WCP6747

[1] [p. 287]

Form-Appearance of George Washington¹

On Saturday, the 12th of August, 1882, I was present with C. C. Sailer and wife at a séance given by Mrs. M. Eugenie Beste, at their residence, No. 3129, N.-street in Georgetown (now West Washington), D.C. This was one of very many private séances which were held by Mr. Sailer, his wife, and myself as the only spectators, with the same medium. The series of sittings beginning that year, but held at irregular intervals, extended into the spring of 1885.

The day on which this particular séance was held was very hot and sultry, and towards evening a fog came on which rendered the heat doubly oppressive. Mrs. Beste came from Washington to Mr. Sailer's between six and eight o'clock p.m. Ascending the high steps that approach the house from the street, she sat down upon the doorstep, remaining there for some time [2] [p. 288] for such refreshment as an open doorway could give. She was clad in a thin blue lawn dress. As the hour of eight drew near and it became possible to close doors and windows without discomfort, we all went into the parlour, a room of two apartments connected by folding doors. In the north apartment, standing against the north wall, Mr. Sailer had erected a movable cabinet, the frame of which was covered with a dark maroon cloth on the four sides. On the front, or south side, the cloth was so disposed that it might be pulled aside from the west, or opened from the middle by pulling the curtains either way, so as to disclose the entire interior. A single chair was the only article of furniture within. The cabinet was almost a fixture in the room for many months. This apartment contained a piano (on the east side), with chairs. On the west side was a fireplace and mantel-shelf.

Upon entering this apartment, Mrs. Beste for a few moments sat upon the piano stool, and upon her apparent entrancement went within the cabinet and took her seat there. We at once occupied the three seats about six feet in front. A single gas-jet was lighted, and the light was reduced, but not so low that the colours and shapes of all the articles in the room were not easily discernible. Our custom generally was, if forms did not at once appear, to sing some hymn or well-known popular song. Soon after taking our seats I remarked to Mr. Sailer that the hot, foggy evening was against us, and that it was probably that there would be no great manifestations. But a few moments after I made this remark the curtain was lifted, and the tall form of a soldier emerged from the cabinet. His first words were, "The father of his country." He was dressed in a blue coat with belt and epaulettes attached, in yellow breeches, and long boots. His head was bare and the hair grey. The form reached to the top of the cabinet (six feet in height). The figure in appearance accurately reproduced in form and colour the details of the figure represented by Trumbull's² picture of Washington resigning his commission, to be seen in the Rotunda of the Capitol. The figure came out seven times from the cabinet, bringing once a female upon his right arm, swathed in clouds of muslin from head to foot. More than once he lifted the curtain on the right of the cabinet and disclosed the medium sitting in her blue lawn dress in the chair. At each coming he would speak a few words, and upon his voice failing he would step within the cabinet, recover strength, come out and complete the sentence. In this way he succeeded in uttering a message destined for a gentleman in Philadelphia, in which he declared that he had appeared once before through another medium known in that city.

It is not my purpose to affirm or deny that the intelligence animating this figure was the soul known on earth as Washington; but simply to assert that if its pretensions were not true, it was due to no conscious agency on the part of the medium. Madame Tussaud herself could not have produced a better image of Washington with all the appliances of her art at command. And certainly with all the materials for dressing a Washington at hand within the cabinet, the medium, aided by all the sitters, could not with the labour of many hours have produced a form of Washington which any observer would not at once have pronounced a lay figure. But there was neither material within reach of the medium for such a production, nor time sufficient for it. We, the sitters, could but recognise it as the creation, not of supernatural, but of super-human capacities. Moreover, we did not pursue our investigations under conditions where trickery could produce exhibitions like this. Of other details of this séance, it is needless to speak.

D. Lyman³