The Eddy Brothers Phenomena
A small white farmhouse in Chittenden, Vermont became a spiritual hotbed of activity in the 1800’s that revolved around the two sons of Julie Ann and Zephaniah Eddy. Since their birth, Horatio and William had been the center of paranormal events. Their cradles would rock as if an invisible hand had been rocking them and their favorite childhood playmates were in the spirit world. When it came time to attend school, no work could be completed due to the poltergeist activity that would manifest whenever the boys were in the classroom.
Zephaniah decided it would be in his best interest to market his children. He set off with his two sons and his two sisters, who showed little signs of being able to manifest the paranormal, on a nationwide tour. In front of crowds of skeptical spectators, Zephaniah would encourage his children to enter a trance. During these trances, it was said that spirits would manifest themselves, disembodied voices could be heard, and the faces of the children would contort into horrible inhuman forms until they were barely recognizable. To prove to the crowds that what they were witnessing was in fact genuine, the children were subjected to horrible acts of abuse to show they could not feel pain. On several occasions, Zephaniah would pour boiling water over the children or seal their lips with hot wax to prove they were not the cause for the disembodied voices being manifested. William’s hands were, at one point, permanently disfigured from holding hot coals during a trance.
The outrage the crowds expressed was never at the acts of child abuse they were witnessing, but instead was directed at the young brothers. People began to look at Horatio and William as being possessed by the devil and many attempts were made at their lives. Despite the danger he was putting his children in, Zephaniah continued his tour of the United States. Word of the Eddy family’s “devil children” spread and they became increasingly unwelcome in the towns they visited. A crowd of religious protesters in Massachusetts greeted the Eddy family with gunfire. William survived a shotgun blast to the leg. An Ohio mob attempted to tar and feather the entire family.
Zephaniah Eddy passed away in 1874 and his boys inherited his household and lived there until Horatio passed away in 1922 and William in 1932. Although it was a farmhouse, the boys made their living performing séances every Monday through Saturday and by transforming their estate into a paranormal hotel. At the rate of $10 per week, the Eddy brothers’ hotel attracted paranormal enthusiasts from all over the world, including Madame Helena Blavatsky. Guests came to attend the séances of the famous Eddy brothers and hoped to see one of over five hundred spirits that were said to have materialized at these séances.
The séances were held both in the house and in a nearby cave that was said to house the spirit of a Native American woman named “Honto”. The ghost of Honto was witnessed on several occasions to float high above the participants of these outdoor séances. Today, there are still reports that the over five hundred spirits Horatio and William made contact with in the Eddy house and the nearby Honto’s Cave are still present, but there is no denying that the spiritual activity has died down significantly since the last brother died in 1932. That leaves you to wonder, was the house haunted or were the brothers?
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