Mediums Davenport Brothers USA
Medium Ira Erastus Davenport
Medium William Henry Davenport
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Ira Erastus Davenport Medium and William Henry Davenport Medium
[a] Ira Erastus Davenport (1839-1911) and William Henry Davenport (1841-1877) were born in Buffalo, New York State. From an early age the Davenport Brothers experimented as Physical Mediums producing automatic writing, manifestations and also sitting around a table placing their hands upon it, in what was probably one of the earliest seances, a couple of years before the Fox Sisters experienced the Hydesville Rappings.
Instances of direct voice and levitation of objects and the Davenport Brothers themselves, were also witnessed. As news spread of their abilities the brothers embarked upon a tour of demonstrations around the world using a cabinet to demonstrate their physical mediumship. Many tests were carried out to establish the cause of the physical phenomena, most notably by professors from Harvard University in 1857. Despite various, elaborate methods of restraints no scientific explanation could be found.
The Davenport Brothers continued to demonstrate their Physical Mediumship in America, Europe and Australia. Despite suffering some hostility and persecution from the skeptics of their day. Later they were placed in the annals of history of being show people.
The Spirit Guide of the Davenports claimed to have been Henry Owen Morgan, the buccaneer, who was knighted by Charles II. and was appointed Governor of Jamaica. He first appeared with the Davenport Brothers in 1850, and was first seen in the flash of a pistol fired by Ira Davenport in the dark. He remained as Spirit manager with the Davenports throughout their career and in typtology or direct voice gave them sound advice in difficult positions. His activity was multifarious. While faithfully serving the Davenport Brothers he took charge of the performances in the Koon log house in the wilds of Ohio. Here he assumed an august mien. As the head of a band of 160 Spirits he claimed descent from a race of men known by the generic title Adam, and having as leaders "the most ancient Angels." They signed their communications as King No. 1, No. 2., etc., and sometimes: Servant and Scholar of God. In his last incarnation he strayed from the path of virtue and became a redoubtable pirate. He communicated in direct voice through a trumpet, his own invention, and through direct scripts. The tone of these writings was sanctimonious and upbraiding, i.e.: "We know that our work will be rejected by many, and condemned as the production of their King Devil, whom they profess to repudiate, but do so constantly serve by crucifying truth and rejecting all that is contrary to their own narrow pride and vain imaginings."
The Davenport Brothers were instrumental in building the popularity of the American Spiritualist movement prior to the Civil War. They created a sensation all over the country and in Europe and continued mystifying audiences for years. William Henry and Ira Erastas Davenport introduced the Spirit cabinet for Mediums to use during a seance. These cabinets, or enclosures, would section the Medium off from view while they were producing their strange phenomena. This would prove to be both popular and astounding to audiences as the Mediums were usually bound hand and foot in the cabinet while the seemingly impossible phenomena manifested about them.
Ira Davenport was born in 1839 and his brother William came along two years later in 1841. Their father, a Buffalo, New York policeman, was intrigued by the stories of the Spirit rappings in Hydesville, so the family decided to try their own sittings at home. Immediately, they got chilling results and Ira would later tell friends that his younger sister, Elizabeth, actually levitated about the room.
Soon after, the family got in touch with what would become the Davenport’s Spirit Guide, a phantom named John King (who would go on to become the busiest Spirit Guide in the Spiritualist movement). King allegedly told the family to begin renting a hall and giving public performances of the Davenport brother’s reputed powers. The boys were only 16 and 14 when they went on stage for the first time in 1855. The initial performances contained tricks. But soon the Davenport brothers began to introduce other phenomena into the act, like musical instruments which floated in the air, playing under their own power, and Spirit Hands that touched and pulled at sitters and audience members.
By the end of the year, they were performing in New York City and had introduced not only the Spirit Cabinet into their seances, but complicated escapes from ropes and knots as well. This would become a signature for their act.
At the suggestion of an audience member during a performance, a box similar to a small closet was assembled on stage. The brothers would now be able to work, not only in total darkness, but away from prying eyes as well. Part of the brother’s act was to look for volunteers from the audience who would then tie them up inside of the cabinet. Overeager skeptics often tied the Davenports with elaborate and painful knots that sometimes drew blood. In spite of this, once the cabinet doors were closed, wondrous Spirit Music filled the air from inside and disembodied hands would appear through apertures that had been left open on the exterior walls.
On occasion, a spectator from the audience would be invited on stage and would be seated between the brothers in the cabinet. A few moments after the doors were closed, the man in the centre would be often tossed out of the box with his coat gone, his necktie around his leg and a tambourine seated on his head. Someone would fling open the doors and the Davenports would be found tied up, just as they were before.
The Davenport's also performed a dark seance on stage, asking members of the audience to be present to insure that no trickery was involved. The brothers were securely tied to a table on the stage and the lights were turned out. Soon after, ghostly forms began to float about on the stage. Of course, when the lights were raised again, the brothers would still be bound.
Now treat the following with a bit of logic as it comes from a cunning, calculating and jealous conjurer, Houdini.
Their act created a sensation. Spiritualists hailed it as genuine proof of Spirit Phenomena, while critics regarded the brothers as mere stage magicians. Interestingly, neither brother ever claimed to be a Medium, leaving that up to the audience to decide. They did however bill the act as a seance and most Spiritualists believed their manifestations to be genuine. The men began as entertainers and allowed a gullible public to think them to be more than that. Harry Kellar, the master magician, was employed by the Davenport's for a time and afterwards learned to do tricks that altogether surpassed even the brother's skills at rope-tying and escapes.
The great secret of the Davenport's success lay in their uncanny (albeit natural) ability to extricate themselves from complex knots and ties and them return to them in record time. The most important part of the procedure took place during the binding, when they managed to obtain plenty of slack in the ropes by twisting, flexing and contorting their limbs. Once they relaxed, the ropes could be easily slipped out of.
Years after they retired from the business, surviving brother Ira was interviewed and befriended by magician Harry Houdini. Davenport told Houdini that they never intended to become known as Mediums but their almost supernatural powers came along during the early heyday of the Spiritualist movement and rather than turn down the money and appearances, they allowed the public to think whatever they wanted to about them. Davenport taught Houdini some of their best escapes and Houdini later used them and found them to be very effective and clever. He also discovered that the brothers rubbed oil into their hands so that they could slip out of the ropes more easily.
They also employed as many as ten accomplices at a time and took great pains to hinder investigators and debunkers by placing traps in the aisles of the theatre. That way, no one could sneak onto the stage during their seance and surprise them. One of the tricks that they used during private performances was to run a string through the buttonholes of the sitters. The reason for this, they said, was to "prevent collusion" but in reality, it prevented anyone from approached the Davenport's Spirit Cabinet.
In spite of this, many people refused to believe that the brothers could be anything other than Spirit Mediums. Even newspaper accounts gave them credit for producing miracles. This report appeared in the conservative London Post:
"The musical instruments, bells, etc., were placed on the table; the Davenport Brothers were then manacled, hands and feet, and securely bound to the chairs by ropes. A chain of communication (though not a circular one) was formed, and the instant the lights were extinguished the musical instruments appeared to be carried about the room. The current of air, which they occasioned in their rapid transit was felt upon the faces of all present.
"The bells were loudly rung; the trumpets made knocks upon the floor, and the tambourine appeared running around the room, jingling with all its might. At the same time sparks were observed as if passing from south to west. Several persons exclaimed that they were touched by the instruments, which on occasion became so demonstrative that one gentleman received a knock on the nasal organ which broke the skin and caused a few drops of blood to flow."
With the press taking such a remarkable view of the brothers, it's no wonder that spectators were even more impressed and amazed. And while the Davenport's never made any claims of being Mediums, they continued to thwart investigators until the end of their careers. In all of those years, they were never caught cheating!
The Davenport's careers came to an end in 1877 when William died suddenly. In honour of his brother, Ira ordered a magnificent memorial for him on which was carved a representation of their ropes, cabinet and other seance props. William had died in Australia and cemetery officials in Sydney would not allow the monument within the cemetery grounds. It was placed outside instead. Ira himself died in 1911.
The Davenports have been fortunate in their chroniclers. Two writers have published books* describing the events of their life, and the periodical literature of the time is full of their exploits.
Ira Erastus Davenport and William Henry Davenport were born at Buffalo in the State of New York, the former on September 17, 1839, and the latter on February 1, 1841. Their father, who was descended from the early English settlers in America, occupied a position in the police department of Buffalo. Their mother was born in Kent, England, and went to America when a child. Some indications of psychic gifts were observed in the mother's life. In 184.6 the family were disturbed in the middle of the night by what they described as "raps, thumps, loud noises, snaps, crackling noises." This was two years before the outbreak in the Fox family. But it was the Fox manifestations which, in this case as in so many others, led them to investigate and discover their mediumistic powers.
* "A Biography of the Brothers Davenport." By T. L. Nichols, M.D., London, 1864. "Supramundane Facts in the Life of Rev. J. B. Ferguson, LL.D." By T. L. Nichols, M.D., London, 1865. "Spiritual Experiences: Including Seven Months with the Brothers Davenport." By Robert Cooper, London, 1867.
The two Davenport boys and their sister Elizabeth, the youngest of the three, experimented by placing their hands on a table. Loud and violent noises were heard and messages were spelt out. The news leaked abroad, and as with the Fox girls, hundreds of curious and incredulous people flocked to the house. Ira developed automatic writing, and handed to those present messages written with extraordinary rapidity and containing information he could not have known. Levitation quickly followed, and the boy was floated in the air above the heads of those in the room at a distance of nine feet from the floor. Next, the brother and sister were influenced in the same way, and the three children floated high up in the room. Hundreds of respectable citizens of Buffalo are reported to have seen these occurrences. Once when the family was at breakfast the knives, forks, and dishes danced about and the table was raised in the air. At a sitting soon after this a lead pencil was seen to write in broad daylight, with no human contact. Seances were now held regularly, lights began to appear, and musical instruments floated and played above the heads of the company. The Direct Voice and other extraordinary manifestations too numerous to mention followed. Yielding to requests from the communicating intelligences, the brothers started journeying to various places and holding public seances. Among strangers, tests were insisted upon. At first the boys were held by persons selected from those present, but this being found unsatisfactory because it was thought that those holding them were confederates, the plan of tying them with ropes was adopted. To read the list of ingenious tests successively proposed, and put into operation without interfering with the manifestations, shows how almost impossible it is to convince resolute skeptics. As soon as one test succeeded another was proposed, and so on. The professors of Harvard University in 1857 conducted an examination of the boys and their phenomena. Their biographer writes*:
* "A Biography of the Brothers Davenport." By T. L. Nichols, M.D., pp. 87-8.
The professors exercised their ingenuity in proposing tests. Would they submit to be handcuffed? Yes. Would they allow men to hold them? Yes. A dozen propositions were made, accepted, and then rejected by those who made them. If any test was adopted by the brothers, that was reason enough for not trying it. They were supposed to be prepared for that, so some other must be found.
Finally, the professors bought five hundred feet of new rope, bored with holes the cabinet set up in one of their rooms, and trussed the boys in what is described as a brutal manner. All the knots in the rope were tied with linen thread, and one of their number, Professor Pierce, took his place in the cabinet between the two brothers. At once a phantom hand was shown, instruments were rattled and were felt by the professor about his head and face. At every movement he felt for the boys with his hands, only to find them still securely bound. The unseen operators at last released the boys from their bindings, and when the cabinet was opened the ropes were found twisted round the neck of the professor! After all this, the Harvard professors made no report. It is instructive also to read the account of the really ingenious test-apparatus consisting of what may be described as wooden sleeves and trousers, securely fastened, devised by a man named Darling, in Bangor (U.S.A.). Like other tests, it proved incapable of preventing instant manifestations. It is to be remembered that many of these tests were applied at a time when the brothers were mere boys, too young to have learned any elaborate means of deception.
It is not strange to read that the phenomena raised violent opposition almost everywhere, and the brothers were frequently denounced as jugglers and humbugs. It was after ten years of public work in the largest cities and towns in the United States that the Davenport Brothers came to England. They had submitted successfully to every test that human ingenuity could devise, and no one had been able to say how their results were obtained. They had won for themselves a great reputation. Now they had to begin all over again.
The two brothers, Ira and William, at this time were aged twenty-five and twenty-three years respectively. The NEW YORK WORLD thus describes them:
They looked remarkably like each other in almost every particular, both quite handsome with rather long, curly black hair, broad, but not high foreheads, dark keen eyes, heavy eyebrows, moustache and "goatee," firm-set lips, muscular though well-proportioned frame. They were dressed in black with dress-coats, one wearing a watch-chain.
Dr. Nichols, their biographer, gives this first impression of them:
The young men, with whom I have had but a brief personal acquaintance, and whom I never saw until their arrival in London, appear to me to be in intellect and character above the average of their young countrymen, they are not remarkable for cleverness, though of fair abilities, and Ira has some artistic talent. The young men seem entirely honest, and singularly disinterested and unmercenary-far more anxious to have people satisfied of their integrity and the reality of their manifestations than to make money. They have an ambition, without doubt, which is gratified in their having been selected as the instruments of what they believe will be some great good to mankind.
They were accompanied to England by the Rev. Dr. Ferguson, formerly pastor of a large church at Nashville, Tennessee, at which Abraham Lincoln attended, Mr. D. Palmer, a well-known operatic manager, who acted as secretary, and Mr. William M. Fay, who was also a Medium.
Mr. P. B. Randall, in his biography of the Davenports (Boston 1869, published anonymously), points out that their mission to England was "to meet on its own low ground and conquer, by appropriate means, the hard materialism and skepticism of England." The first step to knowledge, he says, is to be convinced of ignorance, and adds:
If the manifestations given by the aid of the Brothers Davenport can prove to the intellectual and scientific classes that there are forces-and intelligent forces, or powerful intelligences-beyond the range of their philosophies, and that what they consider physical impossibilities are readily accomplished by invisible, and to them unknown, intelligences, a new universe will be open to human thought and investigation.
There is little doubt that the Mediums had this effect on many minds.
The manifestations of Mrs. Hayden's mediumship were quiet and unobtrusive, and while those of D D Home were more remarkable, they were confined entirely to exclusive sets of people to whom no fees were charged. Now these two brothers hired public halls and challenged the world at large to come and witness phenomena which passed the bounds of all ordinary belief. It needed no foresight to predict for them a strenuous time of opposition, and so it proved. But they attained the end which the unseen directors undoubtedly had in view. They roused public attention as it had never been roused before in England on this subject. No better testimony in proof of that could be had than that of their strongest opponent, Mr. J. N. Maskelyne, the celebrated conjurer.
He writes*: "Certain it is, England was completely taken aback for a time by the wonders presented by these jugglers." He further adds:
* "Modern Spiritualism," p. 65.
The Brothers did more than all other men to familiarize England with the so-called Spiritualism, and before crowded audiences and under varied conditions, they produced really wonderful feats. The hole-and-corner seances of other media, where with darkness or semi-darkness, and a pliant, or frequently a devoted assembly, manifestations are occasionally said to occur, cannot be compared with the Davenport exhibitions in their effect upon the public mind.
Their first seance in London, a private one, was held on September 28, 1864, at the residence in Regent Street of Mr. Dion Boucicault, the famous actor and author, in the presence of leading newspaper men and distinguished men of science. The Press reports of the seance were remarkably full and, for a wonder, fair.
The account in the Morning Post the next day says that the guests were invited to make the most critical examination and to take all needful precautions against fraud or deception, and continues:
The party invited to witness the manifestations last night consisted of some twelve or fourteen individuals, all of whom are admitted to be of considerable distinction in the various professions with which they are connected. The majority have never previously witnessed anything of the kind. All, however, were determined to detect and if possible expose any attempt at deception. The Brothers Davenport are slightly built, gentleman-like in appearance, and about the last persons in the world from whom any great muscular performances might be expected. Mr. Fay is apparently a few years older, and of more robust constitution.
After describing what occurred, the writer goes on:
All that can be asserted is, that the displays to which we have referred took place on the present occasion under conditions and circumstances that preclude the presumption of fraud.
THE TIMES, the DAILY TELEGRAPH, and other newspapers published long and honest reports. We omit quotations from them because the following important statement from Mr. Dion Boucicault, which appeared in the Daily News as well as in many other London journals, covers all the facts. It describes a later seance at Mr. Boucicault's house on October 11, 1864, at which were present, among others Viscount Bury, M.P., Sir Charles Wyke, Sir Charles Nicholson, the Chancellor of the University of Sydney, Mr. Robert Chambers, Charles Reade, the novelist, and Captain Inglefield, the Arctic explorer.
SIR,
A seance by the Brothers Davenport and Mr. W. Fay took place in my house yesterday in the presence of. (here he mentions twenty-four names including all those already quoted).
At three o'clock our party was fully assembled. We sent to a neighbouring music-seller for six guitars and two tambourines, so that the implements to be used should not be those with which the operators were familiar.
At half-past three the Davenport Brothers and Mr. Fay arrived, and found that we had altered their arrangements by changing the room which they had previously selected for their manifestations.
The seance then began by an examination of the dress and persons of the Brothers Davenport, and it was certified that no apparatus or other contrivance was concealed on or about their persons. They entered the cabinet, and sat facing each other. Captain Inglefield then, with a new rope provided by ourselves, tied Mr. W. Davenport hand and foot, with his hands behind his back, and then bound him firmly to the seat where he sat. Lord Bury, in like manner, secured Mr. I. Davenport. The knots on these ligatures were then fastened with sealing-wax, and a seal was affixed. A guitar, violin, tambourine, two bells, and a brass trumpet were placed on the floor of the cabinet. The doors were then closed, and a sufficient light was permitted in the room to enable us to see what followed.
I shall omit any detailed account of the babel of sounds which arose in the cabinet, and the violence with which the doors were repeatedly burst open and the instruments expelled; the hands appearing, as usual, at a lozenge shaped orifice in the centre door of the cabinet. The following incidents seem to us particularly worthy of note:
While Lord Bury was stooping inside the cabinet, the door being open and the two operators seen to be sealed and bound, a detached hand was clearly observed to descend upon him, and he started back, remarking that a hand had struck him. Again, in the full light of the gas chandelier and during an interval in the seance, the doors of the cabinet being open, and while the ligatures of the Brothers Davenport were being examined, a very white, thin, female hand and wrist quivered for several seconds in the air above. This appearance drew a general exclamation from all the party.
Sir Charles Wyke now entered the cabinet and sat between the two young men-his hands being right and left on each, and secured to them. The doors were then closed, and the babel of sounds recommenced. Several hands appeared at the orifice-among them the hand of a child. After a space, Sir Charles returned amongst us and stated that while he held the two brothers, several hands touched his face and pulled his hair; the instruments at his feet crept up, played round his body and over his head-one of them lodging eventually on his shoulders. During the foregoing incidents the hands which appeared were touched and grasped by Captain Inglefield, and he stated that to the touch they were apparently human hands, though they passed away from his grasp.
I omit mentioning other phenomena, an account of which has already been rendered elsewhere.
The next part of the seance was performed in the dark. One of the Messrs. Davenport and Mr. Fay seated themselves amongst us. Two ropes were thrown at their feet, and in two minutes and a half they were tied hand and foot, their hands behind their backs bound tightly to their chairs, and their chairs bound to an adjacent table. While this process was going on, the guitar rose from the table and swung or floated round the room and over the heads of the party, and slightly touching some. Now a phosphoric light shot from side to side over our heads; the laps and hands and shoulders of several were simultaneously touched, struck, or pawed by hands, the guitar meanwhile sailing round the room, now near the ceiling, and then scuffling on the head and shoulders of some luck less Wight. The bells whisked here and there, and a light thrumming was maintained on the violin. The two tambourines seemed to roll hither and thither on the floor, now shaking violently, and now visiting the knees and hands of our Circle all these foregoing actions, audible or tangible, being simultaneous. Mr. Rideout, holding a tambourine, requested it might be plucked from his hand; it was almost instantaneously taken from him. At the same time, Lord Bury made a similar request, and a forcible attempt to pluck a tambourine from his grasp was made which he resisted. Mr. Fay then asked that his coat should be removed. We heard instantly a violent twitch, and here occurred the most remarkable fact. A light was struck before the coat had quite, left Mr. Fay's person, and it was seen quitting him, plucked off him upwards. It flew up to the chandelier, where it hung for a moment and then fell to the ground. Mr. Fay was seen meanwhile bound hand and foot as before. One of our party now divested himself of his coat, and it was placed on the table. The light was extinguished and this coat was rushed on to Mr. Fay's back with equal rapidity. During the above occurrences in the dark, we placed a sheet of paper under the feet of these two operators, and drew with a pencil an outline around them, to the end that if they moved it might be detected. They of their own accord offered to have their hands filled with flour, or any other similar substance, to prove they made no use of them, but this precaution was deemed unnecessary; we required them, however, to count from one to twelve repeatedly, that their voices constantly heard might certify to us that they were in the places where they were tied. Each of our own party held his neighbour firmly, so that no one could move without two adjacent neighbours being aware of it.
At the termination of this seance, a general conversation took place on the subject of what we had heard and witnessed. Lord Bury suggested that the general opinion seemed to be that we should assure the Brothers Davenport and Mr. W. Fay that after a very stringent trial and strict scrutiny of their proceedings, the gentlemen present could arrive at no other conclusion than that there was no trace of trickery in any form, and certainly there were neither confederates nor machinery, and that all those who had witnessed the results would freely state in the society in which they moved that, so far as their investigations enabled them to form an opinion, the phenomena which had taken place in their presence were not the product of legerdemain. This suggestion was promptly acceded to by all present.
There is a concluding paragraph in which Mr. Dion Boucicault states that he is not a Spiritualist, and at the close of the report his name and the date are affixed.
This wonderfully full and lucid account is given without abbreviation because it supplies the answer to many objections, and because the character of the narrator and the witnesses cannot be questioned. It surely must be accepted as quite final so far as honesty is concerned. All subsequent objections are mere ignorance of the facts.
In October, 1864, the Davenports began to give public seances at the Queen's Concert Rooms, Hanover Square. Committees were appointed from the audience, and every effort made to detect how it was all done, but without avail. These seances, interspersed with private ones, were continued almost nightly until the close of the year. The daily Press was full of accounts of them, and the brothers' names were on everyone's lips. Early in 1865 they toured the English provinces, and in Liverpool, Huddersfield, and Leeds they suffered violence at the hands of excited mobs. At Liverpool, in February, two members of the audience tied their hands so brutally that blood flowed, and Mr. Ferguson cut the rope and released them. The Davenports refused to continue, and the mob rushed the platform and smashed up the cabinet. The same tactics were resorted to at Huddersfield on February 21, and then at Leeds with increased violence, the result of organized opposition. These riots led to the Davenports cancelling any other engagements in England. They next went to Paris, where they received a summons to appear at the Palace of St. Cloud, where the Emperor and Empress and a party of about forty witnessed a seance. While in Paris, Hamilton, the successor of the celebrated conjurer., Robert Houdin, visited them, and in a letter to a Paris newspaper, he said: "The phenomena surpassed my expectations, and the experiments are full of interest for me. I consider it my duty to add they are inexplicable." After a return visit to London, Ireland was visited at the beginning of 1866. In Dublin they had many influential sitters, including the editor of the IRISH TIMES and the Rev. Dr. Tisdal, who publicly proclaimed his belief in the manifestations.
In April of the same year the Davenports went to Hamburg and then to Berlin, but the expected war (which their Guides told them would come about) made the trip unremunerative. Theatre managers offered them liberal terms for exhibitions, but, heeding the advice of their ever present Spirit Monitor, who said that their manifestations, being supernatural, should be kept above the level of theatrical entertainments, they declined, though much against the wish of their business manager. During their month's stay in Berlin they were visited by members of the Royal family. After three weeks in Hamburg they proceeded to Belgium, where considerable success was attained in Brussels, and all the principal towns. They next went to Russia, arriving in St. Petersburg on December 27, 1866. On January 7, 1867, they gave their first public seance to an audience numbering one thousand. The next seance was at the residence of the French Ambassador to a gathering of about fifty people, including officers of the Imperial Court, and on January 12, they gave a seance in the Winter Palace to the Emperor and the Imperial family. They afterwards visited Poland and Sweden. On April 11, 1868, they reappeared in London at the Hanover Square Rooms, and received an enthusiastic welcome from a crowded audience. Mr. Benjamin Coleman, a prominent Spiritualist, who arranged their first public seances in London, writing at this time of their stay of close on four years in Europe, says*:
* SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE, 1868, p. 321.
I desire to convey to those of my friends in America who introduced them to me, the assurance of my conviction that the Brothers' mission to Europe has been of great service to Spiritualism; that their public conduct as Mediums in which relation I alone know them has been steady and unexceptionable.
He adds that he knows no form of mediumship better adapted for a large audience than theirs. After this visit to London the Davenports returned home to America. The brothers visited Australia in 1876, and on August 24 gave their first public seance in Melbourne. William died in Sydney in July, 1877.
Throughout their career the Davenport Brothers excited the deep envy and malice of the conjuring fraternity [PLEASE NOTE]. Maskelyne, with amazing effrontery, pretended to have exposed them in England. His claims in this direction have been well answered by Dr. George Sexton, a former editor of the SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE, who described in public, in the presence of Mr. Maskelyne, how his tricks were done, and comparing them with the results achieved by the Davenports, said: "The two bear about as much resemblance to each other as the productions of the poet Close to the sublime and glorious dramas of the immortal bard of Avon."* Still the conjurers made more noise in public than the Spiritualists, and with the Press to support them they made the general public believe that the Davenport Brothers had been exposed.
* Address at Cavendish Rooms, London, June 15, 1873.
In announcing the death in America of Ira Davenport in 1911, the newspaper LIGHT comments on the outpouring of journalistic ignorance for which it furnished the opportunity. The Daily News is quoted as saying of the brothers: "They made the mistake of appearing as sorcerers instead of as honest conjurers. If, like their conqueror, Maskelyne, they had thought of saying, 'It's so simple,' the brethren might have achieved not only fortune but respectability." In reply to this, LIGHT asks why, if they were mere conjurers and not honest believers in their mediumship, did the Davenport Brothers endure hardships, insults, and injuries, and suffer the indignities that were put upon them, when by renouncing their claims to mediumship they might have been "respectable" and rich?
An inevitable remark on the part of those who are not able to detect trickery is to ask what elevating purpose can be furthered by phenomena such as those observed with the Davenports. The well-known author and sturdy Spiritualist, William Howitt, has given a good answer:
Are these who play tricks and fling about instruments Spirits from Heaven? Can God really send such? Yes, God sends them, to teach us this, if nothing more: that He has servants of all grades and tastes ready to do all kinds of work, and He has here sent what you call low and harlequin Spirits to a low and very sensual age. Had He sent anything higher it would have gone right over the heads of their audiences. As it is, nine-tenths cannot take in what they see.
It is a sad reflection that the Davenports-probably the greatest Mediums of their kind that the world has ever seen-suffered throughout their lives from brutal opposition and even persecution. Many times they were in danger of their lives.
One is forced to think that there could be no clearer evidence of the influence of the dark forces of evil than the prevailing hostility to all spiritual manifestations.
Touching this aspect, Mr. Randall says*:
* "Biography," p. 82.
There seems to be a sort of chronic dislike, almost hatred, in the minds of some persons toward any and everything spiritual. It seems as if it were a vapour floating, in the air-a kind of mental spore flowing through the spaces, and breathed in by the great multitude of humankind, which kindles a rankly poisonous fire in their hearts against all those whose mission it is to bring peace on earth and good will to men. The future men and women of the world will marvel greatly at those now living, when they shall, as they will, read that the Davenports, and all other Mediums, were forced to encounter the most inveterate hostility; that they, and the writer among them, were compelled to endure horrors baffling description, for no other offence than trying to convince the multitude that they were not beasts that perish and leave no sign, but immortal, deathless, grave-surviving souls.
Mediums ALONE are capable of DEMONSTRATING the fact of man's continued existence after death; and yet (strange inconsistency of human nature) the very people who persecute these, their truest and best friends, and fairly hound them to premature death or despair, are the very ones who freely lavish all that wealth can give upon those whose office it is merely to GUESS at human immortality.
In discussing the claims of various professional magicians to have exposed or imitated the Davenports, Sir Richard Burton said:
I have spent a great part of my life in Oriental lands, and have seen their many magicians. Lately I have been permitted to see and be present at the performances of Messrs. Anderson and Tolmaque. The latter showed, as they profess, clever conjuring, but they do not even attempt what the Messrs. Davenport and Fay succeed in doing: for instance, the beautiful management of the musical instruments. Finally, I have read and listened to every explanation of the Davenport "tricks" hitherto placed before the English public, and, believe me, if anything would make me take that tremendous jump "from matter to Spirit," it is the utter and complete unreason of the reasons by which the "manifestations" are explained.
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. The reason for this may have been that as an entertainment it was more piquant and less provocative when every member of the audience could form his own solution. Writing to the American conjurer Houdini, Ira Davenport said in his old age, "We never in public affirmed our belief in Spiritualism. That we regarded as no business of the public, nor did we offer our entertainment as the result of sleight of hand, or, on the other hand, as Spiritualism. We let our friends and foes settle that as best they could between themselves, but, unfortunately, we were often the victims of their disagreements."
Houdini further claimed that Davenport admitted that his results were normally effected, but Houdini has himself stuffed so many errors of fact into his book, "A Magician Among the Spirits," and has shown such extraordinary bias on the whole question, that his statement carries no weight. The letter which he produces makes no such admission. A further statement quoted as being made by Ira Davenport is demonstrably false. It is that the instruments never left the cabinet. As a matter of fact, The Timer representative was severely struck in the face by a floating guitar, his brow being cut, and on several occasions when a light was struck instruments dropped all over the room. If Houdini has completely misunderstood this latter statement, it is not likely that he is very accurate upon the former (VIDE Appendix).
It may be urged, and has been urged, by Spiritualists as well as by skeptics that such mountebank psychic exhibitions are undignified and unworthy. There are many of us who think so, and yet there are many others who would echo these words of Mr. P. B. Randall:
The fault lies not with the immortals, but in us; for, as is the demand, so is the supply. If we cannot be reached in one way, we must be, and are, reached in another; and the wisdom of the eternal world gives the blind race just as much as it can bear and no more. If we are intellectual babes, we must put up with mental pap till our digestive capacities warrant and demand stronger food; and, if people can best be convinced of immortality by spiritual pranks and antics, the ends resorted to justify the means. The sight of a spectral arm in an audience of three thousand persons will appeal to more hearts, make a deeper impression, and convert more people to a belief in their hereafter, in ten minutes, than a whole regiment of preachers, no matter how eloquent, could in five years.
The Exposure of the Davenport Brothers by John Hulley and Robert Cummins
Ira Erastus Davenport (1839–1911) and William Henry Davenport (1841–1877), known as the Davenport Brothers, were American magicians in the mid 1800s, sons of a Buffalo, New York policeman. The brothers presented illusions claimed to be supernatural.
The Davenports' most famous effect was the box illusion. The brothers were tied inside a box which contained musical instruments. Once the box was closed, the instruments would sound. Upon opening the box, the brothers were tied in the positions in which they had started the illusion. Those who witnessed the effect were made to believe supernatural forces had caused the trick to work. They toured the United States for 10 years and then travelled to England where spiritualism was beginning to become popular.
The Davenport public séances began in October 1864 at the Queen's Court Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, London. They continued almost nightly until the end of the year. No committee could pinpoint the brothers' fraud, though a group of stage magicians attempted to prove that the performance was fraudulent.
Although their stay in London was somewhat successful, the Davenports met with open hostility in the countryside. In Liverpool, for example, two members selected from the audience tied the mediums with a peculiarly intricate knot. The mediums protested that it was unfairly tight and injured their circulation. A doctor from the audience made an examination and pronounced against them. The Davenports refused to sit and asked Ferguson to cut the knot. The next night a riot broke out and the party left town. At Hull, Huddersfield, and Leeds they found a hostile public, inclined to lynch them. Since they did not find the police protection sufficient, they broke off their engagements and returned to America.
The “two members selected from the audience” in Liverpool were John Hulley the famous gymnast, and Robert B. Cummins. Their confrontation with, and eventual exposure of the Davenport Brothers filled many column inches of both local and national newspapers for several weeks after the event, most of which are reproduced below. Included in the reports are several from the Porcupine magazine, a 19th century fortnightly journal of current events - social, political, and satirical in Liverpool.
The Davenports’ exposure also led to a County Court action being brought by Cummins to recover the entrance fee of five shillings paid to see a séance which did not come off. The judge found against Mr Hime, the Liverpool agent of the Davenports who agreed to repay all persons affected.
[a] From spiritualistmediums with slight additions.
[b] from prairieghosts with slight additions
[c] From spiritualist.tv
and The History of Spiritualism
Volume I, Chapter 10
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with slight
alterations.
