Real-Life X-Files (4 page)

Dingwall, Eric J. Cited in “The Devils Footprints,” in Ebon 1981,102–06.

Ebon, Martin, ed. 1981.
The World’s Greatest Unsolved Mysteries
. New York: Signet.

Edwards, Frank. 1959.
Stranger Than Science
. New York: Ace.

Furneaux, Rupert. 1977.
The World’s Most Intriguing True Mysteries
. New York Arc.

Gould, Rupert T. 1928. (Reprinted 1964.)
Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts
, 3rd ed. New York: Bell, 9–22.

Knight, W.F. Jackson. 1950. Cited in Dash 1994,107–09.

Nickell, Joe. 1995.
Entities Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings
. Amherst, N.Y.:Prometheus. (See index entries for contagion, “copycat” effect, and hysteria.)

Owen, Richard. 1855. Letter to editor,
Illustrated London News
, March 3, quoted in Gould 1928, 16–17.

Stein, Gordon. 1985. The devil’s footprints,Fate, Aug., 88–95.

Van Kampen, Hans. 1979. The case of the lost panda,
Skeptical Inquirer
4(1) (fall) 48–50.

Chapter 3

They have become legendary in the history of spiritualism and continue to spark interest and controversy. The question persists were the Davenport Brothers “probably the greatest mediums of their kind that the world has ever seen,” as Sherlock Holmes’s creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote (1926, 226), or was magician Harry Houdini (1924, 26) correct in reporting that he had facts “more than sufficient to disprove their having, or even claiming, spiritualistic power”? My research into the recently discovered Davenport scrapbook sheds new light on these claims and the fierce disagreement they provoked between Doyle and Houdini.

The Davenports made their debut as mediums in 1854, six years after two schoolgirls, Maggie and Katie Fox, launched modern spiritualism at Hydesville, New York. No doubt the two Buffalo newsboys—thirteen–year–old William Henry Harrison Davenport (b. February 1, 1841) and his fifteen–year–old brother Ira Erastus (b. September 17, 1839)—had heard how the Fox sisters seemed to communicate with ghosts by means of mysterious rapping noises. The boys’ father, Ira D. Davenport, was the first to relate the strange happenings. Dishes and cutlery danced about the family’s kitchen table and young Ira—when alone—sometimes claimed the spirits had whisked him to distant spots. At household séances, the boys demonstrated their flying ability. As magician John Mulholland explained in his
Beware Familiar Spirits
(1938, 51), “That is, at the beginning of the séance Ira Erastus would be sitting on a chair at one side of the room, and when the lights were turned up after it was over, the chair and boy would be on the other side of the room.” Because this transpired in the dark, credulous spectators simply assumed the youth had flown.

At the séances, the spirits supposedly also rapped out messages in the by–then–familiar way, but soon advanced to “automatic writing” (Bowers n.d., 155), which was supposedly produced by spirits guiding the entranced subject’s hand. Then the brothers’ spirit guide, “George Brown,” found he could speak through Ira when the youth was in a “trance state” (Mulholland 1938, 49–50). Another spirit entity was “John King,” who decided the boys should take their spirit demonstrations on the road.

In the halls and theaters rented by their father at the direction of “John King,” the Davenport Boys (as they were originally called) began to give demonstrations of “spiritual manifestations.” To show that they were not physically responsible for the phenomena, they were tied to chairs placed behind a curtain. Later the curtain was replaced by a specially designed “spirit cabinet” (Mulholland 1938, 52). This resembled a huge armoire with built–in benches on either side to which the boys were secured by lengths of rope (Jay 1987, 229 Houdini 1924, 21).

On the floor of the cabinet were placed musical instruments such as violins, guitars, concertinas, and tambourines. Then the doors were shut and the lights turned down. Soon, the instruments were heard to play, and phantom hands were seen to wave eerily through small diamond-shaped windows in the cabinet doors. When the gas lights were turned up and the cabinet opened, the Davenport boys were still securely tied. Spectators were divided over the manifestations some believed, while others scoffed—or worse—and still others were simply mystified (Mulholland 1938, 53–54).

In time the boys traveled throughout the United States and, as they matured, called themselves the Davenport Brothers. In 1864 they sailed for England, where they “took the literati and public of London by storm” (Dawes 1979, 87) and performed throughout Europe. “Les Freres Davenport” attracted a full house in Paris and went on to Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and elsewhere. On their return from abroad, a Boston handbill proclaimed that “The World–Renowned Davenport Brothers will appear after a most extraordinary and successful tour of four years in Europe, in their unique and startling wonders, mysterious displays, and unaccountable manifestations” (Christopher 1962,101).

On July 1, 1877, while the brothers were on tour in Australia, William Davenport, who had long been in ill health, died. Years later when Harry Houdini (1874–1926) was in Australia, he visited William’s grave and, finding it in poor condition, had the stonework repaired and flow
ers planted. On the same trip, Houdini met William M. Fay, who had once performed with Ira and William as the “Davenport Brothers and Fay.” Houdini subsequently wrote to Ira at his home in Mayville, New York, and arranged to meet him at the train depot there. Ira took Houdini home and introduced him to his wife (a Belgian woman whom he had met in Paris) and the couple’s daughter. Apparently in part because he was moved by Houdini s thoughtfulness in tending to his brother’s grave, Ira shared with him a lifetime of secrets (Houdini 1924,17–25).

Ira spoke to Houdini as one magician to another, even revealing how he and his brother had extricated themselves from their bonds in order to produce the “spirit” effects. Houdini stated, “Ira Davenport positively disclaimed Spiritualistic power in his talk with me, saying repeatedly that he and his brother never claimed to be mediums or pretended their work to be Spiritualistic” (Houdini 1924, 26). Ira did admit that in order to spare their feelings, they never confessed the truth to their believing parents. Years after Iras death (on July 8,1911), Houdini included a chapter on the Davenports and Ira’s revelations in his
Magician Among the Spirits
(1924,17–37). Houdini included a facsimile of a letter from Ira claiming in regard to the brothers’ performances that “We never in public affirmed our Belief in spiritualism” (28).

By this time, Houdini’s friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle (1859– 1930) was irreparably strained. Houdini had been debunking some of the very mediums Doyle had endorsed, and the latter had written to him “Our relations are certainly curious and likely to become more so, for as long as you attack what
I know
from experience to be true I have no alternative but to attack you in turn. How long a private friendship can survive such an ordeal I do not know, but at least I did not create the situation.” Houdini did not help matters by publishing this and other excerpts from Sir Arthur’s letters (Houdini 1924, 164). Subsequently, in his
History of Spiritualism
(1926,1: 228), Doyle continued to debate Houdini “It is to be remarked that the Davenports themselves, as contrasted with their friends and travelling companions, never claimed any preternatural origin for their results.” But Doyle noted that Ira’s statement to Houdini only said the brothers had never “in public” affirmed belief in spiritualism, implying that in
private
Ira was indeed a spiritualist.

Doyle went on to say that “As Mr. Houdini has seemed to question whether the Davenports themselves ever asserted that they were Spiritualists,” the matter was clarified by a letter they had written in 1868 to
The Banner of Light
, the leading American spiritualist journal. Regarding the claim they were not spiritualists, the brothers wrote “It is singular that any individual, sceptic or Spiritualist, could believe such statements after fourteen years of the most bitter persecution and violent opposition, culminating in the riots of Liverpool, Huddersfield, and Leeds, where our lives were placed in imminent peril by the fury of brutal mobs, our property destroyed, and where we suffered a loss of seventy–five thousand dollars, and all because
we would not renounce Spiritualism
, and declare ourselves jugglers, when threatened by the mob, and urged to do so. In conclusion, we have only to say that we denounce all such statements as falsehoods” (quoted in Doyle 1926, II: 302).

Concerning Houdini’s claim that Ira Davenport had admitted that his results were due to trickery, Doyle (1926,228–29) said that “Houdini has himself stuffed so many errors of fact into his book… and has shown such extraordinary bias on the whole question, that his statement carried no weight. The letter which he produces makes no such admission.”

Doyle insisted that the Davenports “were never exposed, nor even adequately imitated.” As to the latter, he specifically mentioned the claims of British conjurer John Nevil Maskelyne (1839–1917), who produced a spook show in imitation of the Davenports but billed it honestly as magical entertainment (Doyle 1930,23; Mulholland 1938,65–66). Doyle railed at magicians who said the brothers were tricksters, although he was himself ignorant of legerdemain and baffled by the simplest tricks. He refused to accept the evidence that the Davenports were merely entertainers, later writing, “There can be no question at all, to anyone who has really weighed the facts, that Ira Davenport was a true medium” (Doyle 1930, 45). With an astonishing lapse of both logic and good sense, Doyle cited “the evidence of thousands of witnesses” as if so many people could not be fooled—a patent absurdity. He also argued that the brothers, if they were truly conjurers, could have so announced themselves and by performing tricks as such “have won fame and fortune” (Doyle 1930,45)—a dubious notion since they probably gained far more attention by their spiritualist pretense.

Astonishingly, Doyle even suggested that Houdini himself might have had mediumistic powers! Terming Houdini “the greatest medium–baiter of modern times,” Doyle (1930, 1) suggested he might also have been “the greatest physical medium of modern times.” At least, he said, he was “very sure that the explanations of his fellow–conjurers” as to how Houdini
effected his sensational escapes “do not always meet the case” (26). (Doyle failed to understand that magicians often deliberately give incomplete explanations of tricks, and that Houdini and others often had more than one way of accomplishing an effect.)

That bizarre notion aside, the question remains: were the Davenport brothers indeed spiritualists rather than mere “jugglers”—a dichotomy Doyle advanced (1926, II: 302)? Or is that a false dichotomy, a limited choice between two views, with the truth lying elsewhere? A scrapbook that has recently surfaced helps to settle this continuing controversy.

I first saw the scrapbook on one of my visits to Lily Dale Assembly, the “World’s Largest Center for the Religion of Spiritualism” (as the entrance sign proclaims). I was taking some colleagues on a tour, and in the museum I spied the scrapbook in a display case. Its pages were open to a clipping heralding the “Davenport Boys” and annotated “Bangor Me. 1858.” Seeing my interest, Curator Joyce Lajudice announced that I was looking at the Davenport Brothers’ own scrapbook and very graciously removed it from the case for me to peruse. “You know, Joe,” she said, “I wouldn’t let just anyone look at that.” It had recently been discovered in a storage area and recognized as a significant find. I was unable to give it more than a cursory look at the time but later made arrangements to study it at length. I was extended every courtesy in this, being provided a special work area and permission to fully examine and photograph the pages, which I did as part of a three–day stay at Lily Dale, August 7–9, 1998.

My first task was to authenticate the scrapbook.1 Several flourished signatures—“Ira Erastus Davenport,” “I. Erastus Davenport,” and “Ira E. Davenport,” with addresses of Buffalo and Chicago (the latter dated “1861”)—are found throughout the pages. These compare favorably (making allowances for variations over time) with the “Ira E. Davenport” signature on the January 19, 1909, letter to Houdini (previously mentioned). There are also apparent signatures of his brother—“Wm. Davenport” and “Mr. William Davenport”—although I had no known specimens for comparison. The scrapbook may have been shared by the brothers, but it appears to have been kept mostly by Ira and, after William’s death in 1877, became solely Ira’s while falling largely into disuse. The most recent clipping is from the “New York ’Dramatic Mirror,’” dated August 20, 1910 it features a picture of and brief article about actress Zelie Davenport, Ira’s daughter, who was “well known as a leading woman”
and who came from “an old theatrical family”—an interesting characterization of the Davenport Brothers.

Most significantly, the scrapbook contains evidence in favor of both Doyle’s and Houdini’s views. First, there are several indications that Ira Davenport was indeed an avowed spiritualist. For example, there is the obituary of his infant son and first wife who died in childbirth. Headed “Passed to Spirit Life” (and datelined“Adrian [Michigan], June 29,1863”), it was very likely written by Ira. It said of his unnamed but “accomplished and beautiful wife”
²
: “Possessing a highly refined and cultivated mind and fully realizing the importance of the great truths of spiritualism, she exercised an elevated influence over her husband in properly directing his energies and mediumistic powers, for the advancement of the facts of immortality.” The scrapbook also contains some clippings of sentimental verse, one asking “Is Life Eternal” and answering in the affirmative, another telling a dead lover that “You will be my guardian here.”