Enchanted Ground: The Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons by Sharon Hatfield (review)

In this lively, well-paced tale, the journalist Sharon Hatfield goes to the heartland of America to explore the locus of midwestern nineteenth-century Spiritualism. Specifically, Hatfield takes readers to Mount Nebo, in the hills of Athens County, Ohio. There, a farmerturned-Spiritualist-medium named Jonathan Koons made his mark on antebellum Spiritualism. However, Koons was not the only Spiritualist in his family—apparently his wife and twelve children were all endowed with varying degrees of mediumistic skill and capability. Koons' eldest son, Nahum, played a central role in the family's demonstrations of spirit communication.

Despite the fact that the manifestations Koons facilitated closely followed many Victorian-era seance conventions—messages from the dead, otherworldly music, and ghostly apparitions—the Koons family's mediumship was met with widespread acceptance. The fact that Koons did not charge people to attend the seances that he held in his home, apparently helped add to his credibility. As a result, Koons began to attract some visitors of note, such as John Chapman—more commonly known as Johnny Appleseed. Koons eventually became so famous, and so many people flocked to his home to see his spirit manifestations, that he felt compelled to build what he called a "Spirit Room" to accommodate his clients. Although some of Koons' followers compared the Spirit Room to "the psychomanteums of ancient Greece," visitors would most likely have encountered a

mud-chinked log cabin with a peaked roof. Visitors variously estimated its size as 18 feet long by 15 feet wide by 9 feet high . . . The door and shuttered windows fit so tightly that the light was blocked out when they were closed . . . Inside, the rectangular table supporting the spirit machine was placed at one end of the room with enough space for someone to pass behind it"

(61–62).

Koons' spirit machine, purportedly built in response to the spirits' instructions, was one of the most unique aspects of his Spiritualist practice. The machine, or "battery" as Koons sometimes called it, is described as a metal and wood contraption, the purpose of which was "collecting and focalizing the magnetic aura used in the manifestations" (59). A four-foot wooden post rose from the tabletop, with two or three iron bars inserted parallel to the table. "Hanging from the iron bars were what one observer called 'a wire woven into a kind of net work (sic) with copper and tin plates, and small bells.' . . . Jonathan had stocked the drawers underneath the tabletop with paint, brushes and paper that the spirits might need" (59).

Built in 1852, this apparatus was one of the first known allegedly spirit-assisted machines in the United States and greatly intrigued Robert Hare a chemistry professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Hare would go on to invent the "spiritoscope" in 1855. Unlike Koons' "battery," which was intended to facilitate spirit manifestations, Hare's technology was supposed to test for empirical evidence of otherworldly phenomena.

The narrative trajectory of Enchanted Ground provides a chronology of Koons' often hardscrabble farming life at Mount Nebo, the rise and fall of his alleged prowess as a medium and reputation as a Spiritualist, and the ways in which he made his mark on American cultural history. Hatfield's impeccable research includes primary sources that she deftly mines for compelling details on what one might have encountered in the Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons.

The work of Jonathan Koons, and, indeed, midwestern Spiritualism in general, has often been overlooked, so Enchanted Ground is a welcome contribution to the field. This book has many strengths, not least of which are its evocative descriptions. Hatfield's skill as a researcher, writer, and story-teller make this book appropriate for both scholarly and general readers.