Our first century: being a popular descriptive portraiture of the one hundred great and memorable events of perpetual interest in the history of our country, political, military, mechanical, social, scientific and commercial: embracing also delineations of all the great historic characters celebrated in the annals of the republic; men of heroism, statesmanship, genius, oratory, adventure and philanthropy . abet, writing downthe letters as they were indicated, and theresult was the name Charles B. Rosma,a name quite unknown to the family, andwhich they were afterward unable totrace. The stateme
Our first century: being a popular descriptive portraiture of the one hundred great and memorable events of perpetual interest in the history of our country, political, military, mechanical, social, scientific and commercial: embracing also delineations of all the great historic characters celebrated in the annals of the republic; men of heroism, statesmanship, genius, oratory, adventure and philanthropy . abet, writing downthe letters as they were indicated, and theresult was the name Charles B. Rosma,a name quite unknown to the family, andwhich they were afterward unable totrace. The statement was in like mannerobtained from the invisible intelligence,that he was the spirit of a peddler who had 474 OUR FIRST CENTURY.—1776-1876. been murdered in that house some yearsprevious. It is said that, at first, the rapsoccurred in the liouse even when all themembers of the family were absent, butsubsequently they occurred only in thepresence of the two younger daughters,Catharine and Margaretta; and, on thefamily removing, soon after, to the neigh-boring city of Rochester, the manifesta-tions still accompanied them ; the familytook up their abode witli a married sis-ter, Mrs. Fish, who subseciuently becamecelebrated as a medium, through whomthe manifestations were exhibited. The original method of communication—the spirit language—it would appear,consisted in conveying an afiSrmative by a. THE MISSES FOX. single rap (though perhaps emphasizedbj more), and a negative was indicated bysilence. Five raps demanded the alpha-bet, and this could bo called over by theliving voice, or else in a printed form laiduj)on a table, and the linger or a pencilslowly passed along it—when, on arrivingat the required letter, a rap was heard ;the querist then recommenced, until wordsand sentences were spelled out—upon theaccuracy or intelligence displayed inwhich, depended, in a great degree, theamount of faith jiopularly accorded to themanifestations. It was with this key, theconcept
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublishersprin, bookyear1876
