Arcadia

Hydesville and the Fox Sisters' Rappings

In March 1848, in a rented house at Hydesville, the sisters Margaret and Kate Fox, fourteen and eleven, began answering a murdered pedlar in raps: one for yes, two for no. Neighbours came in crowds, their older sister Leah took them to Rochester and sold tickets, and out of that room grew the whole of American Spiritualism. On 21 October 1888 Margaret walked onto the stage of the New York Academy of Music and, before a full house, showed how it was done: she cracked the joint of her big toe, and the sound carried through the boards as though the walls were knocking. Kate sat in a box and nodded. A year later Margaret retracted the confession, badly in need of money, but the doctors who examined her foot on that stage had already confirmed the mechanism.