Captain Morgan was born in Virginia, and was a mason by trade. He
commenced the business of a brewer at York, Upper Canada, in 1821, but
having lost all his property by fire, he removed to New York State,
and worked at his trade both in Rochester and Batavia. In the year
1826 rumors were heard that Morgan, in connection with other persons,
was preparing and intended to publish a book which would reveal the
secrets of Freemasonry, and an excitement of some kind existed in
relation to the publication of the book. In the month of September he
was seized under feigned process of the law, in the day time, in the
village of Batavia, and forcibly carried to Canandaigua. Captain
Morgan was at this time getting ready his book, which purported to
reveal the secrets of Freemasonry. This contemplated publication
excited the alarm of the fraternity, and numbers of its members were
heard to say that it should be suppressed at all events. Meetings of
delegates from the different Lodges in the Western counties has been
held to devise means for most effectually preventing the publication.
The zealous members of the fraternity were angry, excited, and
alarmed, and occasionally individuals threw out dark and desperate
threats. About this time an incendiary attempt was made to fire the
office of Col. Miller, the publisher of the book. The gang who seized
Morgan at Batavia were Masons. They took him to Canandaigua; after a
mock trial he was discharged, but was immediately arrested and
committed to prison on a debt. The next night, in the absence of the
jailer, he was released from prison by the pretended friendship of a
false and hollow-hearted brother Mason. Upon leaving the prison door
he was seized in the streets of Canandaigua, and notwithstanding his
cries of murder, he was thrust with ruffian violence into a carriage
prepared for that purpose. At Batavia he had been torn from his
home--from his wife and infant children. At Canandaigua he was falsely
beguiled from the safe custody of the law, and was forcibly carried,
by relays of horses, through a thickly populated country, in the space
of little more than twenty-four hours, to the distance of one hundred
and fifteen miles, and secured as a prisoner in the magazine of Fort
Niagara. This was clearly proved on the trial of persons concerned in
the outrage, and who were found guilty and sentenced to various terms
of imprisonment. The fate of Captain Morgan was never known, but it is
supposed he was taken out into the lake, where his throat was cut, and
his body sunken fifty fathoms in water. About the same time, Col.
David C. Miller, the publisher of the book, was also seized, in
Batavia, under the color of legal process, and taken to Le Roy. The
avowed intention of Col. Miller's seizure was to take him where Morgan
was--and where that was may be best gathered from the impious
declaration of one of the conspirators, James Ganson, for several
years a member of our Legislature--that "he was put where he would
stay put until God should call for him." Miller was, however, set at
liberty, as the inhabitants of Le Roy interfered with the schemes of
his kidnappers. He soon after put to press the first part of the
volume which is here presented to the public. Additions have been made
to Captain Morgan's revelations, from time to time, until we are now
able to make public all the Masonic degrees of any note or interest,
entered into by modern Freemasons.
* * * * *
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