Text Box: Gems of Purpose Business Name

Text Box:   Ritual Exposure Text Box: William Morgan has become a name synonymous with anti-Masonic sentiments. According to C. Bruce Hunter in Beneath the Stone, there were two images of Morgan popular during the great Morgan Affair Era. The one on the left was popular amongst the anti-Masonic group while the one on the right was more popular with the pro-Mason group.  Stafford, D. E. (Fall, 2006). Freemasonry and the Development of Greek-Letter Fraternities, The Plumbline. The Scottish Rite Research Society. (Also published in MSANA’s The Short Talk Bulletin, 2007)  Presented to the Tennessee Lodge of Research.   The following links are taken from and elaborated from a paper written by David Stafford and printed in The Plumbline, the newsletter of The Scottish Rite Research Society.  The copy write to the article is held by the society. 

Text Box: 1826 was the year of the disappearance of Captain William Morgan in upstate New York, allegedly abducted and murdered for publishing and exposing Masonic ritual.  The story of Morgan’s disappearance and the subsequent anti-Masonic period, lasting until about 1840, should be well known to all Freemasons, because this period marked the beginning of an explosion in published ritual exposures. The crisis faced by Freemasons spilled over to Phi Beta Kappa in 1831 with John Marsh & Company’s publication of A Ritual of Freemasonry, Illustrated by Numerous Engravings; with Notes and Remarks, to which is added a Key to the Phi Beta Kappa, by Avery Allyn, an anti-Masonic lecturer of the time.  This well known ritual exposure would be reprinted time and time again. The work focused predominantly upon the rituals of Freemasonry.  It offered only eight pages on the topic of Phi Beta Kappa, and as little as one or two pages in later editions.  Although the subversive author of the compromising book admitted there was not an open or concrete connection between Freemasonry and Phi Beta Kappa, the backlash resulted in the latter order abandoning it secrecy and becoming little more than an academic honor society (Allyn, 1831; Voorhees).              By the time the second edition of Allyn’s exposure was printed, most Phi Beta Kappa Chapters had traded the standard of being a society cultivating friendship and the oath of fidelity for the sole image of being a scholarly literary society (Torbenson, 1992; Vorhees, 1945).  It is ironic that in 1832, the same year Phi Beta Kappa was abandoning its own secrecy, the notoriously secretive Order of Skull and Bones was being established at Yale (Robbins, 2002).  The founders of Skull and Bones are reported to have been outraged by the demystification of Phi Beta Kappa and wanted to create an order to carry on its mystical prestige.             The backlash from the Morgan Affair created the first third-party in American politics.  The Anti-Masonic party continued with minimal momentum until the end of the 1830s.  It garnered enough support following the Morgan Affair to organize a national convention in 1832.   That year, the Anti-Masonic Party’s presidential candidate, William Wirt, carried only the state of Vermont, and was defeated by Andrew Jackson, Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee (Holt, 2002).     

Text Box: It would still be several decades before the chaos subsided enough to hasten in the heyday of American fraternalism.  However, the number of Greek letter societies continued to grow throughout the mid- and late-1800’s.  The new fraternities formed during this time patterned themselves after Phi Beta Kappa’s original model.  Based upon this fact alone, it could be stated that all American college fraternities owe at least a little of their heritage to Freemasonry.  The unified fraternities that were organized during the last half of the nineteenth-century exhibit strong influences derived from Freemasonry; however, these fraternities held no official ties to it.  During this era in American history, men going to college were often of an older age, and it was not unusual for these men to have either been inducted into the Masonic fraternity before enrolling in college or while under the tutelage of professors who were Masons (Torbenson, 1992).  Three of the fraternities with Masonic similarities that were established during this period are Phi Kappa Sigma, Delta Tau Delta, and Kappa Alpha Order. Stafford, D. E. (Fall, 2006). Freemasonry and the Development of Greek-Letter Fraternities, The Plumbline. The Scottish Rite Research Society. (Also published in MSANA’s The Short Talk Bulletin, 2007)  Presented to the Tennessee Lodge of Research.   The following links are taken from and elaborated from a paper written by David Stafford and printed in The Plumbline, the newsletter of The Scottish Rite Research Society.  The copy write to the article is held by the society. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box:   The Fraternal Movement