WEBVTT - S2 – 2: Instruments 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.800 Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.440 It was six blocks from Amy's house to the publishing office. 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:17.680 In the morning, she and Isaac would even walk together. 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.000 His pharmacy was only one block farther. I like to 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.720 picture them walking side by side, Isaac's neatly trim beard 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.760 worn in what today might be called an Amish style, 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.040 and with a winter as cold as the one in 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.880 February of eighty eight, Amy no doubt would have worn 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:38.960 a heavy rap when they reached Buffalo Street, today's main 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:42.320 street in Rochester. We might imagine Amy holding a gloved 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.280 hand up to wave. As Isaac continued on to open 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:49.280 the pharmacy, where he filled prescriptions from Rochester's doctors and 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:54.280 sold oils, paints, dyes, salves, and various instruments. Amy would 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.120 have stepped into the publishing office for the North Star. 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.480 There was plenty of work to do. Through the doors, 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.600 Amy passed the office where Frederick Douglas and his business 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.000 partner William c Nell were preparing the print the next issue. 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.000 The summer before, Douglas had traveled west through Pennsylvania as 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.959 far as Ohio, where he had been mocked attacked and 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.200 run off stages by white mobs. But across the Midwest 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.520 he had also been welcomed by black communities, and Douglas 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.960 knew he needed to continue supporting them. Rather than retreat 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.440 to Boston, Douglas moved to Rochester, the point between the 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.440 coast and the frontier where the message could fly out 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:36.360 to a nation. When Amy stepped into the printing office, 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:38.679 she could have asked Douglas how his family was doing. 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.640 His wife, Anna had just arrived in Rochester with their 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.360 three boys. Isaac had even helped them move into their 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.240 small apartment downtown, where they would live until they found 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:51.280 a suitable house. After a chat with Frederick, Amy most 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:54.200 likely climbed the stairs to the second floor and unlocked 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.720 the new reading Room, an office for the Western New 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:01.920 York Antislavery Society. It was part library, part consignment shop, 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:06.160 where Amy worked with friends to plan meetings, supply local families, 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:10.280 and raise funds for anti slavery projects. Because she supported 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.440 Frederick's cause at every turn, and he supported hers as well. 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.640 You see, while Amy was working with the Anti Slavery Society, 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.400 she was also on the cusp of something new. She 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:26.320 and her friends like Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth County Stanton 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:28.880 were about to put out a call for a convention 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.760 to discuss equal rights for women. Frederick Douglas would immediately 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.960 print their announcement in The North Star. From the beginning, 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.640 the papers front page carried the declaration that right is 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:43.440 of no sex, truth is of no color. God is 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:49.600 the father of us all. The North Star embodied the 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.800 fusion of movements at the center of Rochester life, and 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.400 Frederick Douglas and Amy Post both knew that they were 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.679 working at an amazing time. Thanks in no small part 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.560 to their efforts, the year would leave its mark on history. 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:09.119 Here's historian Molly McGarry. In the year alone, revolutions ignited 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.119 across the world, from France to Brazil, but also from 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:18.840 Sicily to the Austrian Empire, and revolutions swept the globe 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:22.480 during that year. Also in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:26.000 published the Communist Manifesto, opening with the line a specter 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.280 is haunting Europe, the specter of communism. And in that 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:31.760 same year, two young girls heard communicates from a very 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:35.520 different sort of specter, giving rise to great different revolution. 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.840 Had been a year full of surprises for many people, 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:48.520 but there was still one more on its way. This 0:03:49.080 --> 0:04:27.680 is unobscured. I'm Aaron Mankey. It started as a small 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.120 frontier village. In fact, the majority of its first settlers 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.039 were black when it was founded by Nathaniel Rochester and 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:36.960 the twelve people he kept in slavery. In fact, less 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.480 than two decades before Amy and Isaac arrived, Rochester had 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:44.680 been home to just over one thousand people, surrounded by 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.560 fertile land. Though Rochester was a bread basket, grain mills 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.560 popped up in clouds of fresh flower, and by eighteen 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.279 thirty four, when it was officially chartered as a city, 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:58.599 Rochester had become home to thirteen thousand people. The city 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.480 was booming, and that was due in large part to 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:06.000 the Erie Canal. Here's author and journalist Nancy Ruben Stewart 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.080 Upstate New York in particular, it was a very prosperous 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.839 area because the every canal had opened, and so all 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.599 the produce and all the furs and all kinds of 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:19.440 other things that were coming from the north could now 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.920 come down through the canal into the Hudson and down 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.159 to New York City. The farmland in the region made 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:27.800 it ideal for communities like the Quakers who wanted a 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.200 place where they could live on their own. So as 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:34.200 Rochester shipped out new tons of flower, the radical ideas 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.640 growing in that same soil traveled with them. Here's Molly 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:42.159 McGarry once again. Douglas's North Star Circle in Rochester was 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:46.679 a key center in a global movement for freedom, and 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.760 that newspaper is crucially important. Douglass organizing was important, but 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.080 there are also figures like Harriet Jacobs, who went on 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.039 to write Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 0:05:56.080 --> 0:06:01.320 who landed in Rochester. At the same time, while Isaac 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.320 and Amy worked with Frederick Douglas at home in Rochester, 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:08.279 Isaac's brother served as the North Stars reporter on Long Island. 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:12.480 Through growing networks of friends, family, and correspondence, the cities 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.960 around the Northeastern United States were becoming more and more connected. 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.039 Of course, boomtowns don't make for the most stable homes. 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.200 When communities along the Erie Canal swelled with the ranks 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.440 of new residents moving inland, it made life around Rochester 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.720 difficult for families who wanted to establish farms and make 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.440 a life for themselves. People like John and his wife Margaret. 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.080 When they put down stakes in the eighteen twenties, John 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:39.040 fell in with a crowd of other men who arrived 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.640 hoping to strike it rich, and he picked up their 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:46.760 habits too, liquor cards, gambling on horse races. What little 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.800 money John and Margaret brought with them vanished into the night, 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:55.640 and soon enough John along with it. Now abandoned, Margaret 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.599 had retreated to Rochester, where her sister offered her a 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.120 room to stay in. She did her best to raise 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.600 four children without their father, including the oldest Leah, and 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.440 a son named David, but it was a hard life. 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.800 Margaret's heart broke as Leah was entrapped by an older 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.840 man when she was just fourteen. He only stayed long 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:16.760 enough for Leah to take his last name Fish and 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.680 give birth to their daughter, before he tossed Leah aside 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:25.119 and traveled farther west. Eventually, John returned, arriving in town, 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.040 and he had a new outlook on life. A revival 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.080 preacher had swept through the countryside, and it brought the 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.960 man to his knees. He rejoined his wife and children 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:37.480 in Rochester, determined to rekindle their dream of farming their 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:42.000 own plot of land. David and Leah stayed behind in 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.680 Rochester while John and Maggie crossed Lake Ontario into Canada. 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.440 This time, John was determined not to get sidetracked, and 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.160 they started that new farm, but they started a new 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.760 family as well. Margaret gave birth to two more daughters 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.600 in the eighteen thirties, who they named Maggie and Kate. 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.960 But the fire of John his new religious devotion couldn't 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:04.800 thaw that cold earth. After scraping out what they could 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:08.320 from the Canadian soil and missing their older children, they 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:13.040 returned to Rochester's embrace in eighteen forty four. That's when 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.040 they found themselves welcomed by Isaac and Amy Post, who 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.960 hosted them on Sophia Street. The families became fast friends. 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.080 Maggie and Kate also got to know their older sister, Leah, 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.840 and Maggie bonded with Amy Post. The older Quaker woman 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.520 working so hard to bring a new world into being, 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.800 somehow found time in the midst of organizing to offer 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:37.680 attention to the younger daughters of an unstable family. For 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.160 a while, John was able to support the family as 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.559 a blacksmith, but the lure of working the land continued 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.240 to call, and by the mid eighteen forties, John and 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:48.600 Margaret's son, David, was a man with a family of 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.840 his own. After growing up in the city with Margaret, 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.280 he'd inherited a farm from an uncle in Arcadia, New York, 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.240 and eventually moved there with his wife and three children. 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.800 A host of relatives live within only a few miles. 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.359 A new center of gravity for the family began to form, 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.439 and it drew John and Margaret out into the countryside 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.840 more and more often. It did, not, however, have the 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.200 same appeal for young Maggie and Kate. During one visit 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.400 in eighteen forty seven, John and Margaret sat down with 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.119 David to discuss life in the country. Despite all their setbacks, 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:25.760 their eyes still lit up when they thought about living 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.920 in the rolling pastures. From her chair in the corner, 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.640 Maggie saw how much this dream meant to her father, 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:36.360 but for her it only despired creeping dread those rolling hills. 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.280 To her, they were crushingly dull. To her friend and mentor, 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.320 Amy Post. Maggie eventually wrote, I love the noise and 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.360 confusion of the city. I am like the woman who 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:50.679 becomes so accustomed to her husband snoring that I could 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.400 not go to sleep without it. If their mother saw 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.079 any of Leah in fourteen year old Maggie, the girl's 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.000 talk of husbands would only have made Margaret more determined 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.320 and to move the family out of the city. So 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.120 Maggie must have been upset when David told the family 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.360 that the Hides, who owned most of the land around 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:11.920 David's farm, needed a new blacksmith. In December of that year, 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.920 John and Margaret packed up fourteen year old Maggie and 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.640 ten year old Kate, alongside what furniture and tools they had, 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:22.080 and took a wagon out on Wayne country Road, and 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.320 in doing so, they left the Posts and their circle 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:34.320 of radical friends behind for now, at least. It was 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.040 already winter. There was plenty of land on David's farm 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.200 to build a second house for his parents, but there 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.760 just wasn't time. So John and Margaret made a fateful decision. 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:46.560 They rented a little house from the Hides to wait 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.880 out the season. It was hardly more than a single 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.680 story box, but it would suit the family's needs for 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.800 the few cold months. John liked that it was conveniently 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:58.199 located near the Hides Forge and the rest of the 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.760 family appreciated the two stone is that would keep the 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.839 house warm. There was even a basement and attic and 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:06.439 a buttery off the kitchen, which meant a few nooks 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.400 and crannies to keep their belongings out from underfoot while 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:13.040 they hunkered down under the New York's nose. But the 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.480 girls there were also new chores, hauling water and wood, 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.960 helping their parents clear the snow. Other than that, though, 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.440 there was very little else for a teenager like Maggie 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:26.040 to do besides attend the local Methodist Episcopal church and 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.640 the red clabored schoolhouse in the neighborhood. Those long cold 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.800 days left her dreaming of city life, dreaming of some company. 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:38.040 Here's Nancy Stewart once again. The whole family had come 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:41.120 from Rochester. So you have this fifteen year old board 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.600 Maggie Fox. She wants to be back in Rochester. She's 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.720 a teenager, obviously, uh and Katie who will a little 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.479 sister will follow her. And the mother is so superstitious, 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:52.720 and they'd live in this old farmhouse and they start 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.400 thinking about, well, who lived there before? People lived here before? 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:01.640 Did people die here before? Maggie's loneliness Maybe why John 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.439 and Margaret decided to add one more to their household. 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.960 Sometime after they arrived, they brought Leah's teenage daughter to 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.880 come stay with them in Hydesville. She was only slightly 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.760 older than Maggie herself, so maybe she could keep the 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.480 girls occupied. And it was on one of those first 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.120 nights during their cousins stay in Hydesville that the Fox 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:24.040 family first heard the strange sounds. Creaking eaves and running 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.440 mice were all sounds they would have been familiar with, 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:28.800 but the sounds they began to hear at night were 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.960 something different, something strange that they couldn't quite place. A 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:35.440 series of thumps in the room where the family would 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.960 lay down to sleep, almost as if someone was walking around. 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.400 Then the sounds moved into the wall. It was as 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.080 if someone was standing beside the beds where they slept, 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.559 knocking on the bed frame with an invisible hand. At 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:51.880 one point, while trying to figure out where the sounds 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:55.520 were coming from, John stood outside the bedroom while Margaret 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.920 stood inside. Suddenly the knocks rang out again, this time 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.800 from the door between them. A few months later, Maggie 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:05.760 would tell a lawyer that on the first night they 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.400 heard the rapping, they all got up, lit candles and 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.640 searched the house from top to bottom. The noise continued 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.400 while they were hunting, always coming from the same place 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.199 in the bedroom. It wasn't loud, but it was as 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.240 real as anything she'd ever heard. It shook the beds 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:22.959 and chairs too. In fact, when she held her hands 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.360 against the bed frame, she said, there was a feeling 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:30.240 of what she described as tremulous motion. But that was 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.880 only the beginning. In mid March, Maggie and Kate said 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:36.480 goodbye to their cousin, who went back to her mother, 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.400 Leah in the city. Just before things exploded into action 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.440 on the night of Friday, March thirty one. Margaret said 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:46.880 that the family was determined to get a good night's rest, 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.080 so they decided to go to bed early. She was 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.440 anxious about the strange noises, but she set her jaw 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.880 and pulled up the covers. They were all still awake 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:01.640 when the noises began. At Margaret later described it. Kate 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:03.840 was the first to sit up in bed, and she 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:06.480 decided that when the knocks came, she would snap her 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:10.320 fingers in response. Come they did, and right on cue, 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:14.760 Kate snapped her fingers then, and this is what began 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:20.520 to really startle Margaret, the rapping sounds replied. Maggie sat 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.640 up too, and said out loud into the air, now 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:28.280 do as I do, count one, two, three, four, clapping along. 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:32.240 In time, the knocking sounds obeyed her, which left Maggie 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:37.120 frozen by fear and the girls silent. And that's when 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.920 their mother took over. She asked aloud that if the 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.920 sound was a spirit, it should knock twice. After a breath, 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.560 two knocks rang out, with the girls silent in the 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:51.680 opposite bed, Margaret haltingly asked a series of questions, and 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:56.880 each time the knocks answered her. Through these responses, they 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.080 learned that the specter had once been a thirty one 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:02.400 year old man. And as more and more details followed, 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.440 I can only imagine the panic that caught in Margaret's throat. 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:09.280 He'd been killed just two years before, he claimed, right 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:13.560 there in their house. When John stepped into the room, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.400 he found his daughters paralyzed by fear and his wife 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.640 shouting questions to the wall. But he heard it too, 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.760 her questions, the knocking sounds answering back all of it, 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.480 and the couple knew that whatever they were witnessing it 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.640 was beyond them, so John bundled up and set out 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.520 to fetch the nearest neighbors. When he returned, he and 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:36.400 the neighbor found the girls still in bed, still terrified, 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.640 and still clinging to each other. With more witnesses in 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.760 the room, Margaret asked the same series of questions and 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.840 got the same answers as before. By the end of 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.160 the night, a total of four families had been called 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.840 to the Fox's house, including the Hides and their adult son, David, 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:55.680 and before long they were all communicating with the knocking sound. 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.680 Through their questions, they sketched out a picture of the 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.400 man life and his death. The listeners crowded into the 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:05.680 room as the spirit wrapped out that he had been 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.200 a traveling pedlar, and that he had been murdered in 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.480 that very bedroom, his throat cut with a butcher's knife 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.160 before his body was buried beneath the dirt floor of 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:18.640 the cellar. The information set the group in motion. They 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.040 did with so many following waves of spiritualists would do too. 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:26.080 They put the spirit to the test. John, his son David, 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:28.480 and the Hides all went down to the cellar to 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.400 start digging. But the first weeks of spring of eighteen 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.480 forty eight had been wet. Their shovels sank into the 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:38.280 damp cellar floor and water oozed up, making any attempt 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.360 at discovery impossible. For the moment. With a story of 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.160 such a gruesome crime hanging in the air, the mood 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.000 that first night must have been somber. Fear and curiosity, 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:54.320 fascination and confusion, attired and dirty circle of neighbors asking 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.800 themselves if they'd really been speaking with the spirit, what 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.280 had they witnessed in the middle of that spring night. 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.200 It didn't take long for it to become clear that 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:09.080 something irresistible had burst forth. Word got out. Less than 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:12.080 two weeks later, John said that hundreds had already visited 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.119 the house. Among them was a lawyer who rushed to 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:19.159 Hydesville on April eleven and started taking statements from the witnesses. 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.760 John told him that curious visitors were coming so often 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:24.879 that he couldn't even work at the forge, and his 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:28.120 family no longer had time to cook, clean and live 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:32.720 their daily lives. Maggie, though, must have loved it, but 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:35.679 John was still at a loss regarding the eerie phenomenon. 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.720 After two weeks of deep consternation, and scrutiny. He still 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:43.280 couldn't make up his mind about the sounds. He desperately 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:47.280 wanted to view them as something natural and explainable, which 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:51.560 was certainly the more sane path to take. The alternative, though, 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:56.840 while a lot less believable, was also more frightening. Something 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:05.520 supernatural was at work. Leah Fish hovered over the piano 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.679 bench her students plunked out the basics that she was 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:12.359 teaching them upright. Pianos were the centerpiece of every middle 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.800 class parlor, and Leah had carved out a living for 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.480 herself and her daughter by guiding the children of aspiring 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:22.679 Rochester families through the foundational elements of music. It was 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:26.280 a respectable profession for a single mother, one of only 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:30.159 a few that were. On that morning in May, the 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:33.360 music lesson was interrupted when a student's mother rushed into 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.239 the room and pulled Leah aside. She was followed by 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.040 a man who had just come from a visit to 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.840 see Leah's parents in Hydesville. With the introduction barely made, 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.080 he flipped open a fat notebook and started peppering her 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.080 with questions. But Leah had no idea what the man 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:52.160 was talking about. To answer her he introduced a set 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.040 of freshly printed pages. It was a pamphlet with the 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:59.720 headline Mysterious Noises, which reported on the various statements that 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.560 he had taken in Hydesville. It was the first that 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:07.359 Leah had heard of the uncanny visitation. Within a few hours, though, Leah, 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.320 her daughter, and two friends were all on an overnight 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:14.120 package delivery boat steaming down the Erie Canal towards Hydesville. 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.000 Leah found her parents home abandoned. They had taken up 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.879 shelter at David's house nearby, and when Leah arrived, she 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.920 saw a ragged Margaret with a bible clutched to her chest. 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.560 The family had been thrown out of the local Methodist 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.880 Episcopal church. Word had gone around that Little Kate said 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.000 the spirit's name was Mr. Splitfoot, and the story had 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:39.960 shocked the minister. Blasphemy, he had said, devil worship. The 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.600 whispers were flying throughout the neighborhood. The blacksmith had brought 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.199 hammer and tongs to Hydesville, they all said, But he 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:49.560 had also brought something else too, his two daughters and 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.840 their bond with Satan. The church had accused the family 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.800 of witchcraft before telling them to leave and not come back. 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:00.159 Perhaps there wasn't much distance between Rochester and sale him. 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.320 After all, Leah and her parents put their heads together, 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:06.800 they all agreed that the girls should be split up. 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.760 If the spirit was real, maybe he was attracted to 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:12.960 one of the sisters in particular. Guessing that it was Kate, 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:15.679 they decided she would be the one to leave the farm. 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.480 Leah worked quickly, taking her youngest sister back to Rochester 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:24.080 with her. Separating the sisters didn't stop the troubles, though 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.000 years later Leah would publish an account of what happened 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.080 when they reached the city. The girls, she said, were 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.720 too scared to sleep alone that night, so Lea brought 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:35.520 them both into her bed before she could fall asleep, 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.840 though their screams of fear broke the silence. With Kate 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.280 in the bed beside them, her daughter said a cold 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.320 hand had passed over her face, and then another crept 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.720 down her back. Leah leapt for her Bible and began 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:51.399 to read it out loud, but as she would later recall, 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:55.040 the girls continued to feel something unseen touch their bodies. 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.080 When Leah put out the light and slid the Bible 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.040 under her pillow, something pushed it back out and onto 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.639 the floor. They had no peace and no sleep until 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.040 the light of dawn started to filter through the window 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.879 and the room fell blissfully silent. But other voices would 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.040 fill that silence as the Fox family tried to adjust 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:17.119 to their new life. That energetic lawyer wasted no time 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.440 distributing his pamphlet throughout the city. He had the sense 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.439 that a printed report of the rumors, full of eyewitness 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.040 interviews that he himself had recorded, would fly off the shelves, 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.800 and his instincts proved correct. His pamphlet, called Report of 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.919 the Mysterious Noises Heard in the House of John D. 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.800 Fox in Hydesville, poured fuel on the whispers, helping the 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:42.600 news spread like wildfire. But when Amy and Isaac Post 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.760 first heard the rumors about the hauntings in Hydesville, they laughed. 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:48.679 In a letter from that November, Isaac would tell a 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.880 relative that at first he and Amy paid no more 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.200 heed to the news than to the old Salem witch stories. 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.240 He said. Leah would write that the Posts had and 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:03.320 I quote, no little amusement at our expense. In reality, though, 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:06.960 Amy and Isaac were torn between two opinions because their 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:11.720 dismissive chuckles were slowly giving way to concern. Was it possible, 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:15.200 They asked themselves that the girls and their mother were 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:20.800 suffering under some psychological delusion, But they changed their tune. 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:23.600 A short while later, when Isaac and Amy dropped by 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:26.480 Leah's house to check in on their young friend, they 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:29.840 found the household in a panic. You see that piano 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:32.840 where Leah taught her music lessons. Well, the instrument was 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:35.720 closed and locked because it was the evening, and yet 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:40.399 it was somehow still playing music. One sound in particular too, 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:45.600 a low base key solemn and distinct, slowly tolling like 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:49.639 a death kneel. It shot the Posts so much that 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.159 they went out and brought back another couple to observe 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:57.280 the scene. Close friends, fellow abolitionists, and fellow Quakers. These 0:22:57.280 --> 0:23:00.639 were the post's most trusted advisors, just kind of people 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:03.000 Isaac and Amy would want helping out in such a 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:06.639 sort of mystery. When they arrived, they settled in to 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:09.400 watch the piano, and then they listened as the note 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:13.200 continued to play. In response, they fell to their knees 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:16.720 and started to pray, their hands opening to Leah and 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:20.479 the girls as they said out loud, sustaining this family. 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:25.359 Oh God, you're chosen instruments for the benefits of mankind. 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:34.800 The dead have never really been silent. From the beginning. 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:39.520 Spiritualists were quick to point out that miraculous visitations, spirit messages, 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:43.919 and bedroom apparitions were nothing new. As we discussed in 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:47.160 the first episode, the fox sisters weren't even the first 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:49.840 people in the eighteen forties to speak with the spirits 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:54.080 of the dead. Far from it, here's historian Kathy Gutierrez. 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:59.040 Scholars do like to throw down about dating spiritualism to 0:23:59.200 --> 0:24:02.199 the Foxes. There are always women in transits, right. That 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:06.120 is one of the few cross cultural truisms, and that 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:10.000 is clearly a way for women to find a way 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:14.640 to speak powerfully from the margins. What makes Nidsville important, right, 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:18.080