Alchemist by the Sea: Why We Know...Everything Happens For a Reason

Back in 1971 I was still living at home as I began commuting to college. My father and I had been house hunting in the Concord, NH area and came upon a house in Warner, NH that I immediately felt drawn to; it became my mission to have my parents purchase the 1803 home on Main Street. Little did I know but this was the beginning of my discoveries about the history of my family and Spiritualism.

The house in Warner was an intriguing structure; basic 1803 with wood stoves and blocked up fire places and many 12 over 12windows. Next door was a very close building that was also used as a Main Street residence; I mean, just a couple of feet from our house! The building once held a physician's office and an old apothecary; the current dining room was paneled walls of tiny drawers marked with 19th century medical descriptions of powders and antidotes for various ailments.

I began researching our family history in the area as I was opting to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, third generation of daughters, and I was encouraged by local selectmen to seek the help of Mr. Watermeyer. Only his name was really Walter Miner; the New Hampshire accent had been lost on me for my years bouncing around the country, more recently in the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

I had "stumbled" upon a book in the local library: The History of Sutton. My great grandmother had a hand in writing it I "discovered". And what a giant door opened to me. I was to discover that my great, great grandmother Elizabeth Cordis Foster was a Spiritualist. And her cousin Horace Greeley was a sponsor of the Fox Sisters, considered to be the cornerstone to American Spiritualism.

As the story of the Fosters and the former owner of our home, Dr. Lyman were revealed I found myself enthusiastically sharing my discoveries with Walter Miner. "I did not know Warner people had bought that house," he said with a big, welcoming smile. I had arrived. The house next to my parent's house was the former site of Dr. Lyman's surgery/office and apothecary. My great, great, great grandfather Jesse Foster apprenticed with Dr. Lyman after obtaining his medical training at what is now Dartmouth. Imagine my astonishment that my ancestors had actually been in that home, my several great grandfather had completed his medical training in these same rooms and next door at the surgery.

But Spirit had more surprises in store. It was around 1834 that Jesse embarked upon Warner. He later took his growing family out west to Illinois. A letter from some local businessmen including a lawyer named Lincoln offered him land in a place that was a bit north of Chicago, an unincorporated village of Libertyville became the new home of the Foster family. Visions of covered wagons and log cabins became their directives. Eventually the physician, surgeon and Libertyville Post Master built himself a nice home in the center of town.

Dr. Foster (shown in a photo circa 1871 to the right) became a well known and respected businessman, physician in Libertyville. He took up an interest in politics and first supported the Wide Awake party and later he joined with the Republicans and his benefactor, Abraham Lincoln. When the war came Dr. Foster was called upon to bring his skills to Washington, D. C. He brought along his daughter Elizabeth as his wife was too ill to travel. And so began the next part of the story.

But first, I need to digress. When my father was moving to his new home in Peterborough, NH in the 1990's he took me aside and presented me with a beautiful garnet brooch and matching earrings. "Your grandmother was very proud of these," he said, "they belonged to her grandmother, Elizabeth Foster.

Elizabeth Foster had lost someone very dear to her, who had gone to Spirit. In letters from back home in NH, Elizabeth heard news of the Fox Sisters and the 1854 phenomena witnessed by family members: Spirit Communication. It was 1863, a hot summer in Washington, D.C. but Mrs. Lincoln's grief was so great that she wanted to have a seance to explore communication from the so called dead. Elizabeth was intrigued. She and he father arrived at the White House and I was shown images in Spirit: she was wearing a family brooch and Abraham Lincoln opened the door himself. The visions I was given detailed the inside of the White House, specifically the entrance area where they showed me more pillars. Elizabeth was shown to the Red Room; I could not see where her father went but I would say he retired to the "smoking" room where the men were discussing the war.

I never would have put all these events together without the initial information from the History of Sutton and the documents I found in Libertyville. The visions were step by step but only after I uncovered the connection with Dr. Foster and his daughter Elizabeth to Lincoln and Spiritualism did I understand the significance. The beautiful garnet brooch and earrings, still in my possession, provided the lynch pin to validate the vision of Elizabeth at the White House seance in 1863. The Foster connection to Spiritualism was hidden by my great grandmother Seymour; I suspect because it was "fringe". But now I had evidence to the contrary.

Here is a photo of me wearing the elegant 1860's garnet brooch and matching earrings that Elizabeth wore that summer of 1863 in Washington, D.C.

And Spirit always has fun...one of my favorite shows on British television is Miss Marple. She always carried this odd leather bag that is seen throughout many of the episodes. And then there is a photo of my grandfather Jesse's surgery bag that he used in Washington during the Civil War (the War of Northern Aggression as my grandfathers from Virginia would say). Had the surgery kit been less mundane it certainly would not have survived the first pickings of other relatives from my grandmother's estate. But there it was for me: Miss Marple's bag. Spirit works in mysterious ways.