The Missing Link in Modern Spiritualism

by A. Leah Underhill

A party consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Emerson, Mr. Cook—an English gentleman and a partner and intimate friend of Mr. Emerson—mother, her sister Catharine, Ann Emerson and myself (we were little girls at that time), drove to the “Sand Hill burying-ground” to visit the graves of our loved ones. Mr. Cook and my aunt rode in his carriage, while the rest of us rode in the family carriage. They arrived a little before we did, and walked to Mr. E’s. plot, where stooping he pulled up a flower and, tossing it at my beautiful Aunt Catharine, said, “I wonder who will lie here next?” After remaining a while we drove home, in Clinton Street, Rochester, where the nurse was standing with the babe Georgie in her arms. (George was an uncommonly lovely boy, named after Mr. Cook.) When taking the child in his arms Mr. Cook said, “O thou angel boy! I must not neglect to will thee thy dower.” He remained with us through the evening and bade us good-night. His house was nearly a mile away. I retired with mother and her sister. I slept in a trundle-bed drawn from under their large bed. Our family was then boarding there, father being absent from home much of the time. It was my habit to study my lessons in bed before going to sleep, in which way I was sure to remember them in the morning; and as there was to be a school exhibition next day, it was late before I put out the candle, when mother gave a fearful scream which brought every one to inquire the cause. At first she declined to say anything about it—feeling very sure it must have been Mr. Cook she had seen; and she disliked to say anything more. She however insisted upon having seen a man, and described him as resting upon his hands on the bed, bending over her sister Catharine, and looking her in the face; she recognized the man to be Mr. Cook. They tried to impress her with the belief that it was a dream, but she knew she had not slept.

Early next morning a messenger woke up the household, and announced that Mr. Cook had dropped dead in the mill at 6 A.M. He and Mr. Emerson were the wealthy owners of the principal flouring mills on the Genesee River, at Rochester.

Mr. Cook’s body was buried at the spot from which he had plucked the flower.

Mr. Cook was no doubt sleeping quietly at the time they were searching the house to find the apparition just before the midnight hour, as he said to his foreman on entering the mill, in reply to his morning salutation, “I am well, and I think I slept too well, as I intended to be here at five o’clock.” He walked a moment longer and fell, to rise no more.

STRANGE OCCURRENCES PRIOR TO GRANDFATHER’S DEATH.

My sister Maria (Mrs. Smith) from her childhood has, at certain times, been able, by gently touching her fingers to the lightest of tables, to make it impossible for a strong man to lift it from the spot without danger of breaking it.

My sister, Mrs. Osterhout, was also remarkable for intuitive knowledge, dreams, and visions. Some fifteen or sixteen years ago some singular manifestations occurred around the lingering death-bed of her husband. About a week before his death my sister was called off to a room in the house, five rooms distant from the one he occupied, where some sewing women were at work, really in preparation for his fast-nearing end. On her return he told her he had heard all the directions she had been giving, and repeated them to her. The following extract is from a letter from my niece Helen, one of his children. It speaks for itself:

“A few days afterward we were all in the room, and he said, ‘Do you see?’ We all looked in the same direction he was looking, and saw a coffin being carried out of the house. I shall never forget the look he gave us; Emma, Ben, Nannie, and myself were in the room. We all saw it. Three days before he died the boys were in the barn. It being Sunday, we were busy doing the morning work, when we were startled by what we thought to be the report of a gun. A second time we heard the same report. Father said, ‘The boys have got the gun in the barn,’ and wanted them to be called into the house; but they had heard the second report, which they thought was in the house, and came in to see what was the matter. We were now all gathered in father’s room, when a third report sounded still louder and seemed to be in the same room with us. Mother was very much affected, and father said, ‘Don’t be frightened, my darling, it is only a warning of the near approach of my death.’ There were a great many things at that time transpiring which were very mysterious. Lights were seen in the house and door-yard, barn, etc., which could not be accounted for; and sounds were heard as of sawing, driving of nails, etc.”

MY OWN CHILDREN.

All my children grew up into Spiritualism naturally. Lillie, once, while lying awake in bed with her sister Lizzie, the gas being at half-light, saw a lady standing in the corner of the room who then walked about it, passed out, and then re-entered it. She wore a dress resembling her sister’s wrapper, with its peculiar large flowered pattern. The bed being a wide one, she was not in contact with her sister, and supposed the figure to be Lizzie, and called to her to ask what she was about, but she perceived that it was not her sister, who was asleep by her side, and whom she waked. They turned up the light, and the figure was no more there. Both were frightened, and kept the light burning brightly for the rest of the night.