Moving of the Fox Sisters House at Hydesville

Wayne County, NY


Fox Sisters Homestead


Source: The Syracuse Herald, February 3, 1916 (Syracuse, NY).

Spook House
to Be Moved
to Lily Dale

Structure Known to
Spiritualists All
Over Country.

Newark, Feb. 21. - A. L. Foote, owner of the old house, commonly known as the "spook house" in which Spiritualism originated on March 31st, 1848, and located in Hydesville, a small hamlet a mile and one half north of Newark, Wayne county, has announced the sale of the property to B. F. Bartlett who will remove the historic old birthplace of Lily Dale, to Chautauqua county, where Spiritualists of America annually hold their camp meetings. He will present it to the Organization of Spiritualists.

The old structure is well known to spiritualists all over the United States. In December, 1847, John D. Fox and family, who lived in the dwelling, began to hear mysterious rappings. The rapping continued until the end of the following March, when one of the children discovered the knocks would reply to finger snappings. Questions were asked and the answers were rapped out. When the discovery was noised abroad a belief that intercourse could be obtained with the spirit world became epidemic and numerous "spirit circles" were formed in various parts of the United States. The manifestations thus said to be received were rappings, table turnings, musical sounds, writings, the unseen raising of heavy bodies and the like. The belief spread to several parts of the world, and in 1884 a Spiritualistic alliance was founded in London. It was incorporated in 1886. The late William T. Stead, famous English editor, who lost his life in the Titanic disaster, was one of the incorporators.

And so for considerably more than half a century the inoffensive looking little house has been the object of much thought and literary work throughout the world. Every year pilgrimages have been made to it by Spiritualists from every clime on earth. The building will be removed in its entirety to Lily Dale in May. It is thought the house can be hauled over the improved road to within a few miles of the Spiritualist mecca, and that the work will not require more than two months.




Please do not email questions to the coordinators of this site! There's a lot of information on line about the Fox Sisters, the Fox Cottage, and the history of Spiritualism. To find out more, run keywords "Fox Sisters Spiritualism" through your favorite search engine. An excellent article that will answer many of your questions is posted on history.net.




Back to Town of Arcadia Page




Created: 8/13/07
Digital Image of Antique Postcard Copyright © 2007 - 2011 M. Magill
Wayne County NYGenWeb
This site is a County Site of the USGenWeb Project
All Rights Reserved.