The Freemasons Get Away With Murder (Probably)

HISTORY This Week

The episode chronicles the 1827 disappearance of William Morgan, a disgruntled former Freemason who threatened to expose the order's secrets. His kidnapping and the

Key takeaways

• William Morgan, a down-on-his-luck stonemason with fabricated military credentials, threatened to publish Masonic secrets to clear his $50 debt after being shut out of Lodge No. 433.
• Freemasons orchestrated Morgan's kidnapping in September 1826, but the subsequent trials resulted in light misdemeanor sentences that fueled public suspicion of a corrupt secret society.

Main topics

• William Morgan kidnapping
• Freemasonry and secret societies

Notable quotes

"it's a good enough Morgan until the election."

Conclusion

The Morgan affair demonstrates how localized outrage over judicial corruption

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) The History Channel original podcast. Speaker 3 (0:04) History This Week, October 7th, 1827. Speaker 3 (0:09) I'm John Earl. Speaker 3 (0:15) A farmer and his friend are walking along the rocky shores of Lake Ontario in western New York State when they notice vultures circling overhead. They follow the vultures to a waterlogged mass. Speaker 3 (0:29) It's badly decomposed, but it's clear that it's a body. It doesn't have any identifying papers, so the county coroner later can't say whose body it is. But there is one man who thinks he knows. He's a newspaper man from nearby Rochester. And the moment he hears about the body, he rushes to the scene. He's not alone. Among the group that gathers is a young woman. Lucinda is in her early 20s, petite and dark-haired. They reopen the rough coffin. The stench is almost unbearable. Lucinda takes a look at the body and says, that's him. This is the body of my husband, William Morgan. He was kidnapped about a year ago, and many here think they know who did it. Members of a powerful secret society. Here in Western New York, they control the sheriffs. They control the courts. Their influence goes all the way to the top, to the governor of New York, and even the soon-to-be president of the United States. The newspaperman will tell his readers that there will be no justice until the Freemasons are destroyed. Speaker 3 (1:44) Today, how did one man's disappearance lead to the creation of the first third party in American history? And how did the anti-Masons lay out a playbook for decades of politics to come? Speaker 3 (2:02) It's the early 1820s, and western New York is booming. The Erie Canal is nearing completion, a water superhighway between the Hudson River and Lake Erie, linking New York City to the farms and forests of the American interior. And like later asphalt highways, the canal sparks a construction boom along its 360-mile route. Towns bloom along its banks, and for a time, Rochester is the fastest-growing city in America. The canal brings jobs, too, lots of them. Building the canal itself, but also opportunities for newspapermen to report on it, tavern owners to quench the workers' thirst, and preachers to save their souls. Samuel Green is one of them. In 1822, he moves to Batavia, a thriving small town between Rochester and Buffalo, where he opens an inn and tavern. Green is eager to put down roots, but he finds a shortage of institutions like churches, where people usually meet and build community. He notices, though, that all the town's leading citizens, its craftsmen, attorneys, and merchants, seem to be part of a different kind of club, more important than any church. They're members of Lodge No. 433, Freemasons. You Speaker 4 (3:23) have more Masonic lodges than churches. in Western New York. Speaker 3 (3:29) Mark Schmeller is a historian at Syracuse University. Speaker 4 (3:32) They allow men to get to know one another, to distinguish themselves, to make business contacts, to network. Masonic lodges are also charitable institutions. If a brother has an accident, if he falls on hard times, his Masonic lodge can help him out. Speaker 3 (3:53) Green decides that this is definitely a club worth joining. But you can't just fill out a form and pay membership dues to become a Freemason. Because the Freemasons are a special kind of organization. They are a fraternal order in which men are bound together by oaths of secrecy, shared moral codes, and elaborate rituals. It limits Speaker 4 (4:15) its membership. It acts in secrecy. They don't... reach out to the masses. I mean, the point of being a Mason is distinguish yourself from the masses. Speaker 3 (4:24) The Masons have levels of initiation from entered apprentice to master Mason and beyond. To rise up these so-called degrees, you need to learn passwords, secret handshakes, and scripted catechisms that have to be memorized word for word. The material is complicated. So complicated that after Green is initiated, he decides he could use a Freemason tutor. And it happens that there's a guy staying at his inn who can help. He's what's Speaker 4 (4:54) called a Bright Mason. That is someone with an exceptional memory who can remember all the rites and oaths and teachings and everything like that. Speaker 3 (5:03) And his name is William Morgan. He was a man of fine personal appearance, about 50 years of age, of remarkable conversational powers, so that he was everywhere known as a good talker, Green later writes. Morgan carries himself like a soldier and says he served under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Green is clearly taken with Morgan, or perhaps taken in. Speaker 4 (5:33) He claims to be a captain. There's no evidence that he was. There are no records of him fighting at the Battle of New Orleans either. It's stolen valor. Speaker 3 (5:42) Morgan is actually a down-on-his-luck stonemason, possibly even on the run from debt collectors in Canada. Speaker 4 (5:49) Seems likely that he slips across the border to western New York. And it's now that he's going to seek work on the Erie Canal. But he's a bit too old to be a stonemason, so he is struggling. He accumulates debts. Speaker 3 (6:07) In the 1820s, being in debt is a really, really bad thing. If you have a debt you can't pay, you can be thrown into debtor's prison. Debtor's prison is terrible. Joshua Kastenberg is a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law. Speaker 2 (6:23) The sleeping arrangements are overcrowded, cold. Life is regulated. There are only so many moments of free time a person might have. As they work off their debt, they may be... Farming, they may be loaned out to some sort of business like a blacksmith or a loom. So it is not a special prison. It's a prison like any other. You don't even have to owe Speaker 3 (6:47) much. Morgan's largest debt is just $50. It's possible that Morgan works his way into the Batavia Masons to get some cash. But something goes wrong. Morgan has a falling out with the members of Lodge 433. And the Masons shut Morgan out. Speaker 4 (7:04) Well, there are different stories here. Now, the Masons claim that he was a drunkard, that he was... Dishonest that he took advantage of Masonic charity? and that he was basically a low character. Speaker 4 (7:25) Others believed that he had faked his way into the lodge. He had claimed to have earned a number of Masonic degrees when he was in Canada, but there's really no proof of it. And once he's shut out of the Batavia Speaker 3 (7:39) Lodge, his financial situation becomes desperate. By 1826, he has a young wife, Lucinda, almost 30 years his junior, and two small children. So he decides to sell the only valuable thing he has left. He'll write a tell-all book full of Masonic secrets. Speaker 3 (8:03) Freemasonry had already come to be associated with secrets. But early on, secrecy wasn't the main attraction. Grand Lodge Freemasonry got its start in London in 1717. The modern order adapted the old traditions of stonemason's guilds into a gentleman's fraternity. It quickly grew into a prestigious club for merchants, professionals, and tradesmen. The first American