The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-10-15
MAGNETIC MANIFESTATIONS.
Psychic Power Possessed by an Ig-
nOrant Family Proved Their I'm
doing.

! Correspondence of the st. Louis Republic.
| In Northwestern Ohio, in 1858, the spir-
itualistic wave swept over that section,
engulhng a majority of the residents who
/ held no particular religious creed, while
many professed Christians were proselyt-
! ed, taking up the doctrine of Spiritualism
| in opposition to the materialists To such
an extent did the people of Williams, De-
| fiance and adjoining counties adhere to
the then new religion of spirituaism that
many neglected their FARMS their mills
and their shops, and not a few suffered
! for the necessaries of life in consequence.
| Every day, and far into the night, spir-
! itualistc camp meetings were held sinful
! taneously throughout a VIDE scope of ter
! ritory. No religious wave of excitement
within the knowledge of the writer has
ever diffused itself with as great effect
upon all classes within the territory nam
! ed as did this tidal wave, and no great
wave of old ocean ever broke into feathery
! spray against rockbound coast to fall
| back unobserved into the bosom of its pa
| ternity more gently and peacefully.
Near the south boundary line of Williams
county, Ohio and distant some twelve
miles from Bryan, the county seat, beau
tiful little city to-day, with its innumera-
BE fountain wells of crystal water, tenn
ing with small blind fish, there was sit
uated a one-room log cabin.
In this very modest frontier home there
lived John Howard, his wife, Amanda, and
Hannah, their only living child. IA years
| Of age. John Howard had never expert
| enced religion. His wife, Amanda, had
! been baptized in the little stone church
near her old home in Pennsylvania, and
the winter previous to her union with
John Howard she had enjoyed an awak-
ing of the spirit and was taken into full
| fellowship in the United Brethren Church.
In their backwoods home, however Mrs.
Howard made no attempt to attend the
! village church, being but poorly provided
| with suitable raiment while their yoke of
! oxen attached to the wheeled cart
would have made slow progress over the
newly cut out and corduroy road leading
to the nearest place of worship.
Until this sptritualistic wave of religion
had reached Williams, Defiance and other
counties in Northwestern Ohio, no member
Of this little family, living so nodestlv vet
so happily in their rude cabin home, had
ever attended religious service, but the
"eXhorters' and ''pursuaders" of the spir-
lluallstic movement then sweeping the
country to lis remotest parts, soon invaded
the cabin of John Howard. Here they
found two easy dupes. John and Hannah
being soon won over to the belief John
! Howard had no education; he knew moth
ing but hard knocks by which to forge out
q meagre subsistence for himself and fam
lly. Little did he dream that the invasion
of his humble cabin home and the CONVEX
| sion of himself and daughter, would prove
| the wedge to enter and destroy his domes-
| tic happiness, separate himself and wife
1 make of his daughter a monomaniac and
send himself to an institution for the fee
ble-minded. Such, however, was the final
result of The conversion of John Howard
and his daughter, Hannah, to the doc
of SpiritGalism.
In the fan of 1858 the writer, in company
with the county clerk of Williams coun-
~, visited the cabin Of John Howard This
was after the departure of Johns wife
Amanda, to the parental roof and when il
was learned that John and his daughter
would be "at home" During the brief
visit the display spiritualistic witnessed by
the visitors in that one-room cabin ap-
peared rather to be the work of the devil
and not that OF the good spirits returned 10
earth.
The furniture of the cabin consisted only
of an old, broken cook stove, a bedstead
made of poles, two spht-bottom chairs one
stool, small, rude stand, leaf table a
wall cupboard made by boring holes in The
logs of the cabin, driving in wooden pins
which supported three rough boards laid
thereon, a box for pots and kettles. a clocI,
and small quantity of dishes, much OF
the family supply of tableware having
been demolished by the spirits
1t was almost dark when the writer and
his friend reached the Howard cabin. The
meaSre supper of the spiritual site enthus!.
asts was over, YET their visitors were as
Hospitality received as circumstances sur
rounding the little domicile and its inhab-
itants would admit
The little cabin home of John Howard
had for months been the scene of MANY
spirltualistlc manifestations and his visit
ors counted the minutes as they were tick
ed off by the faithful clock that stood on
a rude corner shelf, with a belief akin 10
doubt as the hour hand reached in Sic
| cession the Roman numerals VII, VIII and
TX without visible demonstration. Rut
scarcely had the modest ticker rang out
the hour of 9, and at a moment too when
the subject of spirilualism was tagging he
cause of drowsiness that had taken pos
session of the party, when a saucer from
the rude wall cupboard was broken into
twenty pieces as it sailed across the room
and dropped with a crash on the old cook
stove near where Hannah Howard was
sitting on the three-legged stool.
Not word was uttered for many min
utes, the visitors understanding that anv
rude or unnecessary noise would "brealS
the spell and further manifestations would
not be given until perfect quiet was again
restored. The spirits, however, were in
active on this particular night only one
ObHSk MANIFESTATION Delng presented, II
was almost an hour after the first demon
stration that the rude stand, on which a
goose-neck lard-oil lamp was dimly burn
ing, an old discolored tea saucer acting as
a receptacle for the lamp and wasting oil
began perambulating about the room. and
| 1t did not cease It's movements for twenty
minutes, reminding the writer and his
friend Of the uncertain steps of a drunken
sailor in his hornpipe dance, rather than
anything else and at the end tumbling
over and eXinguishing the lamp
What force or power produced the dem.
onstrations witnessed by the visitors neith-
er the writer nor his friend has been able
| to comprehend, butsthat some invisible
power, other than artificial, but whether OF
the devil, or of the good spirit deponent
| saith not, certainly manifested itself I'm
the cabin of John Howard on the night re-
| ferred TO. Other persons who had pre-
viously visited the cabin of John Howard
| had been entertained by many and more
astonishing manifestations but none were
able to comprehend or fathom the mys-