Lancaster Vice: Lancaster’s Hoodoo Doctor, the Crime of Fortune Telling

Meet Lancaster’s Notorious Past

This blog post comes courtesy of Alison Kibler at Lancaster Vice. Lancaster Vice tells the story of when Lancaster was infamous as a “wide open” city for prostitution, gambling, and drinking. Around 1900, police and other officials encouraged and even participated in vice. Step into that seedy past as you explore the city’s hidden history of sex, crime, and politics. In addition to a website, Lancaster Vice offers a podcast and a one-mile walking tour lasting 90 minutes.

Lancaster’s Hoodoo Doctor, the Crime of Fortune Telling

When the anti-vice investigators worked for one month in Lancaster in 1913, they focused on commercial sex, gambling, and drinking. But that wasn’t all. These agents also visited several fortune tellers in the city. State law banned fortune telling, because officials saw it was inherently fraudulent. The Pennsylvania law, initially passed in 1861, stated that it was a misdemeanor for any person to “pretend for gain..to predict future events by cards, tokens, the inspection of the head or hands of any person.” According to anti-vice reformers, fortune tellers were a problem not only because they were swindlers; they were also suspect because they were often involved in other areas of vice, such as commercial sex. Fortune tellers in Lancaster were usually part of the most marginalized groups; they were people of color and often women. Furthermore, observers claimed that these “charlatans” depended on a “large class of ignorant and superstitious people, including silly girls, who think it fun to have their fortunes told.” 

Minerva Mullen, the only woman on the team of four undercover investigators in 1913, visited two fortune tellers as part of her survey of vice in Lancaster. Both fortune tellers lived in Black neighborhoods; one was a white woman, the other was a Black man. Both were involved in other aspects of vice.

First, Mullen went to see a “bleached blonde” white woman, Mrs. Killinger, on 38 North Street, near the corner of S. Duke and North Street. Mullen noted that the neighborhood was “more colored [sic] than white.” This was in the seventh ward, the neighborhood with the highest concentration of Black Lancastrians (neighborhoods were shaped by practices of segregation). Mullen described Mrs. Killinger as “dissipated looking…[smelling] strongly of liquor.” She told Mullen that her husband had been drinking hard for five weeks, bringing colored [sic] women into the house and being intimate with them.” His behavior, she said, was interfering with her regular customers. Then she turned her attention to Minerva Mullen’s future. 

Minerva Mullen recalled the interaction in her notes: 

She then told me the following– I would have trouble with my husband. He was going with other women. She could stop all that by working on him for a small sum… “But I am a widow, how can my husband be with other women and dead,” I said. “Oh but you are married, you cannot fool me, your hands show housework the cards show you cooking and washing and sweeping around your home,” she answered. She became very insulting when I told her that was not true and left.

In fact, the fortune teller’s tale was closer to the truth than Minerva Mullen’s. Mullen’s husband, James, was alive and well, living in Brooklyn, New York, with their five children, aged 4 to 20. Her hands probably did show signs of household labor, which she escaped when she joined the investigators in Lancaster. Perhaps the oldest daughter took care of household responsibilities while Mullen was away.

Next, Mullen visited Thomas E. Wilson, a Black fortune teller on West Grant Street (he lived at 230 and 238). In 1901, Wilson and his daughter Louisa Francis had been charged with running a disorderly house. This was an umbrella category that included drinking, loud partying, and/or commercial sex. They were acquitted in this case, but nine years later, again faced charges of running a disorderly house and fortune telling. Wilson was known as Lancaster’s “Hoodoo Doctor.” Hoodoo spirituality grew out of the mixture of central and western African traditions among enslaved Africans in the United States; it involved conjuring spirits and creating herbal remedies, among other practices. The chambermaid at the Wheatland Hotel, where Mullen was staying, explained her faith in Wilson:

I forgot to tell you of WILSON. He has been working for me for a year now. He tells wonderful. He can put spells on people – they can’t work, make them sick.

Mullen described her ominous meeting with Wilson, the Hoodoo Doctor: 

He looked at me steadily for a time, then said, ”You make me chilly and uneasy. I can’t tell but somehow you smell like death and ruin to me. I am afraid I can’t tell you everything you want to know, you are deep. You will leave here in four days, but I will know when you go. You will travel near 500 miles but I will follow you.”

Mullen did leave Lancaster soon after this meeting, but in eighteen days, not four. And she would travel a substantial distance—165 miles to her home in Brooklyn, not 500 miles. The Hoodoo Doctor was on the right track, but his particulars were incorrect. Mullen’s notes do not suggest any cracks in her skepticism about fortune-tellers, even when they came close to the truth. Others, however, clearly relied on fortune-tellers to help them reconcile with or punish cheating husbands, to solve crimes, or reassure them about their precarious futures. Click here to read the original post at LancasterVice.com

Upcoming Event – Lancaster Vice Happy Hour at Our Town Brewery

Did you know Lancaster was once known as a “wide-open” city for vice? Enjoy food and drink while Alison Kibler shares captivating stories about Lancaster’s hidden history of prostitution, drinking, and gambling on Thursday, January 9th, at 5 PM at Our Town Brewery. Hear never-before-shared tales from the secret vice files of 1913. Reservations are required. Email hello@ourtownbrewery.com to reserve your spot (no charge).

Don’t miss this unique glimpse into Lancaster’s shadowy past!

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Lancaster Vice Walking Tour

Take a 90-minute walking tour through Lancaster’s hidden history of sex, crime, and power in the 1900s with Lancaster Vice. Click here to learn more about their tours.

About the Author

Alison Kibler has been teaching at Franklin & Marshall College for over twenty years and has written widely on the history of commercial entertainment in the United States around 1900. She has also written about the civil rights campaigns to integrate swimming pools in Lancaster and York, Pennsylvania. She started the Lancaster Vice project several years ago, with students from F&M, using the files related to the anti-vice investigations (in 1913 and 1916) held at LancasterHistory.

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