Wm. Morgan, a native of Virginia, was a captain in the War of 1812, a respectable citizen of Batavia, and was regarded as a martyr to the freedom of writing, printing and speaking the truth. He was abducted from near this spot in 1826 by Freemasons and murdered for revealing the secrets of their order. The court records of Genesee County and the files of the Batavia Advocate kept in the Recorder's office contain the history of the events connected with his death. Morgan declared, "The bane of our civil institutions is to be found in Masonry, already powerful and daily becoming more so. I owe to my country an exposure of its cancer."