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After they discovered that a murder could have taken place and a body might be buried in the cellar, William Duesler and Charles Redfield took a candle and examined the cellar. Mr. Duesler said, “I told him to place himself in different parts of the cellar, and as he did so, I asked the question, if a person was over the place where it was buried? and I got no answer, until he got over a certain place in the cellar, when it rapped. He then stepped to one side, and when I asked the question, there was no noise. This we repeated several times, and we found that whenever he stood over this one place, the rapping was heard, and whenever be moved away from that place, there was no rapping in answer to my questions. Mr. Redfield said that he could hear the noise himself.”

Walter Scotten confirmed that the noise in the cellar came from the ground. “Some thought it was on one side, and some on the other,” he said. “We could hardly tell in what direction it come from. It did not sound like any noise that could be made by rapping or striking, either on the floor or on the ground. I have since tried to make the same noise in many different ways, but have never succeeded in imitating it.” He was in the house about a half hour with Stephen Smith, his wife, Mrs. Fox, Mrs. Losey, Mr. Wm. D. Storer and two girls. “There had been digging in the cellar at the time I was there. They had dug about two feet and a half, I should think. There was a good deal of water in the hole, which they said had prevented them from digging anymore.”

They continued their questioning and found that the murdered man was a peddler. The peddler’s wife had died, but he still had children who were living. They were unsuccessful at trying to determine the dead man’s name, only identifying two initials: C. and B. According to Mr. Duesler, “There were a good many more questions asked on that night, by myself and others; which I do not now remember. They were all answered readily in the same way. I staid in the house until about 12 o’clock, and then came home. Mr. Redfield and Mr. Fox staid in the house that night.”

John Fox insisted that they couldn’t find any natural cause for the events in the house. “We have searched in every nook and corner in and about the house, at different times, to ascertain if possible whether anything or any body was secreted there, that could make the noise, and have never been able to find anything which explained the mystery.”

John was anxious and concerned because the rapping attracted hundreds of people, and none of the family were able to get any work done. He hoped a cause would soon be found and their lives could return back to normal. He said, “The digging in the cellar will be resumed as soon as the water settles; and then it can be ascertained whether there are any indications of a body ever having been buried there; and if there are, I shall have no doubt but what this is a supernatural appearance.”

Mrs. Fox said, “I am not a believer in haunted houses or supernatural appearances. I am very sorry that there has been so much excitement about it. It has been a great deal of trouble to us. It was our misfortune to live here at this time; but I am willing and anxious that the truth should he known, and that a true statement should be made. I cannot account for these noises; all that I know is, that they have been heard repeatedly, as I have stated. “

Even though many excavations were made in the cellar, no skeleton was ever found buried in the floor. It wasn’t until 50 years later that an article in the Boston Journal, November, 22, 1904, stated, “The skeleton of the man supposed to have caused the rappings first heard by the Fox sisters in 1848 has been found in the walls of the house…” The bones were discovered by school students who were investigating part of the old cellar wall that had crumbled. In an editorial that appeared in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical research, a physician had examined the bones and reported “he found a number of bones there, but that there were only a few ribs with odds and ends of bones and among them a superabundance of some and a deficiency of others. Among them also were some chicken bones.” Despite some people’s claims, the peddler’s remains were never found in the house.

After the initial events in Hydesville, Margaret and Catherine were sent to Rochester. Catherine went to the house of her sister Leah Fish, and Margaret to the home of their brother David. The rappings followed them, but that is another story.

 

References:

A REPORT OF THE MYSTERIOUS NOISES, HEARD IN THE HOUSE OF MR. JOHN D. FOX, IN HYDESVILLE, ARCADIA, WAYNE COUNTY, AUTHENTICATED BY THE CERTIFICATES, AND CONFIRMED BY THE STATEMENTS OF THE CITIZENS OF THAT PLACE AND VICINITY.PUBLISHED BY E.E. LEWIS. PRINTED ON THE POWER PRESS OF SHEPARD & REED, Over Nos. 20, 22, & 24 State-Street, Rochester. 1848.

Cadwallader, M.E. 1922. Hydesville in History. Chicago: Progressive Thinker.

Editorial. 1909. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. March, 191 issue.