Fortune's Frenzy by Eilene Lyon

Author:Eilene Lyon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TwoDot
Published: 2023-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Spring 1852—Indiana

The anniversary of Henry’s departure came and went; the Jenkins family did not celebrate the occasion. About the family, Ann wrote in her March letter to Henry, “They are getting along as well as could be expected . . . ” and had settled into a life without him. She acknowledged her eighty-second birthday in her humble way, “How good is our God that has so long spared my useless and unprofitable life even once. Bless and adore his goodness.” Responding to Henry’s boast about mastering bread baking, she said, “I was much pleased to hear that you took care of yourselves in the eating line but do not think that thee will beat Emma in baking bread for she is a very good baker altho I do not doubt the excellence of thine.” As any good mother would, she warned him, “I hope thee will take care of your grissly neighbors and not venture too near them.” She told him about the local fascination with the arrival of “the mediems and the wonderful tappings. It is a constant topic of discourse.”29

Abby chimed in to report that Will’s wife, Jane, and her younger sister, Mary Ransom, had gone into Camden “to hear the knockings—there is hardly anything else talked of just now—truly it seems as if the spirit of the air is let loose and it seems as if the last days were approaching.”30 Though eastern newspapers discredited these “Rappers,” Jay County had credulous people. Because of rainy weather, they put outdoor work on hold, providing time for amusements. One of Henry and Abby’s nearby contemporaries expressed his thoughts on the mediums: “Now Sir this knocking is real . . . I will give an opinion of this as some call it a mystery yet I think it can be explained by some material cause. The medium . . . is a battery slightly charged with these fluids. I judge this from the fact that you will see the cold clammy sweat passing from the hands, the hands and arms become very nervous and the mind much affected so much so as to throw the medium into fits . . . ”31

Figure 12.1. Letter from Ann W. (Zane) Jenkins to her son, Henry, dated March 2, 1852. Credit: The Huntington Library. One professor explained a medium’s methods, which he then taught to his students, who proceeded to excel even beyond her abilities.

Sometimes she made them by pressing her toe against the leather on the inside of her shoe—at other times by the friction of her shoe against the chair post, and at other times she produced detonations by a peculiar action of the respitorary [sic] muscles of the chest . . . several of my students . . . can prduce [sic] ‘mysterious raps’ with their toes, knee-joints, ankle-joints and the tendons, all of which are as mysterious as those I detected in the medium of this city.32

Abby and Ann did not mention how much the clairvoyant charged her rapt audience.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.