Vandaag is het 200 jaar geleden dat William Morgan werd gearresteerd “for the alleged nonpayment of a loan and also for stealing a shirt and a tie”. De ware reden was echter dat “according to the law, he could be held in debtors’ prison until the amount was paid, which would have made it more difficult to publish his book” (Wikipedia). En over welk boek ging het dan wel?
Morgan had announced that he was going to publish an exposé titled Illustrations of Masonry, critical of the Freemasons and revealing their secret degree work in detail. Morgan also announced that a local newspaper publisher, David Cade Miller, had given him a sizable advance for the work.
Het was dan ook die Miller who went to the jail to pay the debt and secure Morgan’s release. Miller and Morgan then walked to a waiting carriage, which arrived the next day at Fort Niagara.
There are conflicting accounts of what happened next. The most common story is that Morgan was taken in a boat to the middle of the Niagara River and thrown overboard, where he presumably drowned, since he was never seen again in the community.
In October 1827, a badly decomposed body washed up on the shores of Lake Ontario. Many presumed it to be Morgan, and the body was buried as his. However, the wife of a missing Canadian named Timothy Monroe (or Munro) positively identified the clothing that had been worn by her husband.
Another version has Morgan being paid a large sum of money to simply “disappear” and give up his plans to publish the degree work. Morgan was reportedly seen later, including in other countries, but none of the reports were confirmed.
In 1848 Henry L. Valance allegedly confessed on his deathbed to taking part in Morgan’s “murder”, a tale recounted in chapter two of Reverend C. G. Finney’s anti-Masonic book, The Character, Claims, and Practical Workings of Freemasonry (1869) en uitgebeeld door Pierre Méjanel op bovenstaande gravure.
Eventually, Eli Bruce, the sheriff of Niagara County and a Mason, was removed from office, tried, and convicted for involvement in Morgan’s disappearance; he would serve 28 months in prison. Three other Masons, Loton Lawon, Nicholas Chesebro and Edward Sawyer, were convicted of taking part in the “kidnapping”, and served sentences.
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, which gained the support of such notable politicians as William H. Seward, Millard Fillmore and John Quincy Adams. However, the ticket received only seven electoral votes from Vermont. By 1835, the party had become moribund, as other issues, such as slavery, became the focus of national attention.
Soon after Morgan disappeared, Miller published Morgan’s book, which became a bestseller because of the notoriety of the events surrounding his disappearance.
dagelijks iets degelijks 