Talking to the Dead (36 page)

2.
A Searcher After Truth,
The Rappers; or, The Mysteries, Fallacies, and Absurdities of Spirit-Rapping, Table-Tipping, and Entrancement
(New York: H. Long, 1854?), 138–40; see also
Spiritual Telegraph
1 (1852).

3.
Margaret Fox Kane,
The Love-Life of Dr. Kane
(New York: Carlton, 1866), 159.

4.
Robert Patterson Kane to Cornelius Grinnell, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. David Chapin called my attention to this letter in “Exploring Other Worlds: Margaret Fox, Elisha Kent Kane, and the Culture of Curiosity” (PhD diss., University of New Hampshire, 2000).

5.
Maggie Fox to E. K. Kane, undated, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. Maggie mentions the death of Samuel Leiper, which would date the letter sometime in the late winter or early spring of 1854.

6.
Maggie Fox to Cornelius Grinnell, April 10, 1854, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

7.
Maggie Fox to Cornelius Grinnell, November 4, 1854, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

8.
Kane's accounts of his experiences with animal magnetism and his glowing hand can be found in the journal of Elisha Kent Kane, December 25, 1854, and January 1, 1855, Stanford University Library. Edmund Blair Bolles first called my attention to this passage in Kane's journal in
The Ice Finders
(Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1999), 133. Mark Horst Sawin discusses the phenomenon of Kane's luminous hand in “Raising Kane: The Making of a Hero, the Marketing of a Celebrity” (master's thesis, University of Texas, Austin, 1997), available at http://www.ekkane.org/sawin/sawin.htm (accessed September 18, 2003), chap. 9, “Celebrity and the Collision of Spheres.”

9.
Emma Hardinge,
Modern American Spiritualism: A Twenty Years' Record of the Communion Between Earth and the World of Spirits
(1869; repr., New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1970), 96–98.

10.
J. M. Rich to Isaac Post, April 9, 1854, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester Library.

11.
Emma Hardinge's
Modern American Spiritualism
details the events of this period, 128–133.

12.
E. W. Capron,
Modern Spiritualism: Its Facts and Fanaticisms, Its Consistencies and Contradictions; with an Appendix
(Boston: Bela Marsh, 1855; repr., New York: Arno Press, 1976), 52.

13.
Capron,
Modern Spiritualism,
51.

14.
Kate Fox to Amy Post, June 19, 1855, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester Library.

15.
Joseph Post and Kate Fox to Amy Post, August 5, 1855, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester Library.

16.
Quotations here and following are from Kane,
Love-Life of Dr. Kane,
202, 258, 206.

17.
Maggie Fox to Elisha Kent Kane, undated, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

18.
Quoted in Kane,
Love-Life of Dr. Kane,
216.

19.
Mrs. Margaret Fox to E. K. Kane, undated, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

20.
This and the next quote are from Kane,
Love-Life of Dr. Kane,
210, 236.

21.
Bolles,
Ice Finders,
229.

22.
Kane,
Love-Life of Dr. Kane,
260.

23.
This and following quotes come from Kane,
Love-Life of Dr. Kane,
265, 268, 271, 277, 278.

24.
The best treatment of the significance of Kane's death in the context of his time, with a focus on his funeral, can be found in David Chapin's “Funeral of Elisha Kent Kane,”
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography,
October 1999.

25.
Mrs. Margaret Fox to R. P. Kane, undated, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

26.
Maggie Fox to R. P. Kane, June 1, 1857, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

CHAPTER 13: “SO MANY UPS AND DOWNS IN THIS WEARY WORLD”

1.
Quotes from Strong here and following are from Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, eds.,
The Diary of George Templeton Strong
:
The Turbulent Fifties, 1850–1859
(New York: Macmillan, 1952), 93, 244, 390.

2.
On the phosphorus episode and George Willet's move, see A. Leah Underhill,
The Missing Link in Modern Spiritualism
(New York: Thomas R. Knox, 1885), 282–92.

3.
Information on Agassiz is drawn primarily from Edmund Blair Bolles,
The Ice Finders
(Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1999).

4.
Quoted by Linda Simon,
Genuine Reality: A Life of William James
(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998), 93.

5.
This and the following quote are from
Spiritualism Shown As It Is! Boston Courier Report of the Proceedings of Professed Spiritual Agents and Mediums, in the Presence of Professors Peirce, Agassiz, Horsford, Dr. B.A. Gould, Committee, and Others, at the Albion Building, Boston, on the 25th, 26th, and 27th of June, 1857, Now First Published
(Boston: Office of the Boston Courier, 1859), 10.

6.
Emma Hardinge,
Modern American Spiritualism: A Twenty Years' Record of the Communion Between Earth and the World of Spirits
(1869; repr., New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1970), 187.

7.
Maggie Fox to R. P. Kane, May 27, 1858, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

8.
Maggie Fox to R. P. Kane, September 2, 1858, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

9.
Quoted in David Chapin, “Exploring Other Worlds: Margaret Fox, Elisha Kent Kane, and the Culture of Curiosity” (PhD diss., University of New Hampshire, 2000), 273. Chapin points out that the newspapers disagreed on what her conversion meant and stresses the paternalistic influence of Catholicism.

10.
This quote and the title of chapter 13 are from Maggie Fox to R. P. Kane, October 25, 1858, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

11.
Daniel Underhill was born in 1821 in Washington, D.C., and was a descendant of Captain John Underhill, who, according to John Catanzariti, the archivist of the Underhill Society of America in Oyster Bay, New York, was the progenitor of the principal American Underhill family. The captain accompanied John Winthrop to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.

12.
Lillie was mentioned in Daniel's will.

13.
Robert Dale Owen,
The Debatable Land Between This World and the Next with Illustrative Narrations
(New York: G.W. Carleton, 1872), 357–60.

14.
Owen,
Debatable Land,
354–55.

15.
Maggie Fox to R. P. Kane, April 1860, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

16.
Maggie Fox to R. P. Kane, May 16, 1860, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

17.
Maggie Fox to R. P. Kane, September 13, 1860, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

18.
Owen,
Debatable Land,
346–47.

CHAPTER 14: “A MEDIUM OF REFLECTING OTHERS”

1.
Some of Livermore's letters to Benjamin Coleman, housed in the Houdini Collection in the Library of Congress, are written on the firm's letterhead.

2.
An extensive description of Kate's sittings with Livermore, coupled with excerpts from his letters and diary, can be found in Robert Dale Owen,
The Debatable Land Between This World and the Next with Illustrative Narrations
(New York: G.W. Carleton, 1872), 385–401. Owen's version tends to support the one given by Livermore in his letters, although some of the dates vary and it's clear that Owen has edited and beautified Livermore's prose. Another description of the sittings, which also includes excerpts from Livermore's letters and diary, can be found in Epes Sargent,
Planchette, or The Despair of Science. Being a Full Account of Modern Spiritualism, Its Phenomena, and the Various Theories Regarding It. With a Survey of French Spiritism
(Boston: Roberts, 1869). Once again dates vary between his account and Owen's. Owen not only may have prettified Livermore's prose but may have censored it as well. See next note also.

3.
This description of the forty-third sitting and the quotes are drawn from Owen,
Debatable Land,
386–89. Sargent's version is more sensual. He adds the following, attributed to Livermore's diary: “I [Livermore] asked her to kiss me if she could; and to my great astonishment and delight, an arm was placed around my neck, and a real, palpable kiss was implanted on my lips, through something like muslin…. The kiss was frequently repeated, and was audible in every part of the room.”

4.
Owen,
Debatable Land,
390.

5.
Charles Livermore to Benjamin Coleman, July 21, 1861, Houdini Collection, Library of Congress.

6.
Charles Livermore to Benjamin Coleman, October 20, 1861, Houdini Collection, Library of Congress.

7.
Charles Livermore to Benjamin Coleman, November 3, 1861, Houdini Collection, Library of Congress.

8.
Charles Livermore to Benjamin Coleman, November 21, 1861, Houdini Collection, Library of Congress.

9.
This and following quote come from Sargent,
Planchette,
entry for 12/28/1861 and January 24, 1862.

10.
Charles Livermore to Benjamin Coleman, November 20, 1865, Houdini Collection, Library of Congress.

11.
Emma Hardinge,
Modern American Spiritualism: A Twenty Years' Record of the Communion Between Earth and the World of Spirits
(1869; repr., New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1970), 418.

12.
Quoted in James M. McPherson,
Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction
(New York: Knopf, 1982), 278.

13.
Hardinge,
Modern American Spiritualism,
493.

14.
For information on Spiritualism and the Civil War, I'm indebted to John Buescher's wonderfully informative Web site,
Ephemera,
http://www.Spirithistory.com, accessed September 24, 2003. For further information on the Civil War, Gettysburg, and Lincoln's assassination, as these related to attitudes toward death, I've relied on Garry Wills,
Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America
(New York: Touchstone, 1992), chap. 5 in Robert V. Wells,
Facing the “King of Terrors”: Death and Society in an American Community, 1750–1990
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), and suggestions by Jim Murphy, author of
The Boys' War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk About the Civil War
(New York: Clarion, 1993) and other award-winning books for children and young adults. There are conflicting opinions about Lincoln's interest in seances; I've been guided by the moderate position of Jean H. Baker in
Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography
(New York and London: Norton, 1987), 218–22.

15.
Maggie Fox to Susanna Moodie, Patrick Ewing Collection at the National Archives of Canada. This letter was generously sent my way by Michael Peterman, one of the editors of
Susanna Moodie: Letters of a Lifetime,
ed. Carl Ballstadt, Elizabeth Hopkins, and Michael Peterman (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985).

16.
Quoted in M. Margaret Wilkinson, ed.,
Autobiography of Emma Hardinge Britten
(London: John Heywood), 275.

17.
Charles Livermore to Benjamin Coleman, September 1, 1863, Houdini Collection, Library of Congress.

18.
Information on the convention and its resolution comes from Buescher,
Ephemera,
“Spiritualists Endorse Lincoln for a Second Term,” http://www.Spirithistory.com/lincln.html, September 24, 2003, quoting Charles M. Plumb, “The National Spiritual Convention,”
Friend of Progress,
November 1864, 16–20.

19.
Quoted in Wells,
Facing the “King of Terrors,”
166.

20.
Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,”
Leaves of Grass,
ed. Harold W. Blodgett and Sculley Bradley (New York: Norton, 1965), 330.

21.
In
The Missing Link in Modern Spiritualism
(New York: Thomas R. Knox, 1885), Leah says that her father died in January, and an obituary in the
Syracuse Journal
on March 7, 1865, states that he was seventy-six years old. Information on Margaret's death comes from the New York City Death Registry.

22.
A brief, vivid overview of the Flash Age and the Belmont clique to which Clews belonged can be found in David Black,
The King of Fifth Avenue: The Fortunes of August Belmont
(New York: Dial Press, 1981), 271–77.