Margaret Fox

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This article is about the spiritualist. For the wife of George Fox, see Margaret Fell.

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Margaret Fox (1836-1893) was an American Spiritualist, born in Bath, Canada. In approximately 1848, in Hydesville, Wayne, County, NY, the Fox's heard rapping noises, which appeared to emit from the walls and furniture, in their residence. Margaret and her two sisters, Catherine and Leah, discovered that by means of a given code, communication could be established with the presumably supernatural agency by which the raps were produced.

The Fox sisters gave public séances in America and Europe. Their séances attracted notable people including William Cullen Bryant, George Bancroft, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Parker Willis, Horace Greeley, Sojourner Truth and William Lloyd Garrison.^[1] So-called "mediums" became numerous, and the investigation of spiritualistic phenomena interested many. In 1888, Margaret made a confession of imposture, which she later retracted. She published a book in 1866, The Love Life of Dr. Kane, in which she wrote of correspondence with the person whom she asserted was her husband, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane.