CALEB B. SMITH
On February 8, 1968, the distinguished P.G.M. and Grand Secretary of
Indiana, M. W. Dwight L. Smith, read this essay at the annual meeting of the
Blue Friars Society, a group of Masonic writers to which he had just been
elected. We are pleased to print, with his kind permission, his "Master's Piece"
for that occasion.
Let me tell you about a young man who lisped. He was short of stature--only
about five feet eight inches--but what he lacked in height he gained in a
bearing that was both striking and commanding. One man who knew him well said he
had a "capacious forehead."
His name was Caleb B. Smith. Freemasonry in the State of Indiana owes him a
tremendous debt of gratitude, now acknowledged in part by the fact that
Indiana's premier Masonic award bears his name.
He was a resident of Connersville, Indiana, in the beautiful Whitewater
Valley. A Bostonian by birth, he had gone to Cincinnati, Ohio, with his parents
as a child of six. There in the Queen City he went to school, and at the age of
seventeen entered Miami University.
Two years later he walked from Cincinnati to Connersville (a distance of
about fifty miles) and presented himself unannounced in the law office of a
distinguished attorney who later served in Congress. "I have come to read law in
your office if you will permit me to do so," he said. Within a year he was
admitted to the bar. Then he founded the Indiana Sentinel and became its editor.
By the time he was twenty-five, Caleb B. Smith had been elected to the
Indiana Legislature. At thirty-five, he was elected to Congress. Here something
happened that was to change the course of his life. A gangling young lawyer from
Sangamon County, Illinois, also had been elected to Congress. The gentleman from
Indiana and the gentleman from Illinois were assigned seats near each other. A
strong bond of friendship between Abraham Lincoln and Caleb B. Smith was forged
on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington.
In 1852, Caleb B. Smith moved to Cincinnati, but he was back in Indiana for
the campaign of 1860 when his old friend from Illinois was being mentioned as a
possible nominee for the presidency. The man who lisped was made chairman of the
Indiana delegation to the Republican national convention in the old "Wigwam" at
Chicago. In that capacity he was able to swing Indiana's votes for Lincoln.
When President Lincoln was inaugurated the following spring, he appointed his
Connersville friend to his first Cabinet, as Secretary of the Interior. After
two years' Cabinet service Secretary Smith resigned to accept an appointment as
United States District Judge, but his tenure on the bench was brief. Fate
intervened and brought his life to an untimely end at the age of fifty-six. To
this day no one is certain where his mortal remains were buried. But what of
that? He needs no memorial of marble or bronze. In Indiana we can see his
monument all about us.
For Caleb B. Smith was a Freemason, and it is as a Masonic Brother that we
shall think of him on this present occasion. When he came to Indiana in 1827,
Connersville was a frontier village with four lawyers, four doctors, four
taverns, a drug store, two or three churches, a court house and a Lodge of
Freemasons which had been at work only six years.
Just two days after his twenty-first birthday, Caleb B. Smith petitioned
Warren Lodge No. 15, and eleven days after he had presented his petition, he was
raised to the Sublime Degree. In 1832-33 he was Master of his Lodge, and in 1834
he went to the annual meeting of the Grand Lodge at Indianapolis for the first
time - not as Worshipful Master, but as a visitor.
To understand and appreciate the significance of the story I am about to
relate, we must know something about what was going on Masonically in 1834.
Eight years before, in upstate New York, the disappearance of a printer by
the name of William Morgan and the accusation that he had been murdered by the
Masons created tremendous excitement. Like a prairie fire out of control, a
great wave of bigotry and intolerance swept over the land, fanned and encouraged
by religious sects and manipulated by politicians who saw an opportunity to
capitalize on public hysteria.
Local communities adopted a spirit of relentless persecution. Members of the
Craft were socially ostracized; mobs broke into Lodge rooms, destroying property
and assaulting the assembled members. Charters were stolen; Lodge halls and
equipment defiled. Public disavowal of any further connection with Freemasonry
was made by thousands. Ex-Masons staged public demonstrations in which they
would "open lodge", admit disreputable characters and "confer the degrees" upon
them before delighted audiences.
No unit of society escaped the venom; every source of fellowship in the
community was poisoned. Families were separated - brother against brother,
father against son, wife against husband.
Churches were disrupted; clergymen and laymen alike were driven from worship;
the Christian sacraments were denied to members of the Craft.
Schools were torn asunder; teachers and pupils were driven out. The
excitement ran so high in some places that little children took it up; boys were
beaten and abused because they were sons of Masons; anti-Masonic spelling books
and readers were introduced. Efforts were made to deny chartered rights to
Masonic corporations and to enact laws to prevent Freemasons from performing
their ceremonies, and even from holding their meetings.
Anti-Masonic newspapers were established; anti-Masonic almanacs were printed
and circulated; anti-Masonic bookstores and taverns were opened. The ultimate
was reached when (according to tradition) anti-Masonic houses of ill repute were
maintained.
Eventually, the historian Haywood tells us, "the anti-Masons raided some
thousands of Lodge properties, read hundreds of Minute Books, analyzed every
word in rites, symbols and ceremonies they could find, and combed through the
private lives of hundreds of Worshipful Masters and Grand Masters. When there
was nothing left for them to find they admitted (because they had to admit it)
that they had made a blunder of epic proportions in a matter of fact, and
history will continue to laugh at them as long as they are remembered."
Indiana had a comparatively easy time during that period in contrast to the
New England and Middle Atlantic States. In neighbouring Michigan the Craft went
into complete eclipse. When the first effects of the movement began to be felt
in Indiana about 1828 there were thirty-three Lodges. Fourteen years later when
morning began to break there were eighteen. The low point came in the period
from 1835 to 1837, when only twelve Lodges remained. Ten Lodges went down in
1833 alone; ten more went out of existence in 1835.
The climactic point came on Wednesday, December 10, 1834, when a little
handful of Brethren meeting in Grand Lodge in Indianapolis with only four Lodges
out of twenty represented, seriously considered giving up and dissolving the
Grand Lodge. A committee was appointed to talk it over and bring in a
recommendation.
For the decision to keep the light of Freemasonry burning we shall be
eternally grateful to the four Brethren who constituted that committee. They
were Daniel Kelso, a lawyer of Switzerland County; Dr. Shepherd Whitman, a
physician of New Albany, John C. Walker, a saw and grist mill operator of
Shelbyville . . . and the Chairman (you have already guessed it) was the lisping
young man with the large head who was sitting on the sidelines as a visitor:
Caleb B. Smith of Connersville.
It is generally conceded that Caleb B. Smith was the one who wrote the
stirring report which caused the Brethren of Grand Lodge to take heart and keep
going. But the report itself does not appear in the printed Proceedings. It was
"sent out to be printed," the minutes tell us.
For more than a hundred years all historical accounts of the incident assumed
that the report was lost. But it was not. About 1890 Brother Albert H. Kaiser,
the historically-minded Secretary of Harmony Lodge No. 11 at Brookville,
gathered up many valuable old papers and pasted them in a scrapbook. The report
which was "sent out to be printed" in the form of a four-page circular was among
the priceless items. It is a thrilling document to read. I shall not take the
time to repeat it except to quote these few sentences. Listen to the eloquent
words of the lisping young man from Connersville:
"That Masonry is in a languishing condition in this State, your committee are
fully apprised. This, however, they believe to be entirely owing to the apathy
and indifference into which the members of the fraternity have generally fallen.
A want of interest or feeling in its success had induced them to remit that
exertion which is essential to its prosperity. This feeling, however, they trust
will not continue, and they confidently entertain the hope that the fraternity
in this State will yet become animated with that zeal for the prosperity of the
institution which is so ardently to be desired by every Mason.... They would
therefore recommend to the members of this Grand Lodge and of the subordinate
Lodges, a perseverance in the customs and usages of our ancient order, a renewed
exertion for its prosperity and the prompt and active exercise of all those
duties enjoined on them as Masons."
Remember, those stirring words came from a young man of twenty-six who had
been a Mason only five years. Three years later he was Grand Master of Masons in
Indiana.
Moreover, this was the man who brought the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite to
Indiana. You will recall that in the eighteen-fifties he lived in Cincinnati for
a time while serving as president of the Cincinnati & Chicago Railroad. In 1858,
at the age of forty-nine, he received the Scottish Rite degrees at Cincinnati.
When he returned to Indiana a year or so later, he was the only known Scottish
Rite Mason in the State. Thus he became one of the seven charter members of the
Scottish Rite bodies in Indianapolis, and served as the first Thrice Potent
Master of Adoniram Lodge of Perfection.
Caleb B. Smith had some strong convictions about the duties and
responsibilities of a Mason. In June, 1863, while serving on the Federal bench
in Indianapolis, he was invited by the Grand Master to go to Muncie on the Feast
of St. John the Baptist and lay the cornerstone of a new Masonic Temple.
Although a case was scheduled for hearing in Judge Smith's court, he announced
that his court would be adjourned on June 24, for, he explained, no court can be
held on the Sabbath, and St. John's Day was his "Masonic Sabbath". Accordingly,
the court room was dark on June 24; Past Grand Master Smith went to Muncie and
proudly identified himself with the Masonic Craft.
What a priceless heritage our distinguished Brother has left us - he who,
when lesser men would have called retreat, put the bugle to his lips to blow the
charge!
One hundred thirty-three years have passed since he stood in that tiny third
floor Masonic hall on the old National Road in Indianapolis and fired his
Brethren with determination to carry on. The times are different today, and yet
how strangely similar they are!
"That Masonry is in a languishing condition in this State, your committee are
fully apprised," he said, and then went on to clinch the nail by asserting that
the condition was one which might be attributed to "the apathy and indifference
into which the members of the fraternity have generally fallen."
It sounds as if Caleb B. Smith might be speaking to us today, for he was
saying only what many of us have been saying in recent years - that if
Freemasonry is having troubles these days, we have only to look at Freemasons to
find the cause.
And what was his recipe for a resurgence of Masonic interest and activity?
Nothing radical; no departure from established principles. Simply this: "A
perseverance in the customs and usages of our ancient order, a renewed exertion
for its prosperity and the prompt and active exercise of all those duties
enjoined on them as Masons."
This is the story of the young man who lisped; the young man who arose from
the sidelines, put the bugle to his lips and blew the charge; the man whose
memory among Freemasons in Indiana is kept fresh and green through the Caleb B.
Smith Medal of Honour.
OUTLINE for a SHORT TALK
I. Caleb B. Smith's Life A. Background B. Professional and public service C.
Friendship with Lincoln
II. His Masonic Life A. Lodge membership B. The "Morgan Excitement" and its
effects
III. Caleb B. Smith's Masonic "Summit" A. Indiana's 1834 Grand Lodge B. The
special committee C. His "challenge" D. Consequences: e.g., Grand Master
IV. His Masonic Convictions A. Illustrated by actions B. Their application to
us today
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