INTRODUCTION.

Due to the circumstances of his parents, the boy’s school tuition was confined to about five months. During this time, he learned to read imperfectly, to write a fair hand, and to do simple sums in arithmetic. From early youth, therefore, until he entered on his career in clairvoyance original: "clairvoyance career", he was mostly kept at such manual employments as were suited to his age. During this time, his small earnings and affectionate attentions contributed greatly to the support of his immediate family. With these duties and responsibilities constantly pressing upon his mind, he had neither the desire nor the opportunity to study and inform himself even on the simplest branches of science, history, or general literature.

During the intervals between his hours of employment, he was never known to frequent public libraries and was seldom known to pick up a book. His very limited reading was confined to a few juvenile productions, short essays original: "fugitive essays", and light romances, perhaps not totaling more than four hundred or five hundred pages at most; and even this little reading was pursued in the most disorganized original: "desultory" manner. The frankness, openness, and sincerity which have characterized the boy from infancy to the present moment—and the probabilities arising from his youth and inexperience in the ways of the world—entirely forbid the suspicion that he could have been secretly pursuing any dishonest original: "sinister" designs to trick the public. Furthermore, the restrictions that poverty imposed upon his mental efforts, and the countless original: "ten thousand" details connected with his daily and hourly interaction with other people, absolutely forbid the possibility of his having secretly carried out a plan of this kind, even if he had been morally capable of such an obvious fraud.

The preceding facts are gathered from casual and free conversations with different persons who were familiarly acquainted with the young man from his early youth until he formed a connection with Dr. Lyon and moved to New York in August 1845. To these statements, we will add the following testimonies from respectable citizens: the first from Hyde Park, the next three from Poughkeepsie, and the last from Reverend A. R. Bartlett, now of Chicago:

DEAR SIR: In answer to yours of December 30th last, asking for some information regarding A. J. Davis, I can only say that he was born in this town* of poor but respectable parents. His father, during the period of A. J.’s early youth, was in my employ for some three or four years, during which time I saw the boy almost every day. There was nothing remarkable about him, unless it might have been an inquiring disposition, which, however, was not remarkable to any great extent. He was of good moral character. His only facilities for obtaining an education were those afforded by a district school, which he was not much inclined to attend. As to his natural talents, there was nothing I ever saw to induce the belief that they were either above or below average original: "mediocrity". In short, he was what might have been called an ordinary, civil, well-disposed boy.

FRIEND WILLIAM FISHBOUGH: Yours of the 30th of last month is received, requesting me to give you what information I possess regarding the character, habits, etc., of A. J. Davis while he was a resident of our village.

The first I knew of him was when he was about sixteen years of age, while he was an apprentice in the shoemaking business; and from that time I saw him very frequently until he left the place, which was about two to three years later, I think. As to his character and habits, I always believed them to be good; and his opportunities for instruction, if he had any, were very limited. I believe him to be an uneducated young man of very humble parentage.

* This is a mistake, according to the statement of his father mentioned above.