“Aunt” Louisa Browning

The following letters came into my [Editor, Journal of A.S.P.R.] possession as I shall describe. The letter to Capt. Ericsson, the inventor of the [U.S.S.] Monitor, was sent to the editor of The Open Court and by him to Mr. David P. Abbott, the author of “Behind the Scenes with the Mediums.” He in turn gave it to me with the letter that accompanied it. Inquiry of the writer, who is connected with the “Army and Navy Journal,” shows that he found the original letter to Capt. Ericsson when writing his biography and happened to preserve it. The incident explains itself and represents a record made very close to the time of the events which it mentions. The letter may be interpreted as documentary evidence. The sender states that he knows nothing of the letter except that he found it in the material turned over to him for the biography. The paper is yellow with age, its edges black, has a stamp on it representing a hand holding a sword and mottoed with “Fortune de guerre,” and dated in England, as it shows. It represents a vision of the dying. — [Editor].

Egmont, Bracknell, Berks, Nov. 5th, 1883

Dear Capt. Ericsson:

Since last I wrote to you a few weeks ago, another page in my life’s history has turned over, and we are one beloved relative and friend less, in the death of our fond Aunt Louisa Browning, who departed this life early on Sunday morning the 28th of October. On the previous Friday she had a bad fall in her bedroom and was found by her servant on the ground and in the greatest suffering and she never rallied, and peacefully expired at the age of 78. On her death-bed she appeared to see her deeply loved sister who had gone before, and who probably was the angel to welcome her into brighter regions; for those watching by her heard her say, tho she had before been quite unconscious, “Oh Amelia! Amelia!” and reached out her hand to welcome some one their earthly eyes were not permitted to see, and then all was over. She was quite prepared to go, and I really think it a happy release; for recently she has, as I before told you, been so weak and helpless, in fact a perfect skeleton from diabetes from which she has suffered for many years.

Yours very sincerely,
(ELLEN CHUTE)

I omit incidents in the letter that have a personal character and have no bearing on the incident for which the letter has a scientific value. In regard to the persons involved in the letter the author of Capt. Ericsson’s biography writes an explanation when sending the letter to the editor of the Open Court.

New York, Aug. 17, 1908

Editor of the Open Court, Chicago, Ill.

Dear Sir:—Perhaps the enclosed letter may interest you. It is a letter addressed to the late Capt. John Ericsson, the inventor of the Monitor, by Lady Ellen Chute, a relative of his wife, and concerns the death of Ericsson’s sister-in-law. The “Amelia” referred to in the letter was the wife of Capt. Ericsson, who had died some years before the date of the letter and “Aunt Louisa Browning” whose death is reported was the sister of Amelia, Mrs. Ericsson.

Very truly yours,
(WM. CONANT CHURCH)

P.S. Lady Chute was the wife of General Sir Trevor Chute of the British Service, K. C. B., and one of the Chutes of “Chute Hall,” England. Mrs. John Ericsson died July, 1867.

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Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, (New York: Volume 3, 1909), p. 422-423.