The Fox sisters, Catherine (Kate) and Margaretta (Maggie), are probably two of the most famous and controversial mediums in history. Their older sister, Leah, abandoned by her husband and living in poverty, joined them as their manager.
Some people denounced them as frauds, while others were believers. Crowds of people paid to watch the sisters communicate with spirits. Their séances became increasingly elaborate – objects moved, spirits appeared.
Today, the Fox sisters remain controversial. Some people are still skeptical about their alleged abilities, while others are believers. Maggie publicly admitted they were a fraud, but, later, rescinded her confession.
Hydesville Haunting: Fox Sisters Become Mediums
The Fox family’s house had a reputation for being haunted. In March, 1848, the family began to hear inexplicable noises during the night. Kate claimed that she communicated with the ghost, Old Mister Splitfoot, who said he was haunting the place. In the beginning, communication was simple. Kate told him to do as she did when she tapped and clapped, reminiscent of the children’s game, “Simon Says.”
Soon, Maggie joined her in the dialogues. When the ghost was better able to communicate, he told them he was Charles Rosma, a peddler, who was murdered and buried in the house’s cellar.
When news about the Fox sisters' abilities spread, they were sent to separate relatives’ homes to avoid the more publicity. The rappings and communication followed them. After Leah became the sisters’ manager, their careers as mediums mushroomed when they awed audiences in the US and Europe.
Supporters of the Fox Sisters
By November 1849, Kate and Maggie were giving many public performances featuring their talents. It’s said this was when the Spiritualist movement was born. The obsession to communicate with the dead swept over the US and UK. Other people started to “discover” their own paranormal powers. Mediums and séances became the fad.
The sisters had a celebrity following, including showman P. T. Barnum, poet, journalist and editor of the New York Evening Post William Cullen Bryant, author James Fennimore Cooper and newspaper editor Horace Greeley, who provided lodging for the sisters in his mansion. Greeley was grieving his son’s death, so the idea that the dead might be able to communicate with living interested him. He offered to pay for the girls’ education, which Leah accepted for Kate, but refused to for Maggie, the more talented sister, because she would have had to leave their burgeoning family business.
Fox Sisters Skeptics
The duo was debunked by disbelievers who claimed they produced phenomena in various normal methods, ranging from toe, knee and ankle crackings to mechanical devices and ventriloquism. Committees were established to test their abilities. Most tests involved asking the spirits questions. The replies were often inconsistent, but accurate enough to make an impact. One test involved the sisters being tightly tied by their ankles, so they couldn’t move their feet. They were able to produce inexplicable rapping sounds. Women checked the sister’s underwear to ensure nothing was hidden in them to make the sounds. They found nothing. No trickery was ever discovered.
Leah was often accused of trying to get personal information from the sitters, which would help the spirits give correct answers. The Fox sisters also contacted spirits of the famous dead.
When a sitter noticed that Benjamin Franklin's spirit seemed to be lacking correct grammar, Maggie left the séance table and replied that I, meaning Franklin, never understood grammar. As dubious as the séances were, they convinced many people that the girls were genuine.
The Fox Sisters' Tragedies
By 1885, Spiritualism was declining; investigations of fraud, increasing. A New York commission summoned Maggie prove her abilities by a test that she failed. Kate’s husband died from a stroke and she returned to New York. In 1888, she was arrested for being drunk and indolent. Welfare workers seized her sons. Maggie couldn’t get custody of the boys, but was able to get guardianship for an uncle in England.
Maggie relinquished her mediumship when she fell in love Arctic explorer Elisha Kent Kane in Philadelphia. He was a member of an aristocratic family, whose parents didn’t consider her worthy of marrying him. The duo exchanged vows and rings in the company of their friends, but were never legally married. The relationship ended when Kane died in 1857. Maggie, broken-hearted and indigent, returned to mediumship and began drinking. Her physical and psychological health declined.
Fox Sisters: A Fraud?
In 1888, a reporter offered Kate and Maggie $1,500 to reveal their methods of communicating with the dead. Maggie agreed. On October 21, 1888, she demonstrated how she could create rapping noises by cracking her toes for an audience of about two thousand people. She said Leah forced the sisters into public performing as mediums and denounced Spiritualism as fraud and deception. Kate, who was in the audience, silently confirmed this.
After this public confession, people lost interest in the Fox sisters. Kate continued to perform, but couldn’t draw the crowds that she did before. Maggie could no longer work as a medium. Skeptics were pleased that there was an admission of trickery; however Spiritualists decried Maggie’s confession as rantings of a miserable and worn out drunken woman.
In 1891, Maggie recanted her confession. Many people thought that Maggie and Kate renounced Spiritualism to spite Leah, whom they detested. This sister had married a wealthy and respectable businessman, using the fortune the girls obtained. Leah had turned her back on Kate and Maggie, as an embarrassment.
The Demise of the Fox Sisters
Unfortunately, Kate and Maggie had another spirit, one that they battled with – alcohol. Kate began to drink, which often had a negative effect on her performances.
In July, 1892, she drank herself to death when she was fifty-six years old. Maggie, aged fifty-nine and destitute, died in March 1893.
Were the Fox Sisters Mediums or Frauds?
It’s true that skeptics tried to debunk the sisters as resorting to chicanery – without success. It’s true that Maggie made her confession when she was tired and under the influence. The $1,500 that the reporter offered was a lot of money then. She retracted her confession several years later.
Will it ever been known if the Fox sisters were genuine mediums or fakes? This is extremely doubtful because they and witnesses are dead. One fact that supports mediumship is that, on November 21, 1904, children found a human skeleton buried behind a crumbling wall in the haunted Hydesville house. Spiritualists believed that this discovery is evidence that the sisters were mediums. The house was destroyed by an accidental fire in 1955. It was reconstructed thirteen years later, as a tourist attraction.
Sources:
- Daniel Cohen, The Encyclopedia of Ghosts, Dorset Pr 1984.
- Rosemary Ellen Guiley, The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirit, FactsOnFile, 1992.
Jill Stefko - I'd rather deal with the paranormal than human abnormal - having dealt extensively with both.
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