All seemed quiet when we retired for the night, at about ten o'clock. We slept quietly for about two hours, when we were awakened by the most frightful manifestations. The house was in a perfect uproar. Tables and everything in the room below us were being moved about. Doors were opened and shut, making the greatest possible noises. _They then walked up-stairs_ and into the room next to us (our bedroom was an open recess off from this room). There seemed to be many actors engaged in the performance, and a large audience in attendance.
The representation of a pantomime performance was perfect.
After the first scene, there was great applause by the Spirit audience. Immediately following, one Spirit was heard to dance _as if with clogs_, which continued fully ten minutes. This amused the audience very much; and a loud clapping of hands followed. After this we heard nothing more except the representation of a large crowd walking away down-stairs, through the rooms, closing the doors heavily after them. It is useless to attempt to record all the manifestations which occurred nightly during the last few weeks that we remained in that house. I came to the conclusion that it was haunted, and decided to move out of it as soon as I could find another house that suited me.
There was a house on Prospect Street, nearly finished, and I engaged it. I was particular to tell the agent that I wanted a house in which no crime had been committed. For I believed that the house I was then living in, like the one at Hydesville, was haunted; and I presumed that in this case as in the other it must have had its origin in hidden crime. He smiled as he remarked that he "thought that I would have no difficulty on that account." We moved into this house as soon as possible, and congratulated ourselves on our good fortune in finding a place that had never before been tenanted.
Two houses stood on one foundation. On the ground floor was a kitchen, cellar, and pantry. The staircase led from the kitchen to the second floor. On the outside, a front and rear flight of steps led to a balcony from which we could enter the parlor and dining-room, on the second floor. Another flight of steps led from the dining-room to the third floor, which was one room the entire length and breadth of the house. In this last-named room we put up three beds, and one bed in the room on the parlor floor. I partitioned off a small room in one corner of the upper floor with chintz curtains. This lessened the size of the large room and afforded us a store-room. In the rear of the house was an old cemetery, called "the Buffalo Burying-ground." This cemetery was separated from our lot by a high fence. I remember I disliked the idea of seeing those tall monuments every time I went into the pantry. (The entrance into the dining-room from the kitchen was through the pantry.)