The grand tour over, Kate, sponsored by Horace Greeley, went to school and Margaret, just developing into an attractive young woman, and destined to become the more famous of the two mediums, began a series of seances in rooms occupied by herself and mother at the Union Hotel in Philadelphia. There romance entered her life on a day in 1853 in the person of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the noted Arctic explorer.
His had been a remarkable career. Belonging to one of the most aristocratic families in Philadelphia; the son of a judge; handsome; still under thirty-four; graduated more than ten years previously from the University of Pennsylvania, he had gone out to China with Commodore Parker as “surgeon of the embassy,” later obtained a leave of absence and travelled through Greece on foot, went up the Nile, toured India, Ceylon, and the South Sea Islands, and even “dared the Himalayas.” The Mexican War had furnished him an opportunity to “win spurs for gallantry.” and, this over, he had joined a relief expedition which went in search of Sir John Franklin in 1850.[2]
This much travelled, much experienced man of the world was instantly and irresistibly attracted to the young medium. An acquaintance was formed and it was not long before Doctor Kane determined that, regardless of all obstacles, she should be his wife. In spite of the efforts of his family, he soon made arrangements to educate Margaret, and she was placed with a tutor in a quiet suburb of Philadelphia, where an aunt of the doctor’s could have an oversight of her and where in addition to her other studies she was to be made proficient in French, German, and Italian, as well as vocal and instrumental music. Her vacations were spent with a sister of Senator Cockrell. For some three or four years she was thus sheltered from the world, while the doctor did all in his power to eradicate from her mind everything connected with spiritualism and “rappings.” Then came the turn of the tide.
The doctor became broken in health as a result of exposure in the Arctic and decided to go abroad. There had been neither civil or religious ceremony to mark his marriage to Margaret, but just before he sailed, in the presence of her mother and other witnesses, he declared that they were husband and wife. His health grew worse in London and he left there for the West Indies, where Margaret and her mother were to join him, but their preparations for the journey were cut short by the announcement in the papers of his death in Havana on the 16th of February, 1857. Margaret was prostrated by the blow. A long sickness followed and when she finally recovered it was to face the world, not only friendless and alone, but penniless as well, for, owing to a compromise, she did not share in the doctor’s estate. Disappointed, disheartened, and bitter she went back to her Spiritualism and “rappings.” For thirty years she wandered from place to place holding seances. For thirty years she suffered the tortures of remorse and ill health. She believed she was being driven “into hell.” She loathed the thing she was, and tried at times to drown her troubles in wine. For thirty years she lived in constant fear of her older sister. Then Margaret Kane found a temporary solace in the Catholic Church. But there were still more months of struggle before she finally found courage to tell the story of the world-famous “rappings” in a signed confession given to the press in October, 1888.[3]
“I do this,” she said, “because I consider it my duty, a sacred thing, a holy mission, to expose it (Spiritualism). I want to see the day when it is entirely done away with. After I expose it I hope Spiritualism will be given a death blow. I was the first in the field and I have a right to expose it.[4]
“My sister Katie and I were very young children when this horrible deception began. I was only eight, just a year and a half older than she. We were very mischievous children and sought merely to terrify our dear mother, who was a very good woman and very easily frightened.
“When we went to bed at night we used to tie an apple to a string and move the string up and down, causing the apple to bump on the floor, or we would drop the apple on the floor, making a strange noise every time it would rebound. Mother listened to this for a time. She would not understand it and did not suspect us as being capable of a trick because we were so young.
“At last she could stand it no longer and she called the neighbors in and told them about it. It was this that set us to discover a means of making the raps more effectually. I think, when I reflect about it, that it was a most wonderful discovery, a very wonderful thing that children should make such a discovery, and all through a desire to do mischief only.[5]
“Our oldest sister was twenty-three years of age when I was born. She was in Rochester when these tricks first began but came to Hydesville, the little village in central New York where we were born and lived.
“All the neighbors around, as I have said, were called in to witness these manifestations. There were so many people coming to the house that we were not able to make use of the apple trick except when we were in bed and the room was dark. Even then we could hardly do it, so the only way was to rap on the bedstead.