Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1880 — Morgan's Murder. [ARTICLE]

Morgan's Murder.

▲ CONFESSION OF ONE OF 'THE MURDERERS REPEATED TO THURLOW WEED. “1 know how Morgan was killed,” said Mr. Weed, “and where and when he was killed,' and who killed him. It was a dreadful murder.” “How do I know?” he asked, repeating my question. “I know lie cause tbe criminals themselves confessed it to me before they died.” “Isit possible?” I said. “Will you tell the public about it?” “Yes, I have told it partially before. It Was in 1834, about five years after tbe sudden disappearance of Morgan, that on my trial for libeling tbe Masons two men volunteered to be my witnesses. One of these men was John Whitney.” I think Mr. Weed said the other was the man that had charge of the old fort where Morgan was confined by his captors. He went on: “I invited them to eat some oysters with me after the trial, and while we were at the table John Whitney consented, in reply to onr urgency to make a clean breast of it about tbe murder of Morgan. He declared the terrible secret had been a harden on him day and night, and then he told who tbe men were who left tbe lodge one dark night to pat Morgan ont of the way, lest he might reveal tbe secrete of the order. He said he was one of the men. The others were Col. Wm. King, Garaide, Howard and Chnbbock. They went to the fort, bound the prisoner hand and foot, laid him in a boat, carried him to about the middle part of the Niagara river, where it was two miles to either shore, and there, tying weights to his head and feet, they flung him overboard. When he had told the story Whitaey said he felt relieved. The other witness turned to him aud said : ’John, Weed can hang you now.’ ‘Yes,’ sold Whituey, ‘but he won’t.’ I thought much about my duty to the public, but it was obviously impossible to convict him he wonld. say solemnly in court what he had said to me. It was nearly thirty years afterward when 1 met John Whitney in Chicago when I was there at the Convention in 1860. He ctuue to me and said he wanted to make a careful confession for me to write down, to be published after his death. There was nobody else he dared to trust to, he said. I agreed to commit his dreadful secret to paper as soon ss the Convention adjourned. The hoar it adjourned hs waa waiting, for me at the hotel. I was in the depths of disappointment and was busy with a hundred things, and I told Whitney that I should come back to Chicago shortly and would then attend to it We exchanged letters after that, bnt he died suddenly and I never saw him again. “The Chicago papers,” I said, “ought to look up his relatives or friends there, and see if he left any document or told his secret “Yes,” he replied, “it would bo well. It Is strangs, by the way, that every one of those five murderers is (jead, and all but one died violent deaths. Col. King committed suicide, an Garaide was kicked to death by a horse.