The Henry Murfey letter book is a wallet-size, leather bound notebook containing 12 letters recorded over 54 handwritten pages and dating from December 28, 1855, to September 20, 1856. The letters are each addressed to Henry Murfey of Cleveland, Ohio, ostensibly from his deceased sister Mary (11) and father John (1) via a spirit-writing medium.
The letters are written in reverse chronological order, with the final letter located at the beginning of the letter book. The longest and most revealing of the letters details the experience of Mary's physical death, her arrival at a "large spiritual temple," and her introduction to a spirit guide named "Flora." Mary then described her visit to the planet Saturn and its inhabitants. Later letters assured Henry of the veracity of their communication and assured him that she often thought of him and communicated with him through the movement of inanimate objects. Several letters are undated, including one by Murfey's father John. The final three pages contain a crossed-out note, a recipe for an herbal remedy, and random calculations.
Henry Murfey was born July 19, 1827, in Colchester, Connecticut. He was the eighth child of Captain John Murfey (1776-1844) and Ardalissa (Southworth) Murfey (1788-1876). By 1850, Murfey moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and worked as a bank clerk in the city. He married Eliza D. Murfey (1831-1879), a clairvoyant and magnetic physician. Henry died in February 1870, in New York City, New York. He is buried in Indian Hill Cemetery in Middletown, Connecticut.
Henry Murfey's sister Mary, the attributed author of eleven of the 1855-1856 letters, was born September 6, 1829, and died March 12, 1831. Spiritualist attempts to contact the dead typically occurred via séance led by a medium or spirit guide. Once a connection was established, spirits could then communicate with the living via various means. One popular channel for supernatural communication was a process known as automatic or spirit writing. The psychic, in a trance-like state and unconscious of their actions, would write out a spirit's communication to the living. This was the method apparently used to create these incoming letters to Henry Murfey.
