done her work thoroughly. Fifteen or twenty men were in the barroom glaring at each other and at Adams, but nothing was said, and we were driven off unmolested. On our way back Adams at different times stated that, hearing a noise in the magazine, he reported it to Mr. Edward Giddins, keeper of the fort, who told him that a stranger was lodged there who, in a day or two, would be taken to his friends in Canada, but nothing must be said about it. He then, from time to time, carried food to the person. Soon afterward, near midnight, he was told to have a boat in readiness for the purpose of taking away the man in the magazine. Several gentlemen arrived in a carriage, by whom the man was taken from the magazine and escorted to the boat. Adams was told to remain on the dock until the boat should return, and that if in the mean time an alarm should be given he was to show a signal to warn the boat away. As nothing of the kind occurred the boat returned quietly, and as of the six who left in the boat only five returned, he supposed that one had gone to his friends in Canada.

Adams was wanted as a witness in trials then pending in Canandaigua. We reached that place in the afternoon of the day the court convened. Three men were on trial for abducting Morgan. The testimony of Adams was essential to complete the link. On being called to the stand he denied all knowledge bearing upon the question. He resided he said, at the time specified, in the fort, but knew of no man being confined in the magazine, and knew nothing of men coming there at night in a carriage, and knew nothing of a man being taken from there in a boat. His denials, covering the whole ground, were explicit. That, for the time being, ended the matter. When the court adjourned I walked across the square with Judge Howell, who presided, and who remarked to me that I had made a long journey for nothing, my witness, Adams, being ignorant of the whole affair. Gen. Vincent Mathews, of Rochester, who was walking on the other side of the judge, replied with much feeling "that the old rascal had not uttered one word of truth while he was on the stand."

Gen. Mathews was the leading counsel for the kidnapers, but refused to be a party in tampering with witnesses. On our return to Rochester the witness, Adams, was in an extra stage with his Masonic friends. As there was no longer any need of hiding, he was on his way to Niagara. In passing the Mansion House, Rochester, Adams, who was standing in the doorway, asked me to stop, saying he wanted to explain his testimony. The lawyers,

he said, informed him that if he told what he knew about the magazine and the boat it would be a confession that would send him to the State prison. They also told him that the law did not compel a witness to criminate himself, and, to avoid punishment, he must deny the whole story.

In 1831, after my removal from Rochester to Albany, a libel suit was commenced against me by Gen. Gould, of Rochester. It was tried at Albany, Judge James Vanderpoel presiding. The libel charged Gen. Gould with giving money he received from the Royal Arch Grand Chapter to enable Burrage Smith and John Whitney to escape from justice. Gerrit L. Dox, Treasurer of the Grand Chapter, and John Whitney, one of the recipients of the money, were in court to establish the truth of the libel. Mr. Dox testified that a "charity fund" had been intrusted to Gen. Gould. John Whitney was called to prove that he received a part of the fund with which, in company with Burrage Smith, he left Rochester, and was absent nearly a year Gen. Gould's counsel objected to witness's testimony until it had been shown that Gen. Gould knew that the money furnished was to enable Smith and Whitney to escape from justice. The court sustained this objection, and Whitney's testimony was excluded. As it was impossible to prove what was known only to Gen. Gould himself, the trial ended abruptly. Judge Vanderpoel, in charging the jury, dwelt at length upon the licentiousness of the press, and called upon the jury to give exemplary damages to the injured and innocent plaintiff. The jury, thus instructed, but, with evident reluctance, found a verdict of $400 against me. My offence consisted in asserting a fact, the exact truth of which would have been established if the testimony had not been ruled out by a monstrous perversion of justice.

Col. Simeon B. Jewett of Clarkson; Major Samuel Barton of Lewiston; and John Whitney, of Rochester, passed that evening at my house. Jewett was prepared to testify that he furnished a carriage for those who were conveying Morgan secretly from Canandaigua to Niagara. John Whitney was one of the party. Major Barton would have testified that he furnished the carriage which conveyed the party from Lewiston to Fort Niagara, John Whitney being one of that party. Whitney would have sworn that Gould supplied money to enable him to "escape from justice." In the course of the evening, the Morgan affair being the principal topic of conversation, Col. Jewett turned to Whitney with emphasis and said: "John, what if you make a clean breast of it?" Whitney looked inquiringly at Barton, who added: "Go ahead."

Whitney then related in detail the history of

Morgan's abduction and fate. The idea of suppressing Morgan's intended exposure of the secrets of Masonry was first suggested by a man by the name of Johns. It was discussed in Lodges at Batavia, Le Roy and Rochester. Johns suggested that Morgan should be separated from Miller and placed on a farm in Canada West. For this purpose he was taken to Niagara and placed in the magazine of the fort until arrangements for settling him in Canada were completed, but the Canadian Masons disappointed them. After several meetings of the Lodge in Canada, opposite Fort Niagara, a refusal to have anything to do with Morgan left his "kidnapers" greatly perplexed. Opportunely a Royal Arch Chapter was installed at Lewiston. The occasion brought a large number of enthusiastic Masons together. "After labor," in Masonic language, they "retired to refreshment." Under the exhilaration of champagne and other viands the Chaplain (the Rev. F. H. Cummings, of Rochester) was called on for a toast. He responded with peculiar emphasis, and in the language of their ritual: "The enemies of our Order May they find a grave six feet deep, six feet long, and six feet due east and west." Immediately after that toast, which was received with great enthusiasm, Col. William King, an officer in our war of 1812, and then a member of Assembly from Niagara County, called Whitney, of Rochester; Howard, of Buffalo; Chubbuck, of Lewiston, and Garside, of. Canada, out of the room and into a carriage furnished by Major Barton. They were driven to Fort Niagara, repaired to the magazine, and informed Morgan that the arrangements for sending him to Canada were completed, and that his family would soon follow him. Morgan received the information cheerfully, and walked with supposed friends to the boat, which was rowed to the mouth of the river, where a rope was wound around his body, to each end of which a sinker was attached. Morgan was then thrown overboard. He grasped the gunwale of the boat convulsively. Garside, in forcing Morgan to relinquish his hold, was severely bitten.

Whitney, in concluding his narrative, said he was now relieved from a heavy load; that for four years he had not heard the window rustle or any other noise at night without thinking the sheriff was after him. Col. Jewett, looking fixedly at Whitney, said: "Weed can hang you now." "But he won't," was Whitney's prompt reply. Of course a secret thus confided to me was inviolably kept, and twenty-nine years afterward, while attending a National Republican convention at Chicago, John Whitney, who then resided there, called to say that he wanted me to write out what he once told me about Morgan's

fate, to be signed by him in the presence of witnesses, to be sealed up and published after his death. I promised to do so before leaving Chicago. There was no leisure, however, during the sitting of the convention, and even before its final adjournment, forgetting what I had told Whitney, I hurried to Iowa, returning by way of Springfield to visit Mr. Lincoln. In the excitement of the canvass which followed, and the secession of the Southern States upon Mr. Lincoln's election, I neglected the important duty of securing the confession Whitney was so anxious to make. In 1861 I went to Europe, and while in London wrote a letter to Whitney asking him to get Alex. B. Williams, then a resident of Chicago, to do what I had so unpardonably neglected. The letter reached Chicago one week after Whitney's death, closing the last and only chance for the revelation of that important event.

Whitney was a mason by trade, honest, industrious, sober, but excitable. In all the early stages of the Morgan affair he believed he was doing his duty. The final crime was committed under the circumstances I have related.

I now look back through an interval of fifty-six years with a conscious sense of having been governed through the "Anti-Masonic excitement" by a sincere desire, first, to vindicate the violated laws of my country, and next to arrest the great power and dangerous influences of "secret societies." We labored under serious disadvantages. The people were unwilling to believe that an institution so ancient, to which so many of our best and most distinguished men belonged, was capable of not only violating the laws, but of sustaining and protecting offending men of the Order. A vast majority of the American people believed that Morgan was concealed by our committee for political effect. While

we

were being fiercely denounced as incendiary spirits, Judge Enos T. Throop, in charging the grand jury at Canandaigua, spoke of Anti-Masonry as a "blessed spirit;" a spirit which he hoped "would not rest until every man implicated in the abduction of Morgan was tried, convicted and punished."

It is pleasant also to contemplate the character of those with whom I was then associated judicially and politically. Then James Wadsworth, George W. Patterson, and Philo C. Fuller of Livingston; Trumbull Cary, George W. Lay, James Brisbane, Moses Taggart, Seth M. Gates, Phineas L. Tracy, Herbert A. Read, Timothy Fitch, Hinman Holden, and T. F. Talbot of Genesee; Albert H. Tracy, Millard Fillmore, Noah P. Sprague, and Thomas C. Love of Erie; Bates Cook, George H. Boughton, Robert Fleming, John Phillips, and Lyman A. Spaulding of Niagara: Andrew B. Dickinson of

Steuben, John Maynard and William Sackett of Seneca, Myron Holley of Wayne, Francis Granger, Henry W. Taylor, and Samuel Miles Hopkins of Ontario; William H. Seward, Christopher and Edwin B. Morgan of Cayuga; the Rev. Dr. Nott of Schenectady, Victory Birdseye and E. W. Leavenworth of Onondaga, William H. Maynard of Oneida, Gideon Hard of Orleans, Abner Hazeltine and John Birdsall of Chautauqua, Samuel Work, Heman Norton, Samuel G. Andrews, James K. Livingston, Frederick Whittlesey, Dr. F. F. Backus, A. W. Riley, and Harvey Ely of Monroe; Henry Dana Ward of New York, Weare C. Little of Albany, Richard Rush, John Sargent, and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania, and William Wirt of Virginia, an equal number of truly good and eminent

men cannot be found. My friends Weare C. Little of Albany, Gideon Hard of Orleans, Moss Taggart of Genesee, and Lyman A. Spaulding of Niagara are almost the only survivors. City and County of New York, ss.: Thurlow Weed, being duly sworn, says that the foregoing statements are true.

THURLOW WEED. Subscribed and sworn to before me this 28th day of September, 1882.

SPENCER C. DOTY, Notary Public. 17 Union Square, New York City.

In his autobiography, published after his death, pretty much the same story was told.

W

ITH the disappearance of Morgan public interest in his fate was aroused and the local authorities felt that something had to be done to appease public clamor. In time several trials and convictions were had and these we may refer to at this time for the purpose of presenting the evidence which was brought forward in connection with them. Many stories used to be brought forward to the effect that the indictments on which these trials were based were irregular and illegal. It is very probable that they were, but the matter is of little interest now in face of the fact that the trials did take place.

The most important of these was that which took place on Aug. 28, 1828, when Eli Bruce, sheriff of Niagara county, Orsamus Turner, and Jared Darrow were placed on trial for conspiracy to "kidnap and carry away William Morgan from the county of Ontario to parts unknown." Mrs. Hall, wife of the jailer at Canandaigua, swore to the circumstances. attending Morgan's removal from the jail much as in the affidavit already presented in these pages. Her story of the cries of "Murder!" and the struggle in front of the jail was corroborated by Willis Turner, who resided near to the jail. After stating that he had seen Colonel Sawyer and Chesebro in front of the jail whispering together prior to the appearance of the prisoner, he testified that as he was taking water into his pail from the well he heard the cry of "Murder!" said:

He

Some one, he believed Chesebro, stopped the mouth of the man, who cried "Murder!" When they had gone a little distance from the steps the middle man of the three appeared to hang back. His hat fell off and a Mr. Osborn took it up and gave it to Sawyer. Asked Sawyer what the rumpus was, who replied that a man had been arrested for debt and was unwilling to go. Saw Sawyer rap on the well curb. Hubbard's carriage soon drove by rapidly to the east, with Hubbard driving. The horses were gray and the curtains down. The carriage went a little beyond the pound, east of the jail, and turned about. A man was put in by four others, who then got in and the carriage drove west and went round the corner of the tavern then kept by Mr. Kingsley. He had seen Morgan, but did not know whether he was the man taken from the jail.

*

Hibbard, the livery-stable keeper, stated about his being hired to take a party to Rochester and of his bill being afterward paid by Chesebro. He corroborated Turner's story of driving the carriage with gray horses and to the five men getting in near the jail. He then described the journey to Rochester and the many stoppages he made on the road, during which, one would think, an unwilling prisoner could have made some alarm. He, however, could not tell who were in his carriage and could not recognize any of them.

The party desired him to go on beyond Rochester. He consented to go. He took the Lewiston road. On arriving at Hanford's, which was then a tavern, one of the party got out. He called for feed for his horses, but got none. He went about 80 or 100 rods beyond the house and stopped near a piece of woods. It was not a usual stopping place. The party got out before he turned his carriage. He

* *

Many others witnessed to the progress of a coach or coaches throughout the country and the impression got from the evidence is that one of the party was intoxicated. The evidence connecting Bruce with the abduction. was of the flimsiest. He was alleged to have hired a change of horses for a coach at the village of Fleming, along with two strangers. Croydon Fox swore that he was a stagedriver at Lewiston and that between 10 and 12 o'clock at night (what night in September, 1826, he was not certain) his employer told him to get his hack and horses ready to go to Youngstown.

When he was ready, Bruce got on the box with him and directed him to go to a back street to a carriage which he found standing there without any horses attached to it. He drove by the carriage in the back street. Some persons were standing near it. One or two got out of it and after they and Bruce had got in his hack Bruce told him to drive to Col. King's, about six miles distant. He would have noticed violence had there been any, but he saw none. Saw nothing brought from the carriage in the road to his hack. On arriving at King's he stopped, by direction of Bruce, who got out and called to King, who came down into the hall, where he and Bruce conversed together. While they were conversing, some one in the carriage asked for water, in a whining voice, to which Bruce answered, "You shall have some in a moment." King and Bruce then got in, and he drove to the burying ground, about three-quarters of a mile from King's and half a mile from the fort, where he stopped by Bruce's direction. There were no

houses near. The party, four in number, got out and proceeded side by side toward the fort, and witness, by Bruce's orders, returned to Lewiston, where he arrived before daylight.

Ebenezer Perry testified:

Lives in Lewiston on Back or Ridge Street, or back of Ridge Street. On the night following the 13th of September, 1826, after twelve o'clock, saw a person harnessing a carriage back of Barton's stable; heard it start and went to the door. Saw a carriage coming, which went a little distance beyond another standing in the street without horses and stopped. Two men were on the box. One of them he knew to be Croydon Fox, and the other he recognized from an examination at Lockport about two months afterward and ascertained to be Eli Bruce. Witness thought something strange was going on, and went into his garden, near the house, where he had a view of what took place on the road. Saw a man go from the box of the carriage which had driven by to the one standing in the street and open the door. Some one got out backward with the assistance of two in the carriage. He had no hat, but a handkerchief, on his head, and appeared intoxicated and helpless. They went to Fox's carriage and got in. The man he supposed to be drunk was helped in. One went back and took something from the carriage they had left-he thinks a jug-returned, got in, they drove off and he saw no more of them.

No

This was the gist of the evidence. actual proof was presented that Bruce had any connection with the abduction of Morgan, no evidence such as would now be accepted in a law court as final, or be entertained by a jury. But a victim was demanded in the excited state of public opinion, and in the case of Bruce surmise and suspicion proved sufficient to effect a conviction, although those who were tried along with him were acquitted. Bruce appealed against the conviction to the Supreme Court, but the appeal was not sustained, and in May, 1829, he was arraigned for sentence.

Bruce was condemned to two years and four months' imprisonment. His conviction gave him the status of a martyr in the Fraternity. He belonged to Lockport Lodge, a Lodge at which William Morgan had often been wel