amy helped to 584 00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:55,200 Speaker 1: organize sittings with the Fox Sisters, filtering out the unsavory characters, 585 00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,440 Speaker 1: of course, but also keeping the setting harmonious and the 586 00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:03,360 Speaker 1: attendants limited. At demand kept growing. More and more seekers 587 00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,760 Speaker 1: were making their way into Rochester, all while other religious 588 00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:10,680 Speaker 1: experiments were falling flat and communities along the canal were folding, 589 00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:14,400 Speaker 1: looking for guidance, for connection and for the next step 590 00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:17,040 Speaker 1: to take in their lives. People knew to the city 591 00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:19,520 Speaker 1: were open to something that could be seen and heard, 592 00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:25,000 Speaker 1: something that could be witnessed. After a year of closed sittings, 593 00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:27,960 Speaker 1: the Spirits spoke up. They were ready for a wider 594 00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,400 Speaker 1: audience in a private seance just for the Posts. The 595 00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:35,640 Speaker 1: Spirits spoke through Leah, telling Isaac to rent Rochester's Corinthian 596 00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:39,520 Speaker 1: Hall for a whole three nights for the first time ever. 597 00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:42,560 Speaker 1: They were going to throw the doors open wide to 598 00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:46,640 Speaker 1: a paying crowd. It was time for the Spirits to 599 00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:54,359 Speaker 1: take the stage. They had no trouble getting the word out. 600 00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:58,399 Speaker 1: When November four arrived, over four hundred people crowded into 601 00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:02,080 Speaker 1: Rochester's Corinthian Hall. They'd come to hear for themselves whether 602 00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,680 Speaker 1: the mysterious noises were a divine revelation or just a 603 00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:09,680 Speaker 1: back country ruse. The first person to take the stage 604 00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,640 Speaker 1: was Eliab Caprin, another excommunicated Quaker as well as a 605 00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,840 Speaker 1: friend of the Posts, a utopian socialist, and a fellow 606 00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:20,200 Speaker 1: member of the anti slavery movement. It was his task 607 00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:22,560 Speaker 1: to describe in full what had happened around the Fox 608 00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:26,040 Speaker 1: Sisters from Hydesville to the Post's home, and to prepare 609 00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:29,880 Speaker 1: the way for Amy and the girls. Amy Post waited 610 00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,080 Speaker 1: in the wings while he spoke. It was a time 611 00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:34,919 Speaker 1: when women still couldn't speak in public without first being 612 00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:37,920 Speaker 1: introduced by a man, and I can imagine the words 613 00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:41,640 Speaker 1: of the Declaration of Sentiments echoing in her mind. Compelled 614 00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:44,680 Speaker 1: to submit to law in the formation of which she 615 00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,560 Speaker 1: had no voice, Amy was doing everything she could to 616 00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:53,640 Speaker 1: change that. After Eliob finished speaking, Amy Post stepped to 617 00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:56,600 Speaker 1: the front. She was no stranger to crowds in that city, 618 00:37:56,680 --> 00:38:01,000 Speaker 1: whether hospitable or hostile, and Moments later, Leah Fish joined 619 00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:03,759 Speaker 1: her with her sisters Kate and Maggie Fox in tow 620 00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:08,399 Speaker 1: Then they took their seats around Eliob and began their demonstration. 621 00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:13,920 Speaker 1: Here's Nancy Stewart, the press is there, one of Horace 622 00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,920 Speaker 1: Greeley's reporters there from New York. There are other reporters 623 00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:20,000 Speaker 1: there from the Rochester papers an elsewhere upstate New York. 624 00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:23,920 Speaker 1: And there's a committee appointed to examine the girls, particularly 625 00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:27,839 Speaker 1: Leiah and Maggie at this point, to find out they're 626 00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:33,520 Speaker 1: making these sons with their body. The audience themselves selected 627 00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:37,440 Speaker 1: their own skeptics for the committee. They included doctors, lawyers, 628 00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,120 Speaker 1: and even a judge who had attended the meeting. The 629 00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:43,920 Speaker 1: panels would observe private sciences in the afternoons and report 630 00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:47,880 Speaker 1: back to the audience in the evening. One group committee 631 00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,719 Speaker 1: of ladies was chosen to take the Fox sisters into 632 00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:53,279 Speaker 1: a room where the girls were stripped and subjected to 633 00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:57,720 Speaker 1: minute examination, like a jury of seventeenth century Salem women 634 00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:01,240 Speaker 1: looking for witch marks. Even as the girls were bundled 635 00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:05,640 Speaker 1: and bound in various uncomfortable positions, the knocking sounds continued 636 00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,520 Speaker 1: to fall on the floor all around them each night. 637 00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:13,000 Speaker 1: The panels announced that they were and I quote, unable 638 00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:16,080 Speaker 1: to discover any fraud or trick by which the girls 639 00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:19,080 Speaker 1: produced the raps. In fact, they began to witness even 640 00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:22,920 Speaker 1: more unsettling things. Once, when the committee had gathered around 641 00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:25,600 Speaker 1: the table with the girls, it started to turn beneath 642 00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,680 Speaker 1: their hands, just as Isaac and Amy had witnessed before. 643 00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:32,200 Speaker 1: One of the men, thinking that it was a simple trick, 644 00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:35,360 Speaker 1: asked everyone to leave the table and stand against the walls. 645 00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:38,080 Speaker 1: Then he asked the spirits to turn the table again. 646 00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:43,040 Speaker 1: At his request, it began slowly to spin, as if 647 00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:47,520 Speaker 1: it were being moved by unseen hands. Naturally, it all 648 00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:50,520 Speaker 1: made for quite a show. Reports were splashed across the 649 00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:54,600 Speaker 1: regional papers. Elliot Capron began begging Margaret Fox to let 650 00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:57,359 Speaker 1: him take her daughters on the road and share their 651 00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:00,640 Speaker 1: revelation with the world. When the spirits were asked, they 652 00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:05,680 Speaker 1: knocked their approval. For years, the news from Rochester and 653 00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:08,480 Speaker 1: the Frontier Farms had reached New York with the latest 654 00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:12,359 Speaker 1: on radical organizing and new arguments for women's equality in 655 00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:16,719 Speaker 1: black freedom. Now, though the political and intellectual reputation of 656 00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:20,080 Speaker 1: Rochester rested in the hands of three young women and 657 00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:24,640 Speaker 1: a new phenomenon that demanded attention at the crossroads of science, spirituality, 658 00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:31,680 Speaker 1: political philosophy, and not least of all, entertaining spectacle. If 659 00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:34,600 Speaker 1: they decided to travel with Capron purely because he had 660 00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:37,719 Speaker 1: a flair for the dramatic, they didn't choose wrong. Under 661 00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:40,880 Speaker 1: his guidance, the Foxes rented rooms at A. S. Barnum's 662 00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:44,320 Speaker 1: Hotel in New York City. Then he launched the marketing blitz, 663 00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:49,000 Speaker 1: peppering New York's streets with advertisements for public demonstrations, which 664 00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,000 Speaker 1: would be held three times a day, and the price 665 00:40:52,040 --> 00:41:00,920 Speaker 1: for admission just one dollar. Aidan Blue rejoiced. He welcomed 666 00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:05,000 Speaker 1: the arrival of spiritualism to his utopian community, Hopedale. In fact, 667 00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:07,840 Speaker 1: it's not so much that spiritualism became a movement, but 668 00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:11,200 Speaker 1: rather that it came into one. The first groups to 669 00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:13,799 Speaker 1: get word of the revelations were the Quaker communities in 670 00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:18,120 Speaker 1: Long Island, Nantucket, Philadelphia, and across New York State. Elliot 671 00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:21,200 Speaker 1: Capron's Auburn Circle, for instance, had long been home to 672 00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:24,320 Speaker 1: an interest in mesmerism and magnetic healing. In the years 673 00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:28,200 Speaker 1: before those spiritual instruments recruited him as a stage manager. 674 00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:32,879 Speaker 1: The other early adopters across the US were other utopian communities, 675 00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:36,520 Speaker 1: North Star subscribers, and others who had already had connections 676 00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:41,400 Speaker 1: to Rochester through speaking tours, newspapers, and abolitionist visions. But 677 00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:45,640 Speaker 1: that was only the beginning. News of the spirit contact 678 00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:49,279 Speaker 1: in Rochester spread along the channels between like minded communities 679 00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:54,080 Speaker 1: of reformers, disaffected ministers, and religious innovators in the United States, 680 00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:57,440 Speaker 1: channels that have first been opened by Andrew Jackson. Davis's 681 00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:02,360 Speaker 1: transvisions of divine harmony were quickly spread west, reaching towns 682 00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:07,320 Speaker 1: in Indiana, Ohio, and beyond from his home in Massachusetts. 683 00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:10,919 Speaker 1: In Hopeedale, Aidan Balu tracked this progress. He was still 684 00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:14,280 Speaker 1: writing those sermons and essays that rallied others to his cause. 685 00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,279 Speaker 1: Any and every subject that fell in front of the 686 00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:21,640 Speaker 1: radical x universalist received a lengthy treatment, and in time 687 00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:26,040 Speaker 1: spiritualism was no different. It offered his community a fresh wind, 688 00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,360 Speaker 1: a new source of truth, and a beacon fire around 689 00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:33,120 Speaker 1: which the hungry souls of his flock could gather. Among 690 00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:35,720 Speaker 1: them were a couple named David and lo Denzis Scott, 691 00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:38,279 Speaker 1: who had been charmed by Aiden's vision of living out 692 00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:42,280 Speaker 1: a practical Christianity. They were in Hopedale when the community 693 00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:45,560 Speaker 1: started to experiment with trance sittings and attempts to contact 694 00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:48,560 Speaker 1: the spirits of the dead, and strange things started to 695 00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:52,759 Speaker 1: happen when the believers gathered together at the same time. 696 00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:56,600 Speaker 1: Though Aiden came to David with an idea, Hopeedale, you see, 697 00:42:57,040 --> 00:42:59,279 Speaker 1: was full. In fact, they were running out of land 698 00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:01,480 Speaker 1: for all the new peace bolt trickling in. So the 699 00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:03,560 Speaker 1: two men drew up a plan to launch a new 700 00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:06,479 Speaker 1: branch of Hopeedale farther to the west in the state 701 00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:09,719 Speaker 1: of Wisconsin. It was rich with oak groves and well 702 00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:13,120 Speaker 1: watered meadows, so they had heard, and David and Lodenza, 703 00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:16,279 Speaker 1: along with their children in tow, would serve as Hopeedale's 704 00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:20,799 Speaker 1: advance party. When winter finally cleared in early eighteen fifty one, 705 00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:23,959 Speaker 1: they boarded a steamer called the Globe and headed toward 706 00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:26,440 Speaker 1: the town of Waterloo to put the plan in motion. 707 00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:30,879 Speaker 1: That plan, though it was about to change. You see. 708 00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,160 Speaker 1: David and Lidenza's children were along for the ride, including 709 00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:37,399 Speaker 1: their youngest daughter, Cora, and her life was in many 710 00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:40,120 Speaker 1: ways like those of the Fox girls. A ten year 711 00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:42,800 Speaker 1: old who had been carried from town to farm and 712 00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:45,360 Speaker 1: then back to town as her parents had tried to 713 00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,960 Speaker 1: find their place in the American landscape. But in the 714 00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:52,600 Speaker 1: fall of eighteen fifty one, a visitation would strike her 715 00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:57,000 Speaker 1: like lightning, an unexpected power that would transform her into 716 00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:01,360 Speaker 1: something new. Going forward, she would be a guiding voice 717 00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:05,759 Speaker 1: and a central figure in the world of spiritualism, and 718 00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:11,000 Speaker 1: would be for the rest of the century. That's it 719 00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:15,080 Speaker 1: for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around after this 720 00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:18,400 Speaker 1: short sponsor break for a preview of what's in store 721 00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:25,960 Speaker 1: for next week. Next time on Unobscured, suddenly the table 722 00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:30,680 Speaker 1: started to turn beneath their hands. Some of the guests 723 00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:33,279 Speaker 1: were startled and ducked under the table to see if 724 00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:36,360 Speaker 1: anyone was pushing it around. Even though the table was 725 00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:40,000 Speaker 1: large and heavy, it rotated smoothly until the group lifted 726 00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:44,200 Speaker 1: their hands off of it, and then it stopped. William Hayden, 727 00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:46,880 Speaker 1: convinced it was a trick, gripped the table with his 728 00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:49,600 Speaker 1: hands and tried to turn it using his own strength, 729 00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:54,160 Speaker 1: but it wouldn't budge until he let go. That is, then, 730 00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:57,040 Speaker 1: even though no one was touching it anymore, the table 731 00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:01,360 Speaker 1: resumed spinning, this time faster than before. William tried to 732 00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:03,400 Speaker 1: grab the table to make a stop, but when that 733 00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:06,640 Speaker 1: didn't work, he climbed underneath it and wrapped his arms 734 00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:10,240 Speaker 1: around the table legs. It dragged him in a slow 735 00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:30,840 Speaker 1: circle across the floor. Unobscured was created by me Aaron 736 00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:34,240 Speaker 1: Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh 737 00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:38,080 Speaker 1: Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio. Research and writing 738 00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:40,120 Speaker 1: for this season is all the work of my right 739 00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:43,480 Speaker 1: hand man Carl Nellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed 740 00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:47,480 Speaker 1: the brand new soundtrack. Learn more about our contributing historians, 741 00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:50,719 Speaker 1: source material and links to our other shows over at 742 00:45:50,800 --> 00:46:00,360 Speaker 1: History unobscured dot com and until next time, thanks for listening. Yeah. 743 00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:06,160 Speaker 1: Unobscured is a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Menkey. 744 00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:08,440 Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit I heart 745 00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:10,880 Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 746 00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:26,400 Speaker 1: favorite shows. H