Nettie colburn maynard biography

Nettie Colburn was a young medium who conducted séances for Mary Todd Lincoln.
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Curious revelations from the life of a trance medium.

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Colburn, Nettie

Colburn, Nettie (Mrs. William Porter Maynard) (d. 1892)

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

Nettie Colburn Maynard was an American inspirational speaker held in high esteem by Abraham Lincoln. As a teenage girl in the winter of 1862, she visited Washington to see her brother in the Federal Army hospital. While in the capital, she went to a séance that was also attended by Lincoln. During the séance, she went into spontaneous trance and lectured the President on the necessity for emancipation. She spoke to him for almost an hour. When she came out of her trance she was frightened and embarrassed to see to whom she had been speaking. Lincoln placed his hand on her head and said, “My child, you possess a very singular gift, but that it is of God I have no doubt. I thank you for coming here tonight. It is more important than perhaps anyone present can understand.” The same thing happened two days later, when both Nettie Colburn and Lincoln and his wife were at another séance. Once again the young girl went into a spontaneous

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Things That Go BUMP in the Parlor: Spiritualism, Lincoln, and a Happy Hallowe’en

The tall, thin man with the sad face folded himself into an uncomfortable Italianate armchair in the Red Room of the Executive Mansion. “So this is our ‘little Nettie’ is it, that we have heard so much about? Well, how do you do it?” At this point, twenty-one-year-old Nettie Colburn claimed that she lost all consciousness of her surroundings and passed under control of a spirit guide.

Meeting President Lincoln must have been unnerving for young Nettie, but apparently, her spirit guide did not care and proceeded to give the President advice about the Emancipation Proclamation on that cold December night in 1862. In fact, Nettie’s spirit guides gave information and advice to both Mrs. Lincoln and her husband several times during the years she resided in Washington during the Civil War. Mrs. Lincoln was often identified as believing in Spiritualism, seeking contact with her deceased sons and family. Mr. Lincoln mostly ignored attempts to place him within any sort

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Mary’s Charlatans: Nettie Colburn (1841-1892)

Nettie Colburn was a young medium who conducted séances for Mary Todd Lincoln. President Lincoln allegedly attended on at least one occasion. Nettie claimed she was then controlled by a spirit named “old Dr. Bamford.” Even longtime Lincoln friend Joshua Speech recommended Colburn and another medium to Lincoln: “It will I am sure be some relief from the tedious round of office seekers to see two such agreeable ladies.”¹

Mrs. Lincoln first encountered Colburn at the home of Cranstoun Laurie, an top official in the Post Office. As Nettie Coburn later recalled her meeting, she went with Laurie to his home after failing in attempts to obtain an army furlough for her sick brother:

On my arrival I was astonished to be presented first to Mrs. Lincoln, the wife of President Lincoln, then to Mr. Isaac Newton, misidentified as Secretary of the Interior Department, and the Rev. John Pierpont, at that time one of the chief clerks in the Treasury building. The Hon. D. E. Somes former congressman from Maine was also present.