#52 Ancestors 2021 Week 11 Fortune: Great-Uncle Elijah and the Ouija Board

 Elijah Jefferson Bond, the fourth child of Judge William Bond and Charlotte Howard Richardson, was born in Bel Air, Harford County MD, 23 January 1846.  He attended public schools in Anne Arundel County MD and was a veteran of the Confederate Army, as were his brothers, Frank and Arthur Bond. (It is through Frank Bond and his daughter Harriet that I am related.)  He graduated from the University of Maryland Law School in 1872 and opened a law practice in Baltimore.  In 1874, he married Mary Peters and by 1876, they had a son William.  

This sober background might not seem like fertile ground for the invention of a divination tool that has fascinated folks for more than a hundred years, but there it is.  Great Uncle Elijah was the man who, in 1891, patented a "talking board" under the name of Ouija, "a magical device that could answer questions about the past, present and future with marvelous accuracy. " 

The Ouija Board grew out of  19th-Century-America's fascination with spiritualism or the belief that the dead can communicate with the living. The Civil War, with its thousands of deaths, only encouraged the phenomenon as bereaved families longed to connect with their loved ones. However, the methods used to make this connection were frustratingly slow.  Calling out the alphabet and waiting for a spirit to knock at the right letter, for example, took forever to get any message through.

In the late 1880's, spiritualist camps in Ohio started using a "talking board" with letters and a planchette that moved around the board to speed up the communication process. In 1890, Charles Kennard of Baltimore pulled together several businessmen, including Elijah and his friends William Maupin and  Washington Bowie, to form the Kennard Novelty Company to commercialize the previously homemade device and exclusively manufacture and sell the board.  None of the men were particularly drawn to spiritualism, but they did see a good business opportunity. 

However, it wasn't the "Ouija" yet.  

In some popular belief, the name came from the French and German words for "yes,"  "oui" and "ja," But, according to Ouija's historian, Robert Murch, it was the board itself that came up with the name, with the help of Elijah's sister-in-law, Helen Peters, who was judged to be a strong medium.  Sitting around the table with Helen, the Kennard company men asked the board what it wanted to be called.  "Ouija" came through.  Helen said it meant "Good Luck."

The next step was to get a patent on the device, which meant proving to the patent office that it actually worked. So, Elijah brought Helen with him to Washington to file for the patent.  The patent officer said he would grant the patent if the board correctly spelled out his name, which presumably was not known to Elijah or Helen. They all sat down and communed with the spirits and the planchette correctly spelled out the name.  The shaken patent officer granted them the patent on February 10, 1891 for a new "toy or game." Elijah also got the Canadian patent the following month. 

The Ouija was definitely a money-maker.  By 1892, Kennard had two factories in Baltimore, two in New York, two in Chicago and one in London.  By 1893, Elijah had sold his share in the company. Some companies tried to launch rival products, but none had the success and longevity of the Ouija Board. 

Elijah died in Baltimore in 1921, having generated several other patents for steam engines and the like, but none as interesting as his first one.

He was buried in an unmarked grave in Green Mount Cemetery.  And there he lay, unknown, until 2007. when Robert Murch, after much effort, discovered his resting place and was finally given permission to erect a memorial for Bond, by his great-nephew, Walter Dent (to whom I am also related.) Murch created a unique memorial with the traditional names and dates on one side and a replica of Bond's most famous patent on the other.