Leah, Margaret and Catherine Fox were three siblings resident in upstate New York in the 1840s. By 1848, Leah had married and moved to Rochester, while her younger sisters were living nearby with their parents. In March of that year, “rappings” began to be heard around the two young girls. These were attributed by family and neighbours to spirits. In time a code was worked out, and “Mr Splitfoot”, as the girls named the entity with whom they were in contact, claimed to be a murdered pedlar whose body had been buried in the basement.