Illustration by: Joe Cummings Details: © Getty Images
On 1 April 1848, ten-year-old Catherine Fox and her sister Margaret, 14, received a mysterious visitor at their home in New York - a ghost. The spirit, which went by the name Mr Splitfoot (a popular name for the devil at the time) communicated with the girls through a series of ‘rappings’ - tapping out messages on a hard surface. It was able to discern their ages and answer questions they put to it. Later, the phantom claimed to be the ghost of peddler Charles B Rosna who, five years earlier, had been murdered and buried in the cellar.
As a result of these strange events, the girls and their supposed powers caught the public’s attention. They first visited Rochester and demonstrated their ‘rapping’ for a paying audience, later making regular appearances in New York City. Having performed for such personalities as historian George Bancroft and novelist James Fenimore Cooper, the girls became a popular entertainment act and news of their otherworldly abilities spread to Great Britain. Of course, no one took any notice that the day the Fox sisters first ‘communed’ with Mr Splitfoot also happened to be April Fool’s Day.