Actual photograph of the old Fox cottage
The day following the disturbing rapping sounds at the Fox cottage, John and Margaret Fox requested that Catherine (Kate) go to Rochester and stay with their eldest daughter Leah. Even when traveling down the canal towards Leah's house, Kate would later write, "The noises followed us...The spirits liked to be with their mortals friends" .
During that first night at Leah's house, Kate would describe a disturbing scene where she began hearing what sounded like many people moving about downstairs, furniture being moved, windows and doors being opened and closed Kate would later write, "Then i heard the people come up the stairs and into my room!". "Then I felt a mans hand go over my eyes and then down my back. I screemed and Leah came rushing into my room and then the people disappeared". "The next day we moved out of the house !
Within weeks of the 'disturbance', the Fox sisters were besieged with requests to reinact their experiences. At first they refused, but upon the urging of Leah, they relented. Soon a public appearance was scheduled at Corinthian Hall, the largest performing arts center in Rochester. On the night of their performance, over 450 people packed the hall. Soon, after the Fox sisters began describing their experiences of that March night, suddenly, loud knocking sounds were heard throughout the hall, seemingly coming from the walls, the ceiling and the floor !. As Margaret (Maggie) would later write in her biography, "The spirits were upon us" !. The people who were there that night, claimed that the sounds were not being made by the two girls, as later accusations of fraud would be made. Soon the remarkable abilities of the girls spread. They would travel to Buffalo, Cleveland and Albany to give further performances, and the audiences were thrilled and amazed. Even such celebrities as P.T. Barnum and Horace Geeeley would attest to their strange powers. During the ensuing years the Fox sisters would become the guests of the highest reaches of British, French and New York societies, and the leaders of what the modern spiritualism movement, which would claim at its zenith, over 2,000,000 members.
But then a shocking confession was made that forever changed the spiritualist movement and the lives of the Fox sisters, forever...To be continued
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