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PART 1
THE EDDY MANIFESTATIONS
CHAPTER I -
THE EDDY FAMILY
SEVEN miles north from Rutland, in a grassy valley shut in by the
slopes of the Green Mountains, lying high above the tidewater, is
the little hamlet of Chittenden. There is nothing about it worthy of
notice, and its sole claim to notoriety lies in the fact that it is the
nearest post-town to the homestead farm of the Eddy family of
spiritual mediums, whose fame has spread over the whole country.
The people of the vicinage are, apparently with few exceptions,
plain, dull, and uninteresting, seeming to know nothing and to care
less about the marvelous things that are happening under their
very eyes, or even the history of their section. Inhabiting a rugged
country which exacts much hard labor for small pecuniary returns,
they go the round of their daily duty, and trouble themselves about
nothing except to get the usual modicum of food and sleep. Their
rare occasions of enjoyment are the days of the county fair, the
elections, " raisings," huskings, and like country assemblages. Their
religion is intolerant, their sect Methodist; within the pale of which
body all persons are good, without which all are
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bad. The liberalizing influences that in more thickly settled
localities have, for the past ten or twenty years, been leavening the
whole religious world, seem to be unfelt in this secluded region.
Towards the heterodox these people have no yearning bowels of
compassion. Their weapons are both spiritual and carnal; and I
judge from the sad story of the Eddy children that these zealots, if
suddenly driven out of their beloved church, would feel more at
home under the wing of Mahomet than elsewhere, for when prayer
has failed of conversion they have resorted to fire and the lash to
bring the lamb within the fold. I recently visited this place in the
interest of the New York Sun, and spoke of the relations between
the Eddys and their neighbors in the following terms:
"There is nothing about the Eddys or their surroundings to inspire
confidence on first acquaintance. The brothers Horatio and William,
who are the present mediums, are sensitive, distant, and curt to
strangers, look more like hard-working rough farmers than prophets
or priests of a new dispensation, have dark complexions, black hair
and eyes, stiff joints, a clumsy carriage, shrink from advances, and
make newcomers feel ill at case and unwelcome.
* They are at feud with some of their neighbors, and as a
rule not liked either in Rutland or Chittenden. *
They are in fact under the ban of a public opinion that is not
prepared or desirous to study the phenomena as either scientific
marvels or revelations from another world." *
When I first began to write about these mediums, I became
convinced that they had never done anything to deserve the
reprobation of their neighbors, for a number of reports reflecting
upon their character, upon being sifted, were discovered to be
untrue. I could see prejudice so ill concealed by the narrators, and
ignorance of the domestic life, to say nothing of the mediumistic
18 19 portraits of Eddy brothers
faculty of the members of the family, so plainly revealed, that
perhaps I went to unnecessary lengths in my defense of their
reputations. But since I began the work of revising my matter for
this volume, I have met a former citizen of Chittenden, and a man
of good character, now a resident of a distant city, who is knowing
to the fact that some seven or eight years ago two of the Eddys
gave an exhibition, or exhibitions, of certain of the commoner tricks
of mediums, themselves included; and I was furnished with the
names of witnesses who can corroborate the statement. It is not
surprising, therefore; that a simple-minded people, prejudiced
against everything that smacks of diabolism, and looking upon the
Eddy ghostroom as a Chamber of Horrors, should hastily adopt the
opinion that if they were false in the lesser " phenomena" they
must be in all; and conclude that a family who could publicly
confess their dishonesty, for pay, had good reason to adopt a
forbidding aspect to strangers, especially those who would be
likely to discover the trickery which furnishes them a support. I
am not, I am happy to say, of that class of pseudo-investigators
which rejects the chance of finding truth in these marvels because
mediums occasionally cheat. It has often, and justly, been said that
the circulation of counterfeit coin is no proof that the genuine does
not exist, but the reverse; and the reports of most intelligent writers
agree in the statement that nearly all public mediums occasionally
simulate their phenomena when, from any cause, they cannot
produce the real ones. Judge Edmonds and Mr. Robert Dale Owen
both told me some years since that they had detected one of the
best physical mediums in the United
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States, in trickery, thus corroborating my own experience with the
same person; and a well-known artist in Hartford says that he
discovered Home, one of the greatest mediums ever known, in acts
of deception, both before his departure for Europe, and during a
subsequent visit to this country. As to this matter of the Eddy self-
exposures, the parties interested tell me that their exposure was a
mere pretense, resorted to for the purpose of raising money when
they were in a very needy condition. In a word, they cheated the
public with a sham exposure when it would not come to see them
in their character of mediums. There can be but one opinion of
such behavior as this; and, therefore, while my narrative will
contain all that can be said on behalf of the remarkable
mediumship, or apparent mediumship, of these boys, the reader
will find that I shall not rely upon any of their manifestations that
could be imitated by them, in working up my conclusions as to the
reality of the phenomena. Such a course would be a waste of time and thought.
I separate the medium from the man, considering him beyond a
certain point an irresponsible being; that is, if there is any such
thing as mediumship. In neglecting this I think most investigators
have hitherto erred. If it be true that persons of certain
temperaments in this world may be controlled by persons in the
other, then the mediums, being controlled, are not free agents, but
machines. A person of this kind may, therefore, be a very bad man
but a very good machine. Furthermore, if the medium's actions
while serving as such are beyond his control, he may, unless he be
entranced, observe them just as any spectator, and, observing, may
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learn to imitate, with more or less perfection according to his natural
intelligence and endowments.
Thus I observed the Eddys at first in their double
capacity, and determined at the outset not to allow anything
they might say or do, or any of their surroundings,
uncongenial with my own tastes or habits, to bias my
verdict upon their claims as spiritual mediums.
When I say that my first reception by the family was most
inhospitable; that during my visit of five days I never felt
sure that at any moment I might not be requested to leave;
that I was made to feel like an intruder whose room was
preferable to his company; that I was struggling against all
the prejudice one naturally would feel against persons who
claimed to be able to summon an army of spirits from the
other world; that I sat silent when members of the family
made ungracious and threatening speeches against persons
who might misrepresent them, clearly meaning me; that for
fear my mission might be cut short and my ability to do my
duty to my employers destroyed, I breathed not a word of
my purpose to write for the newspaper, and left the place
without having had a single opportunity to draw out their
side of the story from the Eddys, the public has reason to
admit that in saying what I did in their favor I was at least
actuated by no feelings of partiality.
I was glad, when my second visit was so unexpectedly
brought about, that things were just as they had been at
the beginning, for I had heard all the evil stories in
circulation and sifted them thoroughly, and was in a
condition of mind to do justice to people who
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had not always acted so as to make friends, had few real
ones, and fewer opportunities granted to lay their pathetic
tale before the world. It was not because I had sympathy
with their beliefs, nor that their welfare was a matter of
greater personal concern than that of any other decent
people, but because, in common with every one else, my
good wishes went with the weak and oppressed, and this
family had been worried and torn by the spirit of intolerance,
as a sheep by wolves. Manhood revolts at the persecutions,
cruelties, and indignities they have been called to suffer in
consequence of the direful inheritance of mediumship that
was bequeathed them in their blood--an inheritance that
made their childhood wretched, and, until recently, life itself
a heavy burden. To explain my meaning I will give some
particulars of the family history as they have been
communicated to me by the surviving children.
Zephaniah Eddy, a farmer living at Weston, Vt., married
one Julia Ann Macombs, a girl of Scotch descent who was
born in the same town. She was first cousin to General
Leslie Combs, of Kentucky, who changed his name to its
present form, and was distantly related to a noble Scotch
family. About the year 1846 Mr. Eddy sold his farm and
removed to the present homestead in the town of
Chittenden. Mrs. Eddy inherited from her mother the gift of
"foreseeing," as it is called among the Scotch, or more
properly "clairvoyance," for she not only had previsions of
future events, but also the faculty of seeing the denizens of
the mysterious world about us, from whom she claimed to
receive visits
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as commonly as though they were ordinary neighbors. Not
only this, but she could also hold speech with them, hear
them address their conversation to the inner self within
her, utter warnings of impending calamities, and
sometimes bring tidings of joy. Her mother before her
possessed the same faculties in degree, and her great-
great-great-grandmother was actually tried and sentenced
to death at Salem for alleged "witchcraft" in the dark days
of 1692, but escaped to Scotland by the aid of friends who
rescued her from jail. Zephaniah Eddy was a narrow-
minded man, strong in his prejudices, a bigoted
religionist, and very little educated.
His new wife instinctively withheld from him all
knowledge of her peculiar psychological gifts, and for a time
after their marriage she seemed to have lost them. But they
returned after the birth of her first child stronger than ever,
and from that time until the day of her death they were the
source of much misery.
Mr. Eddy at first made light of them, laughed at her
prognostications, and forbade her giving way to what he
declared was the work of the Evil One himself. He resorted
to prayer to abate the nuisance, or, as he styled it, to "cast
the devil out of his ungodly wife and children," and, that
failing, to coercive measures, that proved equally inefficacious.
The first child that was born had the father's
temperament, but each succeeding one the mother's, and
each, at a very tender age, developed her idiosyncrasies.
Mysterious sounds were heard about their cradles, strange
voices called through the rooms they were in, they
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would play by the hour with beautiful children, visible only to
their eyes and the mothers, who brought them flowers and pet
animals, and romped with them; and once in a while, after they
were tucked away in bed, their little bodies would be lifted gently
and floated through the air by some mysterious power. In vain the
father stormed and threatened: the thing went on. He called his
pious neighbors together--Harvey Pratt, Rufus Sprague, Sam
Parker, Sam Simmons, Charles Powers, and Anson Ladd--and
prayed and prayed that this curse might be removed from his
house. But the devil was proof against entreaty and expostulation,
and the harder they prayed the wickeder the pranks he played.
Then the infuriated parent resorted to blows, and, to get the evil
spirit out of them, he beat these little girls and boys until he made
scars on their backs that they will carry to their graves. It seemed
as if the man would go crazy with rage.
By and by, things got so bad that the spirits would "materialize"
themselves in the room, right in the father's view, and, not being
able to handle them after his usual fashion, his only refuge was to
leave the chamber. The children could not go to school, for before
long, raps would be heard on the desks and benches, and they
would be driven out by the teacher, followed by the hootings and
revilings of the scholars. This, it will be remembered, was just
what happened to the children of the unfortunates who were hung
for witchcraft at Salem, the sins (?) of the parents being cruelly
visited upon the children.
One night, when Horatio was four years old, a little
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creature covered with a white fur suddenly appeared in the room
where he and three of the other children were sleeping, jumped
upon their bed, sniffed at their faces, and then began growing larger
and larger until it turned into a great luminous cloud, that gradually
shaped itself into a human form. The children screamed, and the
mother running in hastily with a candle, the shape disappeared. So
year after year things went on, full of trouble and sorrow for all in
the unhappy house. No wonder that I found them "curt,"
"repellant," and "sensitive," and suspicious and calculated to arouse
suspicion. I think I would be likewise under like circumstances.
Poor Mrs. Eddy's misfortunes did not cease with her husband's
death in 1860, but followed her even into her grave, as she one day
in a prophetic vision told the children it would in the exact manner
in which it happened. When her death occurred (January 1st 1873)
it was intended that she should be buried by the Spiritualists,
certain of whom had promised to be present, but it so happened
that they were detained away, and two Methodist friends of the
husband's acted as sole pall-bearers. As they were about to lower
the coffin into the grave these two worthies fell into dispute about
a lawsuit that they had just had, and one, in his eagerness to get at
his antagonist, dropped his rope and the poor lady was dumped end
over end into the pit, and the coffin turned bottom side
One surprising instance of the cruelty begotten by ignorance, is
afforded in the means resorted to once to bring William Eddy out
of a trance. Pushing, pinching, and blows proving in vain, Anson
Ladd, with the father's
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permission, poured scalding hot water down his back, and, as a
last heroic operation, put a blazing ember from the hearth on his
head. But the lad slept on, and the only effect of this cruelty was
the great scar that he has shown me on his crest.
The father's scruples did not interfere with his willingness to
turn a thrifty penny by an exhibition of the diabolical gifts of his
progeny, for, after the Rochester knockings of 1847 had ushered in
the new dispensation of Spiritualism, he hired three or four of the
children out to one showman, who took them to nearly all the
principal cities of the United States, and to another who took them
to London for a brief season.
The children got all the kicks and he all the ha'pence in this
transaction, and a sorry time it was for them. Passed through the
merciless hands of scores of "committees of skeptics," bound with
cords by " sailors of seven years' experience," and riggers
"accustomed to tic 'knots where human life was at risk," of
carpenters with a fancy for other knots than those in their boards,
of inventors who knew all sorts of "ropes" in addition to their
particular steam-engines or threshing-machines, and suchlike
illuminati, their soft young metacarpal bones were squeezed out of
shape, and their arms covered with tile scars of melted wax, used
to make the assurance of the bonds doubly and trebly sure. These
wrists and arms are a sight to see. Every girl and boy of them has a
marked groove between the ends of the ulna and radius and the
articulation of the bones of the hand, and every one of them is
scarred by hot sealing-wax. Two of the girls showed me scars
where pieces of flesh had been
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pinched out by handcuffs used by "committees"--fools who seem
to have been unable to discover suspected fraud without resort to
brutal violence on the persons of children.
And then the mobbings they have passed through! At Lynn,
Mass.; South Danvers; West Cleveland, Ohio., where William was
ridden on a rail and barely escaped a coat of tar and feathers; at
Moravia, N. Y.; at Waltham, Mass., where they had to fly for their
lives; at Dunville, Canada-in all which places their "cabinet" (a
simple, portable closet, in which they sit for the manifestations)
was smashed. They make no account in this catalogue of suffering,
of the places where they were stoned, hooted at, and followed to
their hotels by angry crowds. At South Danvers they were fired
upon by hidden assassins, and William has the scar of a bullet in
his ankle and Mary one in her arm to show for their picnic in that
tolerant locality ! Horatio carries his memento of that place in a
stab wound in his leg, and Lynn supplied him with the two tokens
of a scar on his forehead, where a brick hit him, and a broken finger,
the third, on his right hand.
Ah! these committees are often honorable gentlemen, as may be
inferred from the fact that once when applying the " flour-test "-
the placing of flour in the medium's hands after his wrists are tied,
to detect him if he disengages his hands and plays upon the
instruments himself-aquafortis was mixed in the flour, and
shockingly burned Horatio's fingers; and once, when the
musical instruments, horns, &c., were rubbed with rouge, so that
the mediums might be betrayed by their discolored
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hands if they should touch them, one of the committee, pretending
to make a last examination of the knots, rubbed the hands of both
the boys with rouge. In this instance, however, the base trick
availed nothing, for, aware of what had been done, the Eddys
called for the audience to look at their hands before the cabinet
doors were closed, and the culprit was exposed.
The reader will understand, from what I have said of their
childhood experiences, that these poor creatures had little or no
educational advantages, and their numerous correspondents will
not be surprised at the illiteracy shown in their letters. They will
be surprised, on the other hand, when I say that I have heard
words in six foreign tongues spoken, and conversation sustained in
the same, by rappings by some of the phantoms whose
appearance before me, during my present visit to the Eddy
homestead, I shall describe in future chapters of this true story.
The Daily Graphic was pleased to say of a letter of mine from
this place, that "the story is as marvelous as any to be found in
history," an opinion that was reiterated by several of the most
respected journals in other cities. I risk nothing in now saying that
what I am about to narrate is far more extraordinary in every
respect, and I expect to tax the public indulgence as to my veracity
to the utmost. But I shall at least take good care to be within the
limits of the truth, so that my story may be verified by any future
investigator who is willing to scan closely, move cautiously to
conclusions, and " nothing extenuate nor aught set down in malice."
I went to Chittenden to discover the truth as to the "Eddy
manifestations,"
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and as I find things, so shall I describe them, caring nothing
how much my own prejudices are affected by the result.
The sketches that illustrate this chapter represent
the Eddy homestead as viewed from the south-east,*
rear, and north side. The house is the first frame
building erected in Chittenden township, and for many
years was a wayside inn. It comprises a main building
and a rear extension, or L, of two stories, of which the
lower is divided into a dining-room, kitchen, and small
cupboard or pantry; and the upper, thrown into one
room, is known as the "circle-room," or among the
profane, as " the ghost shop." In the rear view, the
kitchen door is seen at the hither end of the L part,
and the square window in the gable-end gives light
into the "cabinet" or narrow closet in which William
Eddy sits when the materializations occur.
30 31-32 picture
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