The events at Hydesville are key to the start of Modern Spiritualism but are sadly so mis-reported over history that the actual facts have been misrepresented and distorted. It was not the youngest sister who asked the Spirit to do as I do and there was no mention of Mr Splitfoot. It was the eldest sister Anne Leah, not present at the time and only arriving in Hydesville about one month after the events on 31st March, who embellished the story. Firstly to Robert Dale Owen, who would then add them to his book Footfalls on the Boundary to start the error and then in her book the Missing Link. Leahs work was then the basis of Hydesville In History produced by Mercy Cadwallader in 1917. This seems to be used as the key reference works for the National Association of Spiritualists in the USA and theuir educational Institute The Morris Pratt Insitute.So teh errors perpetuate and spread.
In addition the girls left the house early and it was a neighbour Mr Duesler who oversaw most of the communication which took place. Thankfully one EE Lewis, a lawyer turned journalist came along and within 11 days took detailed testimonies from all the participants, these were gathered into a short book published by the end of April 1848. Sadly lazy work from researchers meant no one seemed to go back to Lewis’s work to note Anne Leahs mis-quotations until around the year 2000 when Psypioneer published a copy of the pamphlet. The real history is well worth reading, so here are two links to it, one in Psypioneer http://www.iapsop.com/psypioneer/psypioneer_v1_n12_apr_2005.pdf and one from Marc Demarest and his research group, including Pat Deveney, who are restoring so much original material to us, http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/lewis_noises/
The Philosophy and History of Spiritualism 