DIGGING history DIGGINGO, HISTORY: Victoria,SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 You’ve Been UNCOVERINGDuped! HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME DIGGINGA bi-monthly publication HISTORY of Digging History Media Web Site: www.digging-history.com Contact Us: [email protected] In this issue O, Victoria, You’ve Been Duped! Haints, Hoaxes and Humbug 1 It Was a Victorian Thing Get me out of here … I’m not dead yet! 23 13 friggatriskaidekaphobia and the Thirteen Club 30 BOOK CORNER: May I Recommend . 36 Essential Tools for the successful family researcher 40 Don’t Be Duped . genealogical fraud has been around a long time 44 In a Dead Woman’s Eye 52 Ocular Explosions 57 Fashionably Ways to go (or stay) in days of old 61 Ezekiel William Pettit (1837-1922) 68 BIBLIOGRAPHY and Photo Credits 72 but first, a word from the editor, researcher, writer, graphic designer and publisher . I hope everyone had a great summer. I don’t know about you but I’m looking forward to cooler temperatures! This issue features stories from my favorite historical era – the Victorian Era. There’s nothing I like better than combing through newspaper archives of the nineteenth century! I’m always on the lookout for intriguing headlines. “In a Dead Woman’s Eye” was intriguing enough to write an extended article about a crime- fighting theory pursued at various times throughout the 1800s. What if a murder victim’s assailant could be identified by examining the victim’s retina not long after death? Might the retina have the criminal’s visage imprinted there? Photography had been introduced and some thought the same principles might apply for the human eye. This issue also features an extended article highlighting the many hoaxes perpetrated throughout the 1800s. “O, Victoria, You’ve Been Duped: Haints, Hoaxes and Humbugs in the Age of Acceleration” covers everything from ghosts and the rise of Spiritualism to the King of Humbug, P.T. Barnum and one of the biggest humbugs of that century – phrenology. October is Family History Month and “Don’t Be Duped: Genealogical Fraud Has Been Around a Long Time” is a reminder for genealogists regarding “hints” which sound too good to be true. Proceed cautiously – it may very well be the product of nineteenth and early twentieth century genealogical fraud. The last two months have been filled with many distractions and unexpected detours with Mom’s extended hospital stay and adjusting to new caretaker duties. So, carving out time to write took a little longer this time. Still, I hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as I enjoyed putting it together. I always learn something and I hope you do as well! Until next time I’ll be uncovering history one story at a time, Sharon Hall, Editor, Researcher, Writer, Graphic Designer and Publisher O,Haints, Victoria, Hoaxes and You’ve Humbug In Been the Age of Duped! by Sharon Hall For Americans it seems a strange misnomer to label a significant portion of our own nineteenth century history as Victorian. After all, Queen Victoria, who ascended to the British throne in 1837 at the tender age of eighteen, was not our ruler. America was no longer under British rule, yet Britain still dominated the world. America progressed through a number of eras of rapid change during the nineteenth century – the Second Great Awakening, Manifest Destiny, Industrial Revolution, Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction and the so-called Gilded Age. Perhaps it has become more convenient to enfold our own “age of acceleration” into the so-called “Victorian Era”. Save for global military power, there were rather striking historical similarities: Queen Victoria of England reigned over a vast British empire from 1837 until her death in 1901. During her rule, England rapidly transformed into a modern, technologically-based economy exercising global military and cultural power, roiling with class and racial conflict. Victorianism extended far beyond the boundaries of Britain and informed international movements of the same period, including in the United States. Queen Victoria’s name signifies not only her era as a distinct time period in world history, but also a particular aesthetic sensibility in design, literature, manners, and morals. Victorian-era objects and buildings were often highly decorated and ornate. Victorian writers and intellectuals celebrated “sentiment”—feeling, emotion, affection, and passion— that found diverse expression in abolitionism, paternalistic colonialism, social reform, and celebrations of romantic love or mourning. Values defined as “Victorian” included moral responsibility and restraint as well as domestic propriety and gentility. At the same time, the Victorian era was marked by rigid gender and class hierarchies seen in elaborate codes of conduct, etiquette, and social rituals. Anxieties about science, religion, and race undermined many Victorians’ prosperity and moral certainty. The material objects, buildings, and texts arranged in this primary source set illustrate the variety of Victorian design while revealing some of the unique cultural characteristics of the period.1 I have long been fascinated with the nineteenth century, what one friend called “the century of acceleration”. During the 1800s Americans conquered and traversed land west of the original colonies by horse and wagon. By the century’s conclusion the so-called “horseless carriage” was making headlines. A careful study of this accelerating century points to an unprecedented array of scientific, medical, transportation and industrial innovations, most of which laid the groundwork for twentieth and twenty-first century technology. In this regard it has always fascinated me that despite an era of progressiveness and sophistication, this century – much of which encompassed the vaunted “Victorian Era” – produced some of the most stunning dupery in human history. Victorians were among the DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 1 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME most hoodwinked and hornswoggled to Despite fervor which served to benefit have ever inhabited planet Earth. For evangelical denominations, other religious purposes of this article I have divided the movements arose, both during and after the era into three separate (yet overlapping) Second Great Awakening. Joseph Smith vignettes, more for alliteration rather than lived in the “burned-over district” and chronological purposes: Haints, Hoaxes founded the Mormon movement around and Humbug. 1828. Other religious movements included: HAINTS ● The Millerites. Led by William Miller, this movement preached the Second When America officially became America Coming of Christ would occur precisely following the American Revolutionary War, on October 22, 1844. In some respects one of the first (actually the very first) Miller’s movement morphed into principles set forth by the Founding Fathers Adventism. was what has become known as “separation of church and state”. By eschewing state- ● The Shakers. This communal movement sponsored religion, America would not established in the 18th century stand in the way of any one person’s experienced a revival of its own during freedom to exercise their personal religion this period. beliefs. ● The Oneida Society was one of several The largest denominations were offshoots short-lived Utopian experiments of the of early immigrants: Congregationalists 18th and 19th centuries. Its founder, John (Puritan), Anglican (Church of England, Humphrey Noyes, taught adherents the later known as Episcopalian) and Quaker. concepts of Complex Marriage (polygamy The First Great Awakening, an Evangelical and free love) and a form of eugenics revival, swept through the colonies and called stirpiculture which purported to Britain in the 1730s and 1740s (and into the create “perfect children”. 1750s), led by fervent sermonists like George Whitefield, John Wesley and By far the most fascinating movement Jonathan Edwards. Methodism arose from emanating from this region was started by the ministries of Wesley and Whitefield. a couple of young girls in Hydesville, New York in 1848. What started as a prank Following the Revolutionary War yet morphed into what rapidly became known another revival, the so-called Second Great and practiced as Spiritualism (or Spiritism). Awakening, was marked by a rapid membership increase in both the Methodist The youngest children in the household of and Baptist faiths. Charles Finney, a John and Margaret Fox, Kate (born in 1837) Presbyterian minister, was one of this and Margaret (born in 1833), described by period’s leading revivalists, prominently so Reuben Briggs Davenport “as full of petty in central and western New York. devilment as any two children of their age ever were”,3 often teased their mother and The region would become known as the played tricks on Elizabeth, daughter of their “burned-over district”. In his 1876 older sister Leah. autobiography Finney coined the term “burnt district”, referring to an area set on John and Margaret Fox became estranged fire by revival. After a time the region “had following the birth of their first four been so evangelized as to have no ‘fuel’ children (Leah being the oldest) when John (unconverted population) left to ‘burn’ struggled with alcoholism. In the early (convert).”2 1830s he returned to Margaret a changed DIGGING HISTORY | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 2 UNCOVERING HISTORY ONE STORY AT A TIME man, having converted to Methodism Sister Margaret wanted to try, “Now, do just (perhaps during the Second Great as I do; count one, two, three, four,” striking Awakening). Margaret took him back and one hand against the other at the same time, they soon added to their family their two and the raps came as before”. Mrs. Fox youngest children, Margaret and Catherine decided to test the spirit by asking to have (Kate). On December 11, 1847 the family her children’s ages rapped out. And, of moved into a house in Hydesville and course . almost immediately mother Margaret began to hear strange sounds at various times Instantly, each one of my children’s ages throughout the night.