The following manuscript is copied from a rather poorly typed (old style typewriter) paper in the possession of Alfred D. Hoadley. The author is unknown, but it conceivably could have been written by Carrie B. Kilgore, his wife). The manuscript stops in mid sentence.
On the Death of Damon Y. Kilgore Passed into spirit life from his home in Philadelphia, on April 25 th 1888, Damon Y. Kilgore Esq. in the sixty-first year of his age. The funeral services were attended by J. Clegg Wright, the well known Spiritual lecturer, upon the first of May, on which day his body was cremated in pursuance of his wishes as expressed in his will; Mr. Kilgore believing cremation the most scientific method of disposing of the body after death. On Sunday evening June 28 in the Spiritual Hall in Philadelphia, Mr. Wright held a Memorial Service giving an analysis of the character and labors of Mr. Kilgore on earth and forecasting what would be his labor in Spirit Life.
Damon Y. Kilgore was a native of New Hampshire, born on October 17 th 1827 in Bartlett at the foot of Kearsage Mountain, with full view of Mount Washington. He subsequently resided in Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
He was a natural reformer -- an educator. In early life, he was engaged in teaching as a means of defraying his expenses at institutions of learning of higher grade than any within the immediate vicinity of his childhood home. Four years of his early manhood was spent in what he believed to be the truth from the Methodist pulpit into which he carried the earnest of purpose born of conviction and always the parent of success, preaching ninety nights in succession without reward other than the happiness derived from the conversion of the sinner and infidel to what he believed to be the truth. As a minister he justly earned the reputation of being an honest consistent preacher whose talent and magnetic eloquence would be sure to be rewarded by the highest honors of the church. He early espoused the cause of the slave and was the first evangelical minister who invited William Loyd Garrison into his pulpit to educate the people in freedom. About the same tine he extended a similar invitation to Lucy Stone as champion of the rights of woman saying that woman has as good a right to preach as man. This occurred in 1852 and of course excited much comment and some unpleasant criticism from both church and laity. As a minister he was zealous in effort to raise the standard Christian morality and life among his people, and by his excessive labors soon developed bronchitis to such an extent that he was compelled to change climate and cease habitual public speaking. He went to Madison, Wisconsin and there engaged in educational work as a teacher; and when Madison was incorporated as a city he drafted its public school law, organized its public schools, at the same time doing duty as principal of the High School and a Member of the Board of Education. At that time, 1856, he introduced into those schools what is recognized today as the advanced methods of government and instruction. Taking care that even the conscience of a child was respected, he secured the general attendance of the children of Catholic parents taking the ground that they had a right to be taught science in the public schools without being compelled to read or listen to the reading of the Protestant Bible. He subsequently occupied the position of President of the Evansville Seminary and Normal School at Evansville, Wisconsin. Gradually outgrowing the dogmas of the church, his veneration for the truth compelled him to take a firm stand against Christianity as a system of religion and to withdraw from the Church although implored by those high in the church to stifle his convictions and continue membership.
About the time of the Civil War he became convinced of the truth of Spiritualism through the mediumship of a little child, and through mediumship of one of his pupils obtained valuable information for the Government as to the existence of the Knight of the Golden Circle their secret organization plotting against the life of the government, its Chief Executive head and several of the Governors of the Northern States, which he individually communicated to Abraham Lincoln who by investigation, verified his statements and thwarted their schemes. He served in the war as Quartermaster and won the proud distinction from Abraham Lincoln of being an "honest Quartermaster", finding time to establish the first school for colored people in Alabama.
After the close of the civil war he settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, studied law and became a distinguished member of the Philadelphia Bar. His first case, a case of murder in the first degree brought him prominently before the public as a spirituralist, it involving the facts of spirit control, in which he introduced for the first time in history of law, animal magnetism as defence in Court of Justice, and strange to say, his last important speech made in Court twenty years afterward involved the same facts of spirit control.
As a lawyer he was active council in important cases in Georgia, Kansas, New Jersey as also in Pennsylvania. He always espoused the cause of the poor and the unpopular cause if he believed it to be the truth whatever of reputation or loss of money, business or position it might cost him. For many years he was an earnest worker in the labor cause, counseling the labor men to accomplish by education and the ballot the great reform needed. Women he never flattered but to her he was a true friend advocating her political, industrial and social rights, for fifteen years he labored incessantly with his wife, Carrie B, Kilgore, to whom he was married in '76 for the recognition of Women's right to practice law in Pennsylvania educating the Public and the Courts out of its long time conservatism and prejudice by active work in the Legislature, the Courts and the Public Press. He lived to see Mrs. Kilgore admitted to practice in all state courts from the lowest to the highest and in the United States Courts of this district which he regarded as the crowning work of his life. He was at the birth of the Republican Party, a intimate friend of Charles Sumner and Wilson, frequently speaking upon the same platform with the latter. To him more than to any other person excepting perhaps Francis E. Abbot of Boston, was due the possibility of the Centennial Congress of Liberals held in Philadelphia in July of 1876.
Commissioned in his early practice to do Equity he never lost an opportunity of educating the Courts in the higher truths, imploring them to use their vast power to make precedents in favor of Justice and Equity. Too true to principle to engage in speculation and benevolent to a fault, to his credit be it said he never amassed wealth, but died poor in this world's goods, but possessed of an integrity of character which no man dared to assail. A great grand majestic soul venerating not men nor creeds but nature in all her integrity and subtlety, possessing an unusual power of original independent thought and a rare magnetic eloquence, irresistible in its effect upon his hearers, we could not feel that his work on earth was done, but that some mistake had been made in that consoling fate to which we all must submit however unwillingly. If spirit prophecies are true, he will yet continue in the great work of education and reform from his home in spirit life, and many will be convinced by his labors of the truth of spirit control.
He leaves four sons by his first wife, one of whom is county judge in Nebraska. He leaves a wife and two young daughters (Carrie Burnham Kilgore and Fannie Buenham Kilgore) to whom he was intensely devoted and in his home he was genial soul from whom radiated brightness; but from it has gone out its supreme light. The terrible dearth is only measured by the intense devotion and companionship, the only consolation is the possibility of spirit communion, and in the character left as a