Borrowed Bones

The Fox Sisters

• Sarah Sexton • Episode 22

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Maggie and Kate Fox sparked the American seance craze after their older sister Leah, turned a parlor prank into a booming business model that still haunts today’s mediums and paranormal shows. Listen as we explain how the Fox sisters communicated with the dead. 


Sources:

History.com, HeadStuff.org, National Women's Historical Society, Archive.org,

Original Report of the Hydesville Haunting , The Fox Sisters and the Birth of Spiritualism, NYHeritage.org 

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SPEAKER_04:

Hello, everyone.

SPEAKER_00:

Hey, hey, hey.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm Sarah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm Cole.

SPEAKER_04:

And you're listening to Borrowed Bones, a podcast about fucked up, interesting, and toxic families.

SPEAKER_00:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04:

It's good to be back.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Two weeks ago today. Yes. Day of our recording right now. Sarah underwent surgery on both of her feet.

SPEAKER_04:

I did. Everyone keeps asking what it is. I would ask too if I saw two boots or a cast on someone. A bone spur in each foot and a bunion on the right. So I have new hardware in my right foot and I can hobble along a little bit with my left foot.

SPEAKER_00:

She's got one of those scooters.

SPEAKER_04:

Yep. If you see me crawling, just look away. Just look away. It's fine. I'm okay. I'm getting strong.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

But yeah, we're back. Oh, and today is Halloween. When this is released, it won't be Halloween, but today is Halloween, so that's fun for us. Yeah. When this is released, it'll be November 5th. Remember, remember the 5th of November. Guy Fox Day. Which is pretty cool, I still think.

SPEAKER_00:

Although Guy Fox was not what everyone with Viva Fendetta thinks. He was just another wannabe tyrant. He wasn't trying to overthrow Parliament for the good, yeah. He just wanted to replace it with Catholicism.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's like, oh, you know.

SPEAKER_04:

Even though this will come out after Halloween, um, since we're recording on Halloween, I still wanted to do something a little bit in that vein.

SPEAKER_01:

Spooky? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Spooky-ish, kind of, you know, not a haunting really, but um let's get into it. Let's just get into it.

SPEAKER_01:

All right.

SPEAKER_04:

We are starting in the early mid to 1800s America.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

John and Margaret Fox.

SPEAKER_01:

F O X. F-O-X. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

They are a young married couple, and they're starting their lives in New York State.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Between the years of 1810 and 1820, the couple would have four children. I don't really know the names of all of them. I've seen different accounts, different names. There's minor details that are different in various sources that I found, but the main story is the same. So little details are going to be a little wishy-washy in this one.

SPEAKER_00:

It's the era.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. But the main story is the same overall. So four children. The one child in this bunch you need to think about is Anna or Anne Leah. She goes by Leah.

SPEAKER_01:

Leah.

SPEAKER_04:

So we have Leah, Margaret, and John. And the other siblings. It doesn't matter. Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

In the late 1820s, their father, John, he left the family to straighten himself out. He was an alcoholic. So he wanted to get away. Detox. Yeah, he did. Okay. I don't really know the details, but that's that's it.

SPEAKER_00:

He never came home.

SPEAKER_04:

He did. Oh. In the 1830s, around 1830, actually, like that year.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like a very year or two.

SPEAKER_04:

John came home. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. He he returned home and straightened himself out. He was better. And Margaret accepted him, and they would end up having two more children. One in 1833. Her name is Margaret or Margaretta. Goes by Maggie.

SPEAKER_01:

Maggie.

SPEAKER_04:

To not be confused with the mother Margaret.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay. So we have Margaret Mom Maggie daughter.

SPEAKER_00:

Margaret Jr.

SPEAKER_04:

We should do that. Why not?

SPEAKER_00:

Girls ever call junior when they're they have the same name as their mom or uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_04:

Probably something stupid. Like women don't carry a family name type of bullshit. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00:

King of the Hill, uh, the Laotian family, the the girl was Con Jr. She was named after her dad.

SPEAKER_04:

I love that. Yeah, con Junior. No one's stopping you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I named my dog after me because I knew I wouldn't have a kid, and I just wanted to kind of be like Lorelei Gilmore a little bit and name my dog after myself.

SPEAKER_00:

That's weird.

SPEAKER_04:

It wasn't I okay. I named her after my middle name. Yeah. So I wasn't yelling my own name, but it's after me a hundred percent. Yep. So when John came back in eight- Oh yeah, sorry. The the girls are or Mar Maggie was born in 1833. There we are. Got back on track. And then Catherine was born in 1837. That's their last child.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, last of six.

SPEAKER_04:

Catherine will go by Kate from here on out. During this time, the family was wandering here and there, trying to make their way. They weren't really a well-to-do family.

SPEAKER_00:

Itinerant farmers, kinda.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't really know exactly what their work was, but I saw that John was always looking for work. So I think he did like odd things, whatever jobs he could pick up, just handyman kinda. Who knows? Yeah. But this did leave Margaret at home with the children by herself quite a bit, doing most of the child rearing. Their daughter Leah, the one that was born the fourth.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah. Leah's the fourth, sorry.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know if she is the fourth, but she's in the top four.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Leah left home in 1845 when she was 14 years old.

SPEAKER_00:

Damn, where'd she go?

SPEAKER_04:

She married a man named Bowman Fish.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh.

SPEAKER_04:

And they would have a daughter together.

SPEAKER_00:

Fox and fish wedding.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Oh yeah, I didn't even think of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Come attend the fox fish wedding.

SPEAKER_04:

I know. That doesn't sound why it sounds gross, but it does.

SPEAKER_00:

It just sounds gross.

SPEAKER_04:

Sounds like something we should be eating.

SPEAKER_00:

It sounds like a hybrid animal.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, yeah. Oh, that's a bad vision.

SPEAKER_00:

Picture a fox with like gills and fins.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, swimming in the water. Okay. By the end of 1847, Mr. Fish abandoned Leah and their daughter. And Leah was only 16, single mom. Oh, already failed marriage. Yeah. I mean, that's most likely not her fault, right? She's 14. Like, but I'm just saying that sucks.

SPEAKER_00:

Life sucks.

SPEAKER_04:

Mm-hmm. The rest of the Fox family at this time moved into a farmhouse in Hydesville, New York.

SPEAKER_01:

All right.

SPEAKER_04:

This is also in 1847. Now, a little bit about the area they're in, because this is relevant to what happens with this family. Hydesville is a small hamlet on the west side of New York State. This was considered a burned over district.

SPEAKER_00:

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, I didn't know. I have never heard of this.

SPEAKER_00:

A lot of forest fires.

SPEAKER_04:

No, I that's what I thought too. I was like, oh, is there a lot of like logging industry?

SPEAKER_00:

Like is it like actually burned from like something? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I thought of like a logging industry, like the the everything's cut down, so it looks like it's been burned or something. But nope, not nothing to do with any of that. When I looked into it, this is a little bit of a history lesson, so buckle up, I'll go fast. During the 1830s and 40s in America, a lot of reform was happening. There were abolitionists, there was the Civil War, brewing was going brewing, basically, and it happened in the mid-1800s.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Um, and then women's rights movements were happening, even like vegetarianism was a new thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Opposing animal cruelty. Yes. Got its start around this time, too.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes. All this new stuff was happening in America at this time. And people were starting to believe in science a bit more. There was more, well, I think the second Great Awakening is what this time period is called. In response to all of this, though, there was quite the religious revival at this time in America. Think. Mormonism. We have Joseph Smith. He's out and about running around. He's actually in the Midwest, kind of in this area. Um, he takes what the promised land of Ohio is the first one, but then they realize it's not Ohio and it's Utah or Illinois.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Yeah. Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Utah.

SPEAKER_04:

Just whoever wouldn't kick them out. I don't know why they're called burned over specifically, but that's what they're referring to is this like religious revival movement.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

How the pendulum is swinging, right? You have science on the rise, you have religion on the rise. Clash. So yeah, America dealing with a lot. This also led to another new belief called spiritualism.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Or spiritism. Now I looked into both of these because they are two different things, but in my research, it's used very liberally. The words are used interchangeably because at the time it wasn't like these hard rules on which one is which. They was just like spirits. Yeah. So I'm going to use them pretty interchangeably. Don't get on me if you are a spiritist or a spiritualist.

SPEAKER_00:

Soulism.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Like they're it's just spirits, okay? That's the main focus today is spirits.

SPEAKER_00:

It's all fictional. So ultimately, it doesn't matter what you call the studies, because they're both fake. Hokum is what you could call it.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, we're gonna talk about it. Yeah. This is basically the birth of spiritualism. Not the birth, but at this time frame, it is the birth of the thing.

SPEAKER_00:

It becomes like an industry at this point. It becomes like a commodity.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

You have always believed in weird things. This is the thing. Right. It starts becoming like a capitalist. It's when it starts to have more a dime off it.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes. Exactly. You're on the nodes or on the money. So um also with science coming into play, people wanted more physical proof of spirits, right? So photography, ectoplasm, things like that. They wanted to see the orbs, they wanted to see the ectoplasm, they wanted to see all these things happening because they thought with science, we can prove that there's life after death. We can prove that we are talking to the spirits. I think of Zach Baggins today.

SPEAKER_00:

Speaking of, I just learned yesterday that he apparently owns. This is whether you brought this up. He owns Ted Bundy's kill kit that police confiscated, like his mask, his burglar kit. I don't know how he got it. Apparently he bought it. But like it's weird that any one citizen just has that. Like it's police evidence.

SPEAKER_04:

It's odd, yeah. It's really evidence. It should be in like a museum or evidence.

SPEAKER_00:

Volkswagens in a museum. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Like it's weird that he owns it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Interesting. Damn it. That would make me go see his shit though.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. But I don't want to pay. Oh. I don't know. I just know that he owns it. He owns it. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

That's weird. I just I don't know why. It just doesn't feel right.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know. Anyway. Um, but yes. So basically what you were saying, this story is about the first American seances and communication with the dead.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

That's what this is about.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Yeah, I didn't know the Fox family specifically, but I know enough about this era of spiritualism.

SPEAKER_04:

Everything that's going on. Yeah. Now, Hydesville, specifically the Hydesville location that they lived in, it was along a canal that helped connect boats, travelers, everything to the Midwest.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

So that's how everything is spreading. Like I mentioned before, everything was spreading across the country, kind of from New England area across the West.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

So keep all of that history in your back pocket. Back to the Fox family. New Year's Eve of 1847. So going into 1848, John Fox was awakened by banging that was happening around the house. He couldn't figure out where the noise was coming from. Did you think like sex banging? No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I know, I think I do know this case vaguely. I think you know it a little bit too. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

I do think you know a little bit. Yeah. So he heard like banging or rapping sounds around the house, and he's looking for, he can't find anything. And these sounds kind of continue on and off for the next few weeks. And John just chalked it up to like the neighbors doing work, or maybe there's like rats in their walls. He's just like, I don't know, whatever. Now his wife Margaret, she was convinced that their house was haunted and that other worldly beings were at large. Margaret comes from a family of believers. I saw that one resource I looked at said she came from a family of clairvoyance. Other ones said that she came from a family of believers. Either way, she believes in spirits. A few more weeks go by, the sounds continue, and Mrs. Fox is getting more and more distressed. And then finally, on the night of March 31st, 1848. So we're we're pretty far into it now, and these sounds are kind of going on and off here. Things ramped up a bit this night, March 31st. The two youngest children, Maggie and Kate, they decided to interact with these sounds. Maggie was 14 at the time, and Kate was 11 at this time. All right. Okay, so the next thing is I'm going to reference accounts from the author E. E. Lewis, who wrote a 40-page pamphlet. It's titled A Report of the Mysterious Noises Heard in the House of John D. Fox.

SPEAKER_00:

He wrote this like contemporaneously at the time. He wrote it. Not like recently.

SPEAKER_04:

He's like a No, yeah, yeah, yeah. He wrote it like the following month. Okay. Yes. Yes. He he spoke firsthand, got account. These are all accounts. Okay. It's I yeah. I couldn't actually find the pamphlet itself. Yeah. But I found a website that said that they they they posted a picture of the pamphlet, and then they said that they transcribed word for word what the pamphlet said, and it sounds accurate and it it corroborates well with other sources I've found. The stories are the same. It's the best I could get. So here we are.

SPEAKER_02:

Here we are.

SPEAKER_04:

All right. Lewis interviewed people, and I'm going to give Margaret's account because hers is the main one. Everyone agrees with her and confirms it. So it's all the same. It's pretty redundant pamphlet. Margaret is the one that really lays it out the most. Margaret said they moved into their farmhouse December 11th of 1847. On March 31st, she said that she went to bed early. The sun hadn't even set yet because she was trying to go to sleep before the sounds would start. And so she started to go to sleep a lot sooner. She was very tired. She was starting to get sick because of just stress. Yeah, exhaustion. But soon after Margaret laid her head down, the sounds started up with the banging. And Maggie and Kate, like I said, decided to interact with the sounds. And Kate jokingly spoke to the noise and said, Now do just as I do. Count. One, two, three, four, clapping her hands to the beat. The sound responded with four knocks. Margaret then said she asked, so Margaret jumps in now. And she said that she asked the noise to count to ten, responded with ten knocks. Then Margaret asked the noise what the ages of her children were, and the sound responded with the correct number of knocks for each child's age. Margaret continues to ask questions and discovers that the source of the sound was from the ghost of a man who was murdered in the house and buried under the basement.

SPEAKER_00:

How old is this house? I don't I always assume in this era, like you just build your own house. Because like nothing's settled yet.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, listen to the story of the man has a story. So we'll listen.

SPEAKER_00:

Does he found uh chiropractic?

SPEAKER_04:

Oh Palmer. We're not in Iowa.

SPEAKER_00:

This is how ghosts founded a Hokum medical practice.

SPEAKER_04:

We're not in Iowa.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Anyway. Um so this man was a peddler, a traveling salesman, and he owed another man$500.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a lot of money.

SPEAKER_04:

And around that time, that was around$22,000.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_04:

Mm-hmm. He says that he left behind a wife and five children. And according to Margaret in Lewis's account, this is when her husband John went to go get some neighbors. And then a lot of neighbors end up coming, and they all were asking the peddler man questions. As they're asking him questions, they establish like how to communicate with him, you know, using the alphabet with corresponding numbers, one knock for A, two knocks for B, um, yes or no questioning, you know, one knock for yes, two knocks for no. I don't know exactly what their pattern was, but they had did something like that.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like Teo in Breaking Bad. Ding ding ding ding ding. Yes.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, he didn't.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, they had like the letters. Remember they would hold up and like row one. And then they'd move the finger until like you hit the letter.

SPEAKER_04:

So can you imagine how long it would take to get just a sentence out of this? But you had nothing better to do in 1847, right? Or 1848. So through more questioning, they discovered the man's name was Charles B. Rosna. They also gave him a name of Mr. Splitfoot. So you'll hear both names when you hear about this story. I don't know where the name Mr. Splitfoot comes from.

SPEAKER_00:

Wouldn't some of the neighbors remember him in life? If like when if it's my house is haunted by this ghost, wouldn't I just go to the neighbor and be like, hey, do you remember the guy that looked you before me? Was he named this? Did he disappear?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, he was a traveling salesman.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04:

We don't know. So Charles, the traveling salesman or Mr. Splitfoot, says that he was murdered in the bedroom of the house five years earlier.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

So it's a recent-ish murder. So I honestly thought the same thing too. Like, can't we just discover who these people are?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

But when they questioned, you know, can we still contact your wife and your children? Can we still whatever? Apparently his wife is dead and the children are out of town. Like they're they moved away. And, you know, the murderer, don't worry about him. He's gone too. Like everyone's gone that was involved, is how the story goes.

SPEAKER_00:

But the ghost didn't live at the house. He was like a door-to-door salesman who visited in the in theory, whoever lived there, killed or buried him.

SPEAKER_04:

I think so. We honestly, it's little girls telling the story, Cole. That's what it is. Spoiler. I'm gonna spoil it in like two minutes anyway. This isn't about the reality of spirits or not. This isn't. It's about how spiritualism became a money grabbing business and is exploiting all of you. Every medium that takes money from you is exploiting you. The end. You can take you can turn off the podcast now. Yeah. That's it. But anyway, um, yeah. Murdered, buried in their basement five years ago. Don't ask any more questions, okay? We have we have young teens, preteens telling the story, okay?

SPEAKER_00:

Dig it up.

SPEAKER_04:

They did.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the first thing I would do.

SPEAKER_04:

The neighbors did, and they only found groundwater.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

So they are doing things that you would think, yes, but they're coming up empty and they're just reasoning it off as just, oh, I guess we didn't find them. Okay. The murderer of Charles was a man named Mr. Bell. And Charles said that Mr. Bell cut his throat with a butcher knife and then dragged him into the cellar and buried him.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

The following day, people heard, like more people in the town heard what was going on, and they wanted to come and check out the Foxhouse. So, like, as days continue, more and more people are showing up. Around 300 people showed up the following day.

SPEAKER_00:

Again, there's nothing to do if you're not working.

SPEAKER_04:

Exactly. Yeah, there's nothing to do. Like the amount of boredom people had back then, like this was something you would be like, yep, I have the time. I'll do it. I have the time. Yeah. I'm just watching the sun. So the following day, at this point, it's now April 2nd, and the noises started up again and they continued on.

SPEAKER_00:

It's the day after April Fool's Day. I love that it started on March 31st.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

April Fool's Day. I mean, it's the first. And it's around April Fool's Day.

SPEAKER_04:

So even though many locals were believing these rapping sounds, the local papers were not so sure. Because everyone hates the press for exposing the truth. Many papers thought that the dad was to blame, that it was John doing this. Yeah. They didn't know how, but they were like, someone's fucking doing this. Like it's John. Why not? Some papers were thinking that maybe the children were pulling a prank.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

After all, it's April Fool's Day.

SPEAKER_00:

And their kids.

SPEAKER_04:

And their kids and they're bored.

SPEAKER_00:

And if you're a kid who has the undivided attention of adults, you just you do what you can to keep that. You tell like that's what you that's how you learn to manipulate is oh, I can get a adult to pay attention to me. Yep.

SPEAKER_04:

Yep. So now, early April, everything is there's a lot of curiosity swirling around the girls. And Margaret, their mom, began to get worried about all of the attention that they were receiving. Now, here's another part in the story where the details get a little twisted, but the result is the same. But just because I'm who I am, I have to tell you both details and both threads. So after mom started getting concerned about her daughters and how much attention they're getting now, one theory is that their mom sent them to live with their sister Leah, who's now living in Rochester, to get away from all the commotion. Leah was still adjusting to single life after Bowman Fish left her. And she was working as a piano teacher. That's how she was. She was just a piano teacher. Not much of a living there. Like she's making it, but barely. Now the other story is that Leah was shown a page of the pamphlet that E.E. Lewis wrote by one of her piano students. And when she read the pamphlet, she went home to Hydesville to check up on everyone. And then she was the one that suggested the sisters move back with her. Okay. Either way, they end up with Leah. So we have Leah, Maggie, and Kate, the Fox sisters. Okay. That's the title of this episode. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00:

The Sisters Fox.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes. Now, Leah was born in the early 1800s, remember? There's like a 20-year age gap. So she's like closer to being a mom to them than and I think this is important to note because of how it all shakes out. So I like to just Yeah. Upon arriving at Leah's house in Rochester, Leah made Maggie and Kate strip down naked.

SPEAKER_01:

As you do.

SPEAKER_04:

Classic. You know, whenever I go to my sister's. All right, get to it.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, if you're loving people in your house, you want to see what they got. Come to my house and we're gonna give them an ocular pat down. Fair.

SPEAKER_04:

Leah, Leah insisted that her that they show her how they're making the sounds. Leah was not blinded the way that her mother was by these girls. She was like, I don't know how y'all are doing it, but it's YouTube. Oh, so that's why she's getting now.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, yeah. Let me see where you're hiding things. That's why she's making them naked. Like in a yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

No, she just wants to how are you doing this? Show me, do it now. Yeah. And Maggie and Kate very quickly confessed their deceit. They're like, oh shit. Yep. And they showed Leah how they made the knocking sounds.

SPEAKER_00:

They hit their fist against a wall.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, do you yeah. Do you have any guesses?

SPEAKER_00:

They stomped their feet. I mentioned it was very not complicated.

SPEAKER_04:

It's not complicated, but it's not something that I could do.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, so there is something to it.

SPEAKER_04:

A little bit.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Um, I think it's more genetics, honestly. I think they got a little lucky.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

They would crack the knuckles of their toes by pressing them or snapping them against the floor, which would produce a louder sound than you would really think.

SPEAKER_00:

This was so loud that it kept people awake.

SPEAKER_04:

It would like like well, if you think it's a spirit making that sound too. You know, you're nerve.

SPEAKER_00:

I guess I was picturing like, you know, thump, thump, not just like like snaps.

SPEAKER_04:

Sometimes they're different. They they've used other things here and there. At one point, they were using like apples tied to string to kind of roll around, and then they would the pull the apples in real quick once someone would come. But if you're if when they were performing in front of people, it was knuckles snapping against like the ground. If they would do it against the ground somehow.

SPEAKER_03:

All right.

SPEAKER_04:

And I don't know how, but that's why I think genetic because like there are some people that can just crack their knuckles really loud and they can do weird shit with their like I've seen people with like monkey-like toes. And maybe these girls had that. I don't know. That's why I think it's genetic, but it was easy for them to do. Yeah. When Leah tried to do the same thing, she wasn't able to do it as well as her sisters. There's one person that was thinking, one researcher that I was reading that was surmising that maybe because the girls were younger, their toes were more nimble and flexible. Yeah. And so they were able to snap them like harder.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

That's something to think about. Theory. Yeah. But Leah knew right away that she had something special. She saw an opportunity.

SPEAKER_00:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04:

She was aware of the area of what's going on around her.

SPEAKER_00:

She knew she knew how dumb her neighbors were.

SPEAKER_04:

She she knew what was up, and she knew that people were grasping at anything to hold on to. So why not hold on to the dead? It wasn't long before the sisters received their first message from a spirit while living with Leah.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh.

SPEAKER_04:

The message said, or was, I guess, spoken to them or knocked to them. Dear friends, this is from the spirit. Dear friends, you must proclaim these truths to the world. This is the dawn of a new age, and you must no longer hide it. When you do your duty, God will protect you and good spirits will watch over you. So basically, hey, we're spirits, we're here. You should tell people that we exist. Well, the girls obviously have to obey these spirits.

SPEAKER_00:

Why don't the spirits just appear to everyone if they want to be known?

SPEAKER_04:

That's not how it works, Cole. God, come on. If my mom really wants to talk to me, she'll find Long Island Medium and have me buy a ticket and be in her audience, and then she's gonna communicate with me. Not directly. Uh anyway. Sorry. By the fall of 1849, so it's been about 18 months now since the sounds started. The sisters would have the support of dozens of families. So they're growing. But Maggie and Kate were starting to really feel bad. They were like, I don't know. They didn't like deceiving people. They like they felt bad about it. It was a joke at first, and now it's like so what began as a childish prank ended up being a full-time job for Maggie and Kate. And they were not very happy about it. So they agreed that the ruse had gone on long enough.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, you enjoyed something and then it was ruined. Welcome to capitalism.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Um, they're not even getting paid for this right now. During during one of their seances, well, during their last seance, they reported that the spirits bid them farewell for the final time. Leah wasn't happy about this, but she couldn't really force her sisters to perform, so that was it.

SPEAKER_00:

The spirits have to go die again.

SPEAKER_04:

But it was only 12 days before Maggie and Kate decided to come back.

SPEAKER_00:

Twelve days.

SPEAKER_04:

Twelve days, that's it. So the spirits came back, and the return message was even more insistent on showing the public. Like you have to let us be known to the public. And the spirits had a plan this time.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

The Fox sisters needed to rent the Corinthian Hall, which was Rochester's newest and largest auditorium at the time, which would later be known as the Rochester Academy of Music.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay. There was an ad for this show put in the paper, and it said marvelous phenomena at Corinthian Hall. Tickets were 25 cents a person and 50 cents for any man who came with two ladies on his arms.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh. Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You paid more?

SPEAKER_04:

50 cents for a man with two women.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04:

You pay less because women don't matter. So the event opened with a lecture and then a demonstration of the girls communicating with the spirits. This is the first time they're getting some money here. But this isn't for a seance or anything. They're just talking to spirits is just a show, a presentation. And there's a five-member committee that's set up to investigate the authenticity of the sounds during this demonstration.

SPEAKER_00:

All right.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay. On November 14th.

SPEAKER_00:

I love this era before like any technology. Like you just put your ear out. That's all you can do. Like, there's nothing to measure.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, just list who has the best hearing.

SPEAKER_00:

There's nothing objective. Who heard it? Yep. I didn't hear it. Okay. Well, that's our study.

SPEAKER_04:

And as soon as you say you heard it, oh, I think I heard it too. Oh, I think I did.

SPEAKER_00:

There's no recordings. There's no objective measurement. It's just, do you hear it or not?

SPEAKER_04:

At best, we have early photography right now, you know, which takes like 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

So on November 14th, 1849, 400 people attended the show.

SPEAKER_01:

Damn.

SPEAKER_04:

The five-person committee ascertained that there were no tricks to be had. They said, this is legit. But the audience didn't believe the committee, which was surprising. So another committee was formed and another performance was done the next night. The second committee came to the same conclusion, no tricks. Then the third night, because the audience said we don't believe it. Then there was a third night, another committee was formed. Sorry, another committee was formed and no tricks were found yet again. But the third night, as the committee was Stating their findings to the crowd, several men rushed to the stage trying to grab the girls. And then there were also some boys that brought like firecrackers into the auditorium that someone random just happened to hand them.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Leah s seemed to enjoy this chaos. Leah eventually later in life would say, according to Maggie, Leah would say that she planned all of that chaos all along. And that Leah knew that by adding like a martyr to this new trend of spiritualism that people would be more likely to believe. It would be persecuted for like a religious persecution. Yes. Promoting sympathy and tying the supporters in emotionally. I don't know what I can think of today. That's the same. Anyway, moving on. With the growing fan base, people began flocking to see the Fox sisters now. They were a hit. And at this time, Leah began suggesting that each visitor donate a dollar.

SPEAKER_00:

Donate a dollar. Okay. To what? Their food and just just their upkeep? Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, that's their job now. She wants that to be their job. So yeah, for them to live, yes. But she's monetizing now, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Your 12 shouldn't have to have a job anyway.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, Leah's like older. Yeah. Right? Yeah. But yeah, she's making her younger sisters have jobs. Yeah. So this would be Make America great again.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what will be. Get your 12-year-old out.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh yeah. Isn't there child labor back in now? Yeah, there's a lot of states that are like rolling it back and a lot of the Midwest is trying to get that farm labor back in. Yeah. Whatever. This would be the first time people would pay to see a seance. So here it is. All right. We've monetized seances. Leah quickly assumed a manager role over her younger sisters. She would take them on tour, and they were no longer just a local attraction. Now they were a regional attraction. They would perform three shows a day, and each show had 30 people attending these like group sessions. So, like I said before, Long Island medium think like, oh, I'm thinking of a letter of a letter P. Yeah, like that bullshit. Yes. They were the first ones to do that. So all of the mediums, quote unquote mediums today can thank the Fox sisters for your business that you have, not for the gift that you claim. Sorry. I'm so sick of people exploiting death. I I hate it. I hate it.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the Long Island. Isn't there like a Long Island medium? Which I always say. That's what I've been saying. Yeah, I didn't say that's hilarious as a title, just because like I always think of Seinfeld of like, I'm not taking advice from some girl from Long Island.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Like call yourself New York medium or something. Like Long Island medium is so like ew.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't believe her. Yeah. That's the truth.

SPEAKER_00:

So why can't you find the serial killer that's on Long Island Beach if you're such a great find the serial killer that's operating in your neighborhood? Like Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

If these things existed, we would have a totally different world that we live in. It'd be so much better. It would be so fucking different. It'd be insanely different. It'd be fantastic. I would love it. Like, I wish. Anyway. So they would do these 30-person shows three a day at and charging now$1 per head. So they're$90 a day right there. But then they were also doing private seances during those days as well, charging five dollars total for those seances. Ah.

SPEAKER_00:

So they're upcharging. They're doing, they're like got a whole, yeah. This is the general plan. This is the exclusive plan. This is the VIP members get this. Yes. You to carry on tote with our logo on it, too.

SPEAKER_03:

Love tote.

SPEAKER_00:

You get a signed poster of the Fox Sisters to take home.

SPEAKER_04:

Ooh. They if only they could do merch. They're probably not wondering. Oh my god. Probably not. But I don't know. Merch though would be great for them. Um, so yeah, they're making like$100 a day. And this is in 1849. So this would be like making$4,200 a day today.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_04:

They were raking it in. In early 1850, the sisters toured throughout New England. They would perform in the homes of the wealthy and the well-connected. And it seemed that everyone was eager to believe in this fad of spiritualism. People were very eager to hop on this train. They wanted it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

The ghost train.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, the ghost train. Ooh. Some people were starting to view the sisters as prophets of a new era, forming a new relationship between Earth and the kingdom of heaven.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

So science meeting religion. People wanted these two worlds to go together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Similar with Mormonism, too. Like they a lot of Joseph Smith's claims of the prior civilizations was because there's all these like Native American graves and monuments people were finding. So they were finding evidence of a civilization beforehand. So they would take and try to they'd invent their own mythologies of where do these mass graves come from? Oh, there was well it's Native Americans.

SPEAKER_04:

That's yeah, yeah. It's nothing, it's not your people, it's other people. Yeah. Yeah. However, though, with all of the fans amassing, they were also gaining some skeptics. During a trip through New York, a group of men tried to kidnap Maggie because they were offended by her claims. And this was a legit like kidnapping. This wasn't something Leah put up. So like there were some people out there like, you need to shut up, you dumb bitch.

SPEAKER_00:

A lot of the religious establishment being threatened by the I bet.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I bet. The press was also still pretty relentless, constantly calling them out for lying. Most of the press, you know, publications agreed that the girls were making the sounds themselves, but they weren't really sure how. So they were speculating. Some thought that the girls could do it because they had a special electrical condition that is found in the bodies of mediums. That's what I mean. Not everyone can be a medium cole. There's an answer for that. They have just different bodies. Other papers thought that maybe the sisters had like lead balls along the edge of their skirts.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Um, others did think they were cracking their knees or their toes.

SPEAKER_00:

No.

SPEAKER_04:

So some people heard those sounds.

SPEAKER_00:

Just cracking their knuckles, you fucks.

SPEAKER_04:

Exactly. So I put these things in here because there was a whole side of people that saw it and were like, this isn't like this isn't real.

SPEAKER_00:

Throat history is always the minority of the people that are smart.

SPEAKER_03:

What do you wait?

SPEAKER_00:

Like it's always like all the throat history, it's in these big movements. It's there are there are always people who are like, this is stupid, or but it's always the minority group.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, the smart are always the minority. Yeah. Yeah. I always say the dumb speak the loudest. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And there's more of them. It's easier.

SPEAKER_04:

It's easier to not process things. It's easier to not slow down and think. It's easier to just accept what's in front of you. You have to think beyond that, though. You have to go, this sounds like a crack. Why does it sound like a crack? Maybe they're cracking their knuckles. Like you can't just so that sounds like a crack. And they told me it was a spirit. So like you have to think. Anyway. Even though the press was very, very close to cracking the case. To the press's dismay, the the more that they speculated, the more curious the public became. Yep. They're they're almost lighting the fire without realizing it, which that's what happens. Larger cities in the country were now starting to hear of the sisters' reputations. Their story reached New York City, and the editor of the New York Tribune was Horace Greeley at the time. And he was one of the few journalists who believed the Fox sisters. It was reflected in Greeley's writing about them that he didn't lean one way or the other and he just told their story. So he was like professional about it. But Leah liked that because most papers were saying that they were liars.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

So Leah decided to take Maggie and Kate to New York City because she knew she'd at least have a supporter. And the sisters arrived in Manhattan on June 3rd in 1850. They met with Horace Greeley and they had a successful visit in New York. No one mocked them or suspected them of lying. Fantastic. Making it in New York meant that every other big city in the country now took notice.

SPEAKER_00:

They're like, oh, if you can make it there, you can make it in New York.

SPEAKER_04:

Mm-hmm. That's true. So after their successful New York City visit, the sisters are now graduated from regional stardom to national fame. And they were invited to all of the major U.S. cities to perform. But not everyone was convinced. There were plenty of people, like I said, that saw through it. And there was one person who is an anti-spiritist, and his name was C. Chauncey Burr.

SPEAKER_00:

Chauncey.

SPEAKER_04:

He was sick of it and he knew the sisters were a fraud and he was going to prove it. He was on a mission. Burr discovered how to replicate the sounds by popping his own big toe.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Right? He's like, I can do it. This is all they're doing. This is all they're doing. So in January of 1851.

SPEAKER_00:

I got a ghost in my toe. They're just going to spin that, aren't they? They're just going to say, like, yeah, that's how we're doing it, but it's still a ghost doing it. That's how the ghost possesses our tongue. Oh, God.

SPEAKER_04:

You have a ghost toe.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like the shining with his finger. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's just the toe instead. Like, yes, we admit it's our toes, but still the ghost doing it.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00:

Sounds legit. Sounds reasonable.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, in January of 1851, Burr presented lectures for three days in a row in New York City, demonstrating himself how he could make the same noises. All the while Burr's brother was a part of the presentation as well. And he was manipulating the crowd. He was demonstrating to them how he could control the minds of the audience through suggestion, like pointing over to the right side of the room when the when Burr will crack his toe and say, Oh, the sound came from over there. When really it just came from the same spot it's been coming from. But all you have to do is suggest. And then your brain goes, it came from over there. And Burr was demonstrating both things simultaneously. Nope. Unsuccessful. People still believe the Fox sisters and Burr gave up. He's like, I I don't know what else to do. Soon after Burr's failed attempts, there was a more thorough investigation done by three physicians from the University of Buffalo. These would become known as the Buffalo Doctors. I like that. It's kind of cool sounding.

SPEAKER_00:

Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Closets, closets, closets, closets. You don't know what that's from.

SPEAKER_00:

No, but the Buffalo Buffalo. It's like a sentence that's like grammatically correct with only using the word buffalo like seven times.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like the adjective verb now, like a buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Cool.

SPEAKER_04:

So I can't follow that shit. The buffalo doctors observed the girls and concluded the sounds were fraudulent and the sisters were producing them. And they said they were producing them by popping their joints. These findings were published in a medical journal. The Buffalo doctors also said they found a highly respectable woman in town that could produce the same sounds with her knee. And when Leah read this publication, she insisted the doctors do a private investigation. She was like, nope, let's do another one. And they accepted. So during the private investigation, the sisters were told to sit on a sofa. And when they did, the sounds were able to interact with people. Then the doctors had the girls sit in two separate chairs, and then they put their feet up on like other chairs, I guess, or rested their feet up, you know, ankles on pillows and toes up toward the sky. While they did this, the noises weren't able to communicate. And then crazy. And then the doctors held the girls' knees together and would ask the spirits questions. And one doctor would kind of play with it a little bit. He'd loosen the grip slightly and he could feel the girl trying to move her bones and like a slight sound would happen. But then when he held them really tight, nothing would happen. They're cracking their knees and their toes.

SPEAKER_00:

How just quiet in general society and the world was back then, before, you know, electricity and motor cars and everything, like the ambient noise that's just everywhere today. Oh, yeah. A knuckle cracking is loud enough to think that's the voice of a ghost.

SPEAKER_04:

I bet it was a lot quiet. Because you don't have like the electric lamps everywhere. I mean, the electricity was around, but like it wasn't as big as it is, obviously, today. And like just the Wi-Fi alone makes a woo noise that we just constant noise around us all the time. It probably is a lot quieter back then. Yeah.

unknown:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

I never thought of that.

SPEAKER_04:

So the doctors wrote that, and this is quote because I really love this. They basically describe like cracking knuckles in a very like 1800s way. They say, we have heard about several cases in which the movements of the bones entering other joints are produced by muscular effort, giving rise to the emission of sounds. Yeah. Well, they found it though. So after these findings, the public was yet again intrigued more than enraged. They wanted more.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Even when you tell them that something was fake. Even P.T. Barnum realized that.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it doesn't matter. He didn't even People just want to show. They don't care.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Leah said that the Buffalo trials were a victory for spiritualism. She's like, this worked out in our favor. This is great.

SPEAKER_00:

No matter what happens, declare victory.

SPEAKER_04:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. People will eventually think you won. Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

But certain people just declare victory all the time.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Yep. And then you win. That's it.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

One of the Buffalo doctors, though, was not going to accept this. He was like, no, we proved that they're lying and you shouldn't believe them. Stop it. So this doctor, he began touring around and demonstrating how the Fox sisters were frauds. And then as he's doing this, the doctor realizes that he was not convincing people of their fraud. In fact, he discovered that he was the cause for some people to actually convert to spiritualism after seeing his demonstration.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I encounter this too, like when you try to disapprove something, like, and you can't, like, but you can you can demonstrate what they're doing. Yeah. So it's like, why not just be a competitor then and be like, you know, I uh you know, I'm a scientist trying to show that they can't do this. Well, that's not working. Fine. I talk to ghosts too. Here I am. Yeah, here's$10. Yeah, like just join them. Like, well, they're fucking stupid. Why should I keep serving humanity when they're this fucking stupid? I should be taking I should be ripping them off just like everybody else does. That's it. That's it. That's kind of that's how I view it.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So sheeps and wolves. Yep. Sorry, that's all the world is.

SPEAKER_04:

The doctor later wrote that he was both shocked and horrified by his results and he abandoned the project. Like he he he hated it. The Buffalo doctors hated it. Like I think it's a reality that not every generation gets to see. And we are one of those lucky ones that do get to see it. How facts in front of you, with your own eyes, you won't believe. But you'll believe what's being told to you. But with your own eyes, you won't believe it. But yet if it's said to you, you will. Like, I didn't know that was something that could happen until recently in my life. But I think I really feel empathy for these doctors and these people being like, no, they're wrong. Like they're lying. And how do you not see this? Like, I'm I'm going insane myself, you know? Like, ah, you start to gaslight yourself at a certain point. Like, am I the crazy one? Nope. Protect your peace. Cut people out, stay in your bubble, do what you have to do, protect your peace.

SPEAKER_00:

Brick up your front door. Yeah. Stay inside.

SPEAKER_04:

Brick it up. After only a few years of touring and like pumping up that spiritualism, the Fox sisters didn't mean to, but they unleashed a craze across the nation. One that we are still feeling today. Notable figures of the time were fans of the sisters, people like Thomas Edison, William Lloyd Garrison, and not shocking, Mary Todd Lincoln. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah. Yeah. Her spirit photography craze.

SPEAKER_04:

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. She got photographers made a pretty minute mint off of her.

SPEAKER_04:

I understand her. She had a lot. I'm gonna do the Lincolns one day. She went through it, and I feel bad for Mary. She can believe whatever she wants. I don't care. Anyway. Leah was able to climb out of poverty when she finally married. I mean, on her own, but also she married a man, um, a Wall Street banker. His name was Daniel Underhill, and they married in 1857. So Leah was in the high society now. Leah retired as Maggie and Kate's manager and enjoyed life as a wealthy socialite.

SPEAKER_01:

Nice.

SPEAKER_04:

Leah was 44 around that time. Maggie is 24, and Kate is 20. Maggie and Kate tried to continue on without Leah, but the constant love and hate they got from the public was just too much for them. You know, some of them trying to like, you know, you're fraud, you're lying, you're lying. Others like, give us more. It's too much. They wanted something different, but they felt stuck and they didn't know what to do. I'm gonna go back a little bit just to give Maggie's story here. In 1850 or 1852, it's one of those details. Maggie fell in love with an Arctic explorer, Dr. Elijah Kane.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

She loved him and he was also her way to a better life. Like this was perfect. Best of both worlds. They were engaged to be wed upon his return from an expedition.

SPEAKER_00:

He didn't return today. Yeah. Oh, this sounds really stable, like except for the fact that his job is going into dangerous, unexplored territories for long, long stretches at a time.

SPEAKER_04:

He left in 1856, and while on expedition, Kane fell ill in Havana and died while he was being cared for in 1857. So when Leah leaves everything, Maggie's life is just done. Her future was gone. Gone. Maggie does say, though, that they married in secret in 1856 before he left. And she even changed her last name. So she and she died Maggie Kane.

SPEAKER_00:

She says.

SPEAKER_04:

She says she became entangled in disagreements with the family over what was hers, and she never got anything like from the will or anything like that. Um, but she did claim to be married to him, and they insisted that she wasn't. So I don't know. Yeah. Soon after Kane's death, Maggie converted to Catholicism, and this is 1858. She also fell into a deep depression and began drinking a lot, which led to alcoholism. Now Kate married a lawyer, H. D. Jenkin, in 1872. And I believe at one point, I think she moved to England for him. I saw it in one spot, but I couldn't see it too much. And they had two sons together.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

But Jenkin died in 1881, and Kate was devastated. I believe she moved back to the U.S. after this. Kate also began to self-destruct after her husband died. And like Maggie, Kate turned to alcohol, also becoming an alcoholic. Yeah. Leah decided to poke her head into Kate's business around this time and reported Kate to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. So like CPS.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

They took Kate's son. Sorry, they took both of Kate's sons and they gave Leah custody of her sons.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Kate was arrested in 1888 for cruelty to her children. I don't know how long she spent in jail, but she wasn't there like two years ago.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you know how bad it has to be in that era as a parent to be arrested for cruelty to your children for child abuse? I was just wondering about that too. It has to be in that era.

SPEAKER_04:

In this though, in this though, Maggie says that she didn't agree with Leah's actions. So I don't know. Either way, though, Kate was an alcoholic, probably wasn't doing the best for her kids. And Leah had a wealthy life. So she took the kids. Yeah. However, because Maggie didn't agree with Leah, Maggie and Kate joined forces against Leah. We're in the late 1800s, like 1888, remember? And they decided to write a letter to the New York Herald confessing everything. Maggie was the one that wrote the letter. Okay. Kate supported. The letter stated how it all started when the girls would tie strings to apples, roll them around the floor and the steps of the house to scare the family, mainly their mom. They continued to do so because it was fun, but decided to step it up when April Fool's Day came near. And that's why they started talking to the spirit.

SPEAKER_03:

Called it.

SPEAKER_04:

Yep. The papers called it right away. They said it's the girls and they're pulling a prank. Done. Maggie also wrote how every time she did a seance that she would drink the remorse away with wine. She just, yeah, she was living and had money and all that, but she did not like what she was doing. The letter continues to explain that once Leah knew of the deception, like that her sisters were doing, that Leah quickly found a way to exploit it and that she was more like a tyrant than a sister to them. Maggie and Kate probably hate Leah, is my guess. Maggie and Kate offered to do a demonstration for the public themselves, showing everything, promising the tabloids the death of spiritism. Don't you wish? They would perform in the auditorium of the Rochester Academy of Music, which was used to be called the Corinthian Hall. So how poetic, right? Where they had their debut. Maggie was on stage as Kate watched from the audience supporting her. Maggie read her testimony that spiritualism was a fraud, and then she sat down on the stage and demonstrated how she could make the rapping sounds with her toes and her knees. To Maggie and Kate's surprise, spiritualism had taken on such a chokehold of the nation that believers were unwilling to part ways with it. They were like, Nope, I had an experience, and it was this and like they they believed the experiences that the girls gave them. Like the girls were like, No, no, I was there too. And I'll tell you, my experience was me tricking you. And they're like, uh-uh. No one could have known this about so-and-so. And they're like, I I did know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

But they weren't willing to accept it.

SPEAKER_00:

Belief perseverance.

SPEAKER_04:

The girls at this time were now both alcoholics, and Kate had her kids taken away. They're unreliable. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Maybe five dollars, I'll channel the spirits for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Vodka's a bitch. Yeah. Vodka.

SPEAKER_00:

Spirits talking. Spirits talking. Give me my money.

SPEAKER_04:

So yeah, the public didn't view them as trustworthy and viewed their confessions as lies.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It's also Bethley, what are they? I don't know what they hoped to get out of the letter to the paper. Like, I mean, yeah, to upset Leah, but I can picture even Leah being like, no refunds. I already got my money. Yeah, no, I'm retired. I don't give a fuck.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, Leah's story's like done. She doesn't touch. She's untouched by all of it. She gives zero fuck. She's done. She did what she had to do and she's done. She exploited her sisters. And yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't care.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, she got her money. She doesn't care. Yeah. She's she's done. Leah would remain a wealthy socialite until her death on November 1st, 1898. And she was about 78.

SPEAKER_00:

Day after Halloween. Tomorrow.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh yeah, tomorrow. Well, happy anniversary. All saints, all souls.

SPEAKER_00:

Halloween is all hollows eve, so all hollows is November 1st, and then All Souls is November 2nd. Yeah. Is that how it goes?

SPEAKER_04:

Souls Day is November 2nd. I know that.

SPEAKER_00:

So All Hallows.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know. November 1st is. You have to look it up now. Okay. No, go ahead. I said you have to.

SPEAKER_00:

I thought you were saying like you have to.

SPEAKER_04:

No, you you have to. Um I think I would go. I remember being raised Catholic, we would go to church always around Halloween for like All Saints Day or All Souls. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, All Saints Day, also known as All Hallows Day.

SPEAKER_04:

That's what it is. I was gonna say, I think it's all Saints November 1st and then All Souls November 2nd. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. So I remember my mom would get mad. Not mad, but she would always correct me. So it's all souls day. And she's like it's all saints day. And I just thought it was like her Catholic way of me not being creepy, but she was just being correct.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. I didn't realize until I got older it was like two separate days. Anyway. So Leah died when she was around 78 years old, November 1st, 1891. And then the youngest sister, Kate, she would succumb to alcoholism and pass away on July 2nd, 1892, at the age of 55-ish. And then Maggie, she would spend her final years in poverty.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Relying on charity and the kindness of friends to get by. She returned to spiritualism after the failed confession.

SPEAKER_00:

She's talking to spirits at this point. So the the one who admits that she made it up is like, well, maybe I didn't make it up.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, why not? She needs to make money somehow. She's in poverty, like her name's ruined, like nothing, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Most common people end up believing their own lies at some point.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Um, I do believe that Maggie and Kate tried to do a few more demonstrations, like toured it a little bit, but no one believed them. So they they did their best. Um Maggie was evicted from her home on March 5th, 1893, and was taken in by a spiritualist sympathizer, but Maggie would pass away a few days later on March 8th of 1893 from alcoholism, and she was 59.

SPEAKER_00:

And she didn't come back as a spirit.

SPEAKER_04:

No. Now the Philadelphia Daily Evening Telegraph reported Maggie's death saying her once handsome face was at the end marked by age and decline, and her only appetite was for alcoholic drink. So yeah. There were a few spiritualists that still met with Maggie upon her death, like in her later years, and um they organized a funeral for her. The ceremony is said to be presided over by Benjamin Franklin, who spoke through a medium. And then the funeral was attended by Maggie's older sister, Leah, who died in 1891. And Horace Greeley was also at the funeral, who had died a few years earlier.

SPEAKER_00:

Nice.

SPEAKER_04:

So Maggie was, you know, popular among the dead. Now, the Fox sisters did not know that they were making such a huge mark on America. And by the end of the 1800s, spiritualism was a lot bigger, and magic was now a big thing. Like Houdini was doing stuff now in the later, like late 1800s, early 1900s. And Houdini also is, I just like to throw this in here because he also tried to expose his own trickery and was unable to because people wanted so badly to believe in his magic.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Like it's a tale as old as time. It's a tale as old as time.

SPEAKER_00:

Why do people want to believe in magic and ghosts? Because they want to believe in another world because this one fucking sucks. If this one was livable, we wouldn't be spending our time fantasizing about going to something better.

SPEAKER_04:

I will say though, I do, I don't know if all Mormons do this, but I've watched a few things and researched a few things that Mormonism, I don't know, Latter-day Saints, what the proper thing to say is, sorry. The Church of Latter-day Saints. Um that they like almost get upset with you if you're scared to die. Like they not like mad, like not like whipping you or anything, but that's it's almost like you shouldn't be scared to die. You should be, you should be happy.

SPEAKER_00:

No Christian should.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, but what I'm saying is I respect that. Yeah because you're right. I respect that. If you truly, truly, truly, truly believe it, then why are you scared?

SPEAKER_00:

Are those same Mormons wear seatbelts?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, I don't know, Cole. I'm just saying the fucking blueprint of the blueprint of their thing. I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm it's not like not being scared of dying doesn't mean you just should be risking your life all the time and walking in front of buses. I just think that like you shouldn't be scared of it if you believe it. I just don't think you should be scared of it. That's it. But if I also thought You'd be scared of pain, like I don't want to hit it.

SPEAKER_00:

If I was going somewhere fucking awesome, if death was just walking through a door and you're like something fantastic, then why would I not do everything I possibly can to get there quick?

SPEAKER_04:

Well that's the caveat, right? Because you can't kill yourself usually. You can't kill yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

But just not take inordinate steps to preserve your life.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, like just don't go to the doctor, you know, like just stuff like that, you know, whatever. But yeah, so that's that's it. That's that's seances in America. That's why we have seances, that's why people like Long Island Medium and others exist. The Fox sisters are the reason. Girls that started this trick on April Fool's Day prank to scare their mom, and they ended up scaring the country into believing that you can talk to spirits.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. And then we have what Ed and Lorraine Warren because of them. And then we have those awful movies based on them as a result.

SPEAKER_04:

We'll probably do an Ed and Lorraine Warren one. Maybe. Because I feel like that would be a good one to do. But I don't know. They kind of piss me off. I get ragy.

SPEAKER_00:

I used to get ragy at con men and con women, and now I'm just like envious. Yeah, they like knew how to do it, I guess. They're right. Yeah. But there's no reason not to scam people.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yeah. But that's it.

SPEAKER_00:

The country rewards it.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

That's what we have for the Fox sisters. I hope everyone had a great Halloween. And I hope everyone dressed up nice, ate a bunch of candy. And if you were fortunate enough to be someone who did get drugs in your candy, have fun.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, also, just a little side note, we did FOIA for the text messages that Kendra Lacari from Unknown Number, the documentary, um, where she's like catfishing her daughter. We got those text messages, and they will be doing a Patreon getting more in depth with the Lacari case here because I think that with almost a thousand pages of this FOIA document and most of them being text messages, I just want to make sure that we all know that Kendra is not a good mother.

SPEAKER_00:

And I I'm on this because Kendra The more you try to tell people that they're gonna double down on how great she is.

SPEAKER_04:

I just in the documentary, it curled my toes so much to see her pop. Yeah, they popped. To to see her act like a victim, to try to create a narrative that she's a victim. And I just want everyone to know all the things that she said to her daughter that were horrendous and the the awful things. Because you you can't, you just no, I'm sorry, no amount of mental illness, no amount of whatever will excuse doing that to your child. Like, but anyway, like you said, it's probably all for naught anyway. Yeah. Um, but that that's why I thought on a Patreon episode because you have to want it, you have to be looking like it has to be something you're interested in. It's not just gonna be out in the public.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the secret to life. It's all for naught.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it is all for naught. But anyway, while you're living in despair during this fall season, you can follow us on Instagram, borrowed bones podcast. And like I said, be on the lookout. I'm gonna try and do more with our Patreon here pretty soon. And we also do have merch, so check that out. That's it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_04:

Happy Halloween or happy Guy Fox Day.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_04:

Bye. Bye.

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Sarah and Cole

Host

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