In celebration of April Fool’s Day, Angie and Theresa are at it again.

Angie starts off with the tale of the Cardiff Giant. George Hull and his cousin William Newell create this elaborate hoax to convince people that they found a giant petrified man – then the showman Barnum gets involved.

Theresa then shares the story of the Fox sisters. These renowned mediums ushered in the Spiritualist Movement. But were the frauds?

This episode pairs well with other hoaxes of history:

Spaghetti Hoax
The Time Traveler

Transcript:

Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhanced History Podcast. The podcast where two compulsive crazy heads are going to read history memes and then research the stories behind them so you don’t have to because you probably won’t. 

And then we’re going to come together and tell each other the stories we’ve only recently learned. I’m Teresa. I’m host one and that is Angie. I’m host two. Yeah. Hi. How are you? You suddenly just went that there’s a and I was like what? 

Angie: Yeah, no, I realized you can’t see what I’m looking at. 

Theresa: Yeah, I’m in a different location altogether. I’m in a different state. Sorry. Are you though? Are you a little bit? Sorry. You can move. 

Angie: Dude, that’s the plan, Stan. I’m here for it. To a castle in the French countryside. 

Theresa: You know, I was looking at a piece of real estate and I showed it to Mike and I was like, look, there’s like four bathrooms, five bedrooms. It’s massive. It’s great. 

And Mike went, okay. And what you don’t like big homes. So what’s the point? I was like, well, Angie could move up here. And he goes, no, no, and not for the reasons that you’re thinking of. And I was like, what? And he goes, she’s got two boys. We have a daughter. If you and I had lived together in high school, we’d have found her way in a bedroom and our child would have been here years and years before. 

Angie: I can assure you, I think mine are just older enough to not cause problems with yours. 

Theresa: Your kids, your youngest is a year older than mine. That’s basically the same age. That’s still too dang close. All right. Look. Because Kido turns 13 this year. That’s wild. I know. 

Absolutely wild. And she’s probably taller than mine. How tall is she? I don’t know. Shorter than me. Kid height? I don’t, what do you want me to, I don’t know. 

Theresa: Kid height. Oh, and only goes up to my shoulder. 

Theresa: And you’re not tall. Like, this is why I really hope nothing awful happens. Because the police are going to say, well, how tall is she? I don’t know. Kid height. Like, what do you want from me? I don’t, I don’t even know how tall she is in relation to her peers. She’s tall in relation to her peers, but six or eight height. 

Angie: But what does that mean? Yeah. 

Theresa: Like, she’s shorter, bigger than a bread basket, smaller than an elephant. What do you want? 

Angie: Facts. Okay. Yeah. I, my house measures things not in actual measurements, but like, I have literally said this sentence. Beloved, I need you to go find me a board that is six cupcakes wide. 

Theresa: But that’s probably because you’re putting it on cupcakes. You’re probably not adhering it to the side of a house. 

Angie: That’s true. However, he understood what six cupcakes wide mean and brought me board. 

Theresa: Proof that Americans will measure anything and other in metric. 

Angie: We are the like living, breathing, walking proof of that. It, except for when it comes to things like baking, Eppelman’s like, we understand the metric system when it comes to that. And my oldest son and I refer to it as cocaine math. And that makes us both laugh. While my husband rolls his eyes and considers like getting a new family. He’s never said it out loud, you 

Theresa: know, but you can see the thoughts. You can understand. Yeah. No, I’m with you. 

Angie: I could be in a different town and with a, with a normal family. Like, right. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, it’s my turn. Can I just go? Would you? I’ve been waiting. Yeah. Okay. Cool. 

So here’s the thing. I don’t want to tell you my sources yet. I could take my headphones off. I don’t want to tell anybody my sources until my story’s over. There’s really a range. Yeah. 

Theresa: I guess. But I mean, like, don’t forget. 

Angie: Or I can tell you my sources, but not tell you the title. I agree to your terms. Okay. There is a history.com article that was written by Evan Andrews. Originally in 2014, and then it was updated in May of 23. The Massachusetts Historical Society has this really great website called the Beehive. And there’s a fabulous article in there from 2017 by Shelby Wolfe, the Smithsonian. 

Okay. The Bruce Museum. The On On Adaga Historical Society, which is in New York. And then there is an all that’s interesting article. And I did Wikipedia this one. 

And here’s the deal. I feel like I’m validated to use Wikipedia for this solely because this episode will be released so delightfully close. April Fool’s Day. So just, just go with me on this. 

Okay. So my story starts on October 16, 1869, when two fellas called Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols are hired to dig a well for Mr. William Newell on his farm in Cardiff, New York. Did you know there was a Cardiff outside of Wales? I did not. 

Theresa: I mean, how many Paris’s are there? There’s a Paris, Texas. Yeah. 

Angie: And that was sort of exactly where my trying to thought went. But also, like, I don’t know why I was shocked by Cardiff. Like that seemed unusual to me, but it was. So anyway, these two guys, they’re digging a well on this guy, Mr. William Newell’s farm. They only get about three feet before one of them hits stone. And as they start to clear the soil, they make out a foot, and then they continue to unearth the figure of a 10 foot tall man. Yep. 

Theresa: Are you on clock in the story? Carry on. Okay. 

Angie: So news of this discovery spreads like wildfire. And the Massachusetts Historical Society says, quote, strange reports echoed from farm to farm. It was noised abroad that a great stone statue or petrified giant had been dug up near the little hamlet of Cardiff. All in all, once they dug it up, it weighed in at about 3,000 pounds and, like said, 10 feet tall. Once it was dug out enough, Newell, the guy that owns the farm, he like immediately sets up a tent and like display around it. And people are coming from everywhere. 

They’re flocking to this little hamlet. And for a fee of 25 cents, which today is $5.84, okay, that’s the thing to see. You could see the petrified man, right? So you could see the petrified man for $5.84. They were ushered into the tent and then they got to check it out and look at it. And a lot of people believed this was a real living at one time being that had been in the earth so long, he was petrified. After only two days, Newell like realizes he’s winning here. So he raises the price to 50 cents to view the petrified man. 

Theresa: And dollar admittance fee, okay. It’s $11.68. That’s like the cost of a Matt name movie before COVID. Right. Right. So that’s, honestly, supply and demand. Right. 

Angie: And it’s, I’m thinking like, that’s impressive as it is because it’s 1869. So for me, $11 feels like a lot, right? Like the translation is just wild to me. 

Theresa: But anyway, I mean, you also got to think they also have, I mean, he’s actually trying to keep out the big families. Oh, you’ve got six kids. Sure. 

Angie: Bring them all to you $75 to come see this. 

Theresa: You know, I mean, help yourself. 

Angie: So this cost psych, you know, of the double the price doesn’t stop people cut from coming. In fact, thousands show up. The All That’s Interesting article says that quote, the Syracuse Journal reported that men left their work, women caught up their babies and children in numbers, and all hurried to see the scene. So I guess those big families are showing up no matter what. 

Theresa: Now, do babies get in free or is he charging them who are being carried who aren’t going to remember? 

Angie: I don’t need the effort. You know, I didn’t, I didn’t, Newell’s dead. So I couldn’t ask if he did, you know, Cornell University’s first president, Andrew White, he even goes to check it out. And he says that the roads were so crowded with buggies, carriages, and even omnibuses from the city. And with lumber wagons from the farms all laid in with passengers. There’s a YouTube video that I forgot to mention in my sources called The True Story Behind the Cardiff Giant. It’s from a YouTube channel called Andrew Made a Film. And he talks about a book that the Farmers Museum sent him called The Cardiff Giant by Barbara Frago. And I just need you to know that it was so hard to find out what that book was actually called because you can’t just like go online and buy it. But anyway, it was like this little maybe 100 page right up on the event. 

Okay. So he he says that the nearby farms, so not Newell’s farm, but the other farms in the area catch on really quick and they start selling like pastries and tea and lemonade and stuff. So like everybody’s sort of profiting from this. And I think one of them sold like pumpkin spice something like you’re you’re getting you’re getting a day out of it, say the least. 

Yeah. So the Smithsonian tells us that hundreds of amateur archaeologists and then spectacle seekers head to the tent to view the giant and make theories. And the visitors, they’re invited to draw their own ideas about the giant. 

Most choose to believe it’s the real deal for biblical reasons. Of course. Yeah. 

I mean, right. So there’s this debate that’s kind of brewing between those that think it’s a petrified man and those that believe it’s just an ancient statue. One of Kardas claims to fame is that it boasts a huge number of fossils. So the cardiff giant being like a quote biblical giant preserved for eons earlier and petrified kind of makes a ton of sense, or at least in did it did in 1869, because right there. They’re very familiar with fossilized things. Some thought that this giant could be the predecessor of the people, the on on a dog of people. Their historical society says quote, those who promoted the statue theory followed the lead of Dr. John F. Boyanton, who speculated that a Jesuit missionary had carved it sometime during the 17th century to impress the local Indians. 

But so he says carved. Okay. Yeah. 

So there’s all sorts of theories roaming around like no one’s really got anything exactly nailed down. After some time of it being this sort of roadside attraction on the Newell farm, it gets sold. Um, this is insane for $23,000 in their money. Wow. That would be the equivalent of $572,000. 

A half million. Yeah. So it gets sold to a syndicate of five men headed up by this guy called David Hanum and it’s moved to Syracuse. In Syracuse, the giant can be more like properly exhibited and stored and gone over with a fine tooth comb. At which point, a paleontologist from Yale called Othaniel C. Marsh declares it a clumsy fake saying the children marks are still there. And if it had really been underground for hundreds of years, they would have been worn off by now. But because we are in 1869, it is this time in American history. Interstage left. P.T. Barnum shows up. 

Theresa: Oh man. The ultimate gentleman. 

Angie: Right. He offers the new owners as much as $60,000 for a three month lease of it. Oh, he doesn’t even want to buy it. He just wants to lease it. 

That’s $1.4 million today for just the three month lease. Like, I’m going to give you all the money if you just let me, let me have this for a little bit. Well, his offer is refused and he did what anybody would do when you have that kind of money in our show. And he pays an artist to build an exact plaster rep’s covet, which he then puts on display in his museum in New York City, claiming that his giant is the real one and that Cardiff giant is a fake. 

Theresa: Honestly, good for him. What are they going to do? Let other people like lease it? 

Angie: Well, the, the newspapers reported Barnum’s version of everything that happened and David Hennem, the man who was like in charge of the syndicate of guys who purchased it, was quoted as saying, there’s a sucker born every minute in reference to spectators paying to see Barnum’s giant. Wikipedia says that oftentimes now that quote actually gets misattributed to actually being said by Barnum, but it was said by Mr. Hennem. Now, Hennem tries to sue Barnum for calling his giant a fake, but, and I just love judges so much. The judge tells him, go get your giant to swear on his genuineness in court if you want a favorable injection on my part. 

Theresa: I love this. I love when they’re just like, I’m not playing, get over yourself. I love it so much. 

Angie: The Massachusetts Historical Society says quote, the tell of the Cardiff giant sparked the imaginations of authors Mark Twain and L. Frank Baum and the giant even found his way into a Nancy Drew mystery. Today you can find him on display at the Farmers Museum in Copperstown, New York. Do you want, do you care to know how he ended up in Copperstown, New York? 

Go on. Well, he was on display at the Pan American Exposition in 1901, but unfortunately it didn’t really gain much attention at that event. And then an Iowa publisher called Gardner Cowles Jr. buys it to adorn his quote, basement rumpus room as a coffee table and conversation piece. 

Yeah, right. And then in 1947, he sells it to the Farmers Museum in Copperstown, New York, where it’s displayed. So the owner of Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum, which is like a coin operated game arcade and Museum of Audities in Michigan, he says that the copy displayed there is actually Barnum’s. And there is also a copy of the giant displayed at the Fort Museum and Frontier Village in Fort Dodge, Iowa. So there’s like a couple running around. 

Theresa: Yeah, right. Okay. 

Angie: Do you care to hear the actual story of the giant of Cardiff? Go on. My story actually starts in 1866, late 1866, early 1867 in Iowa with a man called George Hull. Let me just describe him to you. According to the YouTube video I watched that referenced the book that I mentioned earlier, Hull is described as quote, a scoundrel. He was remarkable in many respects. He was over six feet tall with slightly stooped shoulders and a ritty complexion. He looked the part of the villain with his black hair, mustache, beard and dressed in black from his shoes to his plug hat. Now, Mr. 

Hull, George is a very real atheist and a staunch skeptic. And this is kind of a thing in the 1860s in America, right? Like you don’t find a lot of that. So he’s sort of like this outsider. And it’s not that it particularly matters to the story, but George is also in the family business of cigar manufacturing. 

And I just think that’s like a fun fact. So anyway, he is in Iowa visiting his sister or doing business or both. Sources are a bit flaky on that one. 

One source says one, other sources say other. Why can’t he be doing both? But anyway, so he’s in Iowa and he gets into a bit of a theological debate with a Methodist revivalist reverend called Mr. Turk. Mr. Turk is a staunch literalist and Hull is an atheist. And evidently, the good reverend is stuck on verse on this verse in Genesis 6-4. Are you familiar with it? Octop? 

Theresa: No, you’re going to need to give me a chapter of verse. Okay. 

Angie: There were giants in the earth in those days. And also after that, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bear children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old men of renown. So good reverend Turk and Mr. Hull are in a very serious debate about this particular phrase in the Bible. Mr. Turk is a literalist and Mr. Hull is a skeptic and an atheist. And later that evening, Hull’s laying in bed and sort of thinking to himself like that was an awful conversation. I’m kind of over it. 

What can I do about it? And suddenly he says, I thought of making a stone giant and passing it off as a petrified man. So his goal is twofold. He wants to dupe the faithful who he pretty much sees as willing to accept anything that confirms their belief. And like he wants to undermine the whole literalist interpretation while making a book, right? 

Theresa: I mean, who among us? We’re capitalists at heart. Truly. 

Angie: So he sets out on his mission. Over the next two years, Hull spends nearly $3,000, which I know you need to know is roughly $67,000. That’s a big investment, right? 

Just for like a joke, right? He begins in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and this is where he secures a five ton block of gypsum. Hull claims it’s going to be used for a statue of the late Abraham Lincoln. Okay, Timothy Dexter. Hull ships the slab to Chicago to a German stone cutter or sculptor called John J. Sampson who cars it at his workshop at 940 North Clark Street, because we have that information to share. 

Theresa: And if you live at 947 Clark Street, please tell us. 

Angie: Now, Sampson, he agrees to help with this scheme in exchange for a piece of the prophets. Hull himself poses as the model, and Sampson and another sculptor spend the late summer of 1868 working the gypsum into the giant. The statue takes the form of a naked man laying on his back. He’s got his right arm grasping at his stomach, one leg crossed over the other, and on his face, he has a little half smile. 

A smirk, if you will. The workers then douse the exterior of the statue with sulfuric acid and give it that aged and like eroded look. And then one source says that Hull even drives pins into the body to replicate skin pores. That’s kind of smart. He’s like, he has committed to this. 

Theresa: I mean, he’s not as good as being able to fool a Harvard professor, but 

Angie: you know, what are you going to do? We fooled most of America at the time. Like, that’s what we’re really going for here. That’s fair. By the time they’re done, the sham stands more than 10 feet tall, and like I said earlier, weighs nearly 3,000 tons. Enter Newell. You remember the farmer who’s trying to dig a well on his property? Well, he is actually Hull’s cousin. And after cutting him in on the deal, and a valve secrecy, an iron sealed box is shipped via train to the farm. Then one night in November of 1868, the two men bury the behemoth near Newell’s barn. 

They like wedge it up under the roots, hoping to create this sort of illusion that it’s kind of been there for a while and the roots are growing around it, right? 

Theresa: Okay, first off, can you imagine, like it’s hard enough to get a bookshelf in your house. You’re going to need to move a 3,000 pound statue, probably in the dead of night. You’ve got more than two people in on this. 

Angie: And like if I’m Newell’s wife, I’m wondering why you’re bringing a big iron box onto the property. Like what is your plan here, Bub? 

Theresa: No, that’s a curse. There’s a curse in that box. We do not need that opened. Put it back. Send it back. Yeah. So after they bury it, Hull goes back home. 

Angie: He lives in a little village nearby called Dinghampton. He just keeps working his cigar business. Like almost a year goes by before he finally writes to Newell, and he tells him it’s time to resurrect the giant. So he is here for the long game. 

Theresa: He is waiting. I would have been chomping at it, but like, bro, it’s been a week, a week. 

Angie: It’s been 12 minutes. Let’s go. 

Theresa: Starts to grab the shovels, boys. Let’s go. Right? 

Angie: So on October 16th, 1869, Newell hires the pair of unsuspecting workers to dig a well near his barn. The rest you already know. All that’s in the All That’s Interesting article says, quote, Soon news of the hoax went public. The Mason who carved the giant apparently confessed to Chicago Tribune, and a respected paleontologist denounced the giant as a most decided humbug. 

Theresa: Well humbug to you. Good sir. 

Angie: He knows. Sense of humor. Geez. On December 10th of 1869, Hull confessed to everything to the press, saying that he didn’t confess because of criticism, but because he wanted the hoax to be exposed. To quote, reveal the tendency of the Christian community to believe in things too easily and to counter the fundamentalist belief that giants once roamed the earth. So there’s that. On February 2nd of 1870, in court, both giants are revealed as fakes. 

And the judge also ruled that Barnum could not be sued for terming a fake giant a fake, which is I’m sure the same judge that was like, well, if yours is real, get them to come down here and cop to it. Like. Now, Hull, he clears around 20 grand. So if 60 grand was just over a million, he’s not doing too bad. 

No, with this scheme, and he’s feeling pretty good. So he attempts a second hoax, a second, excuse me, a second hoax, as what they call a flim-slam man. In 1877, he tries to humbug the masses once again with a seven foot tall giant with a tail, and he buries it in Colorado. 

However, much to his dismay, the hoax is quickly exposed, and he loses a ton of money. He dies poor and in obscurity in 1902, but still very proud of fooling the world with the Cardiff giant. His obituary is more of a sensational news article about the giant than an actual proper obituary. And then just 15 days later, the last survivor of the famous Cardiff giant humbug, the sculptor, John, he died also. Wow. I have a photo. 

Theresa: Go for it. I do. 

Angie: Of course, it’s kind of, it’s so silly. I giggle the whole time, and just kept laughing about how you said last week that you were back on your bullshit. I’m back. 

Theresa: Okay, so the image that she’s showing has a massive statue. It’s not a statue that you’d see standing at a park because this guy is clearly in repose, hand on tummy, like I really shouldn’t have eaten the entire pizza. 

No pizza is in fact, they put like there’s a large pizza, it’s not a personal pizza if I have enough commitment. That’s the kind of look he’s got. And there are, there’s a man at the statues me bent down like, well, Timmy, and then there’s two kids near the statue. Timmy and Jimmy. Yeah, Timmy and Jimmy, and they’re clearly looking at him listening intently and, you know, trying to figure out, well, this statue dates back to this, you know, just three weeks ago. 

Angie: Yeah, just one year and three days. So, so that’s, that’s the story of the Cardiff Giant. 

Theresa: I adore it. I adore it. Thank you for sharing that. I’ve, I’ve heard the story. I don’t think I ever saw the photo, but I’m grateful that you went on your Mary John’s because it lines up and allows me to segue perfectly. 

Angie: I love this for me. Happy April Fool’s. 

Theresa: Yeah, I mean, it’s April Fool’s Day is my birthday. Yeah. Love this for us. I know. You could have scored a better birthday for your birthday. I, it matches who I am. I grew into it. I’m, I probably wasn’t born on this bullshit. I grew into it. I don’t know. 

Angie: Some people are just naturally that way. You know, maybe, maybe it was meant for you. 

Theresa: Maybe it’s a bit of a little column A, little column B. 

Angie: I’ll take all the column C. It sounds great. 

Theresa: I mean, you know, okay. So my sources, Smithsonian Magazine, The Fox Sisters and the Wrap on Spiritualism by Abbott Collar. And then I went down the rabbit hole and listened to all of the podcasts. Con artists, The Fox Sisters, Stranged and Unexplained, they have a two-part series, The Fox Sisters and the Cabrion, The Fox Sisters Talking to the Dead. 

Angie: Oh, this is not the story I thought it was going to be. When you said Fox Sisters, I was immediately thinking about those little girls that tricked, that tried to trick everybody with the fairy pictures. 

Theresa: Oh, no, no, no, no, not them. Not them. Yeah. 

Angie: No, no, I’m wrong. No, I’m delighted. 

Theresa: Delighted to be wrong. You, you know who they are, though. I’m going to get gone and you’re like, oh, okay. Okay. All right. So it’s late March, 1848. We’re in a place called Hidesdale, New York, Quaint Little Cottage. This home is rented by the Fox family. 

They’re building their home. Now, let me, let me kind of go in. The facts I’m going to give you, they seem extraneous, but the facts matter. So, Mama and Papa were together for many, many years, had several kids, and Papa’s drinking kind of got in the way. And even though he was great at providing, you know, they kind of split up, they reunited and they decided to try again. And they move into this rented house. 

They have a couple of kids, or at least they had a couple of kids then moved in. Okay. Either way. So the two Fox Sisters that were bringing up, they are the result of the reunification, the trying again, the second chance. 

Okay. The house they live in though, the rented house, it’s said to be haunted. And everybody in the town passes this rumor. 

We have the 14 year old, Mark Rita, who’s called Maggie Fox, her 11 year old sister Kate, they end up kind of snagging a neighbor. The article says, way late a neighbor. And there’s ego of that term. Isn’t it? It’s just, it’s up there with Shanghai without the negative connotations, you know, around race. They end up trying to tell this neighbor about this really awful phenomenon that happens every night around bedtime. They keep hearing a series of raps or caps, not they’re not hearing Eminem on the walls and on the furniture. 

Angie: Now these, I was so glad you said that what I did about having my cup in my hand. 

Theresa: I mean, look, you might need a new microphone, but it would have been hilarious for the spit take. I snorted. I just, these are recorded. I would, I would do a video podcast for you spit taking all over the screen. I would. 

Angie: That was a good one. I’m here for it. 

Theresa: Now the raps that come up, they, they kind of have this, it’s described as a other worldly intelligence. The neighbor looks like a Ouija board built into the house. Yeah. The neighbor is a helis skeptical and as you are comes to see for herself because she’s not going to be believing these two preteen children. And so she joins the girls in this small chamber they share with their parents. Now Maggie and Kate are huddled together in their bed and their mother Margaret began the demonstration. 

So Margaret dearest is at least a believer if, if not in on it. Okay. Now, now count to five. She ordered and the room shook with the sound of five heavy thuds. So dad’s upstairs jumping. I don’t think that’s home. Oh, okay. 

Count 15. She commanded and the mysterious presence of Bade. Next she asked to tell the neighbor’s age. 33 distinct raps followed. If you’re an injured spirit, she continued manifested by three raps. 

And it did. Oh, okay. Now Margaret Fox doesn’t seem to really take into account that it’s March 31st or April Fool’s Eve. And the fact that her daughters are frightened because they are frightened doesn’t seem to really enter in. She doesn’t realize that they could be frightened maybe not by the unseen presence but by the success of their prank. 

This checks. So the story continues to get built on because the ghost or the spirit is said to be the murder victim buried in the basement. Of course, because if you’re going to build up, this is the story you’re going to tell. Everything about this says this is the prank of, you know, this is the made up story because they referred on as Mr. Split. split foot. Eww. Now split foot I guess is a nickname of the devil. Think of the cloven hoof. 

Angie: Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. 

Theresa: So yeah, this is not that I like it, but it makes sense. Now why would you say that Lucifer is buried in the basement? That’s where the thing gets a little twisted. That’s just silly. Right. They’re mixing their stories up. 

But they say that he’s a peddler, he was a father of five, and he was murdered in the house and buried in the basement. Okay. Yeah, these are the things you make up, right? Bomb freaks out because who wouldn’t? 

Fair. They end up deserting the house like you do. And Maggie and Kate go to live with their older sister, Leah Fox. I should say Leah Fox Fish because she married. 

Leah lives in Rochester. Now the story probably could have died. Nobody may have heard anything else. But Rochester was a hotbed of religious activity because this is, we are in on it, right? Okay. So it’s all during this whole time. We’re in the Finger Lakes region of New York. This area. 

Angie: Is this that where your haunted house is? The Finger Lakes region of New York? 

Theresa: That one’s just north of New York City. This is near Rochester. I don’t think they’re incredibly close. That would have been awesome. Wouldn’t that be just like, oh my gosh, I didn’t realize. Oh, it’s right there. But the Finger Lakes region is where Mormonism and Millerism came from. And Millerism is the precursor to the seven-day Adventists. 

Oh, you learn something new every day? I’m here. I’m just full. I’m a fount of knowledge. Take me to your pub trivia night. I won’t like it because it’ll be loud, but I’ll probably do well. 

Angie: We won’t win because I’ll be stressed out about how loud it is, but here we are. Yeah. 

Theresa: I mean, I’ll know the answers in the car. Yeah, pretty much. Now, they have some community leaders, Isaac and Amy Post. They hear about the Fox Sisters. They are in on it. They like this idea. 

They are wanting to really see all of this. They’d also heard about the rumor of the dude buried in the basement. And there’s a group of Rochester residents who go and examine the cellar of the Fox home. They find a body. They find what appear to be bone and hair fragments. 

That’s grosser than a whole body. Yeah. Okay. But also, like the basement, I guess, had flooded, so they couldn’t do a full-on investigation. Oh, okay. 

Okay. But they found evidence that this could be. Now, Leah, the older sister, she’s a single mother. She’s kind of struggling to make ends meet, but she sees this clear opportunity here. And then we also need to understand, because nothing happens in a vacuum, Leah is fascinated by the Andrew Jackson Davis prophecy. The Andrew Jackson Davis prophecy? I’m so glad you didn’t ask, because I’m going to tell you. 

Angie: I was going to say, I do tell. Do go on. 

Theresa: So it’s a combination of a couple of things that are occurring. There’s this dude named Emmanuel Swindonburg. He’s an 18th century Swedish philosopher and mystic. He experiences this huge surge in popularity. Swindonburg believes that the afterlife consists of three heavens. And there’s also three hills, and then there’s kind of this interim think purgatory, the world of spirits. And this is where everyone goes to immediately upon dying. 

Theresa: And then you kind of get to a purgatory place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. 

Theresa: And so it’s kind of more or less similar to what you experience here on earth. Okay. Now self love, according to him, drives people towards varying degrees of hell where love for others elevate you towards the heavens. So if you’re inwardly focused to the depths, outwardly focused, go on up. 

Angie: Take the elevator up. Yeah. Okay. Got it. 

Theresa: Now he goes on to say the Lord cast no one in hell, but those who deliberately cast themselves into it can keep themselves there. Nice. I mean, and honestly, I’m going to help you out. He’s just saying, look, this happens. I’m not involved. This is what you did to yourself. Sorry about your luck. Right. You could have done better. I say that to everybody. 

Angie: You know, you know, you say what you gotta say. Yeah. 

Theresa: And I mean it. He claims to have actually talked with many of these spirits. So he’s one of those. Oh, okay. All right. So here’s Drew Jackson Davis. This is this is the guy that Leah is hot on. He comes to be known as John the Baptist and modern spiritualism. 

Of course. Now he combines this idea of, you know, Swedenberg spirits. And then he kind of takes this. He goes into a bunch of these. Trances and he recorded the contents of these messages in 1847, which I don’t know how you’re recording in 1847. 

Angie: They kind of grandma phone quite. Okay. Maybe. Yeah. 

Theresa: All right. That makes sense. So he publishes the contents in a book called the principles of nature, her divine revelations and the voice of mankind. Pretty. Pretty long title. I feel like we can launch it. 

Angie: We did not put that in front of a test audience. No. 

Theresa: But he ends up really kind of predicting the rise of spiritualism. 

Angie: Oh, so we’re not. Okay. In my mind, I thought we were like right in the thick of it. 

Theresa: Yeah, no, he’s he kind of like I said, he’s the John the Baptist of spiritualism. 

Angie: Okay. So he’s inviting it. He’s calling it forward. Right. Okay. 

Theresa: Now, where was I back to my notes. Back to the Fox sisters. So he hears about the Fox sisters and then Davis believes that his prediction materialized a year after that he wrote, you know, what he’d wrote. He said on the very day the Fox sisters first channel spirits in their bedroom quote about daylight this morning. He confided to his diary. A breath take or a warm breathing passed over my face and I heard a voice tender and strong saying brother. The good work has begun. Behold, a living demonstration is born. 

Angie: That’s not terrifying at all. No. 

Theresa: So no, we’re going to we’re going to zip back over to the Fox sisters. The community leaders the post, you know, we have that that little couple, they invite the girls to a gathering at their own home. They’re anxious to see if these girls can communicate the spirits that are in another locale because they’re used to having it done in their own bedroom. So now they want to see, can you can you talk to the people here versus your your old Mr. Butch foot. Yeah. 

I mean, that makes sense. Now, Isaac post he goes on to say, I suppose I went with as much unbelief as Thomas felt when he introduced to when he was introduced to Jesus after he ascended. Okay. 

I guess he’s swayed by the quote, very distinct thumps under the floor and several apparent answers. Okay. Now, these he also goes on to say that Leah Fox, the older sister, proved to be quite the medium and communicated with the post recently deceased daughter. Oh, now the post on. Nice. Is it though? 

Angie: I mean, I feel like it was being sarcastic. 

Theresa: I don’t, you know, I listened to these episodes later on and I go, I should have caught that. And reader, I never do. 

Angie: Well, you know, maybe I’ll be more overtly sarcastic next time. Would you? Sorry. 

Theresa: Yes, I’m on it. I mean, I’ve only been on this world 40 plus years. I should have learned this by now. These are things. 

Theresa: Especially if you have others. I am. Probably why. 

Theresa: I just can’t see through my own sarcasm to see yours. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So the posts, they go on and they end up renting the largest hall in Rochester. There’s 400 people that come to hear these mysterious noises that pop up. 

And afterwards Amy posts accompany the sisters to a private chamber where they were disrobed by a committee of skeptics. I hate that. Yeah. And like, okay, so this could, I didn’t put this fully in the notes. There were like three days of these girls being examined and tested. 

Angie: And how exactly do you examine physically for something like this? Like, why would you have to be disrobed? 

Theresa: Okay. So they didn’t, they didn’t jump immediately to that. It’s like day one. Can you demonstrate for me? Day two. Gosh, it really seems like the sounds are coming from the ground. I feel the vibrations on the ground. Can I get this to happen if I touch your foot? Oh, strangely, the spirits start to stop talking when I touch your foot. How odd. And then it’s, we’re going to get a group of women to stare at you naked and see if anything crazy happens. 

And the girls sob the entire time. As would I, yeah. Yeah. And, but each time they, they go through this, these tests, they come out with, we can’t prove that they’re fake. We can’t, we don’t know what’s happening. We hear the sounds. They didn’t hear the sounds when the girls were naked. 

But to be fair, the girls are also sobbing hysterically. As you do. Right. You know, so maybe, maybe their cries covered the sounds unclear. Okay. But the believers are really galvanized by this. The unbelievers, they are also galvanized by this. Everyone just becomes more cemented in their own beliefs. 

Angie: Okay. All right. 

Theresa: So now there’s this idea, basically for us to kind of think of communicated the spirits, we don’t do it so much now. We don’t think of it. It’s not quite the rage. You know, we might have a, we might go see a weedy board, but do you have a weedy board? Maybe. Absolutely not. Do you know somebody who does? Possibly. I mean, like probably. It’s so kind of like, 

Angie: it’s more of a, I think a novelty. Yeah. 

Theresa: As opposed to like everyone’s got one. Yeah. You know, so at this point, everyone’s kind of in that, that sphere of really getting into it. Now they, the Smithsonian article goes on to say that the Bible contains hundreds of reverent, hundreds of references of angels communicating to men. 

And so the movement known as modern spiritualism sprang from several really revolutionary philosophies and characters, like the concept of being able to communicate outside beyond the veil is nothing new. Right. And then, right. 

That’s what they’re kind of going on about. There’s this guy named Franz Anton Mesmer. He’s an 18th century Australian healer. 

He spread throughout the United States around the time of 1840. So he kind of, he’s one of the people that puts Andrew Davis Jackson or Andrew Jackson Davis, whatever the prophecy dude. He kind of like influences him. Mesmer goes on to propose that everything in the universe, including the human body is governed by a magic fluid, which you know, you know, but this magic fluid can become imbalanced causing illness. Now he can wave his hand over your body and just the waving of the hand creates this mesmerized because Mesmer, this is where we get it. Hypnotic pain. No way. 

Yeah. That allows him to manipulate the magnetic force and restore your health so he can mesmerize you, hypnotize you and suddenly your eyes work, your stomach doesn’t feel weird, your sciatic nerve pain is gone, whatever it is. Mesmerize me. I would love to. I’d love to be able to actually, no, I really don’t. 

Angie: No, yeah, actually, no, no, I said that out loud. I take it back. 

Theresa: Yeah. I want none of it. But there’s this group of amateur mesmerists that become a popular attraction at parties and they do parlor tricks. Think hypnotists. Okay. And then you get some people who are awakened from this mesmeric trance. They claim to have experienced visions of spirits from another dimension. Right. So this is all happening. And then upon hearing of the Rochester incident, Davis invites the Fox sisters to his home in New York City to witness their medium capacities for himself. So now we have the prophet meeting who he’s prophesized about. Ooh, that’s exciting. Right. This is this is meeting the big one, right? 

Now joining his cause, the sisters ghostly manifestations elevated his stature from this obscure prophet to a recognized leader of a mass movement. Get it, Gail. Get it. He’s already written the very thick book. He’s recorded all of the things. Now he’s got a white. I thought about you guys and I only imagine he’s like this bumbling crazy guy that talks to himself and now confronted with the real thing that he’s been. 

Angie: I imagine he looks like Luna love good dad. I agree to your terms. 

Theresa: Okay. So basically he elevates to this. And then the Americans, they, they kind of start rejecting this gloomy Calvinist doctor that they’ve just been living in for this whole time. And they start to embrace this reform minded optimism of the mid 19th century. So Americans who adopted spiritualism, they kind of believe that they have a hand in their own salvation and that they can communicate directly with those who who’ve passed. 

And they can offer insight to the ultimate faith, fate of their own souls. So it’s this kind of I can do my own thing. I can be independent. I can, you know, Calvinist is very like this is what God said, you cannot determine your own faith. 

There is no choose your own adventure. So Maggie, Kate and Leah Fox, they kind of do this whole professional tour to spread the word of this spirit. The good ghost gossip. They end up booking a suite strangely enough at Barnum’s hotel. 

Angie: Oh, what a funny little tie in. 

Theresa: Yeah, apparently it was on the corner of Broadway and made in Lane. And he actually owned this was his thing. So there was an editorial in Scientific American who scoffed at their arrival calling the girls the spiritual knockers from Rochester. They end up conducting sessions at the hardtel the hardtels, the hotels parlor. You cannot combine hotel and parlor and expect everyone else to understand that word. 

Live your truth. They have as many as 30 people in this parlor gathered around a large table between the hours of 10 a.m. 5 p.m. and then 8 p.m. They do three free runs a day and they’re taking the occasional private meeting admissions only a dollar. 

Angie: That’s way cheaper than seeing the Cardiff giant. 

Theresa: That is and you’re getting to hold hands with the spirit seer. 

Angie: Well, wait, is it a dollar then or a dollar now? Dollar then. 

Theresa: Oh, no, that’s more expensive. Oh, that’s right because you were only doing 50 25 and 50 cents. Yeah. Get a girl. Girls are raking at it. So they end up meeting many prominent members of New York society, including, you know, Horace Greenlee. I had no idea. The iconic class and an influential editor of the New York Chabrune. 

They end up meeting James Finnie Moore-Copper and Sinnemore Cooper. He’s a writer. I feel like a buffoon. I should have known that all of my English professors are just shaking their. I hope they don’t listen. They don’t listen. 

Angie: No, but mind you. Oh, good for you. Good for you. 

Theresa: Then we have editor and poet William Cullen Bryant. There’s an abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Basically, there’s a ton of people. They all come through. They hear the spirits rap in time to a popular song and they end up spelling out a message. 

Spiritualism will work miracles in the cause of reform. Oh, okay. So pretty neat, though. Now here’s where we get kind of Fox sisters splitting up. Leah stays in New York, entertaining callers in a seance room while younger sisters Kate and Maggie take their show on the road. They go to other cities. 

They’re hitting Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, St. Louis, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. At one point, they end up meeting one person who’s named Elisha Kent Kane. He ends up just becoming beset by Maggie’s charms, even though he thinks she’s a fraud. You know, but she’s a charming fraud. Yeah, the charming fraud, fraud. It sounded better in my head. 

Angie: I really liked watching you roll your eyes as you thought about that. 

Theresa: Yeah, I was like, don’t finish saying out loud. 

Theresa: Yeah, whatever. So he can’t prove how the sounds are made because he can see it happen. He’s like, something’s wrong here. I don’t believe a word of it. These are not ghosts, but she’s hot. So here we are. Now, he had what was, what was, he wrote down after a whole month’s trial, I could make nothing of them. He confessed. 

Therefore, they are a great mystery. But still, okay, he courts her because he thought she was cute. Now she’s 13 years younger than him. But she’s at least older than 13, right? 

Right. Yeah, this is years into it now. So now she is of age-ish. I should have written that down. She was an adult when this happened, so it’s not that bad. 

Okay. And he wants to marry her as he’s kind of coming in and out and doing all of these things. He sets her up at his aunt’s house, but he comes and visits. 

But he’s still trying to get her to leave her life of deceit as he feuds it. And eventually, she acquiesces, saying, I’ll marry you. And she does, and she goes to end up attending school at his behest. And then she marries him right after that. So he puts her through school, all this kind of stuff. And then she marries him right before he kind of has this untimely death. 

And like 1857. And like the worst part is like her family or his family doesn’t believe because they’re rich, right? He put her up with his rich aunt. He had money. He put her through school. He had money. But they’re thinking that she’s just a gold digger, never actually married their son. 

Once done, you do with them. They call her a fraud cut her off. She can’t really prove it because there was no big wedding. Oh, that’s unfortunate. Yeah, that’s what happens when you have those little elopements. 

No proof. Meanwhile, Kate, she ends up married this devout spiritualist and she continues to develop her medium powers. She’s translating spirit, spirit messages. And she’s doing a bunch of incredible things like simultaneous writing, like writing while one is speaking to the, like writing something while speaking to another one. She’s transcribing messages in reverse script. She’s looking at blank cards in which the words mysteriously appear. Like she’s doing all of these bizarre tricks that you kind of see when you’re learning about Sanchez and communicating with ghosts and like mirror writing. 

Like I think mirror writing was one of them. She’s doing all of the things. And she’s making a book. 

Plenty of books. Now at one point she’s having sessions with this wealthy banker named Charles Livmore or Livermore. There’s an R in his name. And she summoned both the dead man’s or the man’s deceased wife. He in fact was living and the ghost of Benjamin Franklin. 

Angie: Oh, okay. Because in this story it could go both ways. 

Theresa: Honestly, who knows. Now Franklin identifies himself by writing his name on a card and then her business is just going because it’s now just after the Civil War and there’s increasing numbers of bereaved families who are really trying to find solace in spiritualism. Right. 

That would make sense. These are things. We even have this prominent spiritualist named Emma Hartledge who wrote that the war added two million new believers to the movement and then the 1880s were estimated that there’s eight million spiritualists in the United States and Europe. Now there’s a bunch of things happening. There’s the Gilded Age that has its big flamboyance and the shine and the… The reason we watch all the period pieces. 

And then there’s these miracles like Kate summoning these full-fledged appearances at every seance, these figures that would literally show up. And it is… Okay, go. As all of this is happening, Kate begins to drink. Oh, Kate. Make better life choices. 

She’s following daddy dearest steps. Now October 21st, 1888, which actually I think is the year of Jack the Ripper. You sure in 1888? 

Yeah. The New York World publishes an interview with Maggie Fox and they are anticipating her appearance at the New York Academy of Music where she would publicly denounce spiritualism. She’s paid $1,500 for this exclusive. Okay. Okay. 

And that was in her money. Okay. So quite a bit. I didn’t do the math. But it’s up there. 

Yeah, it is up there. Now her main motivation, she’s actually just pissed off at Leah and other leading spiritualists because they had publicly… I should have not drank before this episode because I’m flurring. 

They chastised her for her drinking and accused her of being unable to care for her own two kids. Oh. And so she is a little hotter to the collar. 

Fair. Now as she’s giving this… So Kate planned to be in the audience as Maggie’s giving the speech. 

Okay. So Maggie’s doing the interview. Kate the drunk is in the audience. Kate the drunk’s a little pissed. And probably drunk. It helps going to this thing. A little lubricated. 

Angie: It’s… I did the math. It’s $30,000. Oh, look at you. 

Theresa: So during this thing, Maggie says, my sister Katie and myself were young children when this horrible deception began. At night we went to bed and we would tie an apple on a string and move the string up and down causing the apple to bump on the floor. Or we would drunk the apple on the floor and it would make strange noises every time it would rebound. Eventually the sisters learned that they can somehow tend to… A tendon in their leg which would cause the sound to bump out of their feet without making their toes noticeably move. 

Something like that. Basically they learned how to control certain muscles. And so that’s how they would work on these little… Bups. And so that’s why when they were kids being examined, as soon as the person was touching their foot, I did it. 

Like one guy touched one of the feet and it was the other foot that did it. He goes, oh, I don’t know. I couldn’t tell. But when you touch both feet, suddenly the sound stops. 

Okay. But they were able to kind of do that because of… Yeah. Because of muscles. Right. And it’s like, so they’re talking about it. So where’s the apple? I think the apple is how it started because they were just trolling their mom and then they figured out they could do it with their own feet and they didn’t need the apple so their mom could be in the room. Oh, okay, okay. I think this is how it progressed. Gotcha. So they convinced their mom that she was going insane and that they had this school ability. 

Angie: Well, if you know every kid’s dream, can you tell them their notes? Yeah. 

Theresa: So everyone kind of started to fall into it and then she had more and more wealthy people come and she would do the wrappings for them. And she says at one point, she was, you know, entertaining this one wealthy woman and she did the foot tapping bit and a woman cried out, I felt the spirit tapping me on the shoulder. And she goes, of course, it was her imagination. 

Oh, like she just, she’s there to spill all the tea, all the tea right into the harbor. She ends up doing this full on demonstration where she removes her shoes. She places her right foot on a wooden stool, the room dead silent. 

And then she rewards their silence with a couple of little wraps. And then the New York Herald reports there stood a black robe, sharp faced widow working her big toe solemnly and declaring it in such a way that she created the excitement that it driven so many a person to suicide or insanity. The moment it was ludicrous or one moment it was ludicrous. The next it was weird. 

I think, yeah. I mean, they’re just like, wow, this is really happening. And the fact that this got us all in a tizzy even worse. Hate being duped. 

So Maggie insists that the older sister Leah knew that this was fake the entire time and that she exploited her younger sisters. Oh, geez. Okay. You know, single mom. She did. Yeah. 

I mean, sisters just laid it all out. Before she exits the stage, she gets her thanks to God and says that she’s grateful to be able to expose spiritualism. Thank you for your time. Good night. 

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Yeah. So the mainstream test, the mainstream press, they’re like, this is the death blow of spiritualism. It’s done. It’s over. We’re not dealing with it anymore. Spiritualists are like, absolutely not. Like what? 

Angie: She’s so silly. 

Theresa: How would you believe her? Just one of the leaders of the movement? What does she know? 

Angie: She’s been wrong before. 

Theresa: So there’s this dude named Samuel B. Britton. He is the former publisher of the Spiritual Telegraph. He appeared during a seance and he offers a very sympathetic opinion. He, you know, Maggie is the authentic medium. He acknowledges that and he says the band of spirits attending during the early part of her career had been usurped by unseen intelligences who are not scrupulous in their dealings with humanity. So basically some spirits are good. 

Some of them, they kind of litter a stretch. Okay. Yeah. That could happen. I mean, you know, you don’t know who you’re talking to just because they tell you they’re a good ghost. 

I mean, they can’t prove it. Other spiritualists say that Maggie’s her whole change of heart. It’s just mercenary. She’s just doing it for the dollar. You know, like look, she is a peer spiritualist. She is good at her job, but they just gave her a ton of money. So she said, of course, yeah, I’ll say it. It’s fake. Thank you for paying. You know, bye. Honestly, cash that check. 

Angie: Can you make it out to see a SH? Right. 

Theresa: She ends up recanting her whole confession a year later and she says that her spirit guides just be see to do so. Okay. Now this ends up getting some disgust from the other spiritualists who are like girl. You’ve got to stop. They get off the pot. 

Now they kind of go. She ends up going under the pseudonym Mrs. Spencer and under this Maggie kind of goes back to revealing the tricks of the trade of how the spiritualists are able to demonstrate these things like how they’re able to get these manifestations, how they’re able to move tables. Like she’s just laying it all out. She never reconciles with her sister, Leah. Leah dies in 1890 and Kate dies two years later while on a drinking spree. Maggie passes away eight months later in March of 1893. That year the spiritualists had formed the United Spiritual or that they didn’t form anything united. That year the spiritualists formed the National Spiritualist Association which is today known as the National Spiritualist Association of Churches. Interesting. But that is the story of the Fox Sisters. 

Angie: I vaguely knew this story. Like I think I listened to a podcast on it a thousand years ago so I didn’t remember their names and I didn’t remember what happened to them and I didn’t remember how they did their tricks. I just knew they were mediums. 

Theresa: Right. I loved it. Thank you. They were fascinating. It was fun learning about them and kind of hearing their hijinks. Happy April Fools. I mean, happy April Fools. Really cannot have drank before this. 

Angie: Or you’re just on par. 

Theresa: Keep up the good work. I got to finish being the Kate in the story and just continue getting my role away. Just got to lean in. So if you’re thinking of leaning in or you’re wanting to see if I sober up for next week, rate, review, subscribe. 

Angie: Honestly, we’re all here to find out. You and me both. And on that note, are you going to sober up or record in a bathtub? In a bathtub? A bathtub full of beans. In a palm all. 

Theresa: Virginia Slims. I’m a classy broad. Excuse me. And on that note, goodbye. 

Theresa: Bye.