New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Thomas Rosenthal, MD

Thomas C. Rosenthal MD is Emeritus Professor of Family Medicine at the University at Buffalo. He has published two books about the medical history of New York State: Bloodletting and Germs: A Doctor in Nineteenth Century Rural New York (2020) and Cyrenius Chapin: Buffalo's First Doctor and War of 1812 Hero (2025).

Rapping with the Dead: New York’s Spiritualist Fox Sisters

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Kate and Maggie Fox, the Fox Sisters, spiritualistsThe first indication that the Fox Sisters had spiritualist talents occurred on the evening of March 31, 1848 when 11-year-old Kate and 14-year-old Maggie Fox claimed they heard knocking sounds coming from the east bedroom of their parents’ rented farmhouse in Hydesville, Wayne County, NY, about 30 miles east of Rochester.

The next night, the young ladies revealed this strange knocking spirit to their mother and older sister, Leah. The family’s excitement about communicating beyond the grave took no note that the inaugural demonstration had been staged on April first. [Read more…] about Rapping with the Dead: New York’s Spiritualist Fox Sisters

The Burning of Buffalo during the War of 1812

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Detail from Edward Walsh, 'A View of Fort George, Navy Hall and New Niagara, taken from the United States Fort of Old Niagara April 20th 1804' (courtesy William Clements Library, University of Michigan)On December 10, 1813, two New Yorkers raged at each other in the entryway of Joseph McCarthy’s store on Queen Street in the Upper Canada village of Newark, known today as Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

Soldiers held back a crowd as the ranking officer in charge of the American troops occupying nearby Fort George, Brigadier-General George McClure (1771-1851) cursed a Buffalo physician and militia captain, the forty-four-year-old Dr. Cyrenius Chapin (1769-1838). Both were part of the New York State militia assigned by the United States regular army to occupy Canada’s Fort George. [Read more…] about The Burning of Buffalo during the War of 1812

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