rocess for a
small debt and by his imprisonment in the Canandaigua jail. When
discharged on the succeeding night, he was quickly seized, and, as it
subsequently appeared from the evidence taken at the trial of his
abductors, he was bound, gagged, thrust violently into a covered
carriage, driven by a circuitous route, with relays of horses and men,
to Fort Niagara, and left in confinement in the magazine. Here he
dropped out of view.

The excitement following the discovery of this crime was without a
parallel in the history of Western New York. Citizens everywhere
organised committees for the apprehension of the offenders; the
Governor offered a reward for their discovery; the Legislature
authorised the appointment of able lawyers to investigate; and
William L. Marcy and Samuel Nelson, then judges of the Supreme Court,
were designated to hold special circuits for the trial of the accused.
Many persons were convicted and punished as aiders and abettors of the
conspiracy. For three years the excitement continued without
abatement, until the whole State west of Syracuse became soaked with
deep and bitter feeling, dividing families, sundering social ties, and
breeding lawsuits in vindication of assailed character. Public
sentiment was divided as to whether Morgan had been put to death. Half
a century afterward, in 1882, Thurlow Weed published an affidavit,
rehearsing a statement made to him in 1831 by John Whitney, who
confessed that he was one of five persons who took Morgan from the
magazine and drowned him in Lake Ontario.[253]

[Footnote 253: _Autobiography of Thurlow Weed_, p. 332.]

The trouble stirred up by this unfortunate affair gradually drifted
into politics. In the spring of 1827, a disinclination had shown
itself among the people of Genesee County to support Free Masons for
supervisors or justices of the peace, and, although the leading men of
the western part of the State deprecated political action, the
pressure became so great that Free Masons were excluded from local
tickets in certain towns of Genesee and Monroe Counties. This course
was resented by their friends. In the summer of the same year, the old
treasurer of Rochester, who had been elected year after year without
opposition, was defeated. No one had openly opposed him, but a canvass
of the returns disclosed a silent vote which was quickly charged to
the Masons. This discovery, says Thurlow Weed, "was like a spark of
fire dropped into combustible