Margaret Fox was one of three sisters from New York who played an important role in the creation of Spiritualism in the mid-19th century.
Background
Margaret Fox was born on October 7, 1833 and was a daughter of John D. and Margaret Fox, who had moved from a farm in Canada in 1847 to one near Hydesville, in Wayne County, New York.
According to an interview given by Margaret (New York World, October 21, 1888), the children began the rappings for the excitement of mystifying their superstitious mother, who believed that the creakings and cracklings of the old house were caused by “spirits. ” The children’s pranks only confirmed her delusion. At first the taps were made by the bumping of an apple tied on a string but later, when more secrecy was needed, by movements of the toes. The mother told neighbors of the sounds and soon the countryside was gossiping about them.
An elder sister, Mrs. Leah Fish, who lived in Rochester, took Kate and later Margaret to her home and invited neighbors to come to hear the mysterious sounds which occurred in their presence. Years later Margaret said that this sister was fully aware that the children controlled the rappings and herself tried to imitate them, though unsuccessfully because of the lesser flexibility of her joints. An older brother, David, suggested that the spirits might be able to communicate if the alphabet were spelled out for them. This suggestion was readily acted upon and words were soon tapped out.
Education
Margaret was sporadically educated before her family moved to Rochester, New York by 1841.
Career
The fame of the “Rochester Rappings” spread with such rapidity that Leah felt able to take the little girls to New York in the summer of 1850, where they began seances which brought them a hundred dollars and more a night. The newspapers, with the exception of the New York Tribune (June 8, 1850), took them lightly; but Horace Greeley was sufficiently interested to make arrangements for Kate’s education. The two sisters with their mother then toured the country.
Numberless rivals and imitators appeared immediately, among them Victoria Woodhull and Ira Erastus Davenport. The followers of Andrew Jackson Davis recalled that in his rambling revelations he had spoken of communications with the dead, and hailed the rappings as a fulfilment of his prophecy. As the excitement increased, he cautiously agreed. “Spiritualist circles” were formed throughout the country, using his writings as a guide, and some of these in time became “churches. ”
While in Philadelphia, Margaret had met the Arctic explorer, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane. He was a scientist and was antagonistic to the new spiritualism, but he was attracted to the medium. He tried to take her away from her Spiritualist friends and their influence and to have her educated. During his absences, however, she continually slipped back to the excitement of the circles. After his return from the Arctic, he saw her only briefly before he left for the journey on which he died in 1857.
She proclaimed that he had acknowledged a common-law marriage with her before her relatives, and, to the distress of his family, assumed his name. In an attempt to obtain a small annuity which he may have intended to give her, she published his letters to her. The authenticity of sections of these letters has been questioned. For some time she did not return to the circles, but economic necessity drove her at length to a somewhat indifferent participation.
The cult had spread to England where Harriet Martineau and Elizabeth Browning were among the interested investigators. Kate was married to H. D. Jencken in 1872; and in 1876 Margaret joined her sister in London. The sisters had openly quarreled with Leah, now Mrs. Underhill, who was most actively promulgating the new religion, insisting that the performances of the sisters were beyond their control.
On October 21, 1888, Margaret, now a convert to Roman Catholicism and unhappy in the continual deceit, openly exposed the chicanery of Mrs. Underhill at the Academy of Music in New York. When Margaret explained the methods by which the rappings were obtained, the sensation was tremendous. Spiritualists, however, insisted that the confession was made for money and while Margaret was under the influence of alcohol. Later, indeed, she recanted, when her lecture tour proved a financial failure. She returned to the rappings for a living, resorting to drink frequently till the time of her death in 1893 in Brooklyn.
Achievements
Religion
After the sudden death of her fiancé, Elisha Kane, in 1857, Margaret Fox converted to Catholicism within the year, renounced spiritualism.
Views
In 1888 Margaret appeared at the New York Academy of Music and confessed that the entire matter of spirit rapping had been a hoax. She and Kate had begun it, she said, as a prank on their superstitious mother and had contrived the sounds by various means but principally by movements of their toes. The ranks of confirmed spiritualists, by then legion, condemned her confession as a shabby lie, told probably for money and possibly under the influence of alcohol. Soon thereafter she retracted the confession and returned to spiritualism for her livelihood.
Personality
After the sudden death of her fiancé, Elisha Kane, in 1857 Margaret Fox fell into alcoholism.
Connections
Margaret attracted the attention of the explorer Elisha Kent Kane, who tried to persuade her to give up spiritualism and to seek an education. After his death in 1857 she claimed to have entered into a common-law marriage with him, and in 1865 she published his letters to her, possibly somewhat altered, as The Love-Life of Dr. Kane.
In 1862, denied what she believed to have been a bequest from Kane, she adopted his name, called herself his widow, and threatened to take his family to court, whereupon they settled with her.