FOX SISTERS

1. Public Record

31 March 1848, Hydesville, Wayne County, New York. John and Margaret Fox had taken a small house the previous December with daughters Margaretta (Maggie), about fourteen, and Catherine (Kate), about eleven. Raps had already worn the household down. That night the girls were sent to bed early. The knocks came again. Kate said, Here, Mr Splitfoot, do as I do, and clapped. The raps matched. Maggie counted one two three four. The raps counted. Margaret Fox had it count ten, then the ages of her children living and dead. She called a neighbour. By morning the house was a public room. The intelligence, through a yes-no and later alphabet, gave a name: Charles B. Rosna, a peddler, murdered, buried in the cellar.

Earlier tenants, the Weekmans, had left after knocks and a child's vision. The Foxes sent the girls to their elder sister Leah in Rochester. Rochester was already a town of causes. The raps became a stage. Modern American Spiritualism dates itself from that March night. In 1888 Maggie, in a New York hall, said it had been toe joints. She recanted the recant. Kate drank. Leah ran the business longer. Digging in the Hydesville cellar produced bones that have never sat still as Rosna.

Here, Mr Splitfoot, do as I do.

2. Date of Incident

31 March 1848 the answered raps. Family in the house from December 1847. Maggie's confession 1888.

3. Location

Hydesville cottage, near Newark, Wayne County, New York. Approximate 43°05 N 077°15 W.

4. Official Narrative

No court named a murderer. Official narrative is two girls, a cottage, a movement. The 1888 confession is the state's favourite sentence and not the last one Maggie spoke.

5. Witness Layer

Kate and Maggie. Margaret Fox. Neighbours that first night. Leah as the Rochester organiser. The Weekmans as the prior tenants.

Oh look, Mother! It can see as well as hear.

It was my big toe.

6. Recovery Logistics

Cellar digging. Disputed bones. Stage receipts. No peddler's kit that closed a case.

7. Assessment

A cottage-rap file that became a religion before the year was old. Keep Splitfoot and the ages of the dead children. Keep 1888 next to 1848 without letting either eat the other. Toe joints can rap. They have a harder time explaining why Rochester was waiting. Do not make Leah the devil. Do not make the girls saints. They were children in a small house in March.

8. Materials & Remains

Mother Fox's account. Later confession text. Cellar claims. No verified Rosna.

9. Key Personnel

Kate Fox : Mr Splitfoot.

Maggie Fox : The count. The confession.

Leah Fox : Rochester.

Margaret Fox : The neighbour call.

10. Aftermath

Spiritualism left the cottage. The sisters did not all survive the leaving. Hydesville is a commemorative plot now. The raps are a founding date.

11. Current Archive Status

Status: Answered raps, Hydesville, 31 March 1848. Movement follows. Confession 1888, withdrawn.

Confidence: High that raps were answered in that house that night and that neighbours came. High that Maggie spoke against the raps in 1888. Low that Rosna's body has been produced to a court's standard. Low that toe joints close the Rochester years.

Filing note

Two girls sent to bed early, a clap answered, ages of dead children counted, a peddler named, a sister in Rochester, a movement that left the county before the year turned. Forty years later one of them stood on a New York stage and blamed her toe.

It counted the dead children correctly. Not a hall of trance. A mother in a small room asking for numbers she already knew, and getting them back through the plaster.