The grave of Dr. Henry Slade

Henry Slade was not a magician, nor was he a real doctor. He was a Victorian era Spirit Medium who according to Mahatma Magazine "was the originator of spook slate writing." He was from the same area of the country that produced the Fox Sisters and the Davenport Brothers, also famous spirit mediums.

He was so popular that he traveled the world presenting his seances and spirit sittings. However, in London he was exposed as a fraud by Professor Ray Lankester and sentenced to several months in prison. However, upon appeals the case was dismissed and Dr. Slade returned to America.

He fought exposure his whole life from scientific investigators and magicians, but it wasn't until he was robbed and beaten one night in NY that his career came to a halt. He ended up partially paralyzed and struggled to continue his sittings. He was penniless and ended up in a Sanitorium in Detroit.

He died September 8, 1905 and is buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Albion Michigan. His grave is in Block 22, Lot 19.

Grave Richard Potter

We are all familiar with Harry Potter, the fictional boy wizard from England. Well here is something you’ll find amazing. The first magician to gain notoriety and wealth in America was also named Potter, however he was Richard Potter. And Richard Potter was a free black man from New England.

It's quite a story actually. He was from New Hampshire and born in 1783. History records him as a ventriloquist, but most of his feats are what we know today as magic. He apparently could also do hypnotism as well. He learned these things when he joined a circus early in life. One of the legends surrounding his magic was that he was once seen to climb through a log. The crowd that watched him do this assumed the log was hollow. But when they checked out the log for themselves they discovered it was completely solid! Another of the stories surrounding him was that he could take a ball of yarn, toss it high into the air where it would slowly unravel. Then Potter would climb up the yarn and into the clouds to vanish. This seems to be identical to the Indian Rope Trick, which history has shown is only mythical not something that was ever actually presented. The same could be said about Richard Potter’s version.