by S. H. Goodwin (Author)
1932. Goodwin begins: In a previous paper the writer presented certain aspects of the contact of Mormonism with Masonry, the historic and local background of which was furnished by the Nauvoo period in the development of this peculiar people. In the present study of the same general subject our investigations take us back to a point of time some fifteen years earlier, to the beginnings of the Latter Day faith, and into the then primitive and sparsely inhabited region of western New York. Further, as we begin our study of the subject we shall find ourselves in the midst of conditions unique, even in the colorful experiences of the American People, and disastrous-even threatening annihilation-to the long established and highly respected and respectable Institution of Freemasonry.