THE BUILDER NOVEMBER 1925

Three Dates in Vermont Masonry

By BRO. HERBERT H. HINES, Vermont


NORMAN WILLIAMS
1791-1868

Registrar of Probate, Secretary of State for Vermont, State
Senator, Clerk of Windsor County Courts, Master of Warren Lodge,
Woodstock, Vt., at the time of its dissolution. Was made an
honorary Mason in 1856 for fidelity throughout the Anti-Masonic
period.

JACOB COLLAMER
1791-1865

Lawyer, Congressman, Postmaster General under President Taylor;
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont. United States
Senator. Made an honorary Mason in 1856 because he "would not and
did not desert" Freemasonry when it was "assailed the fiercest, and
when weak-minded and faint-hearted brethren were swept away before
the blast." (Records of Woodstock Lodge, No. 31.)

YOUNGER Masons often find themselves governed by curiosity. They
have not yet learned the answers to all the questions, and very
often face the symbolism of the ancient landmarks with a great deal
of bewilderment. It very often seems that a strange, solemn voice
is asking, "In your present blind condition, what do you most
desire ?" No answer comes until a familiar voice whispers, "Further
light in Masonry." As long as further light in Masonry is the
desire, curiosity leads in many directions. The following account
may be taken as a sample of some of the results of investigation on
the part of one whose Masonic experience is still so limited that
he feels uncomfortable outside the northeast corner. It may also be
a warning that not enough of the older brothers assisted in
bringing him to Masonic light.

There are three questions that come to one before he has gone very
far into the history of the Vermont lodges: (1) Why did the old
lodges disband ? (2) Why were they reorganized? (3) What does it
mean today ? The first question is the most difficult to answer;
the second is largely left to our imaginations; while the third is
answered in the spirit of the Craft today. It might be thought as
centering around three dates: 1832, 1850 and 1925. It takes us back
to one of the most unstudied periods in American history. Yet to
us, interested in preserving the ancient landmarks that
anti-Masonry more nearly defeated than we like to think, the years
from 1826-1845 are of unusual interest.

HOW ANTI-MASONRY BEGAN

When we turn to our most reliable information we read that a
dissolute, shiftless bricklayer in Batavia, New York, a man who had
"failed in everything else . . . thought to make money by betraying
the secrets of an order which his presence polluted." That he was
foolishly arrested on a trumped-up charge and afterwards taken by
a few Masons, with or without his consent, who "got him out of the
country, and apparently paid him to stay out." There should have
been no attention paid to him. But "rumors of abduction started."
It was said that he had been "thrown into Niagara," or otherwise
killed. There is "no proof that he was ever killed." The Governor
of New York made every effort to detect and punish any possible
murderer. The wild rumors, however, soon reached Vermont and
quickly penetrated to every village and hamlet within its borders.

In the future historian's unprejudiced analysis of the causes of
anti-Masonry, the part played by William Morgan will be as
insignificant as that of the killing of an already unknown man in
a forgotten city of Central Europe in the real causes of the Great
War. Today we know how it was seized for political propaganda by
Thurlow Weed and his "pack of unscrupulous politicians"; of Weed's
statement: "It's a good enough Morgan until after election," and
how it spread like a prairie fire, and about as disastrously.
Politically it centered in the election of 1832 in which the
Democrats renominated Andrew Jackson (at the convention which first
inaugurated the two-thirds rule); the National Republicans
nominated Henry Clay, while the anti-Masons, the first in the
field, presented a former United States Attorney-General, William
Wirt. In his speech of acceptance, Mr. Wirt said that he had not
been in a Masonic lodge for many years; that he had never taken the
Third Degree, and that he had not known that anything was wrong
with Masonry until he had read certain pamphlets printed in New
York. The party, aided by the pen of Horace Greely and popular
frenzy, was particularly powerful in Western New York and Vermont,
where Mr. Wirt was heralded as the Moses who would lead the country
through the Red Sea of Masonry.

The results of the election were that Henry Clay, a Mason, was
defeated; Andrew Jackson, another Mason, was elected, while the
only state of the twenty one to give its electoral vote for William
Wirt was Vermont. It is rather hard to explain why the supposedly
conservative state of Vermont was so carried away with the
movement, but the center of the excitement for New England was in
Central Vermont. For several years almost all local and state
officers were non-Masons, for it was the election issue that it was
the duty to keep Masons out of office. At several state elections
no governor was chosen. The elections in the legislature went to
thirty or forty ballots, and on one occasion no governor could be
elected.

WHAT THE MOVEMENT EFFECTED

From old diaries, and from older men who heard the story from the
generation before them, we learn how the excitement rose to white
heat, affecting business, dividing towns, splitting families and
churches. Masons were not allowed to serve in courts, not even on
the jury. The demand was that they should not be allowed to vote.
Masonic clergymen were forced out of churches by dramatic methods.
At funerals, Masonic relatives would sit in one room and the
anti-Masonic relatives in the other, and at the grave the factions
would stand on opposite sides. Lodges speedily surrendered their
charters. The Grand Lodge was declared by the Masons themselves to
be unnecessary. Morgan's book was sold on the trains and in stores
for twenty-five cents a copy. Caravans traveled from town to town
giving exhibitions of the degrees. One day, in the Windsor County
court house, 300 received the Third Degree by proxy.

There had been in the shire town of Windsor County a certain Joe
Burnham who had disappeared and had been pronounced dead. Later he
returned to the town in perfect health. The anti-Masons said that
he had really died but that he had been raised to life in Masonry.
A five-act play was presented in a large hall entitled, "The Tragic
Raising of Joe Burnham," and the newspaper of that week says it was
accompanied by broken heads, black eyes and bloody noses." Local
people who had been named in the play brought suit for slander,
which went through several courts before it was finally settled. A
copy of this play sold not long ago for $750 to a book dealer who
again sold it at a considerable profit.

Everything was done to make Masonry ridiculous. Stones were thrown
through church windows at ministers; anti-Masonic almanacs were
distributed; conventions were held in churches of almost all
denominations. At church services ministers asked, not for converts
to religion, but for men to renounce Masonry. There is one record
of a man acquitted for a serious crime on the grounds that being a
Mason he was not a responsible citizen. Masonry was held to be a
"secret combination at war with free government," to contain
"illegal oaths," to "shield criminals from punishment," while such
epitaphs as "kidnappers" were among the mildest sort used. The
result was that by 1833 the Vermont Legislature reported with
satisfaction the very small number of lodges and the diminishing
ranks of Masonry.

BIGOTED HOSTILITY DEVELOPED

In the beginning, some newspapers, as the Vermont Courier, were
very tolerant, and committed the heresy of suggesting that the
anti-Masons were without "good sense, reason or sound prudence,"
and that Masons seemed to be qualified for public office. The chief
opposition in Central Vermont came from a paper called "The
American Whig, Vermont Luminary and Equal Rights, published by the
Windsor County AntiMasonic Committee." In the files of this paper
is the record of one of the most unreasonable and intolerant
attacks ever made by one body of citizens against another, and
printed at the very center of this "bitter and baseless
persecution." Certainly in Vermont history there is nothing to
compare with it since the land grant struggle of the early
pioneers. Among the signed articles are numerous "withdrawals" from
Masonry. The following is a sample, from the issue of Jan. 7, 1832:


"Feeling conscious of my accountability to God, and duty to my
country and posterity I cannot (consistently) any longer forbear
stating to the public my former and present views of the Masonic
Institution. I was made a Mason in Faithful Lodge, Charlestown,
N.H., about the year 1809 or 1810, and was raised to the Sublime
Degree of a Master Mason. At that time, being in an atheistical
state of mind, I expected to find light which would be of great
service to me, but being disappointed in each step, I was told that
the light was in the higher degrees. You must go further to obtain
the desired object. During this time, while undetermined about
going further, in the higher degrees, our agent returned from a
visit to the Grand Lodge of the state. Among other things our agent
told us that there was a brother under trial for un-Masonic conduct
and would probably be expelled from the lodge, simply for the crime
of stating that the degrees in Masonry above the third were merely
nominal. As I was convinced that the first three degrees were such,
it struck my mind forcibly that the man told the truth. Therefore
I concluded not to follow the phantom any further but determined to
search for light from some other source. Soon after this I was led
to examine the Bible (for I had hitherto much neglected it)--I
found a glorious light--viewing Masonry by this light I found it to
be total darkness and I could no longer have any fellowship with
it. I could not rest. Whenever I heard of Masonry I became excited.
I rejoiced at Morgan's exposition--the snare of Masonry was now
broken--it was the handmaid of infidelity- its oaths and
obligations are profane. Therefore I renounce it as dangerous to
civil and religious rights and privileges."

The same paper one week published a list of Masons living in a
nearby town. The next week there was a communication from one of
the men mentioned who said that while he had been a Mason he had
not attended lodge for six years; had not in that time spoken to a
Mason, and would not do so. Another denial of Masonry has this
paragraph:

"I believe Freemasonry is a moral, charitable, benevolent and
literary institution. But its morals are heathenish. its
benevolence selfish, its humanity cruel, its literature childish,
its religion anti-Christian. destructive and anti-republican. It is
said that Masonry is of divine origin, that it descended from
Heaven. Here I believe is some mistake. It came from the other
place and I guess 'twill go there again."

A sample of how anti-Masonry perverted every possible
representation of the Order is seen in the following poem. It was
written by a Prof. Dean, and very widely circulated under the title
"The Freemason's Dream." The last verse read:

"My heart in devotion, it swells to an ocean
To see all Freemasons in union agree;
We will meet them in glory, and there tell the story,
Where troubles and triais forever shall flee."

This was changed to read:

"My heart in dejection, it swells to reflection
To see the corruption of Freemasonry-
Could I meet them in glory, I'd there tell the story,
And warn the Freemasons from its thraldom to flee."

But the warning was hardly necessary to the few lodges and members
that were left in this part of the state. In most towns a faithful
few had hidden the records and working tools, sometimes in a hole
on a hillside, or under the floor of a barn where it would be
accidentally discovered years later.

Like all wide spreading movements, the causes and encouragements of
anti-Masonry were complex and very diverse. In some parts the
Morgan affair was a subterfuge, a political plot under a thin
disguise. In other towns internal trouble in the lodge defeated its
purpose. "Immoral conduct of the members, lack of ability to
enforce discipline in the lodge, the brethren will not meet upon
the level or part upon the square, obligations are disregarded,"
these are the reasons for the abandonment of the lodge in the shire
town of Windsor County as early as 1827. This was not an
exceptional case, but a sample of the pernicious purposes
undermining the Craft. It is undoubtedly true that Vermont Masonry
had flourished more than was good for itself. Many had become
members for political influence. Many knew nothing at all about the
Order, never had attended a meeting since they had been made
members, and were ignorant of its principles. It could be said of
the lodges as it was said of the first Grand Lodge in England, "It
ran itself out of breath through the folly of its members."

It was also the time of many revival movements of an emotional type
that took Masonry as its chief point of attack. It was the time of
many fanatical excitements such as phrenology, mind-reading,
magnetism, hypnotism, and many such movements, most of which were
half fraud. The new immigration brought social unrest; the spoils
system caused political dissatisfaction. Anyone with a loud voice
could get an audience. It was as true then as now:

"The whole world loves the quiet men
Who sit all day as still as owls; 
But 'tis needless to mention, 
It gives its attention,
To the man who gets up and howls."

Twenty years passed, and in 1850 in Windsor, and gradually all the
other towns and villages of Central Vermont, little groups of a
dozen or fifteen men quietly came together of their "own free will
and accord" for the reformation of their lodges. They were men
beyond middle age. They had no banquets, parades or public
services. They were willing to make sacrifices, to endure
hardships, to work hard, to face possible local criticism and
personal risk. There was not a "cowan" among them. No one in those
days talked about "watch-fob Masons." Masonry had been purged until
there were no members who were Masons only in name. They had not
come together for social purposes, for they could have found that
in other places with less personal risk. There must have been some
deeper purpose behind their reorganization. Sometimes it is only
when a man takes a long journey away from home that he truly comes
to appreciate its love and care. Often a man can judge his business
best when he is away from it. A certain man who lived in a
situation where for three years he could not attend church, came to
a new appreciation of its necessity and worth through its enforced
absence. Something like that moved these men of seventy years ago.

They could only have been men who knew their work well. Through the
years, the old truths, of which their work was but the symbol, must
have haunted their minds, for they lived not with the monthly
repetition of the work but with the ideas of what it meant. It must
have seemed to them that they were living in the ante-room when
they should have gone on into the lodge; that there was confusion
among the workmen, that their column was broken and the temple
incomplete. They had been spending their years in the North and its
darkness was unnecessary. As earnest workmen they had set out in
"friendship, morality and truth," but they had been betrayed by
those whom they had trusted, their hopes and creative purposes had
been put to death and thrown into an unmarked grave. Their enemies
had said that Masonry was dead, but these few men believed that
there was still something that could not be defeated, and which
could yet be raised from the level of death to the perpendicular of
life. Once they had known "how good and how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity." Then their society had been
torn by jealousy, hatred, unkindness and unbrotherliness. Now they
faced the problem of living together. "The only cure of
unbrotherliness is brotherliness," was their conviction. Here in
the teachings of our Craft were the basic principles of tolerance
and charity and truth, and the cement of brotherly affection. And
on this they built their Order anew, and we honor them because they
came through with it.

To us of 1925 many truths come out of these tragic experiences.
Perhaps we are reminded to be more careful in the selection of
candidates. Perhaps it means that we should be sure that every man
of us is trained in the work, knows its meaning from study, and is
fully acquainted with the history and the symbols. But there is a
greater lesson, one that Vermont Masonry will never have to learn
again, and it goes to the very heart of our fraternal purpose. If
these fast fading events mean anything at all, they tell us in
unmistakable terms that Masonry is not a search for a word. One may
know the word and not have the spirit. Masonry is not something
that can be voiced in a few words. Its secret is not a combination
of syllables. It is true of Masonry, as of the highest religion we
know, "not he that nameth the name, but he that doeth the will."
Masonry cannot be exposed in a book. It is as safe and deep as
character. If it had been false at heart it could not have lasted.
It lives in its truth.

THE DUTIES OF THE STEWARDS


IN the early days of Speculative Masonry lodges made much of their
"feasts," and other gala events. Such affairs were carried on by
the lodge itself, as one of its regular duties; and their stewards
were chosen for the express purpose of superintending them.
Nowadays it has generally come to be the custom to leave the
planning for all forms of sociability to special committees or
clubs, as if the social hour were something apart from, or even
opposed to, the proper work of a lodge. In addition to this
emasculation of the scope and duties of the lodge, the special
committee method has a further defect in that it leads to
extravagance, clannishness, and sometimes to results still less
dignified. A sensible way out is for the lodge to recover control
of its own social life by placing all responsibility for it once
more in the hands of its stewards.

