Joseph Peace Hazard's papers include Spiritualist booklets, newspaper clippings, letters, and personal notes on his experiences with spirits. He also saved correspondence from Luther Colby, editor of the Spiritualist journal The Banner of Light, who relayed messages from Hazard's recently deceased brother, Thomas. Selected papers were digitized and curated in an online exhibit which paints a portrait of an avid 19th century Spiritualist.
Hazard's papers are part of the Nathaniel Terry Bacon collection, held by the Special Collections department of Adams Library, Rhode Island College.
Joseph Peace Hazard (1807-1892) was born into a wealthy Rhode Island family. When he failed in the family's textile manufacturing business, Hazard's family supported him in pursuing his personal interests, which included travel, architecture, and Spiritualism.
Hazard considered himself clairvoyant and clairaudient (capable of seeing and hearing spirits) from a young age, and pursued Spiritualism throughout his life. In his later years, Hazard kept a journal in which he painstakingly recorded instances of his pocket watch "ringing", which he believed to be proof of the presence of his deceased friends and relatives. Hazard also recorded his experiences with the supernatural in personal memoranda and letters to friends. Hazard's experiences include seeing, hearing, and sensing spirits, and communicating with spirits through the movements of a table during a seance.
Joseph Peace Hazard: Rhode Island Spiritualist (Online Exhibit)
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Notes, Bologna, 1860-05-27
Joseph Peace Hazard
Notes on an encounter with the spirit of the recently deceased Theodore Parker , who attributed Hazard’s “difficulty as a medium” to his “unwillingness to be led by others.”
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Rules to be Observed when Forming Spiritual Circles, 1870
Emma Hardinge
Booklet with instructions for conducting seances at home.
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How to Try Remarkable Experiments at Home, ca. 1870
Joseph Peace Hazard
Leaflet describing how to conduct a séance at home. Describes how to set up the room and prepare for the sitting, as well as the “symptoms” of spiritual communication. Originally published in "The Spiritualist" newspaper, ca. 1870.
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Notes on "Modern Spiritualism"
Joseph Peace Hazard
Notes discussing the history of “Modern Spiritualism,” including “rapping Mediumship” of Kate Fox, the “Cock Lane Ghost”, the “Salem Witches”, and Church’s suppression of mediums and seers. Includes description of Hazard’s early visions of children dancing in the air and later visions of Barbados and Singapore.
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Stray Thoughts on Spiritualism, 1880.
Peary Chand Mitra
Booklet with account of Spiritualist practices around the world. Includes instructions for conducting a seance, as well as listing of different kinds of mediums. Medium specialties include: clairvoyant and test medium, physical manifestations, developing medium, materializing medium, trance speaker.
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Letter to Joseph Peace Hazard, 1886-04-20
Luther Colby
Letter relaying message from Joseph Peace Hazard's recently deceased brother Thomas. Includes query regarding $600 Thomas had put up to bail out a medium.
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Remarkable Spiritual Manifestations, 1887-07-15
David Harrower
David Harrower’s Letter to the Editor, describing spiritual painting session. Harrower cites Joseph Peace Hazard’s recommendation of Mrs. Debar, who is responsible for “wonderful spiritual manifestations” in New York City.
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Are Spectres with Us? 1887-12
Joseph Peace Hazard
Clipping describing "psychical research" related to dreams, hallucinations, and spirits.
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Letter to Joseph Peace Hazard, 1889-02-12
Luther Colby
Letter describing "needy and sick Spiritualists and mediums" and recommending working mediums. Includes instructions to send lock of hair to a healing medium if medical treatment is needed.
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Letter to Joseph Peace Hazard, 1889-02-16
Luther Colby
Letter acknowledging Hazard's donation to "God's Poor Fund" and relaying message from Hazard's brother Thomas, "now a resident of the Spirit World" who "would like to communicate privately" through Colby's office's new medium, Mrs. Smith.
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Letter to Joseph Peace Hazard, 1889-04-09
Luther Colby
Letter responding to inquiry regarding Mrs. Hull, who holds private sittings in Boston. Includes post-script regarding Dr. Slade, a "drunk" medium in Maine: "What a pity it is that our psychics, after - like an unruly cow - giving plenty of milk, then kick the pail over! - Mrs. Sawyer is another kicker. We must drop such mediums, don't you think so?"
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Letter to Joseph Peace Hazard, 1889-05-01
Luther Colby
Letter regarding persona article Hazard sent, which Colby does not wish to print. Includes message from "Spirit brother Thomas":
"While answering your note, I get this communication from your Spirit brother Thomas. He says, (which I copy below) what somewhat surprises me:
'Brother Joseph - If you have any money to leave, you had better give it to sustain the Banner of Light circle room meetings, instead of willing it to any other institutions.' " -
Letter to Joseph Peace Hazard, 1889-05-09
Luther Colby
Letter defending medium Miss Debar, who is accused of "swindling" Judge Marsh. Includes note regarding "ascended brother Thomas":
"Whenever your ascended brother Thomas reports, I will send you whatever he communicates. He is somewhat annoyed just now because of the persecution and prosecution our mediums are receiving; and he is just as earnest in protecting them as he was when here in bodily form." -
Letter to Joseph Peace Hazard, 1889-11-04
Luther Colby
Letter in which Colby describes divided state of Spiritualism:
"We are being kicked, as usual, by Spiritualists, who want to boss us, but can't - as well as by enemies of the Cause. I am getting tired of this sort of life. Do you wonder?"
Includes mention of Hazard's brother Thomas:
"Thomas R. comes to see us occasionally. He is, he says, more wide awake than ever before."
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Letter to Joseph Peace Hazard, 1889-11-19
Luther Colby
Letter regarding mediums in Boston, including a healing medium who cured Colby of pneumonia while 100 people died in the care of "'regular' medical practitioners".
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Letter to John C. Bundy, 1889-02-02
Joseph Peace Hazard
Letter describing the use of a water divining "wand" to find a stream.
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Letter to John C. Bundy, 1889-03-14
Joseph Peace Hazard
Letter in which Hazard comments on "The Fox Girls" who have "in their old age - disavowed Spiritualism" and confessed their fraud. Hazard notes that because the women have become "intemperate" that their confessions are suspect. Includes mentions of "The Cock Lane Ghost," divining rods, haunted houses, and "The White Lady" who haunts a German castle.
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Letter to Luther Colby, 1889-05-03
Joseph Peace Hazard
Letter regarding eulogy for Mr. Ayer, builder of "The Spiritual Temple" in Boston. Includes Hazard's thoughts on the Christian Church's beliefs in "the reality of Spiritual Manifestations of today, though most of them are opposed to them"; and notes that medical doctors "abhor 'Spiritual Healing Mediums'" due to the competition for patients.
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Letter to Luther Colby, 1889-11-14
Joseph Peace Hazard
Letter asking for recommendations for "Healing Medium" in Boston. Mentions Sarah Rockwood, a healing medium who attended Rowland Gibson Hazard at the end of his life, and Mary Hull, who was employed as a medium by Thomas R. Hazard.
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Mysteries of Hypnotism, 1889
Joseph Peace Hazard
“Mysteries Of Hypnotism” 1889
Clipping describing Dr. Henry S. Drayton’s lecture on “The Evolution of a ‘Sixth Sense’” and experiments involving duplicating unseen drawings. Includes this description of the dual perception of Spiritualism:
“Modern Spiritualism is a thing of tinsel, deception, and unbelief; but, however this may be, when the London society set about collecting evidences of psychical phenomena it was overwhelmed with the great number of letters. In Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore they consider this matter seriously and study it as a science. They use children as subjects, for they believe that the results from such a source are more likely to be freed from extraneous influence.” -
Notes, 1889-07-25
Joseph Peace Hazard
Description of visit in June, 1857, to English windmill haunted by a female ghost.
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Notes, Peacedale, 1889-05-02
Joseph Peace Hazard
Description of “Spiritual Sittings” with Edward Clark, during which “the table began to move, and before the close of the evening, it would not only rock most vigorously; and on the following evening, this Table would frequently run all about the room.” Includes description of conversation regarding Clark’s medical care with the spirits, who communicated through the movements of the table.
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Bill from Colby & Rich, 1890-02-24
Luther Colby
Bill listing books Joseph Peace Hazard ordered from Colby & Rich, publishers of "The Banner of Light." Titles include:
Ghosts & Other Lect.
Ingersoll's Field Dis.
Ingersoll on Blasphemy
Orthodoxy
Prose Poems
Selections
Gods Other Lectures
Vindications of T. Paine
What must we do
Crimes Against Criminals
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Letter to Luther Colby, with Reply to Joseph Peace Hazard, 1890-04-13
Luther Colby
Request from Joseph Peace Hazard for recommendations for materializing mediums in the Boston area. Includes response from Luther Colby with names and addresses of materializing mediums.
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A Straightforward Statement, 1890-03-15
Joseph Peace Hazard
Clipping from “The Banner of Light,” sent by Luther Colby to Joseph Peace Hazard. Quotes another publication which refers to “the fraud-condoning concern known as the Banner of Light”; includes defense of the “The Banner of Light” as “slow to condemn those who at first sight seem to be guilty of wrong-doing, lest we should misjudge the innocent.”
