All things stick to magnet boy.
Freddie Brady of Dodgeville, most attractive person in the county.
Dodgville, Wis., April 1.
Freddie Brady, the most attractive boy in the United States, lives at Mount Horeb, twenty miles east of this town. All things come to Freddie; nor does he have to wait. Although he is willing to wait indefinitely, objects come flying to him and at him. In a word, Freddie, 11 years old, is a “magnet boy;” he draws better than ever did prima donna or actor. He lives with his grandparents, who observed the phenomena connected with him first on March 3 last. Then a relative took a basket of eggs to their home and set it on the table. There was absolutely no deception or trick about the eggs. They were the fresh product of industrious hens. Suddenly an egg left the basket and hurled itself across the room at Freddie, struck him on the nose. Had he been a bad actor playing Hamlet, had the egg been bad, too, it could not have hit him fairer.
Soon other objects got in the habit of seeking Freddie. He swears he does nothing, knowingly, to attract them, although his grandma has her doubts about a certain pot of jam that vanished. One day a drawer flew from the sewing machine and scattering its contents, hurtled several yards and landed at Freddie’s feet. So forceful is his attraction that an ornament separated itself from the parlor stove and whizzed by Freddie’s head.
A piece of soap, the last thing to be magnetized, one would suppose, threw itself at Freddie just after he washed his face and hands. A string of sausages precipitated itself at the boy and wound around his neck. No, the sausages did not bark affectionately: this simple narrative confines itself to facts.
The superstitious of Mount Horeb fear that Freddie is possessed of evil spirits. His grandparents, thinking the atmosphere of his home might have something to do with the phenomena, sent Freddie to a relative’s home three miles away. There he is as attractive as ever. Pretty much everything in the house has been nailed down. The greatest dread of Freddie’s friends is that a dime museum or circus side show will get the boy and use him to draw money out of the curious public’s pocket.
Evening Journal (Wilmington, Delaware), April 1st 1909.
Boy’s Uncanny Antics.
Dishes and knives fly and Bible flops over.
Marbles cut up capers.
Strange manifestations repeated wherever lad is removed to.
Scientists are interested.
Norwegians ascribe occult powers to little Jimmy Brophy.
Folklore recalled.
Superior, Wis., May 15. – The little village of Mount Horeb, Wis., of which few persons outside the state probably had heard until recently, has attained a distinct position on the map through the uncanny attributes accredited to an eleven-year-old boy. He is James Henry Brophy, grandson of Mr and Mrs Knut Lund of Mount Horeb, pioneer Norwegian settlers in the town of Springdale, where they had lived for fifty years until they moved to Mount Horeb a year ago.
The boy is known variously as “the wonderful child medium” and the “Mount Horeb child of mystery,” according to the narrator is a believer in or is skeptical of the cult of spiritualism. He is a mixture of Irish and Norwegian, his mother being Mrs Patrick L. Trainor of Madison by a former marriage. He is a pretty child, with fine hazel eyes and curly brown hair. His features are delicate, almost girlish, and his pale, oval face suggests a sensitive mentality. He would be noticed in a crowd because of a certain flowerlike beauty and shyness.
The Brophy boy has lived with his grandparents since he was two years old. When brought to them he was crippled, having been injured by being run over by a wagon. He recovered, however, and now attends the public schools, being normally mischievous and only a fair student.
The first uncanny happening occurred March 9, when, as the boy entered the kitchen of his home, a snowball came flying out of space, struck him in the middle of the back and knocked him flat on the floor. There is a wide open lot on that side of the house, and there was not a soul in sight outside. Precisely the same thing happened the following day when the boy came from school.
The next evening a series of events put the household in a panic. Cups flew from the table and broke; a lamp chimney was shattered, and the spool of thread on the sewing machine began to unreel rapidly of its own volition. The boy’s grandfather became distracted with terror. News of the strange events spread rapidly.
The next day there was a funeral in the village, which the boy’s mother attended, afterward spending the night at the home of her parents. That night things were particularly nimble, and some of the neighbours were sent for to compose grandfather Lund, who was on the verge of collapse. The Rev. Mr Mostrom, with Sam Thompson, another respected citizen, responded to the call, but as soon as Mr Mostrom entered the sitting room a Bible which was on the table flopped over twice and fell to the floor at his feet. “There,” exclaimed the old couple, “you see how it is.” The clergyman tried to explain matters rationally, and finally sat down at the organ to play a hymn. Meanwhile, Mr Thompson was sitting about three feet from the table, with the boy on his knee, when the boy suddenly exclaimed: “Look out!”
Instantly a big carving knife, which had been on the table, flew through the air and stuck in the floor in front of them. The boy could not have touched it, Mr Thompson says. The same phenomena occurred with a hatpin. Mr Thompson and the minister owned up afterward that they could not sleep for hours that night.
For several days such events continued to happen. People from the village and surrounding country began to flock to th ehouse, until one night, it is said, 200 visitors went through the rooms to see what would happen. There were no manifestations, however, when the crowd was there, though all could see the wreckage that had been wrought in the rooms, where pictures and china and glassware and flown from their anchorage and broken on the floor.
Some of the citizens finally declared that the house, which was equipped with electric lights and telephone, had become electrified, causing the disturbance. Accordingly, two well known citizens went to the house one night, and, despite the protests of the family, who feared to be left in darkness, had the electric wires disconnected. This failed to effect any reform, however. The boy, finally becoming suspected either of possessing unusual powers or marvelous sleight-of-hand abilities, was sent to the home of his uncle, Andrew Lund, in Springdale.
As soon as he entered his uncle’s house a pail of water in the kitchen went spinning over the floor, upsetting its contents. A spooky night followed. All sorts of household utensils apparently went on a spree, and this proved that the boy, wittingly or unwittingly, was responsible for the manifestations. “You had better take down that looking glass,” said the boy to his uncle soon after he arrived. His uncle laughed, but soon afterward the mirror fell with a crash.
As in Mount Horeb, country people came in droves to see the boy. A neighbouring boy, who came over to play marbles with Henry, was so terrified by the queer actions of the marbles that he ran home and told his mother about it. He said that when it became his turn to shoot he was utterly unable to guide the direction of the marbles, which would fly directly from his fingers into Henry’s pocket. Also, he said, when Henry shot, the marble would stop short when going swiftly and fly back to the shooter. Andrew Lund declared, too, that the boy would sit on a chair with a cigar box containing marbles in his lap and that the marbles would jump out of the box, without the boy touching them.
Finally it was decided to send the boy to a specialist for an opinion, and he was sent to Dr George Kingsbury of Madison, who observed him closely for several days. Since his return the boy has apparently been more normal or, at any rate, the family is reticent about what may have occurred. They dislike the notoriety and have practically closed their doors to callers.
The manifestations never appear when the boy is asleep. One well known clairvoyant says that when he saw the boy he was conscious himself of three spirits, two women and a man, hovering about the boy.
Such stories have recalled all manner of superstitions among the old Norwegian settlers and brought out the alleged fact that a grandfather of one of Mount Horeb’s oldest citizens asserted he had seen the last survivor of the hill folk, before that interesting people disappeared from Norway, sitting on a greensward playing on his fairy oboe. Memories of “Vise Knut” (Wise Knut), the hero of Bjornson’s story of that title, are also recalled.
The cas is attracting the attention of scientists and societies of psychic research from far and near, but the boy is becoming shy of visitors and frequently cries when they come.
Evening Star (Washington D.C.), May 16th, 1909.