The Ashtabula Poltergeist
The Ashtabula Poltergeist
The supposed cause of the extraordinary poltergeist disturbances that took place about mid-nineteenth century in the presence of a woman of Ashtabula County, Ohio. First of all, she became a medium on the death of her husband and produced spirit-rappings and other manifestations. Then for a time she studied anatomy in Marlborough, and afterward returned to her home in Austinburg, where an alarming outbreak of weird manifestations occurred. Stair-rods moved after her when she went to her room, light articles flew about the house, and uncanny sounds were heard. At Marlborough, when she resumed her anatomical studies, the disturbances increased in violence, and she and her roommate had a ghastly vision of a corpse they had been dissecting that day. The skeptical Dr. Richmond maintained that these phenomena were the result of "magneto-odylic" emanations from the medium.
Sources:
Podmore, Frank. Modern Spiritualism. 2 vols. Rev. ed. as Mediums of the Nineteenth Century. New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1963.