A Focus on Masonic Research, News, and other Tidbits

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Sunday, July 13, 2008

Chief Joseph Brant

By accident, I came across an interesting article by the title of "Chief Joseph Brant: Mohawk, Loyalist, and Freemason," by George L. Marshall, Jr. I invite your attention to this informative piece that tells the story of a complicated Freemason who lived from 1742 until 1807 and who was heavily involved in the British efforts to stop the American Revolution.

4 comments:

Jay Simser said...

I put up a shorter article about him on my blog in January if anyone is interested. Thanks for posting this, He was a fascinating man.

http://baileysbuddy.blogspot.com/2008/01/chief-joseph.html

The Palmetto Bug said...

jay: It does seem that Chief Brant had some interesting characteristics. I had heard of him before, but I only stumbled upon this article, that mentioned his Masonic ties, recently. It seems that you were way ahead of me.

Frederic L. Milliken said...

I came across Chief Brant in my research for my paper "Native American Rituals & The Influence of Freemasonry". But I actually wrote about him in the other paper written at the same time in 2005 - "World Peace Through Brotherhood."

Here is what I wrote:

"Not all the stories of illustrating the mystic tie between combatants comes from the Civil War. While doing research for another paper about Native American Freemasonry I ran across a well documented story of the Mowhawk Chief Joseph Brant. Chief Brant was the first Native American known to have been made a Mason in a regularly and duly constituted Lodge. He was made so on a visit to London in 1776. Later in the same year he is found to be fighting on the side of the
British in the American Revolutionary War at the Battle of Cedars, 30 miles north of Montreal. The Mohawks in battle wounded and captured a certain Captain McKinstry whereupon they tied him to a tree which they surrounded with brushwood. As they were preparing to light the fire Captain McKinstry made the appeal of a Freemason. Brant recognized the appeal and ordered him released. Subsequently he was turned over to a British Lodge which arranged his repatriation."

Jose Ruah said...

I discovered him in Feb. 2007 and wrote a post about him ( in portuguese sorry)

http://a-partir-pedra.blogspot.com/2007/02/thayendanegea.html