EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society focusing on our region’s history.

Anna Eva Fay was one of the most successful mediums and stage mentalists of the 20th century.

She was a headline act who had the ability to make people believe she could tap into the spirit world and make contact with their dead. She also convinced people that she could see into their minds and read their thoughts.

Fay was a celebrity of her time who went by the names of “The High Priestess of Mysticism” and “The Indescribable Phenomenon.”

She was born Ann Eliza Heathnan in Southington, on Feb. 3, 1851, three years after the Fox sisters started the spiritualist movement. She was the daughter of a shoemaker and had two sisters. When her mother died, she was fostered to a spiritualist family as a servant and lived in their barn.

As a child, Fay was told she was a medium for spirits and was encouraged to pursue this path, giving her first demonstration in an old schoolhouse. When her father remarried, she changed her name to Anna Eva and held her first seance in 1869, earning 10 cents.

This was the start of her new career. The manifestations she offered to her audiences were unique and captivating. Her head was seen floating above the top edge of the curtain; nails and a board were put into her mystery cabinet and moments later the nails were found pounded into the board; paper and a pair of scissors were put into the cabinet and when it was opened, the paper was cut into a string of dolls; musical instruments and other items flew about; and one of her most convincing acts was an accordion playing after she had been tied up and restrained.

In the 1870s, an American stage mentalist, Washington Irving Bishop, became Fay’s manager and assistant for her performances. Unfortunately for Fay, Bishop was not to be trusted and was the source of an exposure article that appeared in the New York Daily Graphic in 1876. He then left her show and went off on his own. Fay was exposed often as a fraudulent medium. She was known for employing assistants who found information about her seance attendees in the towns she visited. But these exposures did little to damage her reputation or her popularity.

In February of 1875 in London, William Crookes — one of the most respected scientists of the time — held a series of experiments to prove Fay was a fraud. Her skills were so convincing that she managed to fool him into believing she had psychic powers.

In the experiment, Crookes had Fay hold two electrodes in an electrical circuit connected with a galvanometer in an adjoining room. While being monitored, objects moved about and a musical instrument was played. Crookes was convinced that the electrical control had not been broken, proving a lack of trickery and naming Fay as the real deal.

Though, years later, Fay confided in her friend Harry Houdini that she had tricked Crookes during this experiment. She had moved one of the electrodes from her hand to the crook of her knee, allowing her to perform her tricks.

Over the years the spirit manifestations began to lose appeal and dwindled with the popularity of spiritualism. Fay replaced these acts with demonstrations of mentalism and mind reading. Her popularity only increased from there, making her one of the most famous and successful stage mentalists of her time.

Moell is curator of collections and research at the Trumbull County Historical Society.