The Builder Magazine

December 1925 - Volume XI - Number 12

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

New Mexico's Challenge to American Freemasonry - By BRO. JAFFA MILLER, Roswell, New Mexico

A GRAND LODGE OF SORROW

Great Men Who Were Masons - John Mills Browne - By BRO. GEORGE W. BAIRD, P.G.M., District of Columbia

Turhand Kirtland - First Master of the First Masonic Lodge on the Western Reserve - By BRO. JAMES J. TYLER, Ohio

Nolichucky Jack and the Mountain Men - By BRO. WILLIAM M. STUART

The Claims of the Modern Operatives - BY BRO. R. J. MEEKREN - (Concluded)

Impressions of Freemasonry in Spain - By BRO. GRANVILLE T. ZOHRAB, Ferrol, Spain

TO JOIN OR NOT TO JOIN

Freemasonry in India in 1780 - By BRO. I. V. GILLIS, Peking, China

WHAT IS MASONRY'S GREATEST DANGER?

 

EDITORIAL

A NEW CRUSADE

RETROSPECT

THE SOCIETY

FREEMASONRY IN ITALY

THE NATIVITY

 

The Secondary Symbolism of Gothic Architecture - By BRO. R. J. MEEKREN

 

THE LIBRARY

TERRITORIAL FREEMASONRY

TRANSACTIONS OF THE MANCHESTER ASSOCIATION FOR MASONIC RESEARCH, 1923-24

TRANSACTIONS OF THE MERSEYSIDE ASSOCIATION FOR MASONIC RESEARCH, 1923-24

THE SUPPRESSED TRUTH ABOUT THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

HOMER AND THE PROPHETS, OR HOMER AND NOW.

 

THE QUESTION BOX and CORRESPONDENCE

WHAT MASONRY IS NOT

THE TWO GLOBES AND THE PILLARS

THE MAELSTROM

BOOKS WANTED AND FOR SALE

DUE ORDER

ANOTHER PATRIARCH

 

YE EDITOR'S CORNER

 

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New Mexico's Challenge to American Freemasonry

By BRO. JAFFA MILLER, Roswell, New Mexico

 

Grand Master, Grand Lodge of New Mexico, A. F. & A. M.. President, National Masonic Tuberculosis Sanatoria Association

 

IN timely accord with this article and in recognition of the cause of the tubercular in the Southwest, so strongly put forward in the article in "The Builder" for October, 1924, by Bro. R. J. Newton, of San Antonio, entitled "J'accuse", as well as in our editorial columns comes action by the Masonic Service Association of the United States at its November annual meeting.

 

The Association gave definite recognition to the cause of the tubercular, classing it, in effect, with the National emergencies for which the Association was originally created. It instructed its Executive Commission to incur the necessary exploitation expense to place the matter appropriately before the grand jurisdictions of the country at their annual communications; to proceed to the collection of a volunteer fund from these grand jurisdictions of not less than $25,000 to be utilized in the development of an effective method of handling the tubercular situation and to contribute at least $5,000 of this sum as collected to the National Masonic Tuberculosis Sanatoria Association recently incorporated and formally sponsored by the grand jurisdiction of New Mexico to provide a legal entity by which the work of relief may be carried forward.

 

AT the December, 1921, annual communication of the M. W. Grand Lodge of Texas, the idea of American Freemasonry making hospital provision for brethren afflicted with pulmonary tuberculosis was first submitted to a Grand Lodge for action. This may have also been the first time that such action was ever suggested to any Masonic body in the world.

 

During the past four years the project has been discussed in annual communications of the Grand Lodge of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico and in other Grand Lodges. It was also considered at meetings of the Masonic Service Association and at meetings of the Executive Commission of that organization. Governing bodies of the York and Scottish Rite have given it some consideration.

 

Because of the magnitude of the project and possibly because of the difficulty of uniting forty-nine Grand Jurisdictions in any effort, no matter how urgent and worthy, not one of these Grand Bodies, nor any other Masonic body, or organization, gave evidence of any willingness, or intention, to assume responsibility, or leadership, of this movement. Arizona is the only Grand Jurisdiction, as far as we know, that has initiated a plan for the care of its own brethren.

 

During this period of four years' discussion and inaction from fifteen to twenty thousand American Freemasons died of tuberculosis, many of whom could have been saved to their families by hospital care and treatment. Each day that action is postponed means the loss of more valuable lives. Reliable estimates, prepared by the National Tuberculosis Association, show that more than four thousand men, over the age of twenty, die every year in any group of three million men and that such a group would have approximately forty thousand living cases of tuberculosis needing treatment.

 

The states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and the southwestern part of Texas and the southern part of California are peculiarly affected by this problem, because for more than a generation, sick men and women from the other states have migrated to the Southwest due to the fact that its climatic conditions are far more favorable to persons afflicted with tuberculosis than the climate of any other part of the country.

 

The majority of these people, sooner or later, become charges upon public or private charity, and because of the lack of money to secure adequate care and treatment, die lingering deaths without hope.

 

The tragic situation resulting from this great migration of the sick and their families has created a problem that is now well-known to all students of public health and sociological conditions. An effort was made in 1910 to direct national attention to this problem by a meeting held in St. Louis, in connection with the annual meeting of the American Medical Association and a second meeting one month later held in connection with the National Conference of Charities and Correction. Delegates to these two conventions from Southwestern states were brought together to consider the situation, and the Southwestern Conference on Tuberculosis was organized. The second meeting of this Conference was held in Waco, Texas, on April 16, 1912, and resolutions were adopted warning the sick against coming to the Southwest without adequate means and calling upon the Federal Government to provide for hospitalization of stranger consumptives in the Southwest.

 

As a result of this work, the United States Public Health Service investigated the problem, and the reports of their findings are printed in the Public Health Reports of March 12, 19, April 9, 16, 23, and June 18, 1915.

 

In 1920, the National Tuberculosis Association made a study of the situation and again in 1925 reviewed conditions in several cities. The report of the investigator was read at the meeting of the National Conference on Social Work held in Denver, Colo., this summer, and was printed in the Survey of Sept. 15.

 

TRAGIC CONDITIONS DISCOVERED

 

The investigator concludes that, notwithstanding an intensive campaign of publicity by the National Tuberculosis Association and its affiliated state and local societies and in spite of the fact that many additional hospitals have been built in the north and east for the care of consumptives in the last ten years, the migration to the Southwest is increasing.

 

She also found the same tragic conditions of poverty and suffering in 1920 and 1925, as were found by the investigation of the Southwestern Conference on Tuberculosis and by the U. S. Public Health Service more than ten years ago. Southwestern states and cities were in no better position to care for the sick from the other states than they were ten to fifteen years ago. No other agency had arisen or developed in all that time to assist in the solution of the problem.

 

Our interest, as Masons, in this unhappy situation, lies in the fact that American Freemasons, like other men, contract tuberculosis, and form a part of the migration of the sick to the Southwest. No facts can be given as to the number who come. But practically every lodge in the states of the health belt have had some experience with sick brethren who apply for aid and comfort. On page 355 will be found some histories of special cases. Many more could be added to this list from information we have, and a far larger number would be found if we could make an intensive study and investigation of the relief work of all lodges in the states affected. One of the chief difficulties in gathering this material is in the fact that practically none of the lodges keep a complete and accurate record of relief work, and few of them show the cause of distress.

 

Additional facts are being secured to the Sanatoria Commission of the Grand Lodges of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, and these facts will be published in later numbers of THE BUILDER. Because of the difficulty mentioned in getting facts and our inability to cover the whole field, we cannot give the total number of Masonic sick and the number of members of their families accompanying them in the Southwest, nor can we give you the grand total of the amounts expended for their care and relief. However the following from only one city will be of interest:

 

REPORT OF THE MASONIC RELIEF AND EMPLOYMENT BUREAU OF EL PASO

 

" All relief work for non-resident indigent tuberculous Masons is carried on by this Bureau, which is composed of all Masonic bodies in the city. The local bodies handle relief work among their own members.

 

"The Bureau expended a total of $33,634.94 or an average of nearly $1000 monthly, for thirty-four months from Dec. 1, 1922, to Oct. 1, 1925, entirely for the care of Masons and members of their families, from other states and cities. A considerable part of this money is refunded by home lodges, so it is in effect a revolving relief fund, created by El Paso Masons for this purpose, supported by monthly assessments on the membership.

 

"Owing to limited clerical help, figures are lacking as to the number of people aided. Every conceivable form of assistance was given.

 

"There are about sixty Masonic men and women in El Paso Tuberculosis Sanatoria, and about twenty on the home visiting lists. It is estimated that about 40 per cent of hospital patients receive some help from home lodges, either through the Bureau or directly."

 

There are over two hundred non-resident Masonic sick in and around Albuquerque, N. M., and other cities and towns report many sick from other Grand Jurisdictions.

 

What will American Freemasonry do about this condition ?

 

During the last four years, while we have discussed and referred to committees, laid upon the table until next morning and have used up all the usual parliamentary methods of indefinitely postponing any action that will mean something, a few real Masons have been serving their addicted brethren. And the majority of these men who are putting Masonry into actual practice, are themselves sufferers from tuberculosis. You may have heard something about the Sojourners' Club, of Fort Bayard, N. M., an organization of tuberculosis ax-service men. Here is a brief report of what they have done and are doing:

 

REPORT OF THE SOJOURNERS' CLUB, FORT BAYARD, N. M.

 

"In 1920, when the Club was organized to meet a great need, there were about 1,000 patients in the hospital. Government was providing beds, food, medical and surgical attention. Action on claims for compensation was slow.

 

"Many patients had no money, lacked even the smallest necessities for comfort, and some had to stay in bed for lack of suitable clothing. Many of them carried burdens of grief and worry for loved ones at home, without means of support, and this retarded recovery.

 

"Money was contributed, by those who had it, to help those who had none. Help was given as needed and later, when the Grand Lodge of New Mexico adopted the Club and secured assistance from other jurisdictions, this relief work was developed to cover every variety of need. This relief took two forms: direct contributions and loans. Advances of $10 monthly were made to many for incidental needs, and larger sums loaned for special personal and family needs. Many men refused aid but accepted loans, and when compensation was received, most of these advances were repaid.

 

"The service of the Club was not limited to Masons and members of their families. but was extended to any of the patients and personnel of the hospital who needed aid. and the Club sought out, or was sought by the sick and unfortunate for many miles. A total of $66.042 53 has been expended by the Club since its organization, including the sum of $26,000, contributed by the Northern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite for its building and furnishing.

 

"With the extension of the compensation there is now less need for relief work and the Club is developing its recreational and educational program. Its building is a community center.

 

"Four hundred and fifty Masons have passed through the hospital in the last five years, all of whom have benefited in some way by the Club's activities, and many of them have had a part in the work."

 

Some few special cases are cited lower on the page. This Masonic service is summed up in the following:

 

"The work of the Club shows a fine appreciation of the principles of brotherly love and relief as taught by Masonry, and I do not believe that anyone can estimate the great good you are doing.

 

Leon M. Abbott. Sovereign Grand

Commander, Northern Jurisdiction,

A. & A., Scottish Rite."

 

With this splendid example before us, having seen this actual working out of Masonic teachings, the Grand Lodge of New Mexico has determined not to wait any longer upon any other Masonic body to initiate the movement for hospitalization of Masonic consumptives in the Southwest. Due to our small numbers - our total membership in the state being only 6,421 - and small financial resources, we hesitated to take action, hoping that some one of our larger and wealthier Grand Jurisdictions would assume the responsibility. We now propose, with the help of the Supreme Architect of the Universe and the rank and file of Freemasonry, three million strong, to go to the aid of our brethren standing in the Northeast Corner. We firmly believe that 99 per cent of the Masons of America will endorse and support this project for hospitalization of the sick when it is presented to them.

 

Acting under authority conferred by resolution of the Grand Lodge at its last communication, a charter has been secured from the State of New Mexico for the organization of the National Masonic Tuberculosis Sanatoria Association, with the following purposes:

 

"To act as an agency, or trustee, to receive and administer funds contributed or acquired for the relief of Freemasons and members of their families; to secure hospitalization of the sick, to render service according to the need and our ability; to erect and operate sanatoria; to aid in the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis among Masons and their families; to disseminate knowledge as to the cause, methods of treatment, relief and cure of tuberculosis."

 

This charter is broad enough to permit us to do anything which we may find necessary to do in the relief of consumptives and their families.

 

To me, one of the most powerful arguments for hospitalization of consumptives is the fact that by removing them from the home we are safeguarding the children from infection which will later in life cause them to die of tuberculosis, or they may become pitiful, pinch-faced little hunch-backs, or hobble through life on shortened limbs. When we care for the fathers we are saving the children.

 

The plan of organization provides for a member of the association's board of governors from every Grand Jurisdiction and for members at large from all of the higher bodies, having national or interstate jurisdiction and from the Mystic Shrine and Eastern Star national bodies.

 

To secure this charter it was of course necessary to name officers for the Association from the New Mexico Grand Lodge until men from other states are found to take the positions of leadership.

 

With the organization of this national hospital association, New Mexico challenges American Freemasonry to service for the sick and afflicted brethren, husbands and fathers, who through no fault of their own are in need of our fraternal assistance. If, as it is estimated, $1,000 will provide for a brother Mason's hospital care for one year, figure out in dollars and cents just how many months, weeks, days, hours or minutes you can afford to keep one tuberculous Mason in a hospital. We have created a legal Masonic entity which we expect, within a short time, will become national in its scope, with authority to receive and administer funds as your trustee, for the aid and comfort of your brethren.

 

* Within a decade the Masonic World will be called together to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of Freemasonry in what is now the United States of America. Masons of all nations will join with us in a great Bicentennial World Congress. American Freemasonry will give an account of its stewardship. It will show the world, in a great Masonic Exposition, what it has accomplished, for America, for humanity and for the Craft.

 

There are many designs upon many Masonic trestleboards throughout the country. But there exists no national trestleboard upon which can be placed "The Great Design," on which American Freemasonry can unite and work out together "The Master Plan." The New Mexico Grand Lodge dares to set up the National Masonic Tuberculosis Sanatoria Association as the national trestleboard upon which American Freemasonry can work out a great design, a master plan for the hospitalization of our suffering and afflicted brethren.

 

There should be no uncared-for Mason suffering from tuberculosis in the year 193-? Let us finish this greatest of all Masonic tasks before that year begins, or have it well on the way to completion. Then we can fittingly celebrate our Year of Jubilee before resuming labor in another century, which will be the greatest in the history of American Masonry, because this plan of hospitalization of tuberculous Masons will initiate a new era of practical Masonic service and accomplishment.

 

* Masonic historians disagree as to the year Freemasonry was founded in America. Until that point is settled the date is left open - 193- ?

 

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A GRAND LODGE OF SORROW

 

Following are some case histories of tuberculous Masons in Southwestern states, selected as typical experiences of brethren who come seeking health.

 

Brother No. 1. - Grand Lodge of Colorado. Sojourners' Club loaned $100 to reinstate government insurance, December, 1921 thus assuring wife, soon to become a widow, of support. Later in month wired wife to come to Ft. Bayard hospital as his end was near. Met her and arranged for living accommodations. Patient died Jan. 4, 1922. Wired relatives and friends, telegraphed home lodge about funeral arrangements, attended to shipping body and looked after widow until her departure.

 

Brother No; 2 - Grand Lodge of Scotland. Shipped to Albuquerque by Masonic Relief Assoication. Cincinnati. Sent from there to Ft. Bayard Hospital by Public Health Service. Receiv

 

99999

 

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Great Men Who Were Masons

 

John Mills Browne

 

By BRO. GEORGE W. BAIRD, P.G.M., District of Columbia

 

JOHN MILLS BROWNE, Surgeon General of the Navy, was born in New Hampshire in 1831, and was graduated at a university in that state, with the degree of M. D. The record does not show at which college he received this, but as such a qualification always was, and is, a prerequisite for all medical appointments in the Navy, it is certain that he of course must have taken the regular course. His original examination for admission into the Navy seems to have been a very searching one, and mention is made of the fact that he graduated before reaching his majority.

 

He was commissioned an Assistant Surgeon in the Navy in March, 1853, and after a short hospital detail, he was ordered to the sloop of war Warren at San Francisco, on Aug. 4, 1853, and he served in that little vessel until May, 1855, when he was transferred to the Coast Survey Schooner Active, in the Pacific. The service was hard, the living space small, and but little time was spent in port. This was in “the early days of California,” and though Dr. Brown could not claim to be a “Forty-niner’ nor even a “spring of fifty,” he was intimate with many of the survivors of the old Vigilance Committees. He was transferred from the Active to the Dolphin, a brig, but remained in her only a few months. He received his promotion to the rank of Passed Assistant Surgeon in 1856, while still attached to the Active, and then in 1858 he was ordered to the Naval Hospital at Norfolk, Va., during the yellow fever epidemic. A year later he was appointed to the frigate Constellation for service on the coast of Africa. At that time England, France, and the United States were each obliged by the provisions of a treaty for the suppression of the slave trade, to keep at least one ship stationed on the west coast of Africa for this purpose. Most of the trade centered around the Bight of Benin, from the rivers which flow into it, which at that time had not been explored. The whole region was a fever hot bed, and deaths were so frequent that England and the United States were obliged to purchase (jointly) a cemetery on one of the Cape de Verde Islands, to bury the Protestant dead, as the bigoted Portuguese priests forbade their interment in the papal cemeteries, and the men had a horror of being buried at sea. Among sailors generally an old couplet was current:

 

"Beware, beware of the Bight of Benin,

For few come out where many go in."

 

Thanks to modern medical science this is no longer true, and there is no more risk in residing on the west coast of Africa than anywhere else.

 

In 1861 Dr. Browne was transferred to the Kearsarge, and was in that vessel in 1864 during her fight with the Alabama, one of the most evenly matched seafights that ever occurred.

 

Dr. Browne was transferred to the New York Navy Yard in 1864-5, and after that returned to California. He built the hospital at Mare Island, which embodied all the improvements of that day, and for long was regarded as a model. After that he was fleet surgeon on board the California and following that the Pensacola, but was recalled to Washington in 1882 where he became Surgeon General of the Navy from 1888 to 1893, from which office he was placed on the retired list in 1893. He died of paralysis in 1894 and was buried with Masonic honors in Arlington National Cemetery, where the beautiful memorial was erected.

 

He received his first three degrees in a lodge in New Hampshire. He was Master of Naval Lodge, No. 87, in Vallejo, Calif., in 1871; High Priest of Naval Royal Arch Chapter, No. 35, in 1869; Grand Master of California from 1875 to 1879; Grand High Priest of California in 1878; and Grand Master of the Grand Consistory of California, 1874-5-6. He was a de facto Thirty-third Degree Mason, and devoted much time to his Masonic duties.

 

He married, in California, the daughter of Mr. Turner, a Civil Engineer in the employ of the Navy Department. She was a granddaughter of Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Banner.

 

Dr. Browne was one of the most perfect Masonic ritualists the writer has ever known, and one of the readiest and most impressive public speakers. He was always most careful in his utterances never to injure anyone's feelings or to give any unnecessary offense.

 

His monument is the only one in the Arlington National Cemetery having inscribed on it the full insignia of the Consistory. It stands in a conspicuous place, near the Lee mansion, and has been much admired.

 

Surgeon General Browne was a classical scholar as well as a skillful surgeon. He was a most patient physician, slow to reach a decision, but nearly always correct in his diagnosis, which was an important factor in his success. In his personal character he was modest, kind and generous, and greatly beloved not only by his family, and the members of the Masonic Fraternity, but also by all who had come in contact with him officially or otherwise in the Navy.

 

----o----

 

Turhand Kirtland

 

First Master of the First Masonic Lodge on the Western Reserve

By BRO. JAMES J. TYLER, Ohio

 

THE term Western Reserve is not merely the fortuitous combination of two words of our language, lacking any special significance. More than any other locality west of the Alleghenies, the term Western Reserve embodies the spirit of colonization, the hardihood of the pioneer, the willingness to endure for religious conviction, the theoretical and practical exposition of the tenets of democracy, the inclusion of thrift both private and public, the fullness of patriotism, the devotion to education. It represents a condensed history of civilization and embodies the best of American civilization, and is a precious heritage which deserves to be perpetuated."

 

FREDERICK C. WAITE, Ph.D.

 

 LESS than a century and a quarter ago, the State of Ohio, and more especially the Western Reserve, was an almost unbroken wilderness. To subdue the pathless forests, those noble pioneers left their homes in the East and struck their axes in the huge growths of the forests, converting them into fertile fields and replacing the wigwam of the Indian with the comfortable abodes of civilization. They came to conquer a wilderness and they conquered it. They sought a "land of promise" and they realized it. "The secret of their success may be traced to the moral principles which characterized their education; hence they practiced economy, and led a frugal life commensurate with their limited means; they built log cabins in which to dwell, log schoolhouses in which to educate their children, and log churches in which to worship God. They had faith, not only in God, but in themselves; they regarded each other as a common brotherhood, and helped each other in time of need. They looked ahead; ever mindful of their responsibilities to both God and man, they have left to their posterity a rich inheritance, rich in lands, and rich in lessons of wisdom."

 

There is still preserved in the Connecticut State Library, the charter issued to that colony in 1662 by Charles II, which defines the limits of the colony to be Massachusetts on the north, Long Island Sound on the south, the Narragansett River on the east, and the Pacific Ocean on the west, excepting certain portions granted previously. "By virtue of this charter, subsequent to the Revolution, Connecticut claimed land west of Pennsylvania. Controversy in relation to this claim at length settled by the cession, by Connecticut to the United States, of all land west of the State of Pennsylvania, reserving a tract one hundred and twenty miles in length, between Lake Erie and the forty-first parallel of north latitude. This cession was accepted, and was considered as an acknowledgment that the claim of Connecticut was well founded. This tract received the name of the Connecticut Western Reserve."

 

Excepting the "Fire Lands," containing half a million acres on the western end of the Reserve, so-called from being given by the state of Connecticut to certain sufferers by fire and destruction of their property in that state during the Revolutionary War, and the Salt Spring tract lying in the townships of Austintown, Jackson, Weathersfield, and Lordstown, and a few other parcels previously sold or negotiated, this tract was sold by the state in 1795 to the Connecticut Land Company for $1,200,000, which money was placed in the school fund of the state and has always there remained.

 

Under General Moses Cleaveland, in 1796, the survey of the Reserve was commenced, and in January, 1798, the survey into townships five miles square then being completed, "the land was partitioned among the stockholders of the company by draft. When the partition was completed, the stockholders of the company received from the trustees deeds of the land they had drawn. Many of the grantees removed soon thereafter to their new country, clearings were made in the forest, log houses were erected, crops were put in the ground, and thus in the spring of 1798 was commenced the regular settlement of the Reserve."

 

There were two ways to enter the Reserve, namely, through New York state to Buffalo and along Lake Erie, or through Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh, to the Beaver and up the Mahoning. By the first of these two ways there came, in 1798, Turhand Kirtland, destined to be a few years later the first Worshipful Master of the first Masonic Lodge on the Western Reserve. He was a descendant of the family of Kyrlands, landed gentry, of Sherrington, in Buckinghamshire, England, which sent its first representatives to this country in 1635. The family settled in Lynn, Mass., but later moved to Saybrook, Conn. Turhand, of the fifth generation of Kirtlands in this country, was born at Wallingford, Conn., Nov. 16, 1755. He was a carriage manufacturer by trade, which occupation he followed in Wallingford until his removal to Ohio. "In 1776 he was in the provisional service of New York at the time of the defeat of the American Army on Long Island and was engaged on board the boats which conveyed our retreating forces over to the mainland. He, with most of the company, was attacked with the malignant camp distemper, typhoid dysentery, and was discharged at Sawpits. After his recovery and return home, he pursued for a number of years the occupations of carriage making and farming in his native town." Later he was one of the proprietors of the Connecticut Land Company in the purchase of the Western Reserve from the mother state.

 

Each member of the company drew his portion by lot and "in the first draft of the company, in 1798, he with several others drew the township of Mecca and part of the township of Auburn. He also, in company with Messrs. Benjamin Doolittle, Seth Hart, William Law, Andrew Hull, Titus Street, Levi Tomlison and Daniel Holbrook, drew the townships of Poland, Burton, and over two thousand acres in Kirtland (located midway between West Mentor and Willoughby), as well as many minor amounts in other townships. Three months after this draft, April, 1798, he set out with his party of surveyors and settlers upon the arduous journey to the Northwest Territory where lay these new possessions." Each succeeding summer he returned, locating first at Burton (now Geauga county), but spent much of his time in Poland and Youngstown, engaged in examining, surveying and selling land, until 1803, when his family accompanied him and settled in Poland.

 

He not only attended to the sale of his own lands but was also agent for the Connecticut Land Company, and while acting in this capacity during the year 1798, he surveyed the townships of Burton and Poland, and during the years 1798-1800 transacted most of the business connected with the final purchase of land by John Young, and assisted him in laying out the village of Youngstown. He continued to act as agent for the company for many years, and, until he retired from active business in 1834, had charge of the greater part of the land of those proprietors of the Connecticut Land Company who resided in the East.

 

From his diary we learn that during the year 1798, in fulfillment of his duty as agent for the company, he laid out and opened a road through the wilderness, from Grand River, near Painesville, to Poland. This was the second road of any distance in old Trumbull County and connected Lake Erie with the Mahoning River and thus establishing communication between the two gateways to the Reserve. This road started at Poland and followed rather closely the old saltmaker's and Indian trail to Salt Springs, thence to Warren, and north on what is now Mahoning avenue. In Champion it turned off to the west above the County Farm, led through Southington, Nelson, Parkman, Burton and thence to Grand River. "Over this road the Indians walked, the early settlers went on horseback, and the first stage coaches sometimes rattled and sometimes plowed the mud. It was at different times known as the plank road, the turnpike, and the state road."

 

It is of interest to trace the route of between six and seven hundred miles which Turhand Kirtland with his party of surveyors and settlers, with their supplies and cattle, traveled on their journey from Old to New Connecticut. From Wallingford they followed the old Boston and New York post road to the Hudson River. Then by way of the Hudson to Schenectady, and from here the boats and supplies continued up the Mohawk River through Wood Creek and into Oneida Lake to the Oswego River. By this river they reached Lake Ontario and followed its southern shore to the Niagara River. From thence the boats were hauled around the Falls on the Canadian side and then navigated up the river to Buffalo.

 

The cattle went overland from Schenectady along the Genesee Road and Niagara Road, turning off to Buffalo Creek. Turhand Kirtland was with the party which proceeded by land, for he states that they left Geneva on the 22nd of April, and his diary, from which the following extracts have been taken, begins abruptly as follows:

 

 Sunday, May 12, 1798--I crossed the Genesee River with Esq. Law, Abott, Moss, etc., with oxen, two cows, one steer, having in company forty heads of cattle and swine. Arrived Monday at Buffalo Creek, leaving the cattle with the men to come on the next morning.

 

Tuesday, May 14--Swam our cattle over Buffalo Creek and took a boat. Mr. Abott and Mr. Moss went to Chippeway and down to the indescribable Falls of Niagara.

 

Wednesday, May 15--Went to garrison at Niagara to Mr. Samuel Cook's and put up to wait for the boats to come on. Spent my time in viewing garrisons and the adjacent country until Saturday, 19th. Sunday, May 20--At daylight went up the river to Queensland . . . detained at portage until Tuesday noon. I arrived at Chippeway and proceeded to Fort Erie.

 

Wednesday, May 23--Arrived at Buffalo.

 

Thursday, May 24--Left Buffalo and arrived at a small creek about five miles and lay wind bound Friday and Saturday . . . hung our grindstone and ground some tools . . . fished and hunted some and Sunday arrived at Presque Isle (Erie). was treated very politely by Capt. Lyman. Slept and breakfasted with him and took a glass of Most Excellent Cyder and some garden seeds.

 

Monday. May 28--Arrived at Conneaut (Stow Castle). Left Conneaut Thursday, May 31st.

 

Sunday, June 3--Arrived at Grand River, about eighteen miles, encamped, and found on the interval as fine large strawberries as ever I saw.

 

Monday, June 4--Went up the river about four miles to the Indian Town at the old fording place. Found several old houses and a large settlement.

 

Tuesday. June 5--Esq. Law and Mr. Beard started the road for several miles.

 

Wednesday. June 6--Cut one and a half miles of road.

 

Saturday, June 16--We caught a very fine faun we judged about one month old which made us an Excellent Dinner.

 

Sunday, June 17--Esq. Law ointed for the itch.

 

Monday, June 25--Being out of bread and flour was obliged to give up surveys this day . . . We killed a large rattlesnake--fifteen rattles and carried him home and dressed him and cooked him and notwithstanding my exclamations to the contrary, after it was cook, it was generally eat with a good relish as any fresh meat we had eat on the road. I can say with candor I never ate better meat.

 

Wednesday, July--Being Independence Day drank a can extraordinary and several Patriotic toasts. Mr. Beard with his hands to survey.

 

Friday, July 6--Turhand Kirtland and Mr. Umberfield completed a log  house on which they had been working, and Mr. Umberfield's family moved in. "It being the first night they had slept in a house since we left Geneva. being which was the 22nd of April, but as I had not finished the chamber floor I concluded not to leave our tents."

 

Sunday July 8--[He completed his room in the cabin, made a bedstead, struck his tent and moved into Mr. Umberfield's cabin.] "It being the first night I had slept in a house since I left Queenstown."

 

Thursday, July 19--Arrived in Cleaveland and found Col. Sheldon and Rising unwell.

 

Friday. July 20--Spent in viewing the town . . . of Cleaveland. He returned to Wallingford to pass the winter, and in 1799 he was again on the Reserve, returning this time no doubt by way of Pennsylvania. On May 2 of that year he attempted a journey from Poland to Burton, and on his arrival in Youngstown, he states, "found to my great disappointment that the road was so incomplete that I could not take my wagon further than No. 4 (Warren)."

 

Sunday, June 23, 1799--Shirted, shaved and read and went to Boardman.

 

Saturday, June 29--I set out with Doolittle and Law for Burton, and went to Youngstown and got a pair of shoes. Set on my horse and went to No. 4 (Warren).

 

Saturday, August 31--I explored some and filled a map.

 

Sunday, September 1--I went to Youngstown to attend public Worship. The Rev. William Wick from Washington county (Penn.) preached, it being the first Sermon ever delivered on New Connecticut.

 

Saturday, September 14--I set out for Burton with Mr. Weaver and Benjamin; went to No. 4 (Warren) and put up at Quinby's.

 

Saturday, September 26--Doolittle and Law set out for McIntosh (Beaver, Penn.) and Washington on the way home.

 

An event occurred the following year which no doubt determined the location of the first Masonic lodge in New Connecticut. On July 10, 1800, Arthur St. Clair, Governor (1788-1802) of the territory northwest of the Ohio River, organized the entire Reserve as Trumbull County with Warren as the county seat. This immense county, now divided into a dozen counties, was known as Trumbull County of the Northwest Territory, for it was not until 1803 that Ohio was admitted into the Union as a state.

 

The eastern part of the township comprising the county-seat had fallen to Ebenezer King, Jr., in the apportionment of land among the stockholders of the Connecticut Land Company in 1798. On Feb. 22, 1800, he deeded to Ephriam Quinby 441 acres at the rate of $3.68 1/2 an acre. Later in the same year, Ephriam Quinby had that portion of his land located on the east side of the Mahoning River surveyed into town lots and donated the public square to the village. The town was given the name of Warren as a compliment to Moses Warren, of Lyme, Conn., one of the first surveyors on the Reserve. "The capitol city consisted of a dozen log cabins surrounded by a wall of trees, with here and there a gate opening to a distant settlement." The first cabin in Warren was built by William Fenton in 1798 and the second by Captain Ephriam Quinby in 1799.

 

That Turhand Kirtland had already gained a reputation as a man of importance on the Reserve is shown by the fact that he was appointed one of the five Justices of the quorum by Governor St. Clair at the time he organized the Reserve as Trumbull County.

 

These Justices of the Peace were the sole law dispensers and constituted the general court of the county. Those designated as the "quorum" taking a higher rank, while the remainder were associate Justices. "In this body was vested the entire civil jurisdiction of the county, local and legislative as well as judicial." They met four times a year, hence were known as "the court of quorum sessions." Governor St. Clair directed the sheriff to call a meeting of this body at Warren, Aug. 25, 1800, and in a session which lasted five days, the foundation was laid for law and order in the new county of Trumbull. The court room on that day was a bower of native trees standing between two large corn cribs on the farm of Captain Quinby on Main street (near the present location of the Erie R. R. station). A synopsis of the record of this session is preserved in the handwriting of Judge Pease, a brother-in-law of Hon. Gideon Granger, of Suffield, Conn., the then Postmaster-General of the United States. It read as follows:

 

Trumbull County  August term 1800  ss.

 

Court of general quarter sessions of the peace begun and holden, at Warren, within and for the said county of Trumbull, on the fourth Monday of August, in the year of our Lord, 1800, and of the independence of the United States the twenty-fifth. Present, John Young, Turhand Kirtland, Camden Cleveland James Kingsbury, Eliphalet Austin, Esquires.

 

CALVIN PEASE, Clerk.

 

Some interesting incidents of this year from the diary of Judge Kirtland are given in "The Mahoning Valley Historical Collections" by his son, Dr. Jared P. Kirtland:

 

July 1, 1800--John Atkins, an old salt, returned to Poland with a mail from Pittsburgh, the then nearest post office. There he obtained two lemons from another sailor who had turned pack-horse man. Turhand Kirtland and Atkins immediately started, with the lemons in charge, for Burton, and probably the first lemons on the Western Reserve

 

July 4--The good people of Burton and others from Connecticut, assembled on the green, forty-two in number, partook of a good dinner, and drank the usual patriotic toasts then the president of the day, Turhand Kirtland, caused the lemons to be mixed in a milk-pan of punch, when he offered and drank as a toast, "Here's to our wives and sweethearts at home." The vessel of punch and the toast passed around the table till at length it came to a Mr. B., who a few weeks before, had fled from a Xanthippe of a wife in New England, to obtain a little respite, and had joined the surveying party; he promptly responded thus to the toast: "Here's to our sweethearts at home, but the D l take the wives."

 

July 23--Turhand Kirtland had partially recovered from an attack of fever and ague. He went from Poland to Youngstown to get his horse shod; was required to blow and strike for the smith. This threw him into an aggravated relapse of the disorder which was at length cured by taking teaspoonful doses of the bark every hour. He adds: "I found that Joseph M'Mahon and the people of Warren had killed two Indians at Salt Springs, on Sunday, 20th, in a hasty and inconsiderate manner; and they had sent after a number (of Indians) that had gone off, in order to hold a conference at Esq. Young's and had sent for an interpreter to attend, who arrived this day, in company with an Indian chief and his lady on horseback."

 

July 30--Went to Youngstown (from Poland) to attend the conference with the Indians on account of the murder of two of their principal men at Salt Springs, on Sunday. 20th. by Joseph M'Mahon and Storer. We assembled about three hundred (whites) and ten Indians, had a very friendly talk. and agreed to make peace and live as friends. Monday. August 25th--Went to Warren, met the judges and justices of the county, when they all took the oaths of office and proceeded to open the Courts of Quarter Sessions and Common Pleas, appointed constables, and summoned eighteen grand jurors. Bills of indictment found against Joseph M'Mahon and Richard Storer for murder.

 

August 27, 28, 29th--Spent in hearing proposals viewing the ground and affixing on a place for the seat of Justice in Warren. Many places were mentioned but the east side of the Mahoning near Esq. Quinby's house was determined upon by the Court, the court adjourned at noon. I rode to Burton.

 

Sunday. September 14th--Sample (of Pittsburgh) the counsel for M'Mahon went on to Youngstown. The prisoner is on the way from M'Intosh (Beaver) with the sheriff. and an escort of twenty-five troops from the garrison at Pittsburgh to guard him to Warren, where a court is to he held on Thursday for his trial for the murder of Captain George and Spotted John (Indians) at Salt Springs.

 

Wednesday. September 17th--Went to court at Warren. (Return J.) Meigs and Gilman the judges. Messrs. Edwards. Pease. (George) Tod, Tappan (of Ravenna) and Abbott admitted as counsellors-at-law by this court.

 

Thursday, September 18th--Prisoner (M'Mahon) brought in traverse jury summoned: Friday, September 19th--witnesses examined:

 

Saturday, September 20th--case argued; verdict acquittal.

 

Another incident of this year occurs in Harvey Rice's "Pioneers of the Western Reserve." John Blackburn and Nancy Bryan desired to be married before the departure of the surveyors from Poland in the fall of 1800 and requested Turhand Kirtland to perform the ceremony. Mr. Rice states:

 

"He yielded to the force of circumstances and consented to officiate. A stool covered with a white tablecloth and a prayer book (Episcopal) lying upon it was brought and placed before him. As he was about to proceed a guest proposed that the whisky bottle should first be passed around, which was done; and while the party was engaged in taking a hurried sip of the 'O-be-joyful' someone mischievously inclined purloined the prayer book which contained the formula to be used in solemnizing marriages. Kirtland, though somewhat disconcerted, appreciated the situation, directed the happy pair to stand up before him and take each other by the hand, when he asked, 'Are you agreed to become man and wife?' They responded 'Yes.' 'Then,' said he, 'I pronounce you henceforth man and wife and bid you go on your way rejoicing."'

 

The use of liquor by the pioneers was so general that they deemed it parsimony, approaching wickedness, to neglect to offer it to a guest or limit the quantity. "It was free as water in the harvest field, clearing and cabin, at public dinners and on election days." It was employed in the mechanic arts, such as barn raisings, and became the standard of value and medium of exchange, and was used in almost all transactions. Masons, in the earlier days, considered liquid refreshments as necessary to a convocation as a room to meet in, and the Steward's bills of the early lodges often show payment for cider, rum, brandy and whisky. It was not until about 1830 that a reaction began to take place on the Reserve and temperance societies were organized. The Masonic lodges were one of the first social organizations to abandon the common use of ardent spirits.

 

Of the annual journeys from Old Connecticut, one record states that in the spring of 1801, "probably a merrier set of men never crossed the mountains and found their way through the wilderness," than that composed of John Kinsman, the pioneer settler of Kinsman, and with him Ebenezer Reeves, General Simon Perkins, Calvin Pease, "who as Judge, citizen and companion had no superior"; George Tod, one of the ablest jurists of Trumbull County; Josiah Pelton. the pioneer of Gustavius; John Stark Edwards, and Turhand and his brother, Jared Kirtland. This party organized itself into a society called "The Illuminati." All were titled, and in addressing each other the titles were frequently used. When they stopped for the night, mock trials were held and thus they beguiled the tediousness of their journey. The party continued together as far as Youngstown where they separated.

 

There were on the Reserve at this time less than 1500 inhabitants. In the diary of Bro. Joseph Badger, known over the Reserve as "Father Badger," the statement is made that he visited Warren in January of 1801 and "was received courteously by Mr. John Levitt and family. I preached here on the Sabboth. In this place were eleven families and one in Howland." In the month of July he records that "on Monday visited Cleveland, in which were only two families. Here I fell in company with Judge Kirtland. We rode from here to Painesville; found on the way, in Euclid, one family and in Chagrin one; in Mentor four, and in Painesville two families."

 

In the year 1803, Turhand Kirtland decided to make his permanent home on the Reserve, and in the spring brought his family by way of Pennsylvania and settled in Poland. Contrary to expectation it was the inland and not the lake shore villages which at first prospered. The settlers desired the higher and drier land and avoided the colder, windy regions about Lake Erie. Thus in the first three years of white occupation, the southeast corner of the Reserve close to the Pennsylvania line grew rapidly and Youngstown, Canfield, Poland and Warren developed into healthy villages, and by 1810 the latter led all the Western Reserve villages in size and importance.

 

Regarding the Fourth of July celebration of that year (1803), Bro. John S. Edwards wrote:

 

I was at Warren on the 4th of July where I attended a ball. You may judge my surprise at meeting a considerable company, all of whom were dressed in neatness in fashion, some of them would have been admired for their ease and grace in a New Haven ball room. It was held on the same spot where four years since there was scarcely the trace of a human hand or anywhere within fifteen miles of it. We improved well the occasion; began at two in the afternoon of Monday and left the room a little before sunrise in Tuesday morning. We dance but seldom, which is our apology.

 

In this year is found the record of the first school in Warren, this being a log building on the river bank west of the square and on about the same site as the present Monumental Park. On Sept. 3 the present First Baptist Church was organized, under the name of the "Concord Baptist-Church," being the first religious body organized in the village. Later in the same year, Nov. 18, the First Presbyterian Church was organized. Judge Kirtland speaks of stopping at Adgate's and Quinby's, in Warren, but neither of these men opened regular taverns, "they merely entertained strangers with such fare as they had themselves." Bro. John Leavitt opened in 1803 the first regular tavern which was located on the corner where the Second National Bank building now stands, and was for many years the principal stopping place in the village.

 

----o----

 

Nolichucky Jack and the Mountain Men

 

By BRO. WILLIAM M. STUART

 

IT was a bright, cloudless day in the latter part of September, 1780. The "Tall Watauga Boys" were holding a field day at the home of Colonel John Sever, sometimes called "Nolichucky Jack," from the name of the stream which ran through his fertile plantation. The wild, uncouth backwoodsmen, settlers in that tract of virgin forest discovered by Daniel Boone and claimed by North Carolina, were disporting themselves according to the forms and usages employed by their ancestors for generations.

 

At a little distance a series of whiplike reports indicated that a rifle contest was going on; a contest with the long Deckhard, a weapon with which each had to be familiar if he were to preserve inviolate on his head the hair that nature had caused to grow, or to protect the lives of those under his care. The Cherokee country lay but a short distance toward the south.

 

Yet a little further away shrill yells, encouraging calls, the pounding of hoofs, gave evidence that horse racing was being practiced. A group of old men whose eyes had grown too dim to longer sight along the rifle barrel, and whose bodies were too much troubled with the pangs of rheumatism to render horse racing attractive, were engaged in the ancient and honorable game of pitching horseshoes. At various fires scattered about the fields men were tending roasting oxen, and the pungent odor of burning flesh was wafted by the breeze to the nostrils of groups of women whose faces almost invariably showed lines of care, irrespective of age. Bands of shrieking children, all care discarded for the joy of the present, raced across the greensward, hid behind bushes or splashed through little streams in imitation of Indian warfare, of which they had heard much and experienced not a little.

 

On the porch of a rather pretentious house sat a man of perhaps thirty-five smoking a long-stemmed pipe and watching the animated scene with positive enjoyment. Known as the handsomest man in Tennessee, Jack Sever's actual appearance did not belie his reputation. six feet tall he was, light haired, blue eyed, graceful, with an engaging smile, his courage famed in that land where all were supposed to be brave; a man full of energy, he was respected by his fellows and admired by the women.  A natural leader of men was Colonel John Sever.

 

His family was of French extraction, but had now been American for Several generations. Being possessed of some wealth, John Sever had crossed the mountain wall in 1772 and settled in the valley of the Watauga in what is now Eastern Tennessee. Here, for reasons which have been already noted, and for many others, he became the dominating spirit of that remote settlement. An Indian fighter of repute, he led thirty four expeditions against the Indians and was never defeated. He was later to be the governor of the short-lived state of Franklin, then the first Governor of Tennessee for six terms. Representative to Congress, General of the Militia, Surveyor for the Government, worthy brother Master Mason, he died with his boots on in 1815, after a long life devoted to the service of his fellow men.

 

His first wife died in 1774, and two years later, while engaged in a campaign against the Indians who had been incited to war by the British, he won his second companion. A party of women and children had strayed too far from the fort and had been attacked by the savages. As they rushed shrieking from the forest, Sever manned the walls of his fort with riflemen to cover the retreat. In a perfect frenzy of fear a young girl sprang to the top of the palisade, scrambled over the wall and fell into the arms of the handsome commander. Here she afterwards abode as his wife. By his first wife Sever had two sons; by the second wife, Katherine Sherrill, he became the father of ten children.

 

Now on this beautiful day of September, 1780, while "Nolichucky Jack" was smoking his pipe and gazing with complacency upon the scene before him, a horseman suddenly broke from the forest, spurred his mount over a rail fence and brought the sweating animal to a sliding halt before the house of Sever. The rider, a man of about thirty with undeniable marks of Welch ancestry, sprang from his trembling steed and rushed up the steps of the porch. Sever advanced to meet him.

 

"And how's my old friend Isaac Shelby ?" said the colonel as he extended his hand. "Well, I should think by the looks, although obviously a little flustered. What's the trouble, Isaac? Another Indian raid?"

 

Shelby threw himself into a chair. "Worse than that--perhaps," he puffed. "Ferguson's advanced to the eastern edge of the mountains and threatens to come over and make us a call." He smiled queerly. "Ah !" Colonel Sever's blue eyes narrowed; he knocked the ashes from his pipe. "How did you learn this, Shelby?"

 

"Ferguson released a prisoner and sent him over the mountains with a message to the effect that if we don't desist from our opposition to the king and take protection under his standard, he will march his army over the mountains, hang our leaders and lay waste our country with fire and sword."

 

"Is that all?" Sever was smiling now.

 

"Good Lord!" snorted Shelby, "isn't that enough?"

 

"It's too much," announced Sever. "Far too much. Ferguson is full of the pride that goeth before a fall. It may be that the Mountain Men will yet teach him a lesson." He sat down again and reflectively began to refill his pipe. Speedily his massive head became almost concealed by clouds of tobacco smoke. Shelby watched him curiously.

 

Then with sudden resolution Colonel John Sever sprang to this feet, cast aside his pipe, advanced to the rail of the porch and called in powerful tones to the people who were scattered for many rods about the house and out-buildings. Swiftly the men left their sports and strode toward him, their long rifles in their hands. the tails of their coonskin caps flapping against their fringed hunting jackets. The women came too-- women on whose faces the lines of care and horror were already beginning to deepen. The crowd gathered about the porch and looked expectantly up into the face of their leader.

 

"Men of Watauga," began Sever, "on the sixteenth of last month the army of General Gates was defeated and almost annihilated at the battle of Camden. A few days later General Sumter's force was surprised and dispersed. South Carolina is at the feet of the enemy who now aspire to conquer the old North State also. A force under Major Patrick Ferguson has advanced almost to the foot of the mountain wall, sweeping all before it. Ferguson has perhaps one hundred and twenty regulars; the rest of his force are Tories --men who should naturally be our countrymen, but who are too craven to fight for liberty. Besides," the colonel paused and smiled, "the gold of the king has called to them. In all, Ferguson has about twelve hundred men."

 

The crowd in front of the porch stirred restlessly. Men handled their rifles. The women gazed up at the bearded faces of their mates.

 

"And now," went on "Nolichucky Jack," as he allowed his eyes to rove appraisingly over his audience, "Ferguson sends us word that unless we cease our efforts against the Indians, whom the king in his might has seen fit to rouse, and refrain from sending any more of our riflemen across the mountains, he will march to our settlements, hang our leaders and ravage our territory with fire and sword. Men of Watauga, what say you to the challenge of the prideful Briton? Shall we send him word that in the future we will remain in our settlements as peaceable subjects of the king, acknowledging that, in spite of his Cherokees and his Tories, the king can do no wrong?"

 

A roar of anger rose from the crowd. Rifles were shaken fiercely in the air. Even the eyes of the women, fit mates for the border warriors, flashed and their normally pale cheeks took on the flush of rage.

 

"Or shall we," Seiver's voice thundered, "march to the relief of our beaten brothers of the plains, crush Ferguson and hurl back the tide of invasion from our borders ?"

 

The uproar was now deafening. Sever had cast his seed on fertile soil. Many young men sprang on the backs of their horses and charged wildly about the fields. From all rose the fierce cry, "March against Ferguson! Down with the British and Tories!"

 

Sever again raised his hand. Silence fell upon the crowd. "The rendezvous," he shouted, "will be at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga, the twenty-fifth of this month. Spread the alarm as your ancestors did in the highlands of old Scotland. Spread the alarm! And now, my friends, disperse."

 

As soon as the crowd had gone, Sever sent an express to Colonel MacDowell, who with a small band of North Carolina militia had been driven over the mountains by Ferguson. Shelby secured a fresh horse from the stables of Sever and dashed away to alarm Colonel Campbell of Virginia, who with many followers had settled about the headwaters of the Holston River. Other messengers were dispatched to Colonel Benjamin Cleaveland and lesser leaders, while Sever himself undertook to rally the Watauga men.

 

On the appointed day the clan began to come to the rendezvous. Nearly five hundred men of the Watauga, including the two sons of Colonel Sever, were on hand and were promptly divided into two regiments, one of which was commanded by Colonel Shelby, the other by Sever himself. One hundred and sixty men under MacDowell, a Master Mason, came riding up on their rangy horses, while four hundred hunting-shirt men under William Campbell and his brother, Arthur Campbell, swelled the force. Singly and in small groups others drifted to the camp until well over a thousand hardy backwoodsmen had arrived. None knew the slightest thing about military tactics, but all were inured to hardships, were expert marksmen, and fear abode in the breast of none. Furthermore, the campaign against the Indians had made them, in a way, veterans.

 

It is a remarkable fact that of those Revolutionary heroes who achieved fame in the various Southern campaigns of that struggle, practically all were Master Masons. The paucity of records of that period make it impossible to tell when many of these distinguished brethren were raised, but it is conceded that the following were Masons: Colonel Moultrie, the hero of Fort Sullivan; Generals Sumter, Marion and Pickens; Major William Washington, the famous cavalryman; Light Horse Harry Lee; Colonel Smallwood, of the indomitable Maryland Line; General Nathaniel Green; Baron DeKalb; General Nelson; Colonel Otto Williams; the following four upon whose shoulders later rested the purple of the Fraternity: Colonels Mordecai Gist and Richard Caswell, Generals William R. Davie and James Jackson. Then, in the expedition that we are about to describe, the following leaders were of the Craft: Colonel Sever, MacDowell and Hambright, Captain Lenoir. General Benjamin Lincoln was not made a Mason until 1781, long after he was forced to surrender at Charleston.

 

Concerning the MacDowell family, Lossing, who quotes Mrs. Ellet's "Women of the Revolution," says: "The MacDowells were all brave men. Joseph and William, the brothers of Charles, were with him in the battle of King's Mountain. Their mother, Ellen MacDowell, was a woman of remarkable energy. Mrs. Ellet relates that on one occasion some marauders carried off some property during the absence of her husband. She assembled her neighbors, started in pursuit and recovered her property. When her husband was secretly making gunpowder in a cave, she burned the charcoal for the purpose upon her own hearth and carried it to him. Some of the powder thus manufactured was used in the battle of King's Mountain."

 

And now that the clans had gathered upon the Watauga, a serious question presented itself: Who would stay to guard the settlements from the Indians waiting their chance to make another bloody raid? Only by resorting to lottery did the men decide who should remain behind; all wanted to go on the march against Ferguson.

 

On the morning of Sept. 26 the expedition was ready to start. A preacher stood forth and invoked divine blessing upon those who were to go forth to battle against the mighty and the workers of iniquity. With bowed heads the bearded Mountain Men listened reverently to the invocation, then mounting their horses, rode away to turn back the red wave that threatened to engulf them. Up, up, toward the summit of the mountain range they traveled, through forests whose foliage was beginning to empurple in the frosts of autumn, along precipitous paths where far below could be heard the murmur of turbulent streams. There was no baggage train; each man carried a supply of parched corn and a quantity of jerked meat. Also a few beeves were driven along to be slaughtered in due season. Occasionally a rifle would echo among the wild crags and a hunter eventually return to the main column with a deer hanging over his saddle bow. Soon they were joined by Colonel Cleaveland with his detachment, and on the last day of the month three hundred and fifty men from the counties of Wilkes and Surrey were added to the army. The next day it rained, and the mountain streams were swollen to rushing torrents that impeded the progress. In some of the higher passes deep snow was found.

 

They now decided to elect a general leader for the whole expedition, and eventually decided upon Colonel Campbell, of virginia, who was to command until such time as General Gates should send a general officer. Colonel MacDowell was sent to inform Gates of the raid and to request that an experienced officer be sent.

 

Descending the eastern slope of the range at last, the army came to the region of the Cowpens, later to be rendered famous by Bro. Morgan, the Old Wagoner General. Here it was joined by detachments of militia under Bro. Hambright, Colonels Lacey and Williams. Many of the recruits, however, were unmounted. As speed was the prime requisite, it was now advocated that from the whole force of over eleven hundred men, nine hundred of the best mounted be selected to make a forced march toward Ferguson, who was understood to be at King's Mountain, just south of the North Carolina line. This plan was speedily adopted, although fifty foot soldiers resolved to keep up with the column if possible.

 

Ferguson, after sweeping at will over the country, rallying Tories to the cause of the king, drilling them and adding them to his army, had learned that the men from beyond the mountains had risen and were on his trail. Knowing something of the character of these hardy fighters, he had retreated to a place that he felt offered sanctuary for the time being, and had sent an express to Cornwallis at Charlotte asking for help. His messenger was, however, intercepted.

 

King's Mountain, one of the Allegheny system, is a spur perhaps fifteen miles in length, running almost due north and south. Ferguson had encamped at the extreme southern point of this ridge on an elevation that constituted a hill by itself. The sides of this hill are precipitous and covered with trees, while the summit, more or less level, is covered with large stones and masses of rock. These rocks formed a natural barricade for the defenders of the hill.

 

Major Ferguson was a member of a distinguished Scotch family and had entered the military service at the age of eighteen. Joining the British Army in America in 1777, he served with distinction at Brandywine, Camden and other engagements. He commanded the Seventy-first regulars, about one hundred and twenty of whom accompanied him on the King's Mountain raid. The remainder of his army was made up of Tories whom he had drilled until he rated them equal to regulars. His whole force waiting on the hill for the attack was composed of between eleven and twelve hundred men, considerably out-numbering his opponents, but, for this particular kind of warfare, inferior to them. Ferguson himself was a crack shot with the rifle and is said to have been the inventor of a breechloading piece. His second in command was Captain De Peyster, a scion of a prominent Tory family of New York.

 

At nine o'clock on the night of Oct. 6, 1780, Colonel Campbell's little army of mounted borderers set out from Cowpens for King's Mountain, over thirty miles distant. The night was intensely dark, for a chilly autumnal rain had set in, adding greatly to the discomfort of the men and rendering it difficult for them to keep the priming dry in their rifles. All night long the column plodded through the inky darkness, the only sound being the squashing of the horse's hoofs in the soft mud and the patter of the rain on the withered leaves.

 

Just as the gloomy dawn came up they reached the Catawba River at Cherokee Ford. And now the :rain fell much harder than before. Without halting, the riders continued their march, and about noon the sun broke through the clouds, the rain stopped, and all nature shone as though in garments new and of wondrous texture. The spirits of the men rose.

 

And now a woman ran out of a farmhouse, stared for a moment at the column. "How many men have you ? ' she asked Campbell.

 

"Enough to whip Ferguson," gruffly returned the grizzled old fighter. "Where is he, then?"

 

The woman pointed toward a hill about three miles away. "He's there," she said, and ran back into the house. Again the long line of drenched horsemen advanced, their eyes ever on the hill which rose perhaps one hundred feet above the surrounding country. Smoke could be seen drifting over the trees; a distant bugle call rang faintly through the air.

 

It was about two o'clock when the Americans arrived as near to the hill as they dared go before forming their line of battle. They dismounted behind a patch of woods and tied their horses to the trees. It was decided that Shelby, Williams and Lacey should attack on the left; Cleaveland, Hambright and Winston on the north; Campbell, Sever and MacDowell on the right. They had reason to believe that Ferguson had not yet observed their arrival. The orders were simple: the men were to swarm up the sides of the hill, yell fiercely and fire deliberately. If forced to retire before the British bayonet (for the Mountain Men had no bayonets), they were to retreat only far enough to evade the charge, then return promptly to the combat. The columns moved toward their respective locations.

 

About the leggins of the men the wet grass clung, while from the dripping trees miniature showers fell before the autumnal breeze. The slanting rays of the afternoon sun gleamed on rifle barrel and handle of hunting knife. And now on the hill in front a musket roared. A drum began its stirring call; hoarse shouts; the shrill piping of a whistle; the sheen of scarlet among the yellow leaves.

 

"Forward !" shouted the leaders of the Mountain Men, and led the riflemen up the slope.

 

On the ridge above Shelby's men there suddenly burst forth a musket volley. Lead thumped the sides of the trees about the mountaineers, or sent down showers of twigs and branches upon their heads, but the damage was slight. The British were aiming too high. Shelby's men replied slowly and carefully to the fire, only pulling trigger when they could see a scarlet coat among the rocks.

 

On the hill the whistle sounded again, a man on a large white horse came galloping up, waved his sword and led his regulars down the slope in a bayonet charge toward the Watauga men. And now the rifles spat with a vengeance. Many of the redcoats fell, and the bodies came rolling and bumping down the steep, or brought up in grotesque attitudes against the roots of the trees. But the rest came lunging down, their bayonets gleaming wickedly, looks of grim hate, not unmixed with fear, upon their scowling faces. "At them, men !' roared Ferguson. "Give 'em the cold steel."

 

Reluctantly Shelby's men were forced to give ground; so reluctantly that some were bayoneted where they stood. The rest, turning to fire as rapidly as they could reload their long rifles, fell back to the foot of the hill.

 

A crashing volley came from the woods to the north. Ferguson was flanked by the men of Williams. The Britons fell back to the summit of the slope. De Peyster led his Tories at Williams and forced him to recoil, while again the flanking rifle fire broke out. Only just beyond reach of the bayonet did the Mountain Men retire, then when pressure from the flanks relieved them they returned to the fray with redoubled energy.

 

And now Bro. Sever and his Watauga men. yelling like demons, swarmed up the slope and attained the summit, taking position among the rocks. Again the shrill whistle sounded and Ferguson drove his white horse in a charge of regulars against the position of Sever. But the position was too strong; "Nolichucky Jack" and his men could not be dislodged. Over their rifle sights the borderers marked the trimmings on the scarlet coats of their adversaries, and terrible was the toll taken by the long Deckhards. The drifting powder smoke, the falling leaves and the excitement of the fight rendered the aim of the mountaineers more uncertain than usual, else the force of Major Ferguson would speedily have been annihilated. As it was, the forms of the red-clad soldiers and their more soberly garbed companions, the Tories, seemed strangely distorted and blurred in the battle haze that covered the mountain top where eleven hundred muskets and nine hundred rifles were creating an uproar heard for miles.

 

Again and again the heroic Ferguson led his men in wild charges. He but increased his list of casualties, while the men of the mountains continually returned to the fight, their yells of triumph rivaling the crackling bursts of their rifle fire.

 

Gradually the British were forced back to the northern edge of the hill where the men of Cleaveland, Winston and Bro. Hambright, swarming up the slope, completed the lines of circumvallation. Bro. Sever led his men from their place among the rocks and charged upon the enemy, now fast losing their fortitude. The faces of the regulars and their Tory allies showed white through the powder smoke, and in their eyes was a look of fear. On all sides the enemy were surrounded, while the Mountain Men pressed nearer, firing with deliberate aim. On the top of the hill bodies of men lay thickly scattered. Confusion worse confounded set in. "Quarter !" someone shouted. Men ran this way and that. A white flag fluttered for a moment then sank out of sight. Again the shrill whistle. In a last desperate charge Ferguson led such of his men as would follow him. A dozen rifles spoke at once. The brave Scotchman swayed in his saddle, pitched to the ground, while his white horse, snorting in terror, leaped over the bodies of the slain and crashed down the side of the mountain to liberty.

 

Again the white flag appeared. "Quarter ! Quarter !" shouted the Tories and regulars. Many of the Mountain Men did not know the meaning of a white flag and continued their fire.

 

"My God !" shouted De Peyster in tones heard above the crackling of the rifles. "Do you murder men who have surrendered?"

 

Campbell sprang in front of his men and threw up many of the rifles. Shelby ran toward De Peyster, shouting, "Damn you, if you want quarter, ground your arms !"

 

Panic stricken, the regulars and Tories threw their weapons on the ground while the noise of firing died out and the clouds of powder smoke drifted away through the trees. The battle of King's Mountain was over.

 

In this close action the Americans lost twenty-eight killed and sixty-two wounded, among the latter being Bro. Hambright, one of the colonels. According to a statement signed by Colonels Cleaveland, Shelby and Campbell, the total loss of the British was eleven hundred and five, divided as follows: Regulars, killed, nineteen; wounded, thirty-five; prisoners, sixty-eight. Tories, killed, two hundred and six; wounded, one hundred and twenty-eight; prisoners, six hundred and forty-nine.

 

In retaliation for outrages by the enemy, Several of the Tories were hanged after the battle. After having been gone on the raid twenty-eight days, the army of Mountain Men returned to their homes with the satisfaction of warriors whose work has been well done.

 

The battle of King's Mountain had a great effect. Cornwallis was alarmed; he recalled all his small parties, concentrated his force and fell back to South Carolina, abandoning for the time operations against North Carolina. The great victory of Bro. Morgan at Cowpens followed not long after this, and Bro. Greene originated the campaign of movements which had for its ultimate result the liberation of the Southland from the tread of the invader.

 

----o----

 

The Claims of the Modern Operatives

 

BY BRO. R. J. MEEKREN

 

( Concluded)

 

WE will now take up the third and last of the three previously mentioned points of view from which it is possible to criticize the claims of the modern Operatives, and for this purpose we will now give a brief consideration of the technical secrets supposed to have been preserved by the gild. The most prominent of these is the previously mentioned 3-4-5 triangle for obtaining a true right angle, the "'five-point system" for laying out buildings, the diamond diagram for designing them and the supposed method used by the builders for raising large stones.

 

THE SUPPOSED TECHNICAL SECRETS EXAMINED

 

In regard to the first one it may be said that the '3-4-5 triangle is a convenient method for setting out a right angle on a large scale, though in most cases the method of describing arcs of a circle would be just as convenient--in drawing a good deal more convenient and accurate. For the purpose of making a square, a try-square, it would be useless. The medieval masons generally, one judges, used wooden squares, and they may actually have used a carefully squared stone to test and adjust them. But the most delicate test for a square is to trace a right angle with it on a flat surface and then reverse its position and draw another from the same starting point. If the square is true the two lines coincide, if not the amount of error is shown doubled, for each line varies in opposite directions from the right angle. That such a simple test was not known to our Operative predecessors is impossible to believe.

 

Perhaps more has been written about the "five-point system" by advocates of the Operatives than about any other technicality they are supposed to possess. Briefly this is the idea that ancient buildings were laid out from a center point. That this point being chosen, a pair of diagonals were next marked out, and the correct distances measured from the center along each diagonal in each direction to determine corner points. This supposed technical procedure is mixed up with foundation sacrifices, of which, according to the Operative account, there were supposed to be five, one in the center and one at each corner.

 

This procedure appears to assume that all buildings were either square in plan, or oblong in the proportion of three wide to four long, one to two, one to three, or varying multiples of these numbers. Nothing in reality is more absurd. The pyramids, it is true, were built on a square plan, and the Temple of Solomon is said to have been 60x20 cubits--we do not know exactly how it was laid out--but other ancient buildings, like modern ones, are built on all kinds of different plans to suit the nature of the site and the purposes of the builders. But first let us dispose of the sacrifices or foundation deposits. There is little or no evidence for such being placed in the center of the building, and none at all when in conjunction with corner deposits. That is, the excavation of old sites has yielded no examples of such a combination. In Egypt four deposits were quite common, but no center ones have been found. They were placed sometimes under the corners and sometimes under the threshold of the chief entrance. In the case of foundation sacrifice one was usually regarded as sufficient, and the place selected seems to have been more frequently in the wall than at a corner. However this will lead us too far afield, we are concerned now rather with the practical utility of the "five point" method. Buildings, as has been remarked, are usually erected to conform in some way to the site. Some temples, and most old churches, are oriented, but very seldom with any great exactitude. Buildings in a town, such as a Gild Hall for example, would have some reference to the street and neighboring structures. Suppose it was required to lay out the foundations of a church due east and west. The natural way would be to first get the cardinal points marked out, and the obvious method would be to set out two stakes north and south sighted at night by the pole star or by observing the point of sunrise and sunset. From this could be drawn at right angles (by the 3-4-5 method, or by intersecting arcs, or even by sighting along a large square) the two lines for the east and west sides of the building as far apart and as long as has been determined on. To find the appropriate center of the building in order to lay it out on the five point method would require most of this procedure to begin with, and when it had been found no practical advantage would have been gained. In fact, unless a few set proportions depending on the 3-4-5 ratio were used, the only way to get the exact length of diagonal required would be by an arithmetical extraction of the square root of the sum of the squares of the side and end, a thing that only a very few mathematicians could do in the Middle Ages. An actual acquaintance with medieval buildings impresses even the casual observer with the fact that the last thing the craftsman worried about was exact measurements. He built churches easterly and westerly rather than due east and west; they were more or less the same width throughout, often less rather than more; the span of the arches is rarely exactly the same; the angles of the corners seem frequently to have been laid out by eye rather than by measurement; in short, he was an artist and he knew by instinct that the eye cannot judge angles in a building and that nothing gives a more dead and monotonous effect than exact equality of parts. The same observation of the actual structures disposes of the supposed "diamond" rule for designing their elevations. Here and there a building more or less fits some such scheme, but as a whole we can only come to the conclusion that the architect, or master of the work, first drew a sketch, and when its proportions pleased him he made an outline drawing of it without reference to any special ratios, and that the minor detail was devised by the craftsmen themselves as they went along.

 

 THE MECHANICAL APPLIANCES USED

 

Among other things the Operatives profess to have preserved in their traditions is the methods by which the enormous stones in some ancient (not medieval) buildings were raised into position. One hardly knows how to begin to criticise these. Theoretically, in the diagram given, the counterpoise weights will balance that to be lifted, but the form of apparatus used is most impractical. Two defects appear at once, the enormous shear effect on the two pivot pins that have to support not only the load but the balance weights as well, and the weakening of the two arms by boring holes through them at the very point where the greatest strength is required. A much more practicable method, using exactly the same principle, would be the very simple one adopted by any gang of workmen today, of using long levers to pry up each end alternately, blocking it up as it was raised.

 

There is one more point of a technical character, though it is not dwelt on as an Operative trade secret, and that is the curious division of the craft into two entirely separate classes of masons, arch and square men. And by the way we have here another of those disturbing reminiscences. The term "Square-men" was (and perhaps is) a Scottish technical name including the tradesmen who are also called "wrights," which are very much the same as those included by name in the present Operative Society (though not, as we have seen, members of it in fact) under the head of rough masons, tilers, slaters, etc., with the addition, however, of carpenters and joiners and mill-wrights. But the term is also used at the present day in England, especially in country places and in the North, by Speculative Masons to describe themselves. In fact it takes somewhat the same place as the American phrase of being "on the square." While on the other side the term "Arch-masons" seems almost, if it might be an attempt to give an explanation of the question that has been so much discussed by Masonic students, of the first rise and original use of the term "Arch" as a distinctive title. One theory being that it had the sense of a superior grade, as in Arch-bishop or Archduke. Be this as it may, the Operative's claim is that the trade has always been divided into two, one set of men learning only how to cut and lay squared stones, and the other knowing only how to cut stones for arches and vaults and the methods of erecting