As we sped onward I pointed out the places—­only too well remembered—­where the Professor had worked so hard exactly two weeks before to the day.

After luncheon, while riding about some of the less frequented streets of Batavia, we came quite unexpectedly to an old cemetery.  In the corner close to the tracks of the New York Central, so placed as to be in plain view of all persons passing on trains, is a tall, gray, weather-beaten monument, with the life-size figure of a man on the top of the square shaft.  It is the monument to the memory of William Morgan who was kidnapped near that spot in the month of September, 1826, and whose fate is one of the mysteries of the last century.

To read the inscriptions I climbed the rickety fence; the grass was high, the weeds thick; the entire place showed signs of neglect and decay.

The south side of the shaft, facing the railroad, was inscribed as follows: 

  Sacred To The Memory Of
  William Morgan,
  A native of Virginia,
  A Capt.  In the war of 1812,
  A respectable citizen of
  Batavia, and A Martyr
  to the freedom of writing,
  printing, and speaking the
  truth.  He was abducted
  from near this spot in the
  year 1826 by FREEMASONS,
  and murdered for revealing
  the secrets of the order.

The disappearance of Morgan is still a mystery,—­a myth to most people nowadays; a very stirring reality in central and western New York seventy-five years ago; even now in the localities concerned the old embers of bitter feeling show signs of life if fanned by so much as a breath.

Six miles beyond Batavia, on the road to Le Roy, is the little village of Stafford; some twenty or thirty houses bordering the highway; a church, a schoolhouse, the old stage tavern, and several buildings that are to-day very much as they were nearly one hundred years ago.  This is the one place which remains very much as it was seventy-five years ago when Morgan was kidnapped and taken through to Canandaigua.  As one approaches the little village, on the left hand side of the highway set far back in an open field is an old stone church long since abandoned and disused, but so substantially built that it has defied time and weather.  It is a monument to the liberality of the people of that locality in those early days, for it was erected for the accommodation of worshippers regardless of sect; it was at the disposal of any denomination that might wish to hold services therein.  Apparently the foundation of the weather-beaten structure was too liberal, for it has been many years since it has been used for any purpose whatsoever.