File:Abraham Lincoln and religion. general (1857) (14597569138).jpg

Identifier: abrahamlxxxxxxxxxx00linc (find matches)
Title: Abraham Lincoln and religion. general
Year: 1857 (1850s)
Authors: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Subjects: Spiritualism Spiritualism Spiritualists Spiritualists
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Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: Friends of The Lincoln Collection of Indiana, Inc.

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ened by...knockings, they said, exceptthere was nobody at the door,no branches hitting the win-dows. From their bed, Maggieand Katie watched theirfather race to and fro, tryingto discover the source of themysterious midnight noises. Finally, according to chroni-clers of the time, the sistersannounced/Its Mr. Splitfoot!See! He answerslThey snappedtheir fingers, and the soundknocked back in response. Mrs.Fox, convinced that her daugh-ters had found a way to speakwith the dead, fell to her knees. Soon enough, the entireneighborhood gathered in theFox cabin, and Maggie andKatie knocked out answers toquestions posed by astoundedfriends. According to transcriptsof this first Fox seance, thequestions were easily answered:how many children did Mrs.Jones have? What age was Billywhen he died? What was thesource of Matthews ailment?—things that neighbors alreadyknew about each other. Butsoon the sisters grew moreadventurous. Using the SpiritAlphabet (one knock for Atwo knocks for B etc.), they
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Maggie, Katie, and Leah Fox encouraged Mr. Splitfoot toknock out the story of a murderthat had taken place earlier inthe cabin. A peddler had dis-appeared, and there had beenrumors in town for several years.Maggie and Katie broughtthose rumors to life with a luridand painstakingly spelled-outstory of a bloody ax and a bodyin the cellar. Later the cellar wasdug out until it flooded, andno body was found. But in oneof the many strange twists inthe story of the Fox sisters,fifty-four years later humanbones and a peddlers tin boxwere found in that cellar, givingbelated credence to the story.For fifty years skeptics triedto discover the true source ofthose knockings. Maggie her-self revealed, in disillusionedmiddle age, that the first soundshad been made by tying stringsto apples and dropping themout of bed onto the cabins bare wooden floor. But, she said,she and Katie then devised asystem of cracking their toesand other joints to make therappings, using this systemthroughout their Spiritu

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