The Fox Sisters and the Hydesville Rappings

On March 31, 1848, in a small farmhouse in Hydesville, New York, two young girls claimed to establish communication with a spirit through mysterious rapping sounds. Their claims launched the Spiritualist movement, which would eventually attract millions of adherents and fundamentally change American religious and cultural life.

The Farmhouse

The Fox family had moved into a rented farmhouse in Hydesville, a hamlet near Rochester, in December 1847. John and Margaret Fox lived there with their two youngest daughters, Margaret (fourteen) and Kate (eleven). The house had a reputation for strange sounds that previous tenants attributed to various causes.

The farmhouse was small and unremarkable, typical of rural New York architecture. Nothing about it suggested it would become one of the most famous locations in supernatural history.

The Rappings

Shortly after moving in, the Fox family began hearing unexplained rapping and knocking sounds throughout the house. The sounds seemed to come from walls and floors. They occurred at night and sometimes during the day.

On the night of March 31, 1848, Kate and Margaret discovered they could communicate with whatever was making the sounds. Kate challenged the invisible source to repeat the snaps of her fingers. It did. Margaret asked it to count to ten. The appropriate number of raps sounded.

Charles Rosna

Through a system of raps—one for yes, two for no, or rapping at the appropriate letter when the alphabet was recited—the girls established communication with the entity. It claimed to be the spirit of a man who had been murdered in the house and buried in the cellar.

The spirit identified himself as Charles Rosna (sometimes spelled Rosma), a peddler who had allegedly been killed by a previous tenant for his money. Neighbors were called in to witness the communications. They heard the raps and received the same story.

An excavation of the cellar produced teeth and bones, though whether they were human was disputed. In 1904, a false wall in the cellar collapsed, revealing a human skeleton alongside a peddler’s box—apparent vindication of the original claims.

The Movement Begins

Word spread rapidly. The Fox sisters became local celebrities. Their older sister Leah, a widow living in Rochester, recognized the potential and became their manager. Within months, the sisters were holding demonstrations in Rochester and then New York City.

The demonstrations drew enormous crowds. People came to communicate with their dead loved ones through the sisters’ mediumship. The rapping sounds occurred wherever the sisters went, allowing spirit communication in any location.

The Spiritualist movement was born. By the 1850s, millions of Americans had attended séances or consulted mediums. Spiritualist churches formed. Newspapers and magazines devoted to Spiritualism appeared. What had begun in a farmhouse became a significant religious movement.

Expansion and Controversy

The Fox sisters became professional mediums, touring and conducting séances for paying audiences. Other mediums emerged, claiming similar abilities. Spirit communication became a craze that swept through American and European society.

From the beginning, critics suspected fraud. Investigators attempted to catch the sisters producing the raps by normal means. Some reported finding nothing suspicious; others claimed the sounds were produced by the sisters cracking their joints.

The sisters faced accusations throughout their careers. Margaret testified before investigators that the sounds were genuine. The scientific committees of the day could not definitively prove fraud but remained skeptical.

The Confession

In 1888, Margaret Fox made a stunning confession. She demonstrated to a packed audience at the New York Academy of Music how she produced the rapping sounds by cracking her joints, particularly in her toes. She claimed the whole thing had been a childish prank that grew out of control.

Her confession was financially motivated—she was paid to make it—and she recanted it the following year. The damage to the Spiritualist movement was limited; true believers rejected her confession as the product of alcoholism and desperation for money.

Legacy

The Fox sisters died in poverty and obscurity—Margaret in 1893, Kate in 1892, Leah in 1890. Whether they possessed genuine mediumistic abilities or perpetrated one of history’s most successful frauds remains debated.

Regardless of the truth about the rappings, the movement they launched was real. Spiritualism gave comfort to millions who believed they could communicate with deceased loved ones. It influenced literature, philosophy, and science. It played a role in social reform movements including women’s suffrage and abolition.

The Hydesville farmhouse is gone, destroyed by fire. But the séance continues. Mediums today claim the same abilities the Fox sisters demonstrated in 1848. The desire to communicate with the dead remains as powerful as ever.