The history of Freemasonry in the United States would have been uneventful and, for the most part, marked by harmonious development extending over a long period of years had it not been for something which transpired in Batavia, N. Y., in 1826 - almost one hundred years ago.

There lived in this city at that time, a man of dissolute habits and questionable character, by the name of William Morgan. Morgan was born in Culpepper County, Virginia, in 1775 or 1776. In 1819 he was married to a girl sixteen years of age, and two years later moved to Canada and became a distiller. Fire destroyed his brewery and reduced him to poverty, after which he moved to Batavia, New Although he met occasionally with the lodge at Batavia, no one knows when or where he was made a Mason. In 1825 a petition for the formation of a Royal Arch Chapter was in circulation, and Morgan signed it. Because of his careless habits, objection was made to his becoming a member and a new petition was prepared and Morgan's name omitted. When he learned of this, he became highly offended and at once turned against the fraternity.

At this time, David C. Miller, who was said to have received the Entered Apprentice Degree in Albany, N. Y., and had been stopped by objection, was publishing the local newspaper. Learning of Morgan's defection, he joined with him in a campaign against Freemasonry and the two rogues proposed to publish an expose of the fraternity in Miller's paper, which they expected would yield them substantial revenue. At first the Masons of Batavia paid no attention to the affair, but when it became apparent that Morgan and Miller proposed to carry out their intentions, a crowd of about forty persons assembled in front of Miller's place of business and threatened to destroy it. Nothing, however, was accomplished, but shortly after, an attempt was made to burn the place. The Masons were immediately charged with arson, notwithstanding they offered a reward of one hundred dollars for the apprehension of the incendiary. There has always been a suspicion that the place was fired by Miller himself although the guilt was never fixed. Soon after, Morgan disappeared, and was never again heard of. Naturally the Masonic fraternity was charged with having resorted to foul means to remove him from this life.

The disappearance of William Morgan created a great furore and in due time knowledge of the circumstances was carried to all sections of the United States. The fraternity came in for severe condemnation with the result that the Morgan incident was made the basis of a bitter campaign against the fraternity which later developed into the Anti-Masonic excitement which will be discussed in a following chapter.

In 1881, there appeared in the Chicago Tribune, an article written by Thurlow Weed, which purported to be a correct story of the abduction of William Morgan. There were so many errors in the story either due to the lapse of time or the faulty recollection of Mr. Weed, that it provoked James Aigin of Delaware, Ohio, to submit the following account of the Morgan incident.

The statements enunciated by Aigin are probably an authentic recital of the Morgan incident and may he accepted as substantially true. His story is as follows: "Your correspondent is now eighty years of age, and since 1849 has been an active member of Hiram Lodge No. 18, F. and A. M., at this place, Delaware, Ohio, and for many years a Royal Arch Mason. He was born in Buffalo, New York, and when twenty-four years of age went to Andover, Massachusetts, and other places, and in 1827 returned to Canandaigua, New York; which was just after Cheesboro and Lawson were imprisoned, under sentences for aiding in the abduction of Morgan. Cheesboro and Sawyer were sent to prison for one year each, and Lawson for six months. The writer soon went to Rochester, and lived there and at Pittsford, seven miles from Rochester, from 1827 to 1832. The latter place was the home of Weed, and was forty miles from Batavia where Morgan lived. At Delaware, Ohio; the writer became intimately acquainted with Dutton, who was a Master Mason, and who had lived at Batavia, New York, and was a member of the Masonic Lodge there at the time of Miller's first publication of Morgan's so-termed expose of Masonry. Dutton died and was buried here by the Fraternity about twenty-six years ago; the writer helped to nurse him in his last illness, and often talked with him about the Morgan affair, and Dutton gave minute account of the action of the lodge at Batavia and of the feelings and purposes of the Masons there. Thurlow Weed was the leader of the anti-Masonic party. Your correspondent was, in those days, actively interested in politics; was a strong anti-Jackson man; read Weed's paper; worked with his party and voted for William Wirt for President; Amos Elmaker for Vice President, and Frank Granger for Governor of New York; belonged to Weed or anti-Masonic clubs, and was with party leaders a great deal and knew much of their plans and operations. He remembers well the excitement and capital intended to be made for the Weed party by the sensational burial of one Monroe, who was drowned in Lake Ontario, and whose body was claimed by the Weed party to be that of William Morgan, while none knew better than those particularly engaged in that matter that it was not the body of William Morgan. The writer, with the party generally, knew, very soon after the burial, that it was Monroe's body, yet the papers continued to publish it and no one did more to create and increase the excitement over Monroe's body than Weed him self. The writer was intimately acquainted with Cheesboro's foreman, and often talked with him about the parties implicated in, and facts connected with, the abduction of Morgan.

Now, that after so many years have passed, followed by such a statement as that of Thurlow Weed so recently published, and probably relied upon by the readers, absurd as the writer thinks, of an infamous assassination as growing out of the abduction, the writer has deemed it proper to issue this communication, not for the purpose of defending in any way Morgan's abduction, nor of defending Masonry from any charges growing out of the errors or wrongs of a few of her zealous followers. Masonry does not need any defense and the writer long ago and soon after the political excitement of that period passed away, learned to look back with feelings of disgust and contempt upon the anti-Masonic excitement under Weed's leadership and the means by which, and the purposes for which it was created and fostered; his object is to give a statement of the facts, many of which he knew and all of which he heard immediately after they occurred, from those who knew. It is true, as stated, that William Morgan was a drunken, worthless stone mason, living at Batavia, and had lost all respect for himself and the respect and confidence of every one; was ready and willing to do any thing to keep up his whisky rations. Miller, the editor of a paper there, well knowing this and on the lookout for something sensational to publish, proposed to Morgan to get up an expose of Masonry, all for a consideration, and to which Morgan agreed. Such being the case, Morgan at the lowest ebb as to character, in fact, a drunken sot, and Miller anxious, it is not at all probable that Morgan would go forty miles to Rochester to make such an offer to Weed as is mentioned in his communication. The Masons did take action to get Morgan away from Miller's influence, and by some means got him to Canandaigua, where he was arrested for stealing a shirt, put in jail, and kept there part of a day and possibly a night. Three men drove to the jail in a carriage, persuaded the jailer's wife, her husband being absent, to let Morgan come out to the carriage and talk with there ; he did so, talked a few minutes, stepped into the carriage and they drove away. What was said to Morgan to induce him to get into the carriage and go with them, the writer don't know, but he does know that it was quietly done - no excitement about it - no force and no disturbance. Morgan was taken from Canandaigua to Leckpert, Niagara County, and lodged in jail there. Bruce was the sheriff and jailer, and a Mason. The writer knows that there was no intention whatever of doing any injury to Morgan, but the arrangement was to get him away and into Canada, and with that design Morgan was taken, with the consent and aid of Bruce, from Lockpert to Lewiston, it being understood that Brant, an Indian Chief and Mason, and whom the writer has frequently seen, was to receive Morgan and send him among the Indians. It is said Brant backed out and would not receive him; this disconcerted those having the matter in charge; they then took Morgan down to Fort Niagara and left him in charge of Colonel King, who put him in the Magazine. From there he was taken by three men who took him in a boat and started, professedly, for the Canada shore; the three men came back without Morgan and said they had left him in Canada. Morgan was not heard of afterward and without doubt, was left in the lake by those men.

The writer did not hear anything of the supper, installation, Chaplain's toast, or the boat leaving with six men and returning with five, nor of Whitney's confession. He would have heard of them had there been any such thing; they are simply fictions founded on the facts above given. As to the men engaged : Bruce was sent to the State Prison for two years, studied medicine while there and intended to practice, but died soon after his discharge. Colonel King was for sometime sutler at Fort Leavenworth; was brought back but taken sick and died before the time set for trial. The men who drove from the jail with Morgan were Cheesboro, Colonel Sawyer, and Lawson. Neither Gillis nor James Whitney were with them. Cheesboro was a hatter, a man of influence and wealthy for those days; Colonel Sawyer was an influential man, a saddler and in independent circumstances. Lawson was a poor man - honest and industrious - a blacksmith by trade. They were sentenced as above stated; there was no excited feeling against them; after sentence they went out without an officer, made such arrangements as they wished and when ready walked into the jail. They had three rooms carpeted and were comfortably fixed. Their families were with them much of the time, and their wives often remained with their husbands. Lawson shared the comforts and luxuries of the others. Cheesboro had one room fitted up for cutting fur, taught Lawson to bow fur and paid him a dollar a day, thus enabling him to support his family while in jail. These men, with Bruce, were the only ones found guilty in the Morgan affair. General Whitney, who afterwards kept the Cataract Hotel at the Falls, was implicated, anti he is the only Whitney whose name was connected with the affair; although others were implicated and suspected. There are many who remember how the Morgan excitement arose, raged anti subsided; it failed in its purpose politically and that was its main purpose. AntiMasonically, the temporary success resulted in complete and mortifying failure. It is not surprising that those who were the leading spirits of the Anti-Masonic party of that day would like to bridge the chasm."

The reference in Aigin's article to the body of Timothy Monroe furnished the basis for one of the most clever hoaxes ever perpetrated. Nearly thirteen months after the disappearance of William Morgan, a dead body floated ashore at the mouth of Oat: Orchid Creek, forty miles east of Port Niagara, the place where Morgan was supposed to have been drowned. At an inquest which was held the coroner's jury brought in a verdict declaring it to be a person unknown who had perished by drowning. The body being in a high state of decomposition was promptly buried. The report of the recovery of this hotly was soon seized upon by leaders of the Anti-Masonic party and six days after the first inquest, the body \vas disinterred and a second inquest held. Mrs. Morgan and others were very dubious as to the identity of the body, but were twilling to pronounce it that of Morgan. This was extremely pleasing to the Anti-Masons, and notwithstanding the putrid condition of the corpse, a procession was formed and it was taken to Batavia and buried in a corner of the cemetery. Notwithstanding the result of the second inquest, there was nothing in the clothes, form size, or appearance of the both to identify it with that of Horgan.

Morgan had double teeth around both jaws; the corpse had not. Morgan was bald on top of the head, as the chiseler has made his statue, but the corpse was furnished with a full head of hair. Morgan had shaved high up to the roots of his hair; but the corpse had ample whiskers. Morgan was five feet six inches high; the corpse was nearly six feet. Morgan had a scar on the great toe of his left foot produced by freezing; the corpse had not.

At a third inquest held a few weeks later, a Mrs. Monroe came from Canada to see if this was not the body of her husband drowned a few weeks previously and so accurately did she describe the patches and darns on his clothing as well as the contents of his pockets and his personal appearance, that a jury of twenty-four Batavia men, only three of whom were Masons, positively identified the body to be that of Timothy Monroe. But the Anti-Masons in their ignorant fanaticism were unwilling to acknowledge the truth and insisted that the body buried in the cemetery of Batavia was that of William Morgan and in 1882, when the American party, as an association of anti-Masons styled themselves, opened one of their sessions in Batavia, there was unveiled over the last resting place of Timothy Monroe an imposing monument to the memory of William Morgan. The inscriptions upon the shaft are interesting and read as follows:

North side: Sacred to the memory of William Morgan, a native of Virginia, a captain in the war of 1812, a respectable citizen of Batavia, and a martyr to the freedom of writing, printing, and speaking the truth. He was abducted from this spot in the year 1829, by Freemasons, and murdered for revealing the secrets of the Order.

West side: The bane of our civil institutions is to be found in Masonry, already powerful, and daily becoming more so . . . I owe to my country an exposure of its dangers.

South side: The Court Records of Genesee County and files of the Batavia Advocate, kept in the Recorder's Office, contain the history of the events that caused the erection of this monument.

East side : Erected by volunteer contributions from over two thousand persons residing in Canada, and twenty-six of the United States and Territories.

As to the final disposition of William Morgan, John W. Brown, for many years editor of the Voice of Masonry, gave the subject most careful investigation and declares that the statements of James Aigin are substantially correct except as to Morgan having been left in the lake. From such facts as Brown was able to gather, the conclusion reached was that William Morgan had become a resident of Smyrna, and a Turk. One of the witnesses, in view of the fact that no evidence had ever been adduced to contradict the affirmation of those who saw Morgan there, declared that "the question of the Morgan mystery must be considered as definitely settled, the only conclusion being that Morgan either went of his own accord, or was in some manner transported to Asia Minor, became a Turk, and doubtless died a natural death."

Governor Clinton, himself a Freemason and one of the ablest and purest men that ever filled that office in any State, instituted the most searching inquiry into the Morgan matter; he set the proper legal officers to ferret out the facts, and offered large rewards for the apprehension of the guilty parties, if the crime as alleged had been committed. All efforts of the officers were taxed to unravel the mystery, but proved unavailing, nothing could be discovered, no evidence of actual guilt found, and a reaction in public sentiment finally began. After all the official efforts that were made, encouraged by the offer of large rewards, it is not known to this day that a murder was committed or if there was, that the Freemasons had anything to do with it.

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