The Stratford knockings

From 10 March 1850, the house of Eliakim Phelps in Stratford, Connecticut, was the scene of disturbances that his family reported for eight months.

Eliakim Phelps practised mesmeric healing and served as a minister in Stratford, Connecticut. The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology calls him a Presbyterian minister, while the New England Historical Society calls him a Congregational one. The Encyclopedia says disturbances began in his house on 10 March 1850 and went on for eight months.

The New England Historical Society says the first one came after church, when the household came back to a ransacked house. Clothes had been thrown around, drawers opened and belongings strewn about. Phelps told of his shock at finding the house inhabited by spirits. FATE Magazine tells it as a break-in at first: furniture knocked over, dishes smashed, and books, papers and clothing scattered. Phelps saw that the gold watch, the silver and some loose cash lay in plain sight and untouched, and wondered whether thieves had left through an unlocked window.

The surviving record is mainly New Haven Journal letters written as events unfolded. C. W. Elliott collected further testimony from neighbours and published it in 1852.