Historical Newspaper Articles abt KGC

[cccalco]

150 Years Ago Today: Captain marches his command toward Sturgeon
By RUDI KELLER

This article was published on page A2 of the Thursday, December 29, 2011 edition of The Columbia Daily Tribune with the headline "Captain marches his command toward Sturgeon: "

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/dec/29/captain-marches-command-toward-sturgeon

EXCERPT:

ST. LOUIS — A new secret society with members sworn “to do whatever may be necessary” was recruiting adherents in western Missouri counties, the St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican reported.

Two men — Robert Dunn and Nathan Kouns — had been arrested in St. Joseph with 20 pamphlets about the organization, the newspaper reported. The pamphlets, “Constitution of the Emmanant” authored by the two men, actually bore evidence of having been written by fugitive editor Joseph Tucker, the newspaper claimed.

Tucker, formerly publisher of the St. Louis Journal, was wanted on an indictment for treason and was with the Missouri State Guard publishing the Missouri Army Argus.

Another Southern secret society, the Knights of the Golden Circle, was known to have had a chapter among members of the General Assembly, the newspaper reported.

“Soon it became evident that legislation was controlled by it,” the Republican reported. “The infection spread, and similar organizations took place all over the state, and to its secret workings may be traced much of the desperation which has marked the conduct of the secessionists in Missouri.”

The society accepted white males older than 18 known to be honest, truthful, sound in body and mind, and “a believer in the being of One Just, Eternal, and Omniscient God, who will infallibly reward virtue and punish vice.”

The oath required of each initiate was to “yield prompt and implicit obedience to all the official commands of my superiors in office, even unto death; and that I will not seek from them favor or affection to shield any who shall incur the vengeance of the Order, from just punishment; and I will make the good of the Order the highest consideration, and will not hesitate to do whatever may be necessary for its security.”

Compiled by Rudi Keller SOURCE: State Historical Society of Missouri; Official Records of the War of the Rebellion
Reach Rudi Keller at 573-815-1709 or e-mail [email protected].

 

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[cccalco]

[h=3]In Womble's Blue Shadow[/h]

​

By Gary DeNeal
Jun 16, 2012

Flatrock, Beartrack, Thackers Gap — across the hills and hollows of southeastern Illinois.

Springhouse (Vol. 29 No. 3) reprinted an article about Saline County that was first published in 1934. That article includes the following about Dr. John W. Mitchell of early Harrisburg.

EXCERPT:
"…Saline County did not declare for secession; but the Knights of the Golden Circle, a semi-military organization which favored the Southern case, were well organized and active. Their methods were similar to those used later by the Ku Klux Klan;"

Dr. J. W. Mitchell - Flora, IL - The Clay County Advocate-Press

CCC: Just noting that by 1934 the KGC was already being compared to the KKK.

 

[cccalco]

San Angelo Standard Times
SAN ANGELO, Texas
Calendar of upcoming club meetings and events


The Sons of the Confederate Veterans (SCV), General Tom Green Camp 1613, will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Fort Concho Historic Landmark Living History Center, 236 Henry O. Flipper St.


Ray Theiss, Fort Concho volunteer and Angelo State University student, will present "To Rival Rome: A History of the Knights of the Golden Circle". Visitors are welcome.


Information: 325-944-9681


Club calendar, 6/17 » Standard-Times

 

[cccalco]

What we thought: 150 years ago
By From the editorial archives of Sauk Valley Media
Monday, May 20, 2013


The Gazette
May 16, 1863


Bishop dared to do his patriotic duty


Disloyalty rebuked


Bishop Symit, the Roman Catholic bishop of Dubuque, a week ago last Sunday afternoon openly denounced the secret order of the Knights of the Golden Circle.


In his character as a confessor, he had learned of its existence there, and that its object was evil towards our government. He at once exposed it, and told his hearers that those of them who had been duped into joining this conspiracy should come forth from it immediately.


He gave all such members of his church two weeks to leave it. All who then continued in it, would be excommunicated. The bishop then appealed to his hearers to stand by the government, and not to be led by the wicked politicians in any schemes for its overthrow.


Dubuque is the headquarters of the Knights in Iowa, and this blow from a quarter whence they little expected it, is a crushing one on their schemes of wickedness.


All honor to the bishop who dares to do his duty and openly rebuke the doings of this treasonable organization.


Serves him right


[Clement] Vallandigham, the great Copperhead mogul, has been sentenced to the Tortugas for two years by Gen. Burnside. He can there talk treason to lizards and tadpoles to his heart’s content.


The sentence is a just one, and all loyal men will endorse Gen. Burnside for it; but it shows he has little respect for the natural inhabitants of that pleasant locality.


Good bye, Val; our love to your future comrades.


P.S. – The Philadelphia Inquirer of the 14th says that the president has changed the sentence by sending Vallandigham south during the war. Conscientious Lincoln.


The original


Copperhead


The first Copperhead, without doubt, made his appearance in the Garden of Eden.


The first, however, that made his appearance in this country was Benedict Arnold.


On the 20th of October, 1780, while the war of the Revolution was progressing, he issued a “proclamation to the citizens and soldiers of the United States,” appealing to them to turn against Washington, Hancock and their compatriots, just as certain politicians are now appealing to the people to turn against the government.


Meagher bows out


Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher, the renowned Irish orator and gallant commander of the Irish Brigade, has tendered his resignation. The brigade has been so reduced by repeated conflicts in the Army of the Potomac that it now numbers less than one thousand men, and the general does not wish to risk the lives of the remaining few by asking them to follow where he may choose to lead.


He does not, however, withdraw from the service, but offers himself to the government in another capacity.


Stonewall’s death


Late Richmond papers confirm the reports of the death of [Confederate Gen.] Stonewall Jackson. He died on Sunday last, from the effects of the amputation of his left arm, and pneumonia.


saukvalley.com | From our archives: Bishop dared to do his patriotic duty in Dixon IL, Sterling, IL and Rock Falls IL

 

[cccalco]

THE KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE.
Published: August 30, 1861


THE KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. - NYTimes.com


Under this head an article appears in the London Spectator, of Aug. 17, which is of especial interest, as the journal in which it appears is well known to be American property and under American inspiration. It has a prominent place among the articles on the leading topics of the day, which forms a conspicuous and valuable feature of the Spectator, and will be read with interest by men of all hues in politics on this side of the Atlantic;


Just before the descent of LOPEZ on Cuba, the American papers were full of allusions to an association called the Order of the Lone Star, said to be organized for the purpose of conquering Cuba and Nicaragua. M. SOULE was said to be its President, and the appointment of that individual as Minister to Madrid was regarded by the Court of Spain, as a wilful discourtesy. LOPEZ himself belonged to the society, and it was from the ranks of the Order that WALKER obtained his most ardent recruits. After the failure of WALKER's first expedition, the rumors of the society died away, and though its members, under the quaint title of "Precipitators," were supposed to be active in the work of disunion, the society itself, as such, ceased to play any prominent part. The more violent members, however, saw in it a power which might be effectively used, and on the first symptom of the predominance of the Free-Soilers, they organized a new association, under the name of the Knights of the Golden Circle, with new and better defined objects, and an obligation of secrecy. The secret of the Order, however, has been betrayed during the intestine strife raised by disunion in Kentucky, and the revelation exposes a plot which, for audacity, ability and wickedness, has rarely been surpassed in the long history of conspiracy.


The object of the Order may be briefly stated. It is nothing less than to raise an army of 16,000 men for the conquest of Mexico, and the establishment in that vast Territory of a strongly organized monarchy, resting on a basis of slave institutions. The precise mode of accomplishing this object has already been settled. As soon as the internal warfare is over, all members of the Order, under their secret leaders, are to repair to Guanajuato, with the Governor of which province of Mexico, MICHAEL DOBLADO, the Order has concluded a formal treaty. By the provisions of this precious document the Governor is to add 16,000 men of his own, and the entire army is to march forward under his command to the permanent subjugation of the country. Means are found from the revenues of the province, and its State property is "mortgagad" for the payment of the soldiery, at one-eighth above the American rates.


To secure the necessary cohesion, the Order has been organized after this fashion. Every applicant for admission is first sworn to secrecy under the penalty of death, and then the design of the Order is revealed. If he assents to its propriety, and is, moreover, an American born, and a slaveowner, or can produce proof that he is imbued with Southern sentiments, and is a Protestant, he is admitted as a soldier of the Order, and informed of its signs, pass-words, and organization. On the recommendation of the chiefs of the Order he is admitted to the second degree, informed that the stores and ammunition for the Army are collected at Monterey, and acquainted with the names of the officers to whom he is to look for pay. He is also supposed to be on active service, and the President has, we perceive, summoned all Kentuckian members to attend a rendezvous, where they will be drilled and organized by regular instructors, and whence they are, for the present, to control the Kentucky elections in favor of Southern men. If influential enough, he is next admitted to the third degree, the council of the Order, which under the Presidency of Mr. GEORGE BICKLEY, the future monarch, regulates the affairs of the Order, without communication, except through GEORGE BICKLEY, to the other degrees. He swears in this degree to obtain all the neophytes he can, to support his colleagues the Knights of the Columbian Star in all efforts for office, to conquer Mexico and "Southernize" its institutions; to drive all free negroes into Mexico, there to be enslaved, and to reduce the peon population of Mexico to slavery, dividing them as chattels among the members of the Order, and to recognize for the present monarchical institutions, as tending to strong government. Moreover, after the conquest of Mexico, he is to contend for the exclusion of every Roman Catholic from office and from the priesthood, and to support a system of passports enforced by the penalty of death. He again swears to a scheme of government which, from its utter want of resemblance to any American idea, we give entire:


13. The successor to GEORGE BICKLEY must be over thirty years of age, of Southern birth, liberally educated, Knight of the Columbian Star, sound of body and mind, and married, and Protestant. He shall swear to carry out this policy, and to extend Slavery over the whole of Central America if in his power. He shall try to acquire Cuba and control the Gulf of Mexico. No one else will I sustain. But for such a one, who must be proposed by the Cabinet Ministers and elected by all Knights of the Star, or a majority of them, I will sustain here, there, or elsewhere. When the Knights cross the Rio Grande, I will do all I can to send in recruits for the Army, and if I should ever cease to be an active worker for the Star, I will keep secret what I know of the real character of the organization, and I promise never to confer this degree in any other way than in the way I have here received it, and I will forward to GEORGE BICKLEY, or to the Governor-General of this State, the name and fees of every candidate whom I shall initiate as Governor. In witness, I do voluntarily, here and in these presence, sign my name and address."


He is then informed that Mexico can provide any amount of means, that funds to the extent of a million of dollars are lying at Matamoras, and two millions more at Monterey; that the Governor of Guanajuato is rapidly organizing his province for the reception of the Order, and that the march of the invading Army will commence on the 6th of October, 1861.


It reads, all this, rather like a dream of some mad slaveholder than a grave and definite project, which, nevertheless, we believe it to be. The Order is already powerful in the South, the alliance with the Governor is sufficiently probable, and the whole plan is strictly in accordance with the views known to be entertained by the most prominent slaveholders. Nor is the execution of the plan so difficult as to create any prima facie suspicion of falsehood. The South is full of men without slaves, with no place in society, and hungry for profitable adventure. They have been accustomed for years to regard the immense republic to their south, with its vast territory, its real and imaginary wealth, its disorganized government, and powerless white population, as a certain and easy prey. The successful annexation of Texas is a proof of what may be accomplished by a few unscrupulous and resolute men, and the laws of the Order tend directly to secure effective cohesion among its members. Quarreling and seduction are absolutely forbidden, every member is responsible for the orphans of those who fall, and societies released from the law are apt to protect themselves by somewhat effective guarantees for their own extra-legal code. The Order has men at command, so numerous that they are said to be objects of terror in Kentucky, Missouri and Arkansas, and the bribe offered is of stupendous magnitude. It is nothing less than to bestow on 16,000 men a body of slaves equal to the whole slave population of the South, and slaves, too, more easily controlled than the negro race. To men thirsting for ownership, and convinced that Slavery is lawful, the temptation must be almost irresistible, more especially as every American overratesthe case with which Mexico might be subdued. The pure Spaniards and the landed proprietors, utterly weary of anarchy, would probably bail a strong Government of any sort, while the native and quadroon population have never been able to resist the hated and dreaded "North." Of the awful increase of human misery which would follow the conquest it is unnecessary to speak. Slavery, as it exists, is bad enough, but the deliberate addition of 3,750,000 people and their children forever to the ranks of a slave population, is a crime from which the imagination itself recoils. It seems from its very magnitude impossible. CORTEZ, however, conquered these people with far inferior means, and there is no evidence that the Mexican peon of to-day is better able to resist a rifleman than his ancestor was to defeat CORTEZ's heavy armed cavalry. The only element of effective resistance would be the religious fanaticism the laws of the Order are so well adapted to arouse. These laws, however were obviously intended to serve only a tem porary purpose, the exclusion of Catholics being rendered essential by their friendly feeling for Mexico. A priest informed of the design in the confessional would be certain to put the Mexicans on their guard, perhaps cause the arrest of the Governor who is so coolly selling his country. Mexico once conquered, the necessity for the restriction would disappear, and though one of the laws of the Order, an obligation to dissolve all monasteries and open all convents, seems dectated by a real religious dislike, it is difficult to believe that it would endure in spite of the political advantage of tolerance. The whole scheme may be unreal, and the Knights of the Golden Circle as little disposed to fulfill their promises as Masons are to preserve the obligation of Christian brotherhood. But it must not be forgotten that this whatever the truth as to this society, is one of the designs of the South, and that the plan, which thus boldy stated seems incredibly atrocious is part of the permanent policy of the Government which has just won its first battle in front of Manassas Gap. The design, we fear, if the North succumbs, is at once as possible of execution as it is remorselessly wicked in concention

 

[cccalco]

Enduring Symbol: Torn, tattered Civil War-era flag found at Sullivan County Historical Museum
Howard Greninger
The Tribune-Star
July 20, 2011


EXCERPT:


“Sullivan County contained many Southern sympathizers and there was a strong presence of what was called the Knights of the Golden Circle, a pro-Southern secret society that was the forerunner of the Ku Klux Klan,” said Frew, president of the Sullivan County Historical Society Inc.


“They shot down the flag and tore it to pieces. The main thing they sought to get rid of is the field of stars, which was the symbol of the union. They wanted a separate country of the confederate states,” Frew said.


Enduring Symbol: Torn, tattered Civil War-era flag found at Sullivan County Historical Museum » News » News From Terre Haute, Indiana

 

[cccalco]

NEW ALBANY BICENTENNIAL: Michael C. Kerr
By AMANDA BEAM
[email protected]
June 11, 2013


EXCERPT: "According to a presentation by Elizabeth “Bebe” Cody to the Floyd County Historical Society in 1992, Kerr had become privy to some information about a group of local Southern sympathizers called the Knights of the Golden Circle. In a 1919 book called “Indiana and Indianans,” author Jacob Dunn asserts that Kerr may have at one time been a member of the political arm of the group."


NEW ALBANY BICENTENNIAL: Michael C. Kerr » Recent Local News » News and Tribune

 

[cccalco]

NEW ALBANY BICENTENNIAL: Michael C. Kerr
By AMANDA BEAM
[email protected]
June 11, 2013


EXCERPT: "According to a presentation by Elizabeth “Bebe” Cody to the Floyd County Historical Society in 1992, Kerr had become privy to some information about a group of local Southern sympathizers called the Knights of the Golden Circle. In a 1919 book called “Indiana and Indianans,” author Jacob Dunn asserts that Kerr may have at one time been a member of the political arm of the group."


NEW ALBANY BICENTENNIAL: Michael C. Kerr » Recent Local News » News and Tribune

NOTE: You can find the full text of “Indiana and Indianans,” by author Jacob Dunn. Copyrighted 1919 at:
Full text of "Indiana and Indianans [microform] : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood"

 

[cccalco]

Here is an interesting article on the the Knights of the Golden Circle published in the Reading (PA) Eagle.


Secret order in Berks circled back to secessionist South
Ron Devlin 7/27/2013
Secret order in Berks circled back to secessionist South

 

[L.C. BAKER]

"The Democrat publishes a long account of the conspiracy for the erection of a Northwestern Confederacy, reported a few days since. The organization engaged in this conspiracy to known as the "Order of American Knights," and its real object is to embarrass the Government in the conduct of the war, and to overthrow the Government, if necessary for the supremacy of the Order."

this really sums up what they were wanting to do to the U.S. Government. Baker

 

[mdog]

I have a question for those of you who study KGC and Masonic history. Was there any significant event that might have involved either, or both, of these groups during 1886? Maybe or maybe not, taking place in Washington D.C. and maybe having something to do with the Washington Monument.

Thanks.

Rick

 

[cccalco]

Here is a contemporary article that makes mention of KGC gold.
[h=3]The Knights of the Golden Circle: Man accused of harassing Cook says family hired him to find gold[/h][h=3]Man accused of harassing Cook says family hired him to find gold[/h]

By Tom Sharpe

​

The Santa Fe New Mexican
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/article_c74b51b8-613d-52e9-a855-67f91661a988.html

Tuesday, October 1, 2013
updated: 7:19 am, Wed Oct 2, 2013

"A man accused by Española businessman Richard Cook and his family of harassing them says he was hired to find gold buried on Black Mesa, but has been barred from the area since he discovered that some of the gold was missing.

Gale Roberts of Jackson Hole, Wyo., says he has no intention of threatening or harming the 87-year-old Cook or members of his family, as suggested in a request last week for a restraining order against Roberts by Cook, his daughter and his grandson.

“I am crazy — I’ll own up to that,” Roberts said in a telephone interview Monday. “But what I did for [the Cook family], they should have been grateful for.”
Roberts, a professional guide for horseback trips and fly fishing, said he was in Arizona, working with equipment that detects gold beneath the ground, when John Melancon and others hired him to find gold on the mesa north of Española.

Roberts said Melancon’s company had a contract with the Cook family company to look for gold on Black Mesa. Melancon, he added, has access to Knights of the Golden Crescent maps of treasures hidden by early Spanish explorers, as well as directions to gold cannonballs stashed atop Black Mesa after they were stolen from a pack train near Ojo Caliente in the 1800s.

Melancon did not return messages Monday. But his website describes him as a “world renown archaeologist that maintains a semiprivate museum in Cortez” and the “world’s foremost authority on Spanish and Knights of the Golden Circle Society treasure maps, symbols and signs.” The website features a photograph of gold bars and has numerous stories about hidden treasures, but makes no mention of Black Mesa or gold cannonballs stolen near Ojo Caliente.

Another website describes Melancon as the pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cortez, Colo., but the current pastor of that church, Mike Schrag, said he has never heard of Melancon. Another website says Melancon “holds a doctoral degree (all but dissertation) from Trinity Southwest University in Albuquerque” — which describes itself as “a regional center of Christian scholarship, drawing top scholars from across the nation and world for on-campus lectures and symposia.”

Roberts said that after negotiating with Melancon for a percentage of any gold he found, he began exploring the top of Black Mesa at his own expense, accessing the area through Cook’s property. But after finding that “something wasn’t right,” he drove to Texas to tell Melancon, who was hospitalized at the time.

In a subsequent email to Cook’s daughter that is part of the court record, Roberts indicates that the gold had been stolen, but he declined to confirm that in an interview.

Melancon “told me to sweep it under the rug,” Roberts said. Realizing “something was suspicious, Roberts said he “pounded” the Cooks with emails, but they “wouldn’t even discuss it” and now seem intent on making him look crazy, dragging out the case in court and denying he has a claim on the gold.
Roberts said he wants a “peaceful resolution with the Cooks.” He said that when he spoke to Cook outside his home in Española on Sept. 23, he told him, “I would never in a million years threaten you or cause harm to you.”

Another Black Mesa landowner, Andrew D. Alexander of Katy, Texas, wrote The New Mexican on Monday to say that Cook, who for decades has mined rock on the east side of the basaltic mesa near the confluence of the Rio Grande and Rio Chama, is denying access to hundreds of landowners on the mesa top, even though Rio Arriba County approved the Black Mesa Development subdivision there and appropriated money for a right of way and maintenance of a road."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or [email protected].

 

[L.C. BAKER]

Have you ever read of Bickley's order to destroy all K.G.C. records by fire?

L.C. Baker

 

[cccalco]

The New York Times, August 30, 1861


The New York Times, August 30, 1861 | Knights of the Golden Circle

 

[cccalco]

Have you ever read of Bickley's order to destroy all K.G.C. records by fire?

L.C. Baker

INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
Vol. XIV SEPTEMBER, 1918 No. 3


Secret Political Societies in the Northduring the Civil War By MAYO FESLER


http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/viewFile/6096/5913

 

[KXMember]

Sooooo much more to the KGC

 

[Rebel - KGC]

I have a question for those of you who study KGC and Masonic history. Was there any significant event that might have involved either, or both, of these groups during 1886? Maybe or maybe not, taking place in Washington D.C. and maybe having something to do with the Washington Monument.

Thanks.

Rick

You know something...?

 

[10claw]

I have a question for those of you who study KGC and Masonic history. Was there any significant event that might have involved either, or both, of these groups during 1886? Maybe or maybe not, taking place in Washington D.C. and maybe having something to do with the Washington Monument.

Thanks.

Rick

THAT is a very,very interesting question, Mdog. I and many others would like to know more on that subject. Did
President Bush Sr. make some kind of statement about the monument? something like a thousand points of light? Or have my dreams gotten mixed up?
Many thanks in advance Mdog for anything you can reveal.

 

[Hal Croves]

INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY
Vol. XIV SEPTEMBER, 1918 No. 3


Secret Political Societies in the Northduring the Civil War By MAYO FESLER


http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/viewFile/6096/5913

This was a great read.
Thank you for posting the link.

 

[KXMember]

More good reading....

www.FrankKryder.com