Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Real-Life Ghost Story

My Story from Genealogybank

an eerie tale about Nathaniel Hawthorne and a troubled spirit that came to him in a seance....

When author Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife Sophia prepared for their European trip in 1857, they needed a governess for their three children Una, Julian, and Rose. Horace Mann recommended Ann Adeline Shepard (1835-1874), a student at his school (Antioch College) in Ohio. The governess “Ada” possessed a skill in the occult known as a “writing medium.” It was a form of divination in which the medium holds a pencil over a piece of paper, then receives spirit communication through writing. Read more at GenealogyBank