The Freemasons Get Away With Murder (Probably)

Mark Schmeller (0:00)

The HISTORY Channel Original Podcast.

John Earl (0:04)

HISTORY This Week, October 7, 1827

I'm John Earl.

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.

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 newspaper man will tell his readers that there will be no justice until the Freemasons are destroyed.

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?

It's the early 1820s, and western New York is booming. The Erie Canal is nearing completion, a water-super highway 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 newspaper men to report on it, tavern owners to quench the workers' thirst, and preachers to save their souls. Samuel Greene 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. Greene 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.

Mark Schmeller (3:23)

You have more Masonic lodges than churches in Western New York.

John Earl (3:29)

Mark Schmeller is a historian at Syracuse University.

Mark Schmeller (3:33)

They allow its 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.

John Earl (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.

Mark Schmeller (4:14)

It limits 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.

John Earl (4:25)

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 called a Bright Mason.

Mark Schmeller (4:57)

That is someone with an exceptional memory who can remember all the rights and owes and teaches and everything like that.

John Earl (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.