September 1872
My third seance would not be at Mrs. Boogher's, or even in a parlor, but in a small theater called Howard's Hall. Adolphe had invited me to a presentation hosted by the First Spiritualist Association, an active and growing organization where he was a board member. Such groups were constantly forming, splitting off, or reforming according to arcane machinations within the membership. This one catered to prominent figures in the business community; while the organizers were true believers, many joined for the access it afforded to influential men in shipping and rail.
He had encouraged me to bring the children—this event was open to the public and he promised a more theatrical performance than the intimate home affairs. Bernard, as usual, was out with his rowdy crowd of boys, and did not show. Ada, also as expected, jumped at the opportunity. I worried about a girl growing up in St. Louis with only a country mouse of a mother to protect her, so I had thus far limited her public engagements.
A young secretary of the society found us immediately when we entered the theater, and brought us to the front row, where Adolphe had arranged for us to sit together. He joined us once the crowds had packed the theater full, and he was accompanied by another man, one who appeared to be in his late twenties. Adolphe introduced him as a manager of the Express company, one who oversaw rail shipping up and down the Mississippi Valley. "This is Mr. Chauncey Crosby," he said.
Mr. Crosby had an imperious air and towered over Adolphe at almost six feet. He had a dark complexion and dark eyes, a slightly aquiline nose, large mouth, well-developed chin, and hair that seemed it would go thin before its time. He wore his shirt collar starched and upright, affixed with a tight bowtie, and an evening jacket with such a fine weave it seemed to glimmer in the light. When he was first introduced he barely looked at me, continuing to scan the room as if looking for someone more important. Then Ada stepped out from behind me. Mr. Crosby had eyes for no one else.
"Delighted to meet you, Miss Adelaide," he said solicitously. He added a nod, though his collar was so tight it was more like a stiff bow. "I am sure you have not been out in society much, because I would no doubt remember you."
"My daughter is only sixteen and has rarely been to evening entertainments," I replied.
"Hello, Mr. Crosby," Ada said, dazzled by him.
Bless his innocent heart, Adolphe seemed unaware of the currents eddying beneath the scene. He suggested that Mr. Crosby join the three of us in Bernard's empty seat. Inwardly, I grumbled at my son.
Our group had a moment's uncertainty before sitting down, so I positioned myself between Ada and Mr. Crosby, which satisfied no one but myself. The lights dimmed and the evening's medium took the stage.
Mr. Milan Summer Beckwith, the then-president of the Association, was acting as our master of ceremonies. He was a gregarious and vigorous man, with a great head of dark hair pomaded to a peak, and a beard reminiscent of President Lincoln, to whom he was said to be distantly related.
Mr. Beckwith began, "I am pleased to introduce Mr. Moses Hull, from New York, among the first mediums to be awakened to his powers directly by the Fox sisters. Mr. Hull is a trance medium, and one whose vocalizations and manifestations are the most powerful I have encountered. As you well know, Spiritualism is a science, resting on demonstrated facts as much as geology and chemistry. What you will see here tonight should convince even the skeptics of these facts. "
Mr. Hull indeed appeared to be a man of science—he was tall, with tightly curled short hair, graying early, and a luxuriously puffy mustache. He was seated on a plain wooden chair which faced a tall cabinet of sturdy but simple construction. The cabinet had two panel doors and no drawer at the bottom, and sat flush with the stage floor.
Mr. Hull spoke then. "Once we have fixed upon a subject to contact, I will enter the spirit cabinet in order to concentrate my energies and provide a focal point for the deceased to find their way to us. You may experience strange sights and sounds; this is a sign that our contact with the Spirit Realm is strong." He added that he felt good energy from the audience, and that the spirits should need little in the way of convincing to join us tonight.
He asked for a spectator to join him on stage to make our first contact. I felt Ada stir next to me and firmly pressed her back against her seat.
A boy not much older than she was selected and was assisted up on the stage. He expressed a desire to be reunited with his father who had died fighting in the war. There was a murmur of sympathy from the audience, but the medium shook his head with regret. "Those spirits so freshly taken from us by that heroic cause are not yet ready to return to us. Is there someone else you might wish to speak with?"
The boy was disappointed but acquiesced to instead try to contact his father's mother, in the hopes that maybe she would have news of him from the hereafter.
The auditorium dimmed and the stage was now only partly lit from beneath by a few footlights. The medium asked the boy more questions about the woman he was to contact, and then closed his eyes while emitting a tuneless humming sound. An assistant—apparently Mrs. Hull—emerged from backstage, opened the cabinet door, and escorted the medium into the cabinet. We could still hear the sound of humming for a moment, and then all was silent.
Without warning, a sharp "rap!" came from inside the cabinet. Every man and woman in the room jumped. The door to the cabinet opened a crack, but the medium did not appear. Wisps of a kind of smoke or vapor followed, catching the light and forming a slow-drifting cloud over the head of the boy. The boy was standing in the middle of the stage but now fell back to the wing and stumbled onto his backside. The cabinet door crept open a few more inches.
An ethereal shape emerged—a gossamer outline of a long arm or tentacle, a pearly cloud that glowed in the footlights. Everyone was transfixed as it swirled and rotated in the air, seeming to reach towards the boy even as it rose towards the ceiling.
It was thrilling! I was witnessing a true appearance of the supernatural! I wished I were seated next to Adolphe so he could take my hand again.
The shape continued to twist and fold onto itself, sinuous like an eel and slowly rising. From my vantage point at the front of the theater I could lean forward to see up into the rafters, lit as they were from below.
With this closer inspection, I could see that the thinnest of threads connected the cloud to a mechanism in the ceiling—a confluence of gears and swing-arms that moved in concert with it. The manifestation seemed to be merely some reflective fabric or mesh, guided out of the cabinet and across the stage through the action of an unseen stagehand.
One glance at my companions told me they had not seen the deception and remained as enthralled as the others. I sat back, keeping my disappointment to myself.
On-stage, the medium had begun to emerge from the cabinet. His appearance was much changed, though his newly-white hair was an effect I attribute to powdered chalk and not contact with the hereafter.
He spoke to the boy in a high falsetto and said that his body was now shared by the boy's grandmother, who brought greetings from his beloved father and assurance that they would meet again in the afterlife.
I struggled with my feelings in that moment. I felt angry at the deception, for sure, and at myself for having again been momentarily fooled by a simple theatrical trick. But I saw that tears were filling Adolphe's eyes—no doubt thinking of his dear mother—and what comfort did I have to offer in return? On stage the boy was openly weeping with relief. What harm did it do for a child to believe that a beloved parent watched over him, forever safe among angels and war heroes?
At last the medium feigned exhaustion from "maintaining the ecstatic state of paranormal contact" and begged Mr. Beckwith to bring the evening to a conclusion. When the lights came up, Ada and Mr. Crosby flew into communion over what they had seen, and I could see in her bright and flushed face that any objections I had about this man would be in vain.
Adolphe patted Mr. Crosby on the shoulder as he squeezed between them to join me, then put his hands in mine with easy familiarity. "Wasn't that extraordinary?" he said, his voice choked with emotion. I smiled at him, and at the little group of four we made, and knew that on this day, my family had enlarged.