1716. Spirit-writing, without visible human agency, has never been a common mode of communicating, although it was among the early occurrences at Hydesville, Rochester, and Auburn.[39]
1717. Sometimes these missives were enclosed in a book, and thrown down stairs or into the room; sometimes wrapped about a key or nail, or any thing that would give a momentum, and thrown into the room. Often they were seen to fall from above; this occurring frequently when the doors were closed, and it was not possible for any visible agent to have been the cause. Writing would appear on the wall at times, made, as it appeared, with a pencil. On one occasion, Dr. Phelps was writing at his desk, and, turning his back for a few moments, without leaving his chair, turned again to his paper, where he found written in large letters, ‘Very nice paper and very nice ink for the devil.’ The ink was not yet dry, the desk was not two feet from him as he sat, and he was entirely alone in the room.
1718. About the first of May, Dr. Phelps, of Boston, brother of the Rev. Doctor, and Prof. Phelps, of Andover, a son of the Rev. Doctor, went to Stratford to ‘expose the humbug,’ and with a full belief that it was a trick of evil-minded persons, and that they should be able to detect and expose it without trouble; and they were disappointed, as hundreds have been under like circumstances. On Tuesday evening a loud rap was heard on the back door, seeming to be made by the knocker, loud enough to be heard twenty rods distant. The servant went to the door, but no person was there. After the lapse of five or eight minutes, the rap was repeated. It was then supposed that some one had done it mischievously; but, on looking about, no person was discovered. It was in the shades of evening, but not dark enough to prevent any person being seen, who might have done it, as easily as at mid-day. The knocking came the third time, when Dr. Phelps—the visitor—placed himself in the hall, perhaps four feet from the door, and the Professor, of Andover, took a position on the steps without, each having full view of the door. The same loud raps were repeated on the door between them. The knocker did not move, nor could the eye detect any cause for what met the ear. The noise was heard throughout the house, and both the gentlemen were positive that no visible agent was employed to produce it. About bed-time, a loud pounding was heard on the chamber-door. The gentlemen, each with a candle in hand, stood on either side of the door, as the pounding, as though done with a heavy boot, was continued. The noise appeared to each to be on the side of the door opposite to him. On the following morning, as Dr. Phelps, of Stratford, was standing at the foot of the stairs leading to the third story, a noise as loud and much resembling the report of a pistol occurred apparently close to his ear. These boisterous sounds occurred at intervals during a great part of the time that the disturbance was continued. Sometimes for weeks they would not be heard; and again for days they were heard every day.
1719. It would seem, from various occurrences, that the agents of these sounds, whoever they were, must have been human beings, or, at least, possessed of all the leading characteristics of humanity. They were evidently influenced by kindness or unkindness, by respect and confidence, as persons generally are in this life. Some instances illustrating this are given. One morning, during the breakfast hour, they would push the table suddenly, raise up one side and shake it in such a manner as to spill the coffee, and otherwise occasion serious inconvenience. A person at the table spoke to them in a tone of authority, commanding them to desist; but the act was at once repeated. Again they were commanded to cease, but increased violence followed this command. This was five or six times repeated, and the shaking was each time renewed. At length another person at the table said, ‘I request you kindly to cease this annoyance, and allow us to take our breakfast quietly,’ and they ceased at once, without a repetition. It was found, from this time, that kindness had about the same effect upon them that it produces upon mankind at large. A lady, the wife of a clergyman, spent a few weeks in the family during the summer, who received many communications from them, would often, when the scissors, thimble, or things of that kind, were mislaid, say, ‘I will thank the spirits to return my thimble, scissors,’ or whatever was missing, and the article named would drop at her side, or in her lap, within a minute. Things of this kind occurred very many times in the course of the time that these phenomena were continued. If a key or knife, or any thing of the kind, was mislaid, and any person was looking for it, frequently it would be thrown to them as though their wants were anticipated. Dr. Phelps was once with Harry in the stable, when the currycomb could not be found, and he asked Harry where it was, to which Harry replied that he did not know. At that moment, the doctor saw it rise, as if thrown, from a point ten feet distant from them, and, describing a parabola, fall within a short distance of the spot where they both were standing.
1720. About the middle of May, Dr. Phelps and Harry were riding to Huntington, a distance of seven miles. When they had proceeded about one mile on the way, a stone, about the size of a hen’s egg, was thrown into the carriage, and lodged on Dr. Phelps’s hat. Soon another and another were thrown in. The carriage was a covered one, and the back curtain was down, and there was no way a stone could have been thrown in by ordinary means. At one house where they stopped, the moment the front door was opened, two stones were thrown, one of which entered the door as it stood partly open, and the other hit one of the lights of glass, and broke it. Harry was standing on the door-steps at the time, and there was no one in the street who could have thrown them. Two stones were also thrown against another house where they stopped of an errand. Sixteen stones were thrown into the carriage on the doctor’s return, and, including those thrown against the two houses, twenty, in driving three or four hours.
1721. As it was now apparent that these strange things were in some way connected with Harry as a medium, it was thought best to separate him from the family. Accordingly board was obtained for him in a family some two miles distant. One day, when he came home, he told his mother, in great secrecy, that on the night previous he had been awakened from his sleep by some person dressed in white, whom he saw standing by his bedside. He was frightened, and was about to scream, when the person spoke and said, ‘Be not afraid, my son; I am your father;’ and then placed in the boy’s hand a silver watch, and told him to wear it for his sake. The boy affirms that he had the watch in his hand; that it was not a dream; and that he was entirely awake; and that his father told him to tell no one of it but his mother and Dr. P. His mother told him it was nothing but a dream, and turned it off as a light affair.
1722. It seems that a valuable silver watch had been left the boy by his father, which was not in use, but had been kept locked up in a drawer of a dressing-table, to which he (Harry) had no access. A member of the family, having occasion to look into the drawer, saw the watch, and knows it was there, and that the drawer was locked, and the key given to Mrs. P. A few minutes after the conversation with his mother about the apparition and the watch, the night previous, he came in from the yard with the watch in his hand! He said his father had again appeared to him, and put the watch into his hand again, and said, ‘Wear this for my sake.’ He brought the watch into the house, and showed it to his mother, and said that his father said, ‘Tell your mother to look at the second-hand.’ The hand was off, and lay on the face of the watch under the crystal. A credible person will make oath, if called upon, that she saw the watch in the drawer, where it was usually kept, not more than six or eight minutes before, and that she locked the drawer and gave the key to Mrs. Phelps. The key had been in possession of no other person, and Harry had not been in the room during the time. The watch was taken to Dr. P., and he tried to replace the second-hand, but could not succeed. He closed it, leaving the hand loose on the face, and passed it back to Harry, saying that he must take it to the watch-maker. When he took it in his hand, he exclaimed, ‘Why, it’s on!’ They looked, and it was on and going. In a few minutes it was off again, and was put on a second time, all within a minute or two. The doctor affirms that it was not out of his sight a moment; that he knows the watch was not opened, and that no visible power was employed in doing it.
1723. On one occasion the piano-forte was played while it is known that no person was in the room; and, at another time, it was turned around, the front toward the wall, and so far removed from the side of the room as to allow the player room to sit next to the wall; the stool was also appropriately placed.
1724. On several occasions, about this time, certain members of the family saw, or thought they did, visible appearances. Dr. P. did not give entire credit to these statements; not but what he had full confidence in the honesty of the family, but the excited state in which some of them had been for a long time led him to think that they might imagine they saw what had no existence in fact. Toward the last of May, it was signified that one of the spirits who had communicated would appear visibly—first to the daughter, then to Mrs. P., and then to the doctor himself. They asked in what manner he would appear, and the answer was, ‘In a sheet.’ Between ten and eleven o’clock the same night, soon after the family had retired, Anna, who occupied the east bedroom, the door between her room and that where the doctor and his wife slept being open, and a lamp burning on a stand so placed as to light both rooms, called to her mother, and said, ‘There it is, in a sheet.’ Dr. P. asked where; when she said it was in the door between the two rooms, coming from the room the doctor occupied, but the doctor saw nothing. The daughter was frightened, and covered up her head, and in a few minutes looked up and saw nothing. He was represented as moving slowly from one room to the other.
1725. In about two minutes Mrs. Phelps exclaimed, ‘There it is!’ and drew the clothes over her head. Both the daughter and mother saw it at this time, but still the doctor saw nothing, although in as favourable a position as either of the others.