Natty, a Spirit: His Portrait and his Life

A spiritualist author's account of the spirit of a boy who died in infancy.

Natty, one Nathaniel Young, died within a few weeks of his birth in the fall of 1815, but according to the author persisted as a spirit. Putnam begins with a description of a newly executed painting (which he apparently owned) by one Charles L. Fenton of Boston, picturing Natty's spirit, advanced in age by a few years, accompanied by a black dog named Leo. The portrait, Putnam maintains, was in fact dictated to Fenton by Natty. Included is a statement by the artist on the spiritual origin of the painting. (C. L. Fenton is listed in Davenport as a portrait painter active in New Hampshire, but must have worked in Boston as well.) Part I of this work chronicles how Natty came to select the artist and chose the form of the painting (he wanted the dog included) and narrates various instances of Natty communicating with Spiritualist mediums.

Part II begins: "Ours is a strange work,-the biography of a spirit! Who can write it? What more can it be than moonshine? Perhaps it will be no more, perhaps it will be even less, than moonshine." Included are "First and Second Interviews" with Natty; a "digression" involving Natty, an old "Chinaman," and a band of Native Americans; "Natty's Prattlings" ("some of the sayings of our little companion have been penciled down"); Natty's "Doings and Sayings"; the testimony of one Pat Maguire who "thanks Natty...for help to rise out of purgatory," etc.

Rev. Allen Putnam (1802-1887) was a former Unitarian minister, merchant, and editor of the New England Farmer. In Modern American Spiritualism (1870), Emma Hardinge notes that Putnam "published several excellent pamphlets, some of which were narratives of his exhaustive investigations, others, arguments for the use and divine order manifest in spiritual revelations. One of the works from this valuable source was a little brochure, entitled 'Natty, a Spirit,' in which the author relates his intercourse with a wonderful spirit child." Hardinge also notes that the painting was "still in the possession of Mr. Putnam, of Roxbury, represent[ing] the youthful spirit as he always appeared to mediums, namely, a curly-headed child of about four years old, with a sweet, wise face, redolent of thought and intellect far in advance of his juvenile form." Natty, a Spirit "was the subject of much comment, considerable interest, and the usual amount of ribald insolence directed by the press against the 'senile credulity of Mr. Putman.'" Other works by Putnam include Spirit Works, Real But Not Miraculous: A Lecture Read at the City Hall in Roxbury, Mass. on the Evening of September 21st, 1853 (1853); Mesmerism, Spiritualism, Witchcraft, and Miracle: a brief treatise showing that mesmerism is a key which will unlock many chambers of mystery (1858); Flashes of Light from the Spirit-Land Through the Mediumship of Mr J. H. Conant (1872); Witchcraft of New England: explained by modern spiritualism (1881); Post-mortem Confessions: being letters written through a mortal's hand by spirits who, when in mortal, were officers of Harvard College (1886).

REFERENCES: Hardinge, Emma. Modern American Spiritualism. Third edition (New York: Published by the author, 1870), pp. 166-167.