“The parents had removed the children's beds into their bedroom, and strictly enjoined them not to talk of noises, even if they heard them. But scarcely had the mother seen them safely in bed, and was retiring to rest herself, when the children cried out, ‘Here they are again!’ The mother chided them, and lay down. Thereupon the noises became louder and more startling. The children sat up in bed. Mrs. Fox called her husband. The night being windy, it was suggested to him that it might be the rattling of the sashes. He tried several to see if they were loose. Kate, the younger girl, happened to remark that as often as her father shook a window-sash, the noises seemed to reply. Being a lively child, and in a measure accustomed to what was going on, she turned to where the noise was, snapped her fingers, and called out, ‘Here, old Splitfoot, do as I do!’ The knocking instantly responded.
“That was the very commencement. Who can tell where the end will be?
“I do not mean that it was Kate Fox, who thus, in childish jest, first discovered that these mysterious sounds [pg 020] seemed instinct with intelligence. Mr. Mompesson, two hundred years ago, had already observed a similar phenomenon. Glanvil had verified it. So had Wesley, and his children. So we have seen, and others. But in all these cases the matter rested there and the observation was not prosecuted further. As, previous to the invention of the steam engine, sundry observers had trodden the very threshold of the discovery and there stopped, so in this case, where the royal chaplain, disciple though he was of the inductive philosophy, and where the founder of Methodism, admitting, as he did, the probabilities of ultramundane interference, were both at fault, a Yankee girl, but nine years old, following up more in sport than in earnest, a chance observation, became the instigator of a movement which, whatever its true character, has had its influence throughout the civilized world. The spark had been ignited,—once at least two centuries ago; but it had died each time without effect. It kindled no flame till the middle of the nineteenth century.
“And yet how trifling the step from the observation at Tedworth to the discovery at Hydesville! Mr. Mompesson, in bed with his little daughter (about Kate's age), whom the sound seemed chiefly to follow, ‘observed that it would exactly answer, in drumming, anything that was beaten or called for.’ But his curiosity led him no further.
“Not so Kate Fox. She tried, by silently bringing together her thumb and forefinger; whether she could obtain a response. Yes! It could see, then, as well as hear. She called her mother. ‘Only look, mother,’ she said, bringing together again her finger and thumb, as before. And as often as she repeated the noiseless motion, just as often responded the raps.
“This at once arrested her mother's attention. ‘Count ten,’ she said, addressing the noise. Ten strokes, distinctly given! ‘How old is my daughter Margaret?’ Twelve strokes. ‘And Kate?’ Nine. ‘What can all this mean?’ was Mrs. Fox's thought. Who was answering her? Was it only some mysterious echo of her own thought? But the next question which she put seemed to refute the idea. ‘How many children have I?’ she asked aloud. Seven strokes. ‘Ah!’ she thought, ‘it can blunder sometimes.’ [pg 021] And then aloud, ‘Try again.’ Still the number of raps was seven. Of a sudden a thought crossed Mrs. Fox's mind. ‘Are they all alive?’ she asked. Silence for answer. ‘How many are living?’ Six strokes. ‘How many are dead?’ A single stroke. She had lost a child.
“Then she asked, ‘Are you a man?’ No answer. ‘Are you a spirit?’ It rapped. ‘May my neighbors hear, if I call them?’ It rapped again.
“Thereupon she asked her husband to call her neighbor, a Mrs. Redfield, who came in laughing. But her cheer was soon changed. The answers to her inquiries were as prompt and pertinent, as they had been to those of Mrs. Fox. She was struck with awe; and when, in reply to a question about the number of her children, by rapping four, instead of three, as she expected, it reminded her of a little daughter, Mary, whom she had recently lost, the mother burst into tears.”
We have introduced this narrative thus at length not only because it is interesting in itself, but because it is of special interest that all the particulars of the origin, or beginning, of such a movement as this, should be well understood. The following paragraph will explain how it came to be called “The Rochester Knockings,” under which name it first became widely known. It is from the “Report of the 37th Anniversary of Modern Spiritualism,” held in Brooklyn, N. Y., March 31, 1885, and reported in the Banner of Light, the 25th of the following month:—
“After a song by J. T. Lillie, Mrs. Leah Fox Underhill, the elder of the three Fox sisters (who was on our platform), was requested to speak. Mrs. Underhill said that she was not a public speaker, but would answer any questions from the audience, and in response to these questions told in a graphic manner how the spirits came to their humble home in Hydesville, in 1848; how on the 31st of March the first intelligent communication from the spirit world came [pg 022] through the raps; how the family had been annoyed by the manifestations, and by the notoriety that followed; how the younger sisters, Catherine and Margaret, were taken to Rochester, where she lived, by their mother, hoping that this great and apparent calamity might pass from them; how their father and mother prayed that this cup might be taken away, but the phenomena became more marked and violent; how in the morning they would find four coffins drawn with an artistic hand on the door of the dining-room of her home in Rochester, of different sizes, approximating to the ages and sizes of the family, and these were lined with a pink color, and they were told that unless they made this great fact known, they would all speedily die, and enter the spirit-world.