THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

accounts of the origin and growth of every Grand Lodge in the United
States and British America; also admirable chapters on Early American
Masonic History, the Morgan Excitement, Masonic Jurisprudence, and
statistics up to date of 1891--all carefully prepared and well written.
Among other books too many to name, there are the _History of Symbolic
Masonry in the United States_, by J.H. Drummond, and "The American
Addenda" to Gould's massive and magnificent _History of Masonry_, vol.
iv. What the present pages seek is the spirit behind this forest of
facts.
[154] For the full story, see "Reminiscences of the Green Dragon
Tavern," in _Centennial Memorial of St. Andrew's Lodge, 1870_.
[155] _Washington, the Man and the Mason_, by C.H. Callahan. Jackson,
Polk, Fillmore, Buchanan, Johnson, Garfield, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft,
all were Masons. A long list may be found in _Cyclopedia of
Fraternities_, by Stevens, article on "Freemasonry: Distinguished
Americans."
[156] _Washington and his Masonic Compeers_, by Randolph Hayden.
[157] Thomas Paine, whose words these are, though not a Mason, has left
us an essay on _The Origin of Freemasonry_. Few men have ever been more
unjustly and cruelly maligned than this great patriot, who was the
first to utter the name "United States," and who, instead of being a
sceptic, believed in "the religion in which all men agree"--that is, in
God, Duty, and the immortality of the soul.
[158] William Morgan was a dissolute, nondescript printer in Batavia,
New York, who, having failed in everything else, thought to make money
by betraying the secrets of an order which his presence polluted.
Foolishly misled, a few Masons had him arrested on a petty charge, got
him out of the country, and apparently paid him to stay out. Had no
attention been paid to his alleged exposure it would have fallen
still-born from the press, like many another before it. Rumors of
abduction started, then Morgan was said to have been thrown into
Niagara River, whereas there is no proof that he was ever killed, much
less murdered by Masons. Thurlow Weed and a pack of unscrupulous
politicians took it up, and the rest was easy. One year later a body
was found on the shore of Lake Ontario which Weed and the wife of
Morgan identified--a _year afterward!_--she, no doubt, having been paid
to do so; albeit the wife of a fisherman named Munroe identified the
same body as that of her husband drowned a week or so before. No
matter; as Weed said, "_It's good enough Morgan until after the
election_"--a characteristic remark, if we may judge by his own
portrait as drawn in his _Autobiography_. Politically, he was capable
of anything, if he could make it win, and here he saw a chance of
stirring up every vile and slimy thing in human nature for sake of
office. (See a splendid review of the whole matter in _History of
Masonry_, by Hughan and Stillson, also by Gould in vol. iv of his
_History_.)
[159] _Cyclopedia of Fraternities_, by Stevens, article,
"Anti-Masonry," gives detailed account with many interesting facts.
[160] Following the first day of the battle of Gettysburg, there was a
Lodge meeting in town, and "Yanks" and "Johnny Rebs" met and mingled as