Where the modern ghost business starts: Hydesville, spirit photography, and the first commission that investigated the séance room and reported what it actually saw.
G-001PROVEN
The Seybert Commission (U. Penn, 1887) was appointed under Henry Seybert's conditional gift, with the ten members and officers named in the foundation note
Seybert Commission Preliminary Report (1887), G001 archive text read first-hand
G-002PROVEN
The Commission found Henry Slade's slate writing, in the sittings it observed, "fraudulent throughout"
Same report, main text (quoted in foundation note)
G-003MISIDENTIFIED
"The Seybert Commission proved all independent slate writing is fraudulent"
The report expressly calls the universal claim "a mere matter of opinion" and limits its unanimous finding to every instance it observed
G-004PROVEN
The Commission concluded it had discovered "not a single novel fact" and asked to continue investigating
Same report, signed conclusion, May 1887
G-029DOCUMENTED as the record's content
The 1848 Hydesville raps' content (answering spirit, murdered peddler buried under the house)
Tranche 01 (T01-03) — Lewis 1848 pamphlet, signed certificates, read first-hand; the pamphlet records the claims, it does not corroborate them
G-030UNPROVEN
The Hydesville murder itself
Tranche 01 (T01-04) — nothing in the 1848 record independently corroborates a murder, burial, or victim
G-031UNPROVEN / MISIDENTIFIED as an 1848-record fact
The murdered peddler was named "Charles B. Rosna"
Tranche 01 (T01-06) — the name appears nowhere in the Lewis pamphlet; the pamphlet blanks even the alleged killer's name
G-032PROVEN
Margaret Fox Kane's signed confession (NY World, 21 Oct 1888) that she and Katie produced the raps fraudulently
Tranche 01 (T01-07) — signed text read in full; Davenport 1888 independently prints the sisters' authorisation for the exposure
G-033PROVEN
The Academy of Music demonstration (21 Oct 1888): physicians agreed the raps came from the first joint of Margaret's large toe
Tranche 01 (T01-11) — via Davenport printing the World's next-morning report; newspaper original not yet opened (open item)
G-034DOCUMENTED
Margaret's Nov 1889 recantation of the confession
Tranche 01 (T01-12) — as transmitted by Doyle 1922; the 1889 NY Press primary text not yet opened
G-035UNPROVEN
The 1904 Hydesville skeleton was the murdered peddler
Tranche 01 (T01-14) — Boston Journal report DOCUMENTED as printed (via secondary reproduction); identification has no primary support; 1909 ASPR editorial (second-hand) reported mixed human/chicken bones
G-036MISIDENTIFIED
"Mumler was tried and acquitted, and the court in effect found spirit photography genuine"
Tranche 01 (T01-15/T01-20/T01-21) — preliminary examination only; Justice Dowling discharged for failure to prove method while stating he was "morally convinced that trickery and fraud were used" (1869 scrapbook + Hull, read first-hand)
G-037PROVEN
Prosecution experts produced identical spirit-photo effects by trickery that defeated expert watchers (Bogardus's "Lincoln" behind a warned, watching Barnum)
Tranche 01 (T01-18/T01-19) — Hull's contemporary report + Barnum's sworn scrapbook testimony
G-038MISIDENTIFIED
"The Seybert Commission tested and debunked spirit photography"
Tranche 01 (T01-29/T01-30) — the Commission never tested it: Keeler's demanded conditions made investigation "a mere waste of time" (G001 text)
G-049PROVEN
Margaret Fox Kane publicly abjured Spiritualism at the Academy of Music, New York, on 21 Oct 1888, in the words "chiefly instrumental in perpetrating the fraud of Spiritualism upon a too confiding public" and "an absolute falsehood from beginning to end," with Catherine Fox Jencken present assenting
Davenport, The Death-Blow to Spiritualism (1888), archive G003 text read first-hand — speech printed in ch. V; sisters' signed authorization for the book dated 15 Oct 1888 printed at p. v
G-050DOCUMENTED
At that demonstration Margaret produced the raps with her bare right foot on a wooden stool and a committee of three physicians from the audience agreed the sounds were made by the action of the first joint of her large toe
Same book, ch. V — the New York World's 22 Oct 1888 account as reproduced in Davenport; the original World issue has not yet been opened first-hand, so this run does not grade it PROVEN — DIVERGENCE: Tranche 01 graded the same demonstration PROVEN at G-033 on the same Davenport basis; both grades stand logged until the original World issue is read
G-051DOCUMENTED
In Margaret's own account, the Hydesville noises began with apples tied to strings bobbed on the bedroom floor, and the toe-joint rapping was discovered via finger-snapping, Kate first
Same book, ch. VI — Margaret's testimony as quoted in the authorized book; single-source testimony, graded as her statement, not as independently verified fact
G-052DOCUMENTED (as what the book says)
Davenport's book carries the sisters' ages as Margaret born 1840, Catherine ~1.5 years later (8 and 6.5 at the start)
Same book, ch. VI p. 83, read first-hand; DIVERGENCE: conflicts with the commonly carried ~14 / ~11 ages — neither set graded; no birth record read yet (see research note 2026-11-03)
G-053PROVEN
The sealed letter sent to medium Dr. J. V. Mansfield was physically opened and resealed — seals cut out and restored with mucilage, the paper torn beneath three of them
Seybert appendix, "Sealed Letters" (G001 text read first-hand) — Furness cut the returned envelope open at the edges and found the seals cut out and re-gummed; the "spirit" answers repeated the sealed question's exact words
G-054PROVEN
When the follow-up letter was stitched to its envelope with red silk thread beneath the seals, Mansfield returned "no response" — and two seals showed abandoned attempts to start them
Same appendix — the identical twin envelopes No. 1 (plain) and No. 2 (stitched): No. 1 answered after the same seal-cutting; No. 2 unanswerable without tearing, and the attempt marks were found on examination
G-055PROVEN
Henry Slade refused to write on slates sealed by the Commission, saying the spirits had forbidden it
Seybert appendix minutes (G001) — the refusal and its stated reason recorded in the sitting minutes, heard by multiple members (Sellers, Furness, Thompson)
G-056MISIDENTIFIED
"Zöllner's Leipzig colleagues were all convinced the Slade phenomena were genuine and not imposture"
Seybert appendix (G001) — Zöllner's book claims exactly that; Fullerton's 1886 interviews, with notes approved or corrected by the men themselves, contradict it: Wundt (conditions "very unsatisfactory," everything looked like jugglery), Fechner (two sittings, his own observations "unsatisfactory," belief rested on faith in Zöllner), Scheibner (disclaimed competence; Zöllner's book "would create the impression" of agreement — "this is not the case"); only Weber leaned to the phenomena, while stating he knew nothing of jugglery
G-057DOCUMENTED
The named Leipzig witnesses' own qualifications: Fechner attended two sittings with an incipient cataract; Scheibner was a passive, short-sighted spectator who suggested no conditions; Wundt found the slate German was "just such German as Slade spoke"
Same appendix interviews (Wundt's points noted and read back to him; Fechner's translated for his approval; Scheibner's corrected and returned by him)