Koons' Spirit Room
A log séance-room erected in Dover, Athens County, Ohio, by a farmer, Jonathan Koons, in 1852. Koons, an early convert to spiritualism, had been told that he and his eight children would develop mediumistic powers, and the spirit-room was intended to be used for manifestations produced by their mediumship. The room was furnished with the appliances incidental to the spiritualistic séance-table for rappings, tambourines, and other musical instruments; phosphorus, by means of which the spirits might show themselves. The phenomena witnessed by the sitters, including Charles Partridge, editor of the Spiritual Telegraph, were of a varied nature, but in the main identical with the other manifestations of the same period. The spirits who visited Koon's log building claimed to be a band-one hundred and sixty-five in number of men who had lived before the time of Adam, and from whom were descended the well-known spirit personalities, John and Katie King.