In 1826, William Morgan, who lived in Batavia, New York, advertised that he was writing a book that would expose the secrets of the Freemasons. And then he vanished.
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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V.
Wilson.
So every once in a while, I'm sure this has happened to you as well. I'm looking through old newspapers as I'm doing research for something, and then I see an article like adjacent to the one I'm looking at that really grabs my attention. And this is born of one of those. Yeah.
Yeah, sometimes it's a surreal headline and I can't find anything else about it. Oh those won make me very frustrated. Not what has happened here at all.
I'm like, what do you mean? There was this person who found out they were married to their sibling and they because their parents lied about some stuff like those. I've had one of those that I tried to track down and I was like, this just buttered out. But little did I know that this one unfurled into a story with so much intrigue and cover up and weirdness, and all of it comes together in a way that kind of offers insights into the ways that people can become really frenzied in their desire to achieve something, and so much so that a line gets crossed, and then another line gets crossed beyond that, and then the next line, and it keeps kind of escalating to horrific and tragic ends. And it shows just how far people will go to protect their secrets, because some of this deals with freemasonry, which today is kind of described as like a self improvement association that's about like becoming a better person, doing good for the community, et cetera. Freemasonry at this point we're talking about, which is the early nineteenth century in the United States, was much more about like being a secret society and what that meant, and it felt a little less demystified than it does today. They were all in on the mistic even though it really when, as we'll discuss throughout this story, i'm all that mystical, just secret. And it also shows the ways that people will sometimes justify really horrific behavior and kind of the strange power of groupthink. Even today, this particular story stays a mystery. Spoiler alert, It still divides people. If you read tellings of it today, there are still people who are like not having it and not buying into the villain story. Of it. There are people that also believe that the crimes involved never happened, even though there were trials and some findings of guilt and sentences handed down, and there is a lot to it. It is a two parter because today what we're talking about is the life of William Morgan and how he found himself in a very dangerous position of having angered an entire group of people right before he essentially vanished off the face of the earth. And then the next part of this two parter, we're going to talk about the book that he was writing that catalyzed this entire chain of events and how those events were perceived and framed and then retold in the decades that followed. So in the summer of eighteen eighty one, the New York Times ran the headline William Morgan's Bones, and this story opened with quote, Batavia, New York, June twenty first, this little town is filled with excitement today over the discovery of what are believed to be the remains of William Morgan, the man who betrayed the secrets of the Freemasons, and his book entitled Morgan's Illustrations of Masonry fifty five years ago and was abducted and made away with before his work was given to the public. The mystery surrounding the fate of William Morgan has defied human ingenuity for over half a century, and now it seems to be unraveled at last, when most, if not all, the actors in the tragedy, like its victim, are laid away in the grave. That is the story I stumbled upon that maybe goes Jim excuse. William Morgan is one of those historical figures about whose life we really only have pretty basic and sparse facts, particularly his early life. He was born in Culpeper County, Virginia in seventeen seventy four or seventeen seventy five. As a young man, he worked as a stonemason, and he was by some accounts, in General Jackson's army as a captain and fought at the Battle of New Orleans in eighteen fifteen. That military service is disputed due to lack of records or supporting evidence. You'll find that comes up a lot with Morgan because many people told the story over and over and the facts shifted along the way. Sometime during this period of his life, when he was still a fairly young man. Morgan joined the Masons probably in eighteen nineteen. William married Lucinda Bendleton, a minister's daughter from Richmond, Virginia. The couple moved to Canada in eighteen twenty one. William made a living there as a brewer for a while, but then the brewery burned down. Rather than rebuild that brewery, Morgan moved to Rochester, New York, than to Leroy, which is a place nobody agrees on how to pronounce. Then finally they moved to Batavia. He had returned to his Stonemasonry career, and he and Lucinda had two children. In New York. He continued his association with the Masons, and he was probably made a Royal arch Mason in eighteen twenty one. As was written in eighteen ninety nine by Peter Ross, We're going to talk about his account several times. Peter Ross definitely not especially kind to William Morgan. He wrote, quote, as to his Masonic affiliations, much diversity of statement exists. Just how involved with the Freemasons William Morgan was is pretty nebulous. That is something that becomes kind of central to his story. According to one account, included in a History of New York Freemasons. He was known to visit the Wells Lodge in Batavia, and the royal arch degree is on record in the lodge at Leroy, but the Wells Lodge wasn't in Batavia. That particular lodge was in a different town. Additionally, there are some accounts that suggest that some of the documents of mason business which Morgan was allowed to sign were destroyed when members quote had become aware of his character and habits. Yet another version, in a History of Freemasonry in Batavia, specifically states that Morgan was never a member of the Lodge at Batavia because he was refused admission and only ever visited the lodge at Rochester, not becoming a member with a hint that he did so. He managed that visit in some sort of sneaky or underhanded way. There are also other versions of this story that say that he was a member in then had some sort of falling out with the Batavial Lodge which caused him to be angry and vengeful.
In early eighteen twenty six, William formed a partnership with a man named Colonel David C. Miller. Miller owned a printing office, and Morgan was working on a manuscript. Two other men were brought onto the project to pay for the printing and the distribution costs. These were Russell Dyer and David Johns. David John's sometimes appears in the accounts as John David's and sometimes as Daniel Johns. Just to kind of keep things interesting, we are going to stick with David Johns, just for the sake of consistency. In their discussions. The men anticipated that this book would make money and they were going to split the profits for ways. They thought this was a sure thing because Morgan's manuscript was going to reveal the secrets of Freemasonry. There are accounts that indicate that David Johns was a Mason who was in this whole inn with the intent of shutting it down from the inside, and that's because the Freemasons didn't want it to happen. William Morgan started telling people that he intended to publish an expos on the Masons to promote his upcoming book, and that intention was met with great hostility. As for Morgan's motivation for writing such a manuscript, he claimed that he had come to believe that the organization was corrupt and that it needed to be exposed. He was threatened with everything from imprisonment to bodily harm, and it appears that those threats were carried out. The New York Times in eighteen eighty one wrote of the response quote The result was that some two fanatical Masons in and around Batavia set themselves to work to prevent the publication at all hazards had they paid no attention to the announcement and allowed the work to proceed quietly. The probability is that the book, when published, would have fallen flat upon the market, but the scenes of violence which preceded it heralded it to the world as no other form of advertisement could have done. Before anything happened directly to Morgan, there was a campaign to warn people about him. There were short warnings placed in newspapers that read, quote, the Masonic Fraternity and others are cautioned against a man calling himself Captain William Morgan, as he is a swindler and a dangerous man.
Yeah, there are variations on that blurb, but they were peppered throughout newspapers in the New York area. On August nineteenth, eighteen twenty six, Morgan was arrested on a civil suit and some of his papers were seized by the constable that made that arrest. That constable was a Mason. Morgan was released on bail two days later. I never found a clear indication of what this suit was about, but it seems as though it was a pretty minor complaint between two people, like some of the others that we are about to hear about. On September eighth, there was a meeting in a tavern and a town several miles away from Batavia. During that meeting, a plan was hatched to burn down Miller's printing office. There was a fire, but it was put out really quickly, not a lot of damage was done. Miller was taken into custody by Constable Jesse French, who was a Freemason, and he was pressured during his imprisonment to give up the plan to print Morgan's book. He was, after his friends interceded, taken before a magistrate, but the men who captured him did not appear at the hearing, and Miller was released. Ultimately, French and three of his friends were indicted for riot, assault and false imprisonment for their actions. Three of the four men were found guilty and given jail time.
Then Morgan was arrested again. The claim was that he owed a tavern keeper some clothes. According to his version of the story, he borrowed a shirt and a cravat from a tavern keeper name Kingsley, but then he was accused of stealing them. Morgan was arrested under the charge of petty larceny on September eleventh, but when he was arraigned, the charge was dismissed.
But soon, really soon, there was another charge against Morgan, also by a tavern keeper. This time Aaron Ackley, said that Morgan owed him money, which he did a small amount. This is sometimes reported as two dollars, sometimes a three, and various points in between, but it was enough because this time Morgan was jailed of Note all of this was happening very quickly. The initial arrest for the clothes, the dismissal, and the second arrest all happened on the same day, September eleventh. The black Rock Gazette reported a month later on the details of these two arrests. Quote on the eleventh of September, William Morgan, a native of Virginia who had for about three years lived in this village, was under pretext of a justice's warrant, hurried from from his home and family and carried to Canadagua. The same night, he was examined on a charge of petty larceny and discharged by the justice. One of the persons who took him away immediately obtained a warrant against him in a civil suit for an alleged debt of two dollars on which he was committed to the jail of Ontario County. We'll take a break here and hear from some sponsors when we get back. Well see how Morgan's situation escalated to a far more dangerous level. Although he was incarcerated for the money that he owed Aaron Aclee, William Morgan did not stay in jail for long. On September twelfth, Morgan was released when a man named Lowten Lawson paid the amount that was owed to Aaron Aclee. He went to the jail to pay it, but Lawson was not Morgan's friend. Far from it. As William Morgan stepped outside with him, he was grabbed and forcibly taken via carriage to Rochester. The men who took him were Edward Sawyer, Nicholas G. Cheesebro Lowten Lawson, and John Sheldon. Once the carriage reached Rochester, Morgan was given over to a different group of men. Their identities are unknown, and on September twelfth, eighteen twenty six, William Morgan disappeared.
After it became clear that Morgan was missing, pressure was put on his wife to hand over any papers of his that she had that could be damaging to freemasonry. She was told that if she did this, she would be taken to William. So Lucinda did. She turned over whatever papers she could find, and she was taken to Canadagua was not reunited with her husband. Though this piece of information came from a news report that was published about a month after the disappearance, it's not really clear if she was just taken home again after not getting sight of if William, or exactly what happened.
There were some indications about what had happened to William After his carriage ride. It became known that he was taken to Fort Niagara and then into Canada. On the road from Batavia to Fort Niagara, several stops were made and the party changed carriages and even persons switched out at various points in what seemed like kind of a relay. Various witnesses saw the party on the roads or on their stops, as well as at taverns and at a toll house, which all revealed a piece together map of their movement. The information about William's imprisonment at Fort Niagara came to light when a man who admitted to having been one of his jailers there was questioned about his part in the story.
Edward Giddons was the keeper of the fort. Giddins gave a statement that began with a description of the magazine that's the area of the fort where Morgan was held quote. This building stands on the south side of the fort. Is built of stone, about the height of a common two story building. The side and end walls are about four feet thick. The wall over the top is eight feet thick and considered bomb proof, covered with shingle roof. There is but one door. There are no windows or apertures in the walls, except a small ventilator for the admission of air, and one small window in each end about ten feet from the ground. They are usually closed and locked on the outside with a padlock.
In addition to this description, he stated that there had been an attempted transfer of Morgan to Canadian Masons. According to Giddons, Morgan himself had rowed alongside his captors to cross the Niagara River, but when they reached the Canadian side, it was discovered that the Masons there were not yet ready to receive the captive, and back the boat went to the US side, and it was at this point that Giddons made the case to just let Morgan go. He told authorities later that he and the other men had argued over this issue for several days, and that on September seventeenth, Giddons left the fort. When he returned four days later on the twenty first, William Morgan was no longer there, and Giddons did not know any more than that. This account was contradicted by another man, Elisha Adams, who had brought food to the fort for William Morgan. He told investigators that on the night the boat left carrying Morgan and five other men, the other five returned via the same boat rather quickly without Morgan. But when Adams testified at the eventual trial of the men involved, he stated that he knew nothing about the matter. Adams allegedly was told by the abductor's legal team that if he shared his knowledge of the case, he would be implicated. But even as this information came to light that he had kind of been coerced into hiding the truth, none of that was used in the case.
There were two different people who gave sworn statements about Morgan's abduction to investigators. There was the jailer's wife, Missus Hall, who was the person who received the money from Lowton Lawson that enabled Morgan to be released, and there was a man named Willis Turner, who lived near the jail and saw this happen. Both of them said they heard William Morgan cry out murder as Lawson and his cohorts wrestled him into the carriage. Turner said that he saw the men put a cloth in William Morgan's mouth to silence him. Turner had also seen Cheeseboro and Sawyer whispering outside the jail. Both witnesses said that one of the men wrapped the curve with a stick to signal the carriage to pull up.
The driver of that carriage was a man named Hibbard. He also gave information about the journey. He was the keeper of the nearby Livery Stable, and he had been hired to drive to Rochester. He stated that the carriage stopped many times along the way and he had not seen any indication that an unwilling prisoner was involved, because he thought there were ample opportunities for such a person to raise an alarm. But he also said that he didn't know who was in the carriage, Although the bill for the journey was later paid for by cheesebro. One of the stories that began to circulate after Hibbard said he didn't see any sign of struggle from any prisoner on the journey was that William Morgan's captors had kept him heavily intoxicated and in a stupor, possibly hoping that he might die of alcohol poisoning.
In the days and weeks that followed the disappearance, plenty of people gave their opinions on William Morgan's character, and these opinions were all over the place. Some people echoed the warnings that had been placed in the paper, suggesting that he was dangerous. Others touted him as a man quote gentlemanly and engaging above his equals. Others just kind of called him worthless. The fact that he had planned to break his Masonic promise to never betray the fraternity with enough in his detractor's views to just prove that he was of low character. The reason why he was planning to publish such a book has generally been assumed to be financial gain. This was also used as a means to show his failings, that his lack of financial stability was seen as a character flaw.
On October fifth, the black Rock Gazette of Blackrock, New York ran an account of a meeting that was held the evening before quote to take into consideration the strange proceedings which took place in Batavia Village on September eleventh. Their committee statement from that meeting mentions that Morgan's quote distressed wife and two infant children are left dependent on charity for their sustenance, and states that the fears of her present that Morgan was murdered, but there is lingering hope he will be found in Canada. The news article mentions that missus Morgan had been promised she would see her husband, but that promise was not kept. The write up also condemns the men who took Morgan. Quote.
The origin of this terrible excitement, this kidnapping, this carrying off, this taking the scepter of justice into the rude hands of a mob, an unlawful assemblage at all times, is said to have been in consequence of a book now in progress of publication by mister Miller, containing an exposition of Masonry. Whether this book is fully published would most expose the Masonic Fraternity or its authors. We will not pretend to say, but the rash proceedings of one party can in no wise be justified by any supposed wickedness of the other. There was a Where's Morgan campaign launched, and groups of volunteers set out to try to find him and also figure out who had abducted him. A number of prominent citizens made the case that the Freemasons should spearhead the investigation because their members were so heavily implicated. There was also an appeal made to the state legislature to form an official investigative committee, but that idea kind of died on the vine. No one in the legislature took such action. Coming up, we will talk about how both Masons and non Masons reacted to the subduction first, though, we'll hear from the sponsors that keep stuffiness in history class going.
This whole series of events and the vanishing of William Morgan led to a surge and anti Mason sentiment, which ultimately gave rise to the Anti Mason political party that's considered the first third party in the United States. It also caused rifts within the Masons. There was recognition that this entire situation reflected really badly on the fraternity, and the men involved were chastised as acting outside the ideology of the group. But despite public denouncement from the Masons, there was a lot of damage to the organization's reputation. The governor of New York at the time was DeWitt Clinton, who was a Freemason, and he put up a one thousand dollars reward for the capture of Morgan's abductors. This award was announced in the papers as a proclamation, and it wasn't one lump sum. It was allocated out for different pieces of information. According to the printed notice, Clinton was offering quote, a reward of three hundred dollars for the discovery of the offenders and a reward of one hundred dollars for the discovery of any and every one of them, to be paid on conviction, and also a further reward of two hundred dollars for authentic information of the place where this said William Morgan has been conveyed. The governor also added quote, I do enjoin it upon all sheriffs, magistrates, and other officers and ministers of justice to be vigilant and active in the discharge of their duties on this occasion. Some people viewed this proclamation as insufficient. A different column in the same paper states, quote, the reward offered for the discovery and a rest of those who have violated the laws is sufficiently ample, but the one proffered for the discovery and recovery of William Morgan is not considered large enough. We live in a government of laws, and shallaman under such government, no matter whether he be certified to be the pattern of all the virtues, or whether he be maker of certificate upon certificate, whether he be guilty of the most gross instances of ingratitude, whether he be guilty of crimes the recital of which would shock the feelings of an ingrate, or whether he be guilty of such behaviors, as to suffuse the cheek of modesty and wring the hearts of his friends. We say, to wrest a man from his family, his friends, from society, or from his country, by no other warrant or mandate than that of infuriated passions, is an assumption of power and authority unknown in the administration of government, repugnant to the feelings of men, and diametrically opposed to the less the spirit and the genius of our institutions, and cannot will not be permitted with impunity. The volunteer groups that had assembled were able to track down information that led to the arrests of Edward Sawyer, Nicholas G. Cheesebrow, Lowten Lawson, and John Sheldon. All four men were tried for kidnapping and were found guilty. Lawson was sentenced to two years in jail. His penalty was the most severe. Cheesebro got a year, Sheldon got three months, and Sawyer got just one month of jail time as his sentence.
Immediately, stories spread about what people thought had happened to William Morgan. The most popular and most widely accepted was that he had been dumped into the Niagara river to drown, and people speculated on the way he might have been murdered and whare But a lot of rumors also sprang up that suggested that some people believed he had not been killed and had either escaped or been set or maybe even had staged the whole thing himself. Among the rumors were stories that he had decided to live a better life and went somewhere to start fresh, free of his creditors, which would mean that he left Lucenda and his children behind that does not make much sense. Or that he wandered into Quebec and became a drunkard, or somehow ended up with a lot of money and was living in Maine, or had been transferred from one Freemason lodge to another until he was in Texas and then managed to escape and fell in with an indigenous tribe there, Or that he moved to the Caribbean or Australia, or that he went into hiding in Turkey and taught English and French there under the name Mustafa. This one actually had a lot of traction for decades. Decades is gonna come up again. There's also one that he lived in the Cayman Islands. There were obviously no end of ideas and rumors, and some of these stories people told just certain that they were the truth. Also, because William Morgan was a common enough name anytime it showed up in the papers, even if it was in a far distant country, it seemed like people started to think that they had stumbled onto the real story of what had become of him. A periodical called The Morgan Investigator was launched as the search for clues continued. Colonel Miller supplied an article for it the year after the abduction, and he mentioned that in the months leading up to the fire at his office in William Morgan's disappearance, he knew he was being watched. He mostly use this opportunity to talk about the way David Johns, who he refers to as Daniel, had infiltrated their plan to print the book. He also made it seem as though Johns was able to steal a portion of the manuscript. According to Miller, there were multiple break ins and thefts at the printing office in the months leading up to the planned publication. There was a burial for William Morgan a year after his disappearance. A body had been found in Lake Ontario, and initial reports indicated that it was believed to be Morgan. Once again. A volunteer committee formed to have an inquest, and there were public notices regarding the finding and the effort to determine if it was truly Morgan. The body was buried near where it was found, but was then exhumed for further investigation. One of the investigators had been given details by William Morgan's widow that could conclusively identify the body, in particular a scar on his foot, his unusual habit of wearing his fingernails long and trimmed to a point, and the fact that he had hyperdnchia. Morgan apparently had two full rows of teeth, a detail that was confirmed by his doctor, a doctor Strong. Strong also gave details about a tooth extraction that had been conducted on Morgan, and he even had the tooth still on hand to match to the mouth of the dead man, and according to the person who used these details to examine the body, as well as a coroner's jury, everything matched. The body was taken to Batavia and buried as William Morgan, but its identity was soon in question again. Word reached Batavia that it was the body of a man named Timothy Monroe who had drowned in the Niagara River. There was yet another inquest, and Monroe's widow and son gave statements. Although details like hair color and height didn't match up to the body that had just been buried under the name William Morgan, two specific things did match up. The clothing description down to just the tiniest details, and then, oddly enough, double teeth all around. Though this would seem more confusing than ever, the body was declared to be that of Timothy Monroe, even though there was an official ruling by a coroner's jury to declare the body as Timothy Monroe and not William Morgan. A lot of people still believe that it was Morgan and that this whole Timoth theme and Roe story was a cut. It does seem a little suspicious. All of this honestly seems a little suspicious.
Yeah.
There were also allegations that members of the committee that first identified the body as Morgan's had mutilated it to fit the description that was given by Lucinda Morgan. Yeah, there is a lot of accusations from both people who think the Freemasons did it and people who did not that the other side was like falsifying evidence and stories to support their side of it. No one on either side of the question seemed to change their position on the matter. One witness to the body, Samuel Green, who were going to talk about in more detail later in this story, stated of the found body, quote, let it be understood that the proof of his death by violence does not rest upon identification of the body. The fact of his death was established on evidence entirely independent of this. The finding of the body was only a strange and unexpected sequel. It serves to make an ending for the story, but its beginning and middle had already passed into history when this Danumont came, and that's where we leave this story. Next time we'll talk about the manuscript that likely led to the end of Morgan's life. So weird, it's weird. Do you have some listener mailer it stays weird? My listener mail isn't weird. It's delightful.
Oh good, it's cracked me up. It's from our listener, Mary, who writes, good morning, Tracy and Holly. I'm going to try to do justice to the events that occurred while listening to the Billy Burke episode with my ten year old. She was doing her math homework while I was listening to the episode. It got to the part about the infidelity and she exclaims, ooh, drama, where's the popcorn. I stopped the episode and explained that Hollywood at that time was full of stories like this. I went about my business without starting the episode, playing wrong thing to do. She piped up with, mom, I want to listen to it. This is history. I hope you get a giggle out of her amazing reaction. Attached are pictures of my black cat kitten who live to be twenty should passed last year. Dante is the fluffy one who will talk your ears off at anytime, day or night, and Lynn, the sweet calico. Thank you for all you do, hugs, Mary. This is such a fun story. I love the idea of you know, listen, history is full of interesting stories. That's the whole premise of our show essentially. So it's good that people recognize these cats are so cute. Oh I love it. I love a talkie kitty too, so that made me chuckle and thank you, thank you, thank you. That was like you have overpaid your text your cat text I have to say, this is a lot of good cat action. If you would like to write to us, you can do so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us on social media as Missed in History and if you have not subscribed yet, you can do that on the iHeartRadio app. Whever you listen to your favorite shows.
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