Joseph D. Stiles was born in 1828 to Joseph and Lucy Stiles in Concord, Massachusetts. He was the only son of six children and raised in the Universalist church. In 1850, his sister Harriet discovered she was a table-tipping medium. While other members of the family became mediums, Joseph worked in the printing business at a Universalist newspaper. In 1853, he quit his job as type setter and attended several circles in Boston to develop his abilities which had suddenly come upon him.
Initially, Joseph began by acting as a conduit for the spirit of John Quincy Adams for Josiah Brigham in June of 1854 through spirit writing. Brigham recognized Adams’ handwriting in the first letter, which was dated 9 July 1854. From then on, Stiles began to produce messages in notebooks from Adams. The messages ended in March 1857, and they produced a publication of all the messages entitled Twelve Messages.
Joseph moved to Weymouth, Massachusetts where he became a platform medium by falling into trances under the guidance of a Native American spirit named Swift Arrow. He filled halls in various New England towns with large audiences. He also attended camps, seances and conventions. In 1867 he spent several months in Vermont delivering messages by spirts named Hosea Ballou, Theodore Parker, and war heroes Colonel Elmer Ellsworth and General Nathaniel Lyon.
In a biographical sketch published 7 July 1886 in Facts the editor wrote, “Mr. Stiles is an inspirational speaker, never attempting to prepare his lectures, and being naturally unassuming and retiring in nature, and as he has expressed himself to us, always fearful lest some time he might not succeed, he dreads to appear as a lecturer; but we have listened to some purely inspirational lectures given by him which, in matter and diction, we have seldom heard equaled or excelled.”
At an 1884 conference at Lake Sunapee Spiritualist Camp, one hundred eighty-nine spirits identified themselves through Joseph in an hour and fifteen minutes. In Medium and Daybreak, 14 May 1886, J. J. Morse wrote, “Mr. Stiles is simply indescribable: names in full, Christian and sur, dates and incidents, localities and definite particulars, and long lists of family relationships, literally pour from him when entranced. On one occasion we heard him give 265 names, 263 of which, by actual count, were unhesitatingly identified.”
The editor of Spirit Voices, 9 September 1885, wrote: “Swift Arrow, through his medium, Joseph D. Stiles, has given about nine tests of spirit-presence.” At the National Development Circle, he gave 175 names of spirits that were recognized by the audience.
Joseph was a lifelong bachelor and died at his mother’s home in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1897 at the age of 68. His obituary in The Boston Globe wrote that he was “one of the most prominent Spiritualist test mediums and lecturers in the state….” For more information, J. B. Buescher published The Notebooks of Joseph D. Stiles in 2015, IAPSOP Ephemera, which is available on-line.