The Apparitionists

by Peter Manseau

  Mr. Gerry for the prosecution rose to press the witness on the pictures in question, which Fanshaw then displayed for the court. One showed himself in the foreground with the figure of a frail, gray-haired woman floating behind him. The other showed the same profile view of the miniature artist, but now accompanied by a less distinct image—less a human form than a blur of light.

  With images he found plainly preposterous on view, Gerry asked the witness about the beliefs that might have inspired his credulity. Was he, too, a Spiritualist, like so many others willing to speak on Mumler’s behalf?

  “I am not a Spiritualist,” Fanshaw insisted. “I believe what the Bible teaches concerning spirits.”

  This, too, Gerry found to strain the bounds of reason. Scripture says a great many things about communication with the dead, most of it far from positive. The book of Deuteronomy makes it plain: “There shall not be found among you any one,” it says, “that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord.”

  By any interpretation of this passage, Mumler seemed to qualify as an abomination best to be avoided. But another biblical teaching on spirits—the one Fanshaw likely had in mind—came from the First Book of Samuel, in which Saul, the first king of Israel, visits a medium to call forth the spirit of a dead prophet and receive his blessing. Saul himself had outlawed the practice, but even so, he knew that spirits could be “brought up” at times of great need, such as occasions when battles threatened to shatter nations or destroy the land.

  “Mumler took another picture,” Fanshaw said, indicating the second image he had shown to the court, “on which came a likeness of my son killed in the war.”

  Fanshaw’s son, called Sammie by friends and family, had joined the 6th New York Cavalry in the summer of 1862 along with his friend and his sister’s fiancé, Gilbert Wood. The night before he died, Sammie had written home to his father about conditions so dire his boots had fallen off his feet. He had been able to carry on only by taking another pair from a dead soldier.

  No sooner had Fanshaw read the note from his son than two others arrived. The first came from Sammie’s commander—“In the front rank and with his noble face to the foe, Corporal Fanshaw has fallen,” he wrote—the next from a comrade who had found him. “Every one who knew him mourns his loss as they would a brother,” the second letter said. “Many have said with a sigh ‘Poor Fanshaw! He was a man to be relied upon and he was one worthy of the name of soldier!’ But now he is gone. Alas! Alas! The consequences of a cruel, cruel war.”

  Fanshaw would carry these letters with him through the rest of his days. Others in his family were similarly undone. His daughter Julia had been a teenager when her brother enlisted, and she carried with her a child’s memory of a lost sibling for the rest of her life. She became an accomplished poet and recalled in verse what it felt like to happen upon some unexpected reminder of the man her brother had been.

  If, looking through an old forgotten store

  Of bygone relics, you had chanced to find

  An old, moth-eaten cloak a soldier wore,

  Would you, I wonder, with your eyes half blind

  With tears, have knelt there on the oaken floor,

  And cried and cried if you had chanced to find

  An old, moth-eaten cloak a soldier wore?

  If to your eyes a picture it had brought

  Of a young soldier—oh! so young and brave—

  Who, loving country, for that country fought,

  Till at the last for her his life he gave,

  I think, perhaps, like me you would have caught

  It to your heart—caressed it o’re and o’re—

  That old, moth-eaten cloak a soldier wore.

  Faced with a picture of his boy not just created by his mind’s eye through memory but captured and developed in Mumler’s studio, how could he not believe? “Though it is not so plain as my mother’s,” Fanshaw told the court, he “fully recognized” the image of his son.

  Unlike the case of the photograph of the witness’s long-dead mother, the prosecutor did not press the grieving man on the image associated with this still fresh wound. Gerry asked not a single question about it, letting the miniature artist rise and exit the courtroom with his sorrow and his certainty intact.

  Unidentified woman with an unidentified female spirit image. William Mumler, 1862–1875.

  CHAPTER 24

  By Supernatural Means

  TESTIMONY OF DAVID A. HOPKINS

  Q: Please state your occupation for the court.

  A: I am a manufacturer of railway machinery.

  Q: How do you know the defendant?

  A: I first became acquainted with him at his gallery in Broadway; I went there for the purpose of getting a photograph taken.

  Q: Did he see you right away?

  A: I waited a while. Another one was having his picture taken, and then I saw Mumler. I asked him if a person sitting for a photograph had any certainty of obtaining a spirit representation.

  Q: How did the defendant answer?

  A: He said the matter was entirely beyond his control. Sometimes the parties got them, and sometimes they did not. He thought it probable that I would have the picture, but there was no certainty in it. I thought Mumler— before I went there— was a cheat. I then sat down and got a picture of a lady on it. I recognized the person as one who has been dead about eight months. I looked to see if there was any figure about, and I watched Mr. Mumler just as carefully as I could, but could find nothing.

  Q: You did not give your name?

  A: No.

  Q: What was your idea in so doing?

  A: I did not want to give him any clue. I must further state that to satisfy myself that I had recognized the picture, I showed it to my family and they immediately recognized it. I then showed it to the neighbors of the deceased person, and they recognized it too, and no one suggested that it might be anybody else.

  Q: Do you believe in Spiritualism?

  A: I have been sworn upon the Bible, and it is full of Spiritualism. If I did not believe in it, I would have to throw the Bible away.

  TESTIMONY OF MRS. LUTHERIA C. REEVES

  Q: Do you know the defendant?

  A: I know Mr. Mumler; saw him at his gallery, 630 Broadway.

  Q: Under what circumstances did you see him?

  A: Mr. Charles Welling, a nephew of mine, from Vermont, went to him to investigate this matter and I went with him. The effect on him was very great. A boy of mine, who had passed away, was brought on the picture along with him.

  Q: Was it recognized by you at the time?

  A: The form of my deceased child appeared on the picture. It was never manipulated. I went there for a sitting myself about the end of March of the present year; it was about the middle of January I had gone with my nephew.

  Q: What result was obtained at your sitting?

  A: I had two sittings at the time. The form of another boy was on the picture. My boy was nearly eleven when he died.

  Q: Was there any picture of your boy in existence at the time he passed away?

  A: There had not been one taken for about a year and half or two years. He was very ill. He had not passed away quite a year when I went to Mumler’s.

  Q: Was the picture you received as representing him upon the glass at the time of the sitting with Mumler a picture of him during health or at the time he passed away?

  A: He showed himself to me as he looked in health, and in the picture of my nephew he looked as at the time he died.

  Q: They were distinct in appearance?

  A: Yes, sir.

  Q: State what occurred when you first went to that gallery?

  A: There were a great many people when we first went in the room. The arrangement was made with Mrs. Mumler. I think my nephew paid her. We first saw and conversed with Mrs. Mumler; she was the on
e waiting on these matters. I did not state to her what I went there for. My nephew said he wanted a sitting, she entered his name on the book.

  Mrs. Mumler was present at the time I was in the operation room; she came up and held her hand on the camera. Mr. Mumler came out of a side room and came with us upstairs. He then went to his closet and prepared for the sitting, there was no one else there; the sitting was done in a few minutes.

  Q: How long after you had been sitting did you have an opportunity of looking at the negative?

  A: He came out in a few minutes and showed the negative; I noticed no difference between the taking of pictures at Mumler’s and other establishments except her putting her hand on the camera.

  Q: Whereabouts on the camera did Mrs. Mumler put her hand?

  A: About midway on the edge.

  Q: Did she stand looking at you?

  A: No, she stood looking at the floor. I remember this because I distinctly heard raps on the floor.

  Q: You looked down to see where the raps were?

  A: Well, I was rather curious, I suppose.

  Q: How many raps did you hear?

  A: I did not count them.

  Q: Did they come in rapid succession?

  A: I do not know what they did.

  Q: Did they come slowly?

  A: I could not tell; I heard them distinctly. My nephew was sitting at the time for his picture.

  Q: Is your nephew a believer in spirits?

  A: I can’t answer for that.

  Q: Are you?

  A: I can’t answer that question.

  Q: Do you believe disembodied spirits return to revisit their relatives?

  A: No, I think that is impossible. But it may be so, as long as I recognize these pictures.

  Q: Were these pictures the means of converting you to that belief?

  A: They are very convincing.

  TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM W. SILVER

  Q: Please state your occupation.

  A: I was a photographer six years in the city of New York. Prior to March, I had the gallery at 630 Broadway, the same place where Mr. Mumler carries on his business.

  Q: When did you become acquainted with the defendant?

  A: I first saw Mr. Mumler at No. 630 about the 1st November last; he called there for the purpose of making arrangements with me for the place to take spirit-pictures. At the time of calling there I was not a Spiritualist; I rented the place to him at that time, and I sold out to him finally about the 1st March last, since which time I have not been engaged there. I had a sitting for a picture some time in November; I sat to see what I could get, as a skeptic.

  Q: What effect was produced at this sitting?

  A: I had a form on the plate—a female form—which I recognized as my mother. I am not now a Spiritualist; Mumler did not bring any materials with him to my gallery, but purchased mine; the camera he is now using belonged to me before I finally sold out; I used to purchase all the materials, and prepared everything; I had no manifestations upon my pictures prior to his coming; when he first came he took the picture I refer to. During the time intervening between the first interview and the coming of Mr. Mumler (something about a week) he had no opportunity of manipulating the instrument; he had not been in the place; I have been present when he took other pictures several times, and have watched the process he went through as closely as I could; I have seen him coat the plate with collodion, put it into the bath, and put it into the camera; I also saw him take the plate from the camera, and followed him into the dark room and saw him develop it; I saw the whole manipulation, from the beginning to the end.

  Q: Did you detect at any time anything that looked like fraud or deception on his part?

  A: No.

  Q: Have you ever known of pictures through that camera having been made with a form upon them when you have done the entire manipulation?

  A: Yes. Pictures were formed on the plates when I went through the whole manipulation, though Mumler exposed the plate. I mean by “exposing it” that he removed the cloth from the camera.

  Q: What particular act did he do while you were manipulating it?

  A: He simply removed the cloth from the camera.

  Q: Have you ever seen Mumler by the camera at the time these forms were exposed when he did not have his hand on the camera?

  A: Yes.

  Q: I will ask you, Mr. Silver, whether you can solemnly swear that there was no fraud or collusion in any way between you and Mumler in any of these performances?

  A: Yes, I can. On another occasion a picture was taken at the suggestion of Mumler, who was trying the collodion, which I was fixing. I was sat down, Mumler removed the cloth and walked away from it, and told me to take the plate into the dark room and develop it. I did so, and a spirit form came on the plate; I was not a Spiritualist at the time nor am I now.

  Q: You did not become a convert to Spiritualism, not withstanding these so-called spirit-pictures?

  A: No.

  Q: You do not believe altogether in the existence of spirits?

  A: Well, only in these pictures. I believe in these spirit pictures certainly.

  Q: You believe the impressions produced are impressions produced by supernatural means?

  A: Yes.

  Q: You swear to this distinctly?

  A: Yes. I believe that to be the case.

  The last photograph of Abraham Lincoln. Jeremiah Gurney, 1865.

  CHAPTER 25

  Figura Vaporosa

  TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER Samuel Morse demonstrated the telegraph’s ability to send messages instantly across hundreds of miles, his invention had transformed nearly every aspect of American life, and perhaps none more so than the press. In May of 1844, Morse himself had begun using his code of electromagnetic dots and dashes to send news items from Washington to a Baltimore paper within a day of demonstrating that it might be possible. A decade later, journalists transmitting stories to their editors, and newspapers sharing stories across state lines, accounted for half of all telegraphic traffic. In 1861, a transcontinental cable was completed. In 1866, the first telegraphic messages were sent across the Atlantic. This early networking of the world came at just the right time for headlines concerning the trial of William Mumler to spread around the globe, even as the spirit photographer sat in Judge Dowling’s court.

  In New York, a city of ten thousand con men perpetually on the make, the proceedings in the Tombs were reported largely as a tale of a crook and his likely comeuppance. The local narrative was simply that the new mayor, A. Oakey Hall, had wanted to crack down on petty crime, and had personally charged his marshal Joseph Tooker to make an example of a man whose swindle could not be more apparent. Mumler was often portrayed as dark of complexion and somewhat greasy in appearance. He and his coreligionists, according to the Manhattan papers, were vaguely foreign-seeming elements troubling the religiously homogeneous waters of polite society.

  Stories about Mumler transmitted by telegraph told a different story, however. “The Mumler spirit-photography case is increasing in interest,” the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette reported. “When a well known photographer comes up and swears that Mumler walked into his gallery without any chance for previous preparation, and then and there using an apparatus he had never before touched, produced on the spot a likeness of his deceased mother, it argues either marvelous deception on Mumler’s part, marvelous lying on the part of the witness, or something of a supernatural nature in the operation. When a dozen others testify to having procured correct images of their deceased friends of Mr. Mumler, one must have considerable faith in material things to think the whole thing a humbug. We will venture to say that the jury is considerably bothered.”

  In South Carolina, too, the court of public opinion was proving to be considerably lenient. “A very deep interest is felt in the result of the trial of Mumler, the spirit photographer of New York,” the Charleston Daily News noted. “The testimony taken thus far goes to show the genuineness of the pictures and to entirely ex
culpate the defendant from the charge of fraud. Wm. W. Silver, a photographer of six years’ standing, testified on Friday that Mumler came to his gallery in November last, and that at the time he (Silver) did not believe in the spirit photographs: ‘I sat to him, as a skeptic, to see what he could do; he used my apparatus and materials, and there came on the plate a form which I recognized as that of my mother. Mumler had no chance to make any preparation; have since frequently watched his processes without detecting any trick; spirit pictures have been produced when I performed all the manipulations, except that Mumler removed the cloth from the camera; have seen produced once when he did not touch the camera at all; we were trying some collodion, and he walked away from the camera after taking off the cloth; solemnly swear there was no collusion between us; I developed the plate myself and spirit picture came. I believe that these spirit photographs are produced by supernatural means.’ A large number of witnesses substantiated Mr. Silver’s testimony, asserting that they had received likenesses of their deceased relatives and friends.”