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Freemasonry in Literature: George Washington Harris's
"Eaves-Dropping a Lodge of Free-Masons"
by Charles S. Guthrie, FPS

George Washington Harris was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, on
March 20, 1814. Before 1826 he was in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was
apprenticed to his half-brother, Samuel Bell, who was a metal-worker. When
his apprenticeship ended in 1835, he married Mary Emeline Nance. He became
captain of the steamboat Knoxville until 1838, when he moved to a farm in
Blount County. How long he remained there is unknown, but he was back in
Knoxville by 1843 and began writing for The New York Spirit of the Times
under the pseudonym of "Mr. Free." Harris served as Postmaster of
Knoxville a few months in 1857-58.

From November, 1861, he lived in Nashville and other southern cities. In
1867 he published Sut Lovingood: Yarns Spun by a Nat'ral Born Durn'd Fool
(Day, 3-7, 26, 31, 37).

More of the Sut Lovingood stories appeared in various newspapers. Harris
died under somewhat mysterious circumstances in 1869 while on a trip to
get publication of more sketches in book form, but this manuscript has not
been found .

Not much appreciated by the critics of the time, Harris is now recognized
as an important southwestern humorist who influenced such authors as Mark
Twain and William Faulkner.

Sut Lovingood (usually the narrator), who appears in all the yarns in this
work, may best be characterized as a rough and tough young frontiersman of
very limited education, but with piercing wit. He prided himself on his
long legs, his ability to run when danger threatened, and his capacity for
whiskey drunk from a jug. He described himself as a "nat'ral-born durn'd
fool."

" Eaves-Dropping a Lodge of Free Masons" is the only one of the yarns in
which "George" appears as a character (Day, 397). It is also a tale in
which Sut is not the perpetrator of mischief, but only tells it on
"George" and "Lum," two thirteen-year-old boys. It is a story in which the
establishment (the Masons) wins after a fashion rather than being
vanquished by Sut himself. It can be read as a satire on language, on
curiosity (which Sut here seems to equate with childishness), and on the
fears of "secret" societies about revelations of their secrets .

The humor is developed by the contrasts developed between George and Lum
and the Freemasons, between Sut's language and Georges's, and between the
behavior of the Freemasons and that of Lum and George. The consequences
engendered as a result of the boys' actions bring it to a successful
conclusion. The humor, although not that of higher class folks, is
somewhat less boisterous than in some of the other yarns, and comes from
an aging Harris.

Having survived the Civil War with all its turmoil in Tennessee, Harris
seems to turn to the importance of order in society as opposed to the
disorder commonly created by Sut.

Sut speaks in a dialect strange to most modern ears, but one that would
have ben appropriate to his station in a frontier society.
"Eavesdroping a Lodge of Freemasons" opens with a reference to "A Razor
Grinder in a Thunderstorm," an escapade of Sut's, in which everybody in
town was present "sceptin Lum Jones an' he wer hid out from the Free Ma-
sons" (Harris, 63). Upon being pressed by George for an explanation, Sut
replies, ". . . Yu knows mity well why he hid out. Yu an Lum wer the
fellers what did hit [it] " (Harris, 114). George, at the crowd's
insistence starts a long-winded, florid account in nineteenth-century
rhetoric concerning the " sacred places, " the walnut trees, and the
grapes of his childhood and youth spent in the town. He comments that
these scenes " still have a place in memory that time nor distance can
take, nor the pressing, crowding, bloody events of now dim, nor sorrow
obliterate with its tears [sic] . . . ." (Harris, 115).

Soon Sut has enough of George's language. Being plain-spoken, albeit un-
grammatical, he reprimands George for trying " to put us all asleep wif a
mess ove durn'd nonsince ...." (Harris, 115). He then proceeds to "talk
hit all off in English . . .. " ( Harris, 116) .

Having finished with his brief satire on language, Sut then proceeds with
his "tex, the fac' that eavesdrappin am a durn'd mean sorter way tu make
a livin" (Harris, 116). He proceeds with a far more lively and interesting
account of the times George had attempted to describe. Sut gives a
realistic account of an early Knox County courthouse and its courtroom
"upstars," and a loft over that. There was no floor in the loft, but the
courtroom was ceiled. The Masons had partitioned off a lodge room in a
corner of the courtroom.

Mt. Libanus Lodge, organized in 1826 in Knoxville, is the lodge referred
to in Harris's sketch. With a carefully controlled membership, the members
of the lodge tended to be community leaders. Harris himself belonged to
another Knoxville lodge, Masters No. 244, established in 1854 (Snodgrass,
259). Thus, he was familiar with Masonic teachings and practices .

Initiation ceremonies piqued the interest of the curious, both adult and
juvenile, who had heard speculation about what took place. These
ceremonies were apparently the "secret" which George and Lum wanted to
learn "pow'ful bad." If Harris is basing the character George on himself,
the setting would be about 1827 when he would have been thirteen years of
age, as Sut says George and Lum were. This date is important as it helps
explain some of the narrative otherwise obscure.

In 1826 one William Morgan and two accomplices had joined forces in
Batavia, New York, to publish an alleged exposure of Masonic ritual. His
disappearance before the project was completed caused some New York Masons
to be accused of his abduction and murder. The uproar from this resulted
in many Masons ' deserting their lodges and in the formation of an
Antimasonic party. This party actually fielded a candidate for President
in 1832, who lost to Andrew Jackson, a Past Grand Master of Tennessee
(Coil, II, 246-61).

The Antimasons were already, in 1827, describing the alleged horrors and
immoralities of lodge meetings . George and Lum decided to learn for
themselves the "secret" of Freemasonry. Thus their curiosity was but a
reflection of that of their elders, and hence it may be inferred that
Harris is satirizing morbid curiosity by showing its childishness.

George and Lum concealed themselves in the unfloored loft above the lodge
room; the Masons entered, opened the lodge and the two boys listened with
all their might. Sut described the noises below as "groanin nises, chokin
nises, crunchin nises, ugly nises, orful nises mix'd wif sum discomfortin
souns, not much loud, but dreadful plain, an' sure skeergitters ...."
(Harris, 117).

Already frightened, George and Lum then heard something "like twenty foot
of trace chains drap" on the floor below. Whether these noises were a
product of Harris's imagination, or were actually made during initiations
of the time and place is uncertain. The dropping of the chain decided the
boys to stay no longer. They attempted to flee the loft. To do so they had
to step on each joist holding the rotted ceiling so it would not give way
with them. In their fright, however, Lum stepped on the ceiling and broke
through it. Now not only were the boys frightened the Masons were equally
so. The usual attic accumulation of dirt, dead insects, and rotten wood
fell on their heads, and the lower part of Lum's body was visible as he
caught by his arms on the ceiling.

The Masons, so says Sut, thought they were being attacked by "ole Morgin
or the Antimasons." Lum's ludicrous appearance resulted in his getting a
swat on "the part . . . what fits a saddil" (Harris, 119) by a Mason who
seized a piece of the broken ceiling for that purpose. This helped Lum
draw himself back up into the attic. He and George hurriedly descended a
ladder into the courtroom where they confronted a new horror, the tiler of
the lodge. Sut described this individual as a "grim grey-haired man, wif
a glitterin drawn swoard in his han . . . ontu his breas' were a par ove
littil silver crooked bowie knives cross'd, and he wore a aprun like he
wer gwine tu butcher ur cook supper" (Harris, 120). This individual took
a swipe at George with his sword and cut the crown out of the luckless
boy's hat.

The boys escaped that terror, but in their haste outside the courthouse,
Lum (or George: Sut is not clear, and apparently each boy said it was the
other) "run over the place whar a fancy hous' 'bout five foot squar hed
been upsot, slunged in up to yur eyebrows, amungst the slush . . . ,"
(Harris, 121), thus covering himself with human excreta.

Consequently, the assault on order ends in disorder for George and Lum,
and the boys maintain a healthy respect for everything connected with "
the cumpus an' squar persuasion" (Harris, 121) for the rest of their
lives. A square or compasses, even in the harmless context of a
carpenter's bench, frightens them every time they see one.

This sketch is as near as Sut ever comes to preaching a sermon, except "
Sut Lovingood's Sermon Touching Ye Catfish Tavern." He took his "tex" on
the evils of eavesdropping and developed it as an attack on the
perpetrators of disorder. Harris has Sut say serious things about language
(speak simply and directly). He likewise warns about unbridled curiosity
(it is childish and may lead to disaster). In connection with the un-
warranted fears of some people and groups (in this case, the Freemasons),
they are often unfounded. When the social fabric is disturbed, the
establishment may suffer--as the Masons did--but the disturbers are likely
to suffer more--as George and Lum did. To clinch the point of his sermon,
Sut says in the last sentence: "Thar's no muny nur credit either, in eve-
droppin" ...." (Harris 1 22).

References

Coil, Henry Wilson. Freemasonry Through Six Centuries. Missouri Lodge of
Research, 1966 . 2 Vols .

Day, Donald. "The Humorous Works of George Washington Harris. "American
Literature, 14 (1942-43), 391-406.

Harris, George Washington. Sut Lovingood: Yarns Spun by a Nat'ral Born
Durn'd Fool. New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, 1867.

Snodgrass, Charles Albert. The History of Freemasonry in Tennessee. Chat-
tanooga: Masonic History Agency [1943].