Mary Reynolds

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Husband

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           Born: 
     Christened: 
           Died: 
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Wife Mary Reynolds ^{1 2 3}

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           Born: 18 Sep 1785 - England 2 3
     Christened: 
           Died: 3 Jan 1854 2 3
         Buried: 

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         Father: William Reynolds (1752-1820) 3 4 5 6
         Mother: Lydia Thomas (      -1826) 5

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Children

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General Notes: Wife - Mary Reynolds

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On the 21st of June, 1816, Rev. Timothy Alden wrote to Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell of New York, describing a remarkable case of double consciousness possessed by Miss Mary Reynolds. This letter was published in full in the Alle­gheny Magazine, from which it was copied by Sherman Day when compiling his “Historical Collections” in 1843. The beginning of this phenomenon was a spell of sickness in 1811. Upon recovery she failed to recognize her father, mother, brothers, sisters or neighbors, and even did not know her own name. Her mind had returned to the blank vacuity of infancy, and she was obliged to recommence her learning with her alphabet, and to be introduced to her family and friends with whom she had long been familiar. She was apparently possessed of a twofold state of consciousness; entirely unconscious in her second state of what she had known and learned in her primary one, and when relapsing into her first state, equally forgetful of what had occurred in her second state. After learning from her friends the circumstances of these changes in her mental faculties, she always suffered acutely on finding the change approaching, a presentiment of which she usually had several days before it came, fearing that she would never again know those whom she loved, not even realizing that she had learned to know them equally well in both conditions. “These astonishing transi­tions,” says Dr. Alden, “scores of times repeated, always take place in her sleep.” The final change to her second state occurred in 1829, and from that time until her death, she was perfectly oblivious of everything she had learned or known in her original state. She was for some time a teacher in one of the primary schools of Meadville, and was a lady of sprightly disposition, and poetic turn of mind. [HCC 1885, 381]

1 J. H. Newton, History of Venango County, Pennsylvania (Columbus, OH: J. A. Caldwell Publishers, 1879), Pg 564.

2 —, The History of Crawford County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: Warner Beers & Co., 1885), Pg 381.

3 John W. Jordan, LL.D., Genealogical and Personal History of Western Pennsylvania (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1915), Pg 1223.

4 J. H. Newton, History of Venango County, Pennsylvania (Columbus, OH: J. A. Caldwell Publishers, 1879), Pg 564, 566.

5 —, The History of Crawford County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: Warner Beers & Co., 1885), Pg 760.

6 —, History of Venango County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: Brown, Runk, & Co., Publishers, 1890), Pg 587.