CHAPTER 1
EARLY MEMORIES
Omitting the preliminary
description of my surroundings of my early childhood and the conditions
of birth and similar matters, it will interest the reader to enter
without delay upon the story, which leads up to the events to which all
interest in this volume must attach.
One evening in the winter of 1845, in
the town of Bolton, Conn., where my father’s family resided, we were
sitting about the large old-fashioned kitchen-table, which was lighted
by means of oil lamps, in common use by all country people in those
days. The room was a large
square one, having in one corner a door, which led to the rooms above, its only fastening an iron
latch, which held it in place.
While the murmur of
conversation was going on, we were suddenly startled by a sound which
resembled the noise produced by hurling a heavy log down the stairway
against the door here mentioned. There was no mistaking the locality, as
the sound was sufficiently loud to shatter the door, which it would have
done had it been caused by means which the noise indicated, and by any
object
capable of making so crashing a sound.
Not one of the half-dozen persons
seated at the table moved for some few seconds following; their
startled, white faces testifying to their consternation. Before anyone
had spoken the sound was repeated with equal force, and seemed to jar
the entire room. This time, my mother, who was a fearless woman under
ordinary circumstances, pale and trembling, took up a lamp to
investigate the matter. She had scarcely risen, with face towards the
door, when the noise was repeated for the third time. Not hesitating,
but with blanched face, holding the light aloft, she threw open the
stairway; not a sound, not an object answered her look and voice. Utter
silence reigned in the chambers above.
Father was absent at the time, and
our nearest neighbour was more than a quarter of a mile away. However,
my sisters, who were grown to womanhood, followed by myself, went with
my mother throughout the entire building, to find no intruder of any
sort, nor could we find any evidence of the cause of the peculiar
noises. As we returned to the kitchen the large clock on the high
mantelpiece struck eight.
Three days later,
while the matter was the subject of constant conversation, we received
news of the death of my father’s mother, who died at Stafford Springs,
at eight o’clock of the day
of our strange experiences.
The time elapsing
between the stairway noises and the striking of the hour, we afterwards
ascertained, was the exact difference between grandfather’s watch and
our clock; we, therefore, knew that
at the time
of the stairway noises grandmother
had passed to the great
beyond, and that period of
departure was precisely ten minutes before eight o’clock. My grandfather,
from this time forward to that of his death, was a member of our
household.
In the early fall
of 1849, while residing near the Coventry line, I was lying ill with
typhus fever, close to death. On this evening, which I am about to
mention, my condition was better. Father and an older sister were seated
in the room playing a game of checkers, while near them looking on sat
mother.
|
Was Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist? |
They were very quiet lest I might be
disturbed. Directly fronting me stood the clock, which was of the old
Bristol pattern, with iron
weights. It had not been wound for more than a year, and the cord which
up-held the ‘strike-weight’ was broken. At once, amid the stillness, the clock struck
one.
The effect was
electrical. Father, more astonished than frightened, sprang to his feet,
and opened the clock door to find the wire still vibrating. In the face of
the presence of the long broken
cord, there was no method to account for the striking. The game of checkers was never finished, and I was
wearied with questions as to my welfare-my family believing that this was but a
strange herald of my departure.
Three weeks later, and after I had
recovered, my grandfather received a slight paralytic attack while
descending the stairs; mother helped him to bed, administering some
medicine, which quieted him for a time. She soon after was called to his
bedside, when he told her that ‘Millie [his deceased wife] has just
been here; to which mother replied, ‘You have been dreaming.’ ‘No,’ he
said, ‘she bent over me, calling me by name, and put her cold hand upon
my side; I felt it.’
Finding that he could
not be dissuaded from this thought she changed the subject. A few days after this incident, my
father arose very early for the purpose of cleaning the elevated oven belonging to an old stove, and while in the yard vigorously
shaking it, was startled by the
noise of three strokes upon the corner of the house below the eaves - so distinct that the sound could be
exactly located. He at once went into the house to the room where my grandfather lay,
directly within the spot where the noise occurred, only to find
grandfather peacefully sleeping.
Finding no one about,
it occurred to him that the noises were surprising. On going to mother’s
room he informed her, but she induced him to believe he was mistaken and
to return to his work, which he
did. Whereupon, taking up the oven, he heard an exact
repetition of the noises
in the same place. He sought in vain for a solution of the mystery;
when again, for the third time, the noise was repeated. He
afterwards confessed that he was unnerved for the day.
For a week or more
following this occurrence, grandfather appeared saying he did not feel
well and wished mother to serve him a cup of tea. I went with mother to
his room, and found him sitting up in bed breathing heavily; he desired me
to send for Amasa (my father, who had left him an hour previous), saying,’
I am going to die, for Millie has called me again.’ Mother sent for
father and comforted grandfather. Within half an hour, and before father
returned, grandfather had joined the voice that called him, and was with
her in the great beyond, without the shadow of death.
As will be seen by
the date (1845), I was a mere child, and Spiritualism was comparatively
unknown to the world and entirely unknown, I am quite sure, in our
little old-fashioned village; but in after years, when we heard of spirit
manifestations, we came to know
that these results were the attempts at communication on the part of
our spirit friends. |