William Morgan (anti-Mason)

Born 1774
Culpeper, Virginia
Died Circa 1826

William Morgan (1774–1826?) was a resident of Batavia, New York, whose disappearance and presumed murder in 1826 ignited a powerful movement against the Freemasons, a fraternal society that had become influential in the United States. After Morgan announced his intention to publish a book exposing Freemasonry's secrets, he was arrested. He disappeared soon after, and was most likely kidnapped and killed by Masons.

The allegations surrounding Morgan's disappearance and presumed death sparked a public outcry and inspired Thurlow Weed and others to harness the discontent by founding the new Anti-Masonic Party in opposition to President Andrew Jackson's Democrats. It ran a presidential candidate in 1832 but was nearly defunct by 1835.[1]

Early life and education

Morgan was born in Culpeper, Virginia, in 1774.[2] His birth date is sometimes given as August 7, but no definite source for this is cited.[3] He worked as a bricklayer and stone cutter, and later used his savings to open a store in Richmond.[4][5]

Military service

Morgan claimed to have served with distinction as a captain during the War of 1812, and his friends in upstate New York appear to have accepted this claim.[6] Several men named William Morgan appear in the Virginia militia rolls, but none held the rank of captain, and whether Morgan actually served in the war has not been determined with certainty.[7]

Marriage and family

In October 1819, when he was in his mid 40s, Morgan married 19-year-old[8] Lucinda Pendleton in Richmond, Virginia. They had two children: Lucinda Wesley Morgan and Thomas Jefferson Morgan.[9] Two years after his marriage, Morgan moved his family to York, Upper Canada, where he operated a brewery. When his business was destroyed in a fire, Morgan was reduced to poverty.[10]

He returned with his family to the United States, settling first at Rochester, New York, and later in Batavia, where he again worked as a bricklayer and stonecutter.[11] Nineteenth-century local histories described Morgan as a heavy drinker and a gambler,[12] characterizations disputed by Morgan's friends and supporters.[13]

Book on Freemasonry

Morgan claimed to have been made a member of the Masons while living in Canada,[14] and he appears to have briefly attended a lodge in Rochester.[15] In 1825 Morgan received the Royal Arch degree at Le Roy's Western Star Chapter #33, having declared under oath that he had previously received the six degrees which preceded it.[16][17] Whether he actually received these degrees and if so from where has not been determined for certain.[15][16] Morgan then attempted unsuccessfully to help establish or visit lodges and chapters in Batavia, but was denied participation in Batavia's Masonic activities by members who were uncertain about Morgan's character and claims to Masonic membership.[18] Angered by the rejection, Morgan announced that he was going to publish an exposé titled Illustrations of Masonry,[19] critical of the Freemasons and describing their secret degree work in great detail.[20]

He said that a local newspaper publisher, David Cade Miller, had given him a sizable advance for the work. Miller is said to have received the entered apprentice degree (the first degree of Freemasonry), but had been stopped from advancement by the objection of one or more of the Batavia lodge members.[12] Morgan was promised one-fourth of the profits of the book, and the financial backers of the venture—Miller, John Davids (Morgan's landlord), and Russel Dyer—entered into a $500,000 penal bond with Morgan to guarantee publication.[21]

Disappearance

Some members of the Batavia lodge published an advertisement denouncing Morgan. Unknown individuals were reported to have tried to set fire to Miller's newspaper office and print shop.[22] A group of individuals, some allegedly Freemasons, gathered at Morgan's house claiming that he owed them money. On September 11, 1826, Morgan was arrested for nonpayment of a loan which the creditor claimed he had not repaid, and for supposedly stealing a shirt and a tie, charges that were probably fabricated; according to the law, he could be held in debtors' prison until the amount owed was paid, making it more difficult to publish his book.[23] He was jailed in Canandaigua, and when Miller learned of this, he went to the jail to pay the debt and secure Morgan's release. The two men went to a waiting carriage, which arrived the next day at Fort Niagara.[12]

There are conflicting accounts about what followed. The most common version is that Morgan was taken in a boat to the middle of the Niagara River and drowned, as he was never seen again.[24] In 1848 Henry L. Valance allegedly confessed to his part in the murder on his deathbed, a story recounted in chapter two of Reverend C. G. Finney's book The Character, Claims, and Practical Workings of Freemasonry (1869).[25]

In October 1827, a badly decomposed body washed up on the shores of Lake Ontario. Many presumed it to be Morgan, and the remains were buried under that identification. But the clothing was positively identified as that of Timothy Monroe, a missing Canadian, by his widow.[26][27] Freemasons denied that Morgan was killed, saying that he was paid $500 to leave the country. Contemporary reports included sighting of Morgan in other countries, but none have been confirmed. Three Masons, Loton Lawon, Nicholas Chesebro and Edward Sawyer, were charged with, convicted and served sentences for the kidnapping of Morgan.[28] Jasper Ridley indicates that Morgan was probably killed by Freemasons, all other scenarios being highly improbable,[28] and Henry Paul Jeffers also indicates that this is the more credible scenario.[29] C.T. Congdon, in Reminiscences of a Journalist, mentions a third-hand account "that Morgan was murdered by certain very zealous Freemasons", and that the resultant anti-Mason sentiment caused many elections to go to non-Masons for years after. (pgs 28-30)

Aftermath: the Anti-Masonic movement

Soon after Morgan disappeared, Miller published Morgan's book, which became a bestseller because of the notoriety of the events. Miller did not say that Morgan had been murdered but that he had been "carried away". Accounts circulated of Morgan's having assumed a new identity and settled in Albany, in Canada, or the Cayman Islands, where he was said to have been hanged as a pirate. New York governor DeWitt Clinton, also a Mason, offered a $1,000 reward for information about Morgan's whereabouts, but it was never claimed.[27]

The circumstances of Morgan's disappearance and the minimal punishment received by his kidnappers caused public outrage. He became a symbol of the rights of free speech and free press. Protests against Freemasons took place in New York and the neighboring states. Masonic officials disavowed the actions of the kidnappers, but all Masons came under a cloud. Thurlow Weed, a New York politician, formed an Anti-Masonic movement, gathering discontented opponents of President Andrew Jackson, a Mason, into the Anti-Masonic Party. It ran a candidate for the presidency in 1828 and gained the support of such notable politicians as William H. Seward.

In the 1828 campaign other Jackson rivals, including John Quincy Adams, joined in denouncing the Masons. In 1832, the Anti-Masonic Party fielded William Wirt as its presidential candidate, but he received only seven electoral votes. By 1835, the party had become moribund everywhere but Pennsylvania, as other issues, such as slavery, became the focus of national attention. In 1847 Adams published a widely distributed book titled Letters on the Masonic Institution that criticized the Masons' secret society.[30]

In 1830 Morgan's widow, Lucinda Pendleton Morgan, married George W. Harris of Batavia, a silversmith who was 20 years older. After they moved to the Midwest, they became Mormons. By 1837, some historians believe that Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris had become one of the plural wives of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.[31] She continued to live with her older husband, George Harris. After Smith was murdered in 1844, she was "sealed" to him for eternity in a rite of the church.[9]

Members of Freemasonry criticized the Mormons for their alleged adoption of Masonic rituals and regalia. In 1841 the Mormons announced their vicarious baptism of William Morgan after his death, as one of the first under their new rite to posthumously offer people entrance into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.[9]

By 1850 the Harrises had separated. When George Harris died in 1860, he had been excommunicated from the Mormons after ceasing to practice with them. That year Lucinda Morgan Harris was reported to have joined the Catholic Sisters of Charity in Memphis, Tennessee, where she worked at the Leah Asylum. She had been widowed three times.[9]

In June 1881 a grave was discovered in a quarry two miles south of the Indian reservation in Pembroke, New York. In it was a metal box containing a crumpled paper; its few legible words were interpreted to suggest that the remains might have been Morgan's.[27]

Monument to Morgan

William Morgan Pillar, April 2011

On September 13, 1882, the National Christian Association, a group opposed to secret societies, commissioned and erected a statue in memoriam to Morgan in the Batavia Cemetery. The ceremony was witnessed by 1,000 people, including representatives from local Masonic lodges.[32][33]

The monument reads:

Sacred to the memory of Wm. Morgan, a native of Virginia, a Capt. 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 near this spot in the year 1826, by Freemasons and murdered for revealing the secrets of their order. The court records of Genesee County and the files of the Batavia Advocate, kept in the Recorders office contain the history of the events that caused the erection of this monument.

Representation in other media

The pharmacist John Uri Lloyd based part of the background story of his popular scientific allegorical novel Etidorhpa[34] (1895), on the kidnapping of William Morgan and the start of the Anti-Masonry movement. In the novel, the speaker is kidnapped by members of a secret society, because he and a publication are suspected to threaten the society's secrecy. Identifying as "I-Am-The-Man" and "The-Man-Who-Did-It," he is taken to a cave in Kentucky. He is led on a long, subterranean journey by a cavern dweller, an inner journey of the spirit as well as a physical one. Although the secret society is not named, the narrator is made to take an oath by raising his hand and repeating after a man who acts as his guide, "To all this I most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear, with a firm and steadfast resolution to keep and perform my oath, without the least equivocation, mental reservation, or self-evasion whatever," reminiscent of initiatory oaths of multiple degrees in Masonry. And a man the narrator encounters around the end of the novel says "The future is operative and speculative," reminiscent of "operative" and "speculative" Freemasonry and the "speculative science and the operative art" in Freemasonry.

In his novel The Craft: Freemasons, Secret Agents, and William Morgan (2010), the author Thomas Talbot presents a fictional version of the William Morgan kidnapping. He portrays him as a British spy, includes rogue British Masons, and has presidential agents thwart an assassination plot.

See also

References

  1. ↑ The History Channel, Mysteries of the Freemasons: America, video documentary, 1 August 2006, written by Noah Nicholas and Molly Bedell
  2. ↑ Ross, Peter (1899). A Standard History of Freemasonry in the State of New York, Volume 1. New York, NY: Lewis Publishing Company. p. 309.
  3. ↑ Morris, Robert (1883). William Morgan: Or Political Anti-Masonry; Its Rise, Growth and Decadence. New York, NY: Robert Macoy, Masonic Printer. p. 63.
  4. ↑ The Proceedings of the United States Antimasonic Convention, Held at Philadelphia, September 11, 1830. Embracing the Journal of Proceedings, the reports, the Debates, and the Address to the People, Published by I. P. Trimble, Philadelphia et al. 1830. 164 pp.
  5. ↑ Fitts, James Franklin (March 1, 1870). Was Morgan Murdered? Packard's Monthly. New York, NY: S. S. Packard. p. 98.
  6. ↑ Greene, Samuel D. (1873). The Broken Seal: Or, Personal Reminiscenses of the Morgan Abduction and Murder. Chicago, IL: Ezra A. Cook & Co. p. 31.
  7. ↑ Young, John K.; Karg, Barb (2006). The Everything Freemasons Book. Avon, MA: F+W Media, Inc. p. 119. ISBN 978-1-59869-059-0.
  8. ↑ Compton, Todd (1997), In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, Salt Lake City: Signature Books, p.44, 52.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Thompson, John E. (February 1985), "The Mormon Baptism of William Morgan", Philalethes: The Review of Masonic Research and Letters 38 (1): 8–11
  10. ↑ McMaster, John Bach (1915). A History of the People of the United States, Volume V. New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company. p. 109.
  11. ↑ Niles, Hesekiah (March 27, 1830). "Case of William Morgan". Niles' Weekly Register (Baltimore, MD). p. 89.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Tillotson, Lee S.; Ancient Craft Masonry in Vermont, Vermont Freemasons, Online version
  13. ↑ Bernard, David (1879). Light on Masonry. Utica, NY: William Williams, Printer. p. 49.
  14. ↑ Ellis, Edward Sylvester (1920). Low Twelve: "By Their Deeds Ye Shall Know Them". New York, NY: Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Co. p. 234.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Bentley, A. P. (1874). History of the Abduction of William Morgan. Mt. Pleasant, IA: Van Cise & Throop. p. 9.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Tillotson, Lee S. (1920). Ancient Craft Masonry in Vermont. Montpelier, VT: Capital City Press. p. 79.
  17. ↑ Morris, Robert (1884). William Morgan, Or, Political Anti-Masonry: Its Rise, Growth and Decadence. New York, NY: Robert Macoy, Masonic Publisher. p. 61.
  18. ↑ Ross, Peter (1899). A Standard History of Freemasonry in the State of New York, Volume 1. New York, NY: Lewis Publishing Company. p. 310.
  19. ↑ Morgan, William (1827), Illustrations of Masonry by One of the Fraternity Who has Devoted Thirty Years to the Subject: "God said, Let There be Light, and There was light", Batavia, N.Y.: David C. Miller
  20. ↑ Stokes, Jerry (2007). Changing World Religions, Cults & Occult. Menlo Park, CA: Google Books. p. 285.
  21. ↑ Harry Claudy, Carl (1948). Masonic Harvest. Washington, DC: Temple Publishing. p. 37.
  22. ↑ Riley, Kathleen L. (2005). Lockport: Historic Jewel of the Erie Canal. Chicago: Arcadia Publishing. p. 97. ISBN 0-7385-2477-8.
  23. ↑ Remini, Robert V. (1981). Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-8018-5912-0.
  24. ↑ "Captain William M. Morgan of Batavia New York", Christian Martyrs
  25. ↑ Finney, Charles Grandison; The Character, Claims, and Practical Workings of Freemasonry.
  26. ↑ Clyde R. Forsberg, Jr., Equal Rites: The Book of Mormon, Masonry, Gender, and American Culture, New York: Columbia University Press, Preface xv.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 “William Morgan's Bones; A Skeleton Found in a Quarry in Genesee County” The New York Times, June 22, 1881. Retrieved 2011-07-07.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Ridley, Jasper; The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society, pp. 180-181 (Arcade Publishing 1999).
  29. ↑ Jeffers, Henry Paul, Freemasons: A History and Exploration of the World's Oldest Secret Society, p. 85, Citadel Press, 2005
  30. ↑ John Quincy Adams, Letters on the Masonic Institution, Press of T.R. Marvin, 1847.
  31. ↑ Compton, Todd (1997), In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, Salt Lake City: Signature Books
  32. ↑ "An Old Tragedy Revived; Erection Of A Memorial To Morgan, Who Divulged The Secrets Of Masonry", The New York Times, 14 September 1882, p. 1.
  33. ↑ "Morgan's Monument: The Unveiling Ceremonies Witnessed by a Large Crowd Who Listen to Able and Interesting Addresses Substance of the Speeches Proceedings at the Convention A Letter from Thurlow Weed", The Daily News, Batavia (NY), 14 September 1882. Retrieved 2011-07-07.
  34. ↑ aphrodite backwards

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