Without Disclosing My True Identity
historians fail to disclose is the first time that Joseph, as an adult, became involved in
Masonry—and it certainly wasn’t a positive introduction.
One of the most infamous events associated with Masonic history (even to this
very day) and which touched Joseph Smith, Jr. rather closely, had to do with the
disappearance of a certain Captain William Morgan, who was believed to have been
murdered by the Masons in 1826. Having initially been inducted into the Masons in
upstate New York in 1825, the story goes thus:
Sometime in the year following his initiation at LeRoy [New York], William
signed a petition calling for another chapter of Masons to be established in
Batavia [upstate New York]. But one of the fraternit[ies] drew a line through his
name, either because he had a reputation for drinking or for some unknown offense
[alleged accumulation of debts]. Morgan was infuriated, and in March 1826 a
printer named Miller and a Mr. Dyer drew up a partnership with him to print
an exposé of Masonic ritual. As all Masons take an oath when initiated never to
reveal the ritual on pain of death, this was a dangerous project. ...News of the
proposed exposé leaked out...[and on September 12, 1826] a band of men
seized him and forced him into a carriage. He was never seen publicly again.^24What followed was a trial in which no one was found guilty, which then caused a
huge wave of regional anti-Mason sentiment. Captain Morgan’s wife, Lucinda, became a
very outspoken critic of Masonry for about five years until she married George Harris^25 —
also a Mason. After a series of relocations, they converted to Mormonism in 1834,
whereupon George quickly became very prominent in Missouri Mormonism; and by 1838
they had met Joseph. By the time of Joseph’s death, many rumors abounded about a
relationship between Joseph and Lucinda, only this “relationship” appeared to be with the
full knowledge of Lucinda’s faithful Mormon husband. The fact that Lucinda Morgan
found a trusted friend and leader in Joseph proves that the Mormon prophet was as
disgusted with the idea of Masonry as the bereaved widow was. If Joseph had had
anything good to say about Masonry, or had he embraced any part of it publicly, there
would have been no attraction or intimate (friendly) bond formed between them.
To jump ahead in the story for a moment, in June of 1844, a non-Mormon journalist,
who had come to Nauvoo just before the murders of Joseph and Hyrum, reported the following
upon the return to Nauvoo of the bodies of the two dead martyrs. The reporter observed the
widows Emma Smith and Mary Fielding Smith griev[ing] over their dead
husbands. But he was startled when he also noticed, “a lady standing at the
head of Joseph Smith’s body, her face covered, and her whole frame
convulsed with weeping.” It was Lucinda Harris, grieving again, as she had
years earlier when Morgan died.^26Most archivists in and out of the LDS church erroneously list Lucinda as the second
plural wife of Joseph^27 and who was formally, posthumously married to Joseph by Brigham
Young for “eternity,” with her husband, George, standing in as proxy for the dead Joseph.
The next day she was sealed for “time” only to George. However, rumors stirred that Joseph
and Lucinda were wed much earlier. This “relationship” was the grounds for many
rumors^28 that included Joseph having relations with married women who had “faithful”