A lot of things could be said about John Brotherson, but those who knew him well were unlikely to include “he would be late to his own funeral.” Yet in the middle of the day on October 17, 1887, a group of people waited patiently on a little knoll in Ballston Spa’s Village Cemetery, and he was nowhere to be found.
John had passed away two days earlier at the home of Dr. Charles Inslee Pardee, a relative with whom he spent the winter months in his later years. His death was an unfortunate accident by asphyxiation, caused by John inadvertently leaving a gas valve on when he retired for the night. At his passing at 87, John Brotherson was the senior member of the Saratoga County bar association and a practicing attorney for over fifty years. He was also a prominent Spiritualist. [Read more…] about John Brotherson & Saratoga County Spiritualism