On September 11, 1826, a man named William Morgan was in a jail cell in Canandaigua for failing to pay a small tavern bill. That night, a group of men took Morgan out of his jail cell, took him west to Fort Niagara and locked him up there. Shortly after, Morgan was removed from his cell in Fort Niagara. He was never seen again.

Morgan’s disappearance occurred just before publishing a book he claimed would reveal all the secrets of Freemasonry to the world, and the men who kidnapped Morgan from his jail cell were members of that social order. Morgan’s disappearance sparked a nation-wide anti-Mason craze that developed into a short-lived political party. But Morgan’s fate was never truly discovered. Director of Education Ben Falter cracks open the 200-year-old cold case in this talk to illuminate how this crime shaped national politics of the era.