Boston in the Golden Age of Spiritualism:: Seances, Mediums & Immortality
128
Boston in the Golden Age of Spiritualism:: Seances, Mediums & Immortality
128Paperback
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781626195875 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Arcadia Publishing SC |
| Publication date: | 09/09/2014 |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.40(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
THE COMING OF THE LIGHT
In the 1850s, local spiritualists were in the process of defining their beliefs. People were discovering spirit communication while still dealing with organized religion. It was the decade to look within, to discard what was no longer important and to embrace a new view of life.
THE BLAZING COMET: LAROY SUNDERLAND (1804–1885)
Boston was home to one of the most mercurial personalities ever to embrace spiritualism. LaRoy Sunderland, a brilliant but restless soul, had the habit of waxing and waning in his support for causes ranging from traditional religion to abolition. In 1850, he published the Spiritual Philosopher, a newspaper that he proclaimed was the first spiritualist journal on earth. His married daughter, Mrs. Margaretta S. Cooper, had the distinction of becoming Boston's first public medium.
LaRoy's craving to be noticed began while he was still a boy in Rhode Island. His teenage enthusiasm for religion inspired him to become an itinerant Methodist preacher in the 1820s. During his first sermon preached in Massachusetts, some members of the congregation were so profoundly moved by his voice that a few fell prostrate on the floor. Others beat their chests in sorrow, while a number ecstatically clapped their hands. The reverend wondered if these Pentecostal displays were signs of God's approval. It soon occurred to him that he possessed an extraordinary talent. Sunderland would later describe this ability as the power of "Fascination," which caused a subject to lose self-control upon being mesmerized. In his early days, he successfully experimented with hypnosis.
The young clergyman plunged into family life. In December 1828, while working in Malden, just north of Boston, he married the talented Mehitable Ewins (1807–1901), who was drawn to his intensity. Margaretta, their first daughter, arrived in 1829. In a few years, after recuperating from severely straining his vocal chords in the 1830s, Sunderland moved his growing family to New York, where he spent a decade wrangling with the Methodist Episcopal Church over its proslavery stance. When he was defrocked over the issue, he immediately became mired in a personal crisis of faith. The former minister felt vindicated when he published his view that orthodox religion was riddled with hypocrisy.
In 1844, the self-designated "Dr." Sunderland was lecturing in Lynn on his latest interest, which he dubbed Pathetism, a "science" closely related to mesmerism. Assuming the role of a healer, Sunderland promised that he could cure ailments without inflicting pain in the process. Liberal papers, such as Boston's Chronotype, reported that in one public session, the amateur physician had successfully dissolved a cancerous tumor. By the end of the decade, he had delivered sixty-two lectures in the Masonic Temple on Tremont Street, plus written a manual. Sunderland was primed for his grand immersion into spiritualism.
Two years after the Fox sisters unveiled their experiments in spirit rappings in 1848, Bostonians were talking about the new phenomenon. The Sunderland family was by then living in a twenty-room home located in Charlestown, a city independent from Boston. LaRoy, embarking on his own experiments, was confident that he was communicating with his deceased young sons. With great satisfaction, he stated, "We have had some peculiar manifestations from the spirits of our children during the night, which have brought us to consciousness from sound sleep." He was gratified to learn from one of his spirit boys that they were still continuing to grow into manhood.
Ghostly knocks began to reverberate off the sides of rooms, the back of his desk and from the top of the china cupboard. As the spirit presences infiltrated the dining room, it became evident that other members of the family were endowed with clairvoyant abilities. Margaretta, now a married woman, and her younger sister, Sarah, could answer spirits' questions, access music coming from unattended guitars and cause heavy furniture to relocate. Sunderland was aware that, up to this time, other documented cases of spirit contact took place only after people had contacted the Fox sisters to act as intermediaries with the invisible world.
Sunderland incorporated his experiences into his professional life. Spiritualism and hands-on healing were the two avenues he used to cure the afflicted. He put together an office on Boston's Court Street near the water. Here, his clients, aware of his spirit connections, made appointments to find relief from imperfect sight, St. Vitus Dance, deafness and palpitations of the heart. He sold his own publications, plus those of his good friend Andrew Jackson Davis, a pioneer in the movement. Mehitable, his wife, built a reputation by using the restorative powers of magnetism, a popular belief that powerful, sometimes curative, electrical currents flowed between people. She also supplied her female clientele with the approved versions of shoulder braces and abdominal supporters.
Sunderland wanted a bigger audience. He rented a nearby hall where he delivered lectures about the Hydesville knockings and hosted free "Conversations on Spiritual Subjects." Then he directed his energies toward producing the Spiritual Philosopher, which he printed at his office and charged two dollars per year for a subscription, paid in advance. He flooded the pages with vignettes about his own work and experiences. Completely convinced that he had been given the key to unlocking the door to happiness, Sunderland boasted about his excursions into the heavenly realm in addition to congratulating himself on the exquisiteness of his publication. In August 1850, he wrote, "It is our design, and we think we have the means at command, for making the Spiritual Philosopher so attractive, that a very large number will read it; and once read, we hope it may be the means of good to the souls and bodies of men."
In later years, Emma Hardinge, an astute chronicler of early spiritualism, suggested that Sunderland "was transported beyond the plane of calm and rational observation." His dedication to "truth and good" was amply tinged with self-absorption. Yet he was proud to be the father of a woman with a direct line to the beyond.
Even before she turned twenty, Margaretta S. Cooper (1829–1898) was a seasoned veteran of the Boston lecture scene. She was a skilled musician and singer who warmed up the audience before her father performed. Her friends and subsequent clients described her as being very ladylike, well dressed and having long dark brown curls. When she married John D. Cooper Jr., a young man working in the hotel trade, in 1849, they boarded in her parents' home. Her father must have seen some promise in his son-in-law because he described Cooper as a skillful practitioner of the art of Pathetism. These heightened words probably meant that John was only an assistant. The Coopers' one daughter, Ada, was born in 1850, about the time that John faded away from the family history.
While still living in Charlestown, Mrs. Cooper's psychic abilities expanded. She loved to sit by the fireplace, rocking to sleep her two-month-old daughter while raps emanated from within the cradle. The baby's bed would often be moved several inches, seemingly transported by unseen hands. Margaretta, on occasion, would be entranced and write down messages but could not remember what had been communicated when she awoke. She held séances for friends and a few paying clients. Although she was self-effacing, her one extravagance was her love of colorful jewelry. Some attendees wondered if she purchased her trinkets with the money they paid her.
As her customer base increased, so did the number of spirits that visited the sessions. In October 1850, her father wrote an editorial in which he boasted that there were upward of three hundred invisible beings present per séance. Margaretta was so popular, he declared, that everyone in the neighborhood had come repeatedly to witness the wonderful communications taking place on Salem Street.
By the turn of the New Year in 1851, the family relocated to a larger home and office on Boston's Eliot Street, where Margaretta received the public every day except Sunday. Her séances, now more sophisticated, attracted notables such as antislavery champions William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. William C. Nell, an author and Garrison's African American colleague, found her sincere as well as insightful.
Keeping her long-range plan in mind, she started to schedule sessions for private groups in their respective homes. The most unusual evening took place at the residence of clients related to Dr. George Parkman, who was murdered in 1849. This wealthy physician had been cut down — literally — by another Harvard faculty member, John Webster. Given the fact that the victim was an upper-class merchant, the sordid event, which led to the trial and execution of Webster, dominated polite conversation for months. The doctor's surviving relatives were not only interested in contacting their departed kinsman but also wanted to reach out to deceased European friends. They wrote all their questions in French, a language unfamiliar to Margaretta. She later stated that some friendly bilingual spirits inspired her to deliver responses in a Parisian dialect. This intervention by the immortals boosted her self-confidence.
While Mrs. Cooper prospered, her father fell victim to a hoax in 1851. The trap was set by a columnist from the New York Express who sent LaRoy a gut-wrenching counterfeit letter from an imaginary Phebe Newell, whose fictitious friend, Mary Ellen Perkins, had taken her own life out of despair. "Mrs. Newell" enclosed one dollar in order to receive a prompt response from Sunderland about Mary Ellen's status in the spirit world. Had she been saved? In good faith, LaRoy wrote back that the spirit of Mary was standing by his side and was sending affectionate greetings to her elderly friend. Her eternal happiness had been guaranteed. The subterfuge, complete with a reprint of the letters, was gleefully broadcast in several Boston and regional newspapers. Sunderland was convinced that some vicious spirits had masterminded the event. Despite having received warnings from Margaretta that not every communication could be taken on face value, Sunderland insisted that, because he was acting in good faith, the spirits should protect him from anything deceptive. He began the descent into his usual self-righteous indignation.
Believers in the local community distanced themselves. Disillusioned, Sunderland poured out his views in A Book of Human Nature (1853), which ended with a bitter denunciation of his latest interest. He bullied local mediums, such as Mrs. Hayden, whom he accused of being a "damned spirit." Spiritualists, he decided, were either cheats or out to ruin him. The movement had to be repudiated because it was not perfect.
When his newspaper failed, his volatile personality created turmoil within the home. By the end of the decade, the Sunderland marriage had been terminally fractured. Mehitable filed for divorce in 1859 on the grounds that her husband neglected to provide financial support for her well-being. He said that she refused to live with him. After she settled in Hyde Park, Boston's most southern suburb, the former Mrs. Sunderland gained respect as a healer and midwife, eventually becoming the first physician in town. LaRoy concentrated on his medical practice in his constant search for perfection.
Margaretta gained traction as the public began to see her as a professional who was free from the influence of her troubled father. Much more confident now, she refused to take responsibility for the truthfulness of any spirit contacted during a session. She believed that hostile audiences attracted undeveloped or angry beings from the beyond, while sincere seekers of truth drew in helpful invisibles. A positive environment was the key to a fruitful meeting. These two basic concepts served her well and also built a foundation for the many mediums who would soon engage in the business. Her success stimulated the community to research spiritualism informally.
As spirit circles in private homes became more frequent, mediums proliferated. Mrs. Helen Leeds from Carver Street rented rooms to other spiritualists, such as George Redman. He enjoyed the informal social reunions held every month in her front parlor. Miss Burbank and Mrs. Langford shared their insights when they co-hosted gatherings combined with light refreshments. Spiritualism was gaining attention and even notoriety, depending on the personality of the clairvoyant. Another arena being impacted was the stronghold of orthodox religion.
THE COUPLE WITH A CONSCIENCE: ALONZO E. (1821–1889) AND SARAH JANE NEWTON (1820–1893)
The Newtons were exemplary members of the Edwards Congregational Church — until they were forbidden to pursue the most soul-satisfying experience of their lives. Communicating with departed spirits was condemned as one of the devil's most insidious snares. In 1853, Alonzo and Sarah Jane challenged the authority of this Bible-centered assembly by writing a public explanation of their reasons to support the "wonderful works of God" that were being revealed everyday through spiritualism. Their enlightenment came at a cost but transformed them into explorers on the brink of eternity.
Affectionately known as Lonnie, Newton embodied the American ideal of a self-made man who overcomes obstacles. His difficult birth in Marlborough, New Hampshire, in 1821 branded him as the most fragile of eight children. A strong will enabled him to persevere through years of poverty, which were intensified by his father's early demise. After joining his widowed mother and sisters in Lowell, a booming textile center on the Merrimack River, he worked in the mills until his health was compromised. Then his older sister's death forced him to be the sole breadwinner for the family. Newton vowed that his life was going to amount to more than coping with one calamity after another.
By 1844, Newton was editing Boston's Temperance Standard, a reform journal, and was happily engaged to Sarah Jane Emery, a young Bostonian who became his devoted soul mate. Over five years later, the couple joined the Edwards Church, which performed outreach among the downtrodden of the neighborhood outlined by Lowell and Causeway Streets. Alonzo was grateful to be making a decent living as a proofreader at Snow's Pathfinder Railway Guide. Sarah Jane loved caring for their three children in a modest home on Beacon Hill's West Cedar Street. Life was pleasantly unexciting — until Alonzo encountered spiritualism.
A colleague at the Pathfinder in early 1852 could not stop raving about a séance that he had attended at Hayward Place. Newton finally accepted the invitation to experience the raps for himself but privately thought that he would find only trickery. The evening at Mrs. M.B. Hayden's home attracted a crowd of believers and skeptics who strained to hear the faint smattering of knocks. Newton and his disappointed companion arranged for a private session, which reverberated with a cascade of loud noises, thus suggesting the presence of several beings. At another séance several days later, Alonzo received detailed messages supposedly being transmitted by his long-dead father. Newton still had doubts, although he was impressed. He needed to talk this over with his wife.
If nothing else than to put to rest Lonnie's questions, Sarah Jane volunteered to sit in on a circle directed by Mrs. Hayden. The results were spectacular. Bursts of enthusiastic raps enveloped the table and ricocheted off the walls. The medium could not keep up with the many communications flowing from all the departed relatives vying to be heard. Most startling was the final announcement. A light-drenched immortal predicted that Mrs. Newton would become a clairvoyant possessing extraordinary abilities.
One Sunday, Reverend Pond of the Edwards Church preached an unusual sermon based on the "Ministry of Angels." He suggested that after death, Christians were permitted to become the guardians of loved ones still on earth. Coincidentally, Sarah Jane was aware of the ghostly forms of departed church members standing in the sanctuary. She greeted a luminous being, apparently the pastor's deceased mother, who came over to encourage her to act on the minister's words. Once back in the tranquility of their house, the Newtons pondered the similarities between the homily and the central belief of spiritualism. They decided to use their residence as a testing ground. Sarah Jane opened her mind to the invisible visitors that she intuited were waiting in the background. She prayed that she was not doing something that would harm her family.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Boston in the Golden Age of Spiritualism"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Dee Morris.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
1. The Coming of the Light,
2. A Definition of Purpose,
3. The Rejection of Boundaries,
4. A Tale of Two Towns,
5. The Truth Behind the Illusion,
Epilogue,
Bibliography,
About the Author,