Thursday, October 15, 2020

The Bizarre Story of William Wirt

He was a Fellowcraft and perhaps even a Master Mason; an enigma of a 19th century man whose strange story even spills over into the twenty-first century. Born in 1772, William Wirt became an attorney practicing in Richmond, Virginia. In 1807, President Jefferson appointed him prosecutor in Aaron Burr's treason trial. There, he gained a reputation as a great orator and the high profile event greatly extended his fame. Back in Richmond, his political career began in 1808 as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, and later he served as a district attorney. In 1817 US President James Monroe, a Freemason, appointed him as Attorney General of the United States. He served in that position for over eleven years, into the term of John Quincy Adams, a notorious opponent of the Craft. History credits him with greatly increasing the significance of that office.

The infamous Morgan Affair of 1826 spawned sentiment against Freemasonry that grew to a nationwide level, and in 1832, it led to the formation of the country's first third political party... the Anti-Masonic party. The party approached Brother Henry Clay to be its presidential candidate. Clay turned them down with his famous quote, "I would not denounce or renounce Freemasonry even in order to become President of the United States." With Clay's rejection, the Anti-Masons turned to Wirt, who accepted. Wirt was initiated and passed in 1801 in Richmond's Jerusalem Lodge No. 54. He claimed never to have been raised, but the records of Virginia's Stevensburg Lodge 40 list a William Wirt as a Master Mason in 1803. At the nominating convention, Wirt surprised delegates by refusing to condemn the fraternity, telling them, "I was myself initiated into the mysteries of Freemasonry. I never took the Master's degree, but it proceeded from no suspicion on my part that there was anything criminal in the institution, or anything that placed its members in the slightest degree in collision with their allegiance to their country and its laws. I have thought and repeatedly said that I considered Masonry as having nothing to do with politics, and nothing has surprised me more than to see it blown into consequence..." In other words, at the convention where the Anti-Masonic party nominated him as its presidential candidate, he spoke in defense of Freemasonry.

The incumbent president, Brother Andrew Jackson, won the election, with Wirt winning the state of Vermont and its seven electoral votes.

So in a twist, we learn William Wirt, who ran for president on the Anti-Masonic ticket, was in fact a member of the Fraternity who spoke in defense of his experience as a Mason. That alone is baffling and strange; but Wirt's story isn't over. Before it's all over, the account of William Wirt goes from the strange to the downright bizarre.

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William Wirt… a man who was a Freemason yet not only ran for president on the Anti-Masonic ticket, he also defended the fraternity in his nominating speech; but Wirt's strange and mystifying actions don't tell his full story. Years after his death, the tale of William Wirt becomes downright bizarre.

In December 2003, the phone rang in the office of William Fecke, manager of Washington's Congressional Cemetery. Fecke answered and an unidentified voice asked, "Would you be interested in getting William Wirt's head back?" The man, who has never been identified, explained he was in possession of articles a collector had accumulated over the years. The caller claimed Wirt's family tomb was robbed in the mid-1980s, and that is how he came in possession of the skull. The man called a few more times but never produced the skull. In the meantime, Fecke had Wirt's tomb inspected, found the contents to be in disarray and concluded it had been robbed.

A month later, Fecke received his second mysterious inquiry about the skull with the caller asking a question he had heard before, "Are you missing William Wirt's head?" This time the caller identified himself as DC Council member Jim Graham, who said he had Wirt's skull in his office, "Or, at least," he said, "I have a skull in an old metal box painted with gold letters reading 'The Honorable William Wirt.'" Apparently the anonymous caller had contacted Graham and told him the cemetery might be interested in getting it back or at least in determining if it really was Wirt's skull. It took the cemetery's plodding bureaucracy over a year to investigate but in May 2005, a task force again opened the tomb and inspected the bodies inside.

A thorough scientific study eventually determined the skull was in fact that of William Wirt. Graham revealed the names of the man who had given him the skull and the collector, but it was never determined who robbed the tomb or who the original anonymous caller was. Adding to the mystery, the task force discovered the remains of an infant inside the tomb and determined they were placed in there after the 1980s break-in. No one knows the identity of the infant, who put it there or why.

In the very unlikely event he would have been elected president, Wirt would have died in office two years later at the age of 61. The Freemason who ran for president on the Anti-Masonic ticket but defended Freemasonry leaves us with unanswered questions nearly two centuries after his death. But with his skull now returned to its rightful place, he now rests in peace while the rest of us ponder the enigma that is William Wirt.

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