Sitting on the edge of the bed, she answered. “This is Hart. Uh huh.” She listened to the caller and immediately smiled. She looked at Jake standing in the bathroom. He caught her glance and raised his eyebrows.
She listened a minute more then praised the caller. “Great. Nice work. Listen, I’m still resting. I’ll be in later. Okay, goodbye.”
“What are you so happy about?” asked Jake, entering the bedroom, the towel back around his waist.
“Bob Wyzinski, the arsonist. He just confessed everything. Looks like he acted alone. His motive was profit driven. Three months ago he lost his side business of a car-wash company up in Seneca Falls when an Indian-owned firm started competing against him. With credit cards maxed out and his marriage in a shambles he was already on shaky ground. After hearing an Indian was going to buy the Depot, then after the grave was found and you, of all people crawling out of that hole, he said he basically lost it and decided to act. Took it out on the Indians with fire. He did a little research into Indian symbology — thus the dog strangling — to send a message that it was war. But he said he never intended to hurt anyone. Really?” She looked up at Jake. “That good-for-nothing bastard is going to have a long time to think about that.”
Her phone rang again. Rae rolled her eyes and answered angrily. This time her mouth fell open as she listened to the caller. “Okay, give me twenty minutes. Where is it again? At the end of Parker Road, got it.” She closed her cell phone and bowed her head.
“What’s going on now?” asked Jake.
Rae looked at Jake expressionless. “I was just told a badly beaten body, bearing a striking resemblance to Alex Nero, was just reeled in by some fishermen on the lake. Sheriff said the top of his head was scalped.”
Jake’s lips parted.
“Well, you want to check it out with me? Make sure it’s really him?”
Jake shook his head. “I don’t need to see him again. Besides, I’ve to get back down to Pennsylvania.”
“Well, I’ll ID the son of a bitch and close this case once and for all.”
“I’ve got to ask,” said Jake. “What lake did they find him in?”
“Cayuga Lake. Up near Canoga Landing,” answered Rae, somewhat confused. Then her eyes grew wide, knowing why he asked. “That underground river really connects the two lakes then.”
Jake nodded. “I guess so. We saw it for ourselves. Now we know it empties into Cayuga Lake somewhere way underground.” He then grew incredibly silent.
Rae stood up. “You okay?”
Jake looked into her eyes. “Listen, that crown needs to remain a legend though, you know? Some things need to be kept secret, still as a myth.” He touched the silver broach hanging from his necklace.
Rae nodded. “And a legend it will remain, Jake.” She moved close to him and placed her arms around his neck. “I owe you my life. You can count on me keeping a secret.” They embraced.
EPILOGUE
Late May. New York City.
AFTER A THOROUGH examination of the Boyd and McTavish keg contents by MHI, a team of expert coin collectors was called in to assess the monetary value of the British coinage. It was determined that because of the rarity and excellent condition of the gold Guineas, along with the incredible story attached to them, that each coin could fetch up to ten thousand dollars. The news made instant headlines across the nation. But it was decided by Dr. Jacobson that the coins and other war souvenirs were not to be sold for profit. Instead, MHI partnered with the Freemasons and formed a traveling exhibition to tell the unique story to the general public. And of course, on this successful opening night ceremony, Jake had been assigned the lead presenter for the exhibition. He was an instant hit in front of the famed American Numismatic Society in New York City.
Afterward, as the crowds thinned, Jake snuck away to wrap up some unfinished business. He retrieved an item held by staff security, left the building, and jumped on his Indian motorcycle for his two destinations in the city.
His first stop was a visit to a close friend in law enforcement who was also an expert scuba diver. Jake laid the groundwork for an MHI-funded dive off the Painted Rocks in Seneca Lake. Their goal: Sullivan’s cannon of gold.
Next, he paid a visit to the state headquarters of the fraternity he had belonged to since his first tour in Iraq. On the top floor of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York, Jake exited the elevator and proceeded to the end of the posh hall.
“Brother Tiler?” Jake announced, walking up to a distinguished man in his seventies.
The man stood up from his chair, guarding a closed door. The gentleman held an elaborate sword, hilt up, blade between his legs. He was dressed in a black tuxedo, silver vest and tie, and his hands covered with white linen gloves. He wore a bright white apron around his waist. The apron was trimmed and tasseled in blue and gold. Jake noticed the middle flap of the apron was pointed down, denoting the man as a Master Mason.
“I am Brother Major Robert Jake Tununda, a Master Mason from the Land, Sea, and Air Lodge Number One of Iraq. I seek admittance to the Grand Lodge on a matter of returning the remains of Brother Mason Lieutenant Thomas Boyd of the Continental Army.”
“Brother Tununda, it is an honor to make your acquaintance,” replied the Tiler, duly impressed with Jake’s Class A Army dress uniform and his medals and ribbons. Among them, the Tiler noticed was a small pin with a square and compasses — the Mason’s symbol.
Jake also wore an apron around his waist, but his was trimmed and tasseled in olive green, black, and brown, the colors of the military lodge he had been raised a Freemason in several years back while on duty in Iraq.
“We’ve been expecting you.” The Tiler shook hands with Jake. In a very subtle motion both men repositioned their grip. They then performed several body motions only fellow Masons would know. “And the password?” asked the Tiler.
Jake leaned in close to the Tiler, mouth to ear, and whispered the secret password to gain admittance to the Lodge. The Tiler nodded and uttered the same word back to Jake. The examination was over.
Jake tucked under his arm a small wooden box he was carrying.
“I need to inspect the contents of that box before I ask for your admittance into the Lodge.”
“Certainly Brother Tiler,” replied Jake. He placed the box on the chair and lifted the cover. “Boyd’s ah... scalp is there in the protective bag.” He did not look in. “His remains are being returned to the Masons on behalf of the director of the Haudenosaunee Collection, granted with authority from the Grand Council of Chiefs. His scalp is to be added to his grave at Mt. Hope Cemetery up in Rochester.”
“I am satisfied,” said the Tiler. He then turned around and gave three sharp raps on the door. In a moment, three knocks were returned from within and the door swung open. A younger man in a similar tuxedo and blue and gold apron appeared. He held a staff topped with a metallic Masonic square and compasses over a half moon. Jake knew this particular symbol to be that of the Junior Deacon of the Lodge and the only member allowed to answer what was called the outer door.
“Brother Tiler,” asked the Deacon. “What is the cause of the alarm?”
“Brother Major Robert Jake Tununda,” announced the Tiler in a commanding voice so all inside the Lodge could hear. “Master Mason of Land, Sea, and Air Lodge Number One of Iraq, properly clothed and vouched for, seeks admittance to return the remains of Brother Mason Lieutenant Thomas Boyd of the Continental Army.”
The Junior Deacon nodded. “Brother Tununda, I am so honored. Please enter and follow me.” He motioned Jake inside and closed the door behind him.
THE END.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With thanks to David W. Corson and Eileen Keating of the Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections for their research assistance; to Cornell University Professor Art Bloom and Hobart William Smith Professor John Halfman for their suggestions and opinions regarding the truths and lore of the undergro
und lake connections; to Lee J. Wemett for information on the history and legends of Hemlock and Conesus Lakes; to Dennis Money and Tom Klotzbach of Seneca White Deer, Inc. for providing information about the white deer herd of the Seneca Army Depot; to Seneca County IDA and Seneca Army Depot Base Project Manager Tom Enroth and Chief of Security John Cleary for the base tour and history inquiries; to WWII European-theater Army veteran Robert Lounsbery for allowing me use of his memoirs on the 666th Field Artillery Battalion and for details of his time spent on the construction of the Seneca Army Depot; to WWII veteran Harry Hunter Morgan for his history as a guard at the Depot; to writer, lecturer, and consultant Doug George-Kanentiio of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation for his source information on the Iroquois culture; to Onondaga Clan Mother Ada Jacques for her clarifications; to librarians Margaret Anderson, Ann Sullivan, Barbara Kobritz, and Steve Massey-Crouch of Tompkins Cortland Community College Library for research assistance on Sullivan-Clinton campaign journals, the Luke Swetland memoir, and production assistance; to U.S. Army CW3 John A. Robinson for army protocol corrections; to Robert Spiegelman, author of Fields of Fire, for reference verification; to critical readers Lisa Karpovage, Thomas Karpovage Sr., Gene Baier, Chris Bissen, Kathy Zahler, Lisa Ford, Alexis Dengel, Sean Barry, Lauren Wright, Thomas Ventura, Kyle Downey, the late John Colella, Bootsy Colella, Phil Colella, Jen Drumluk, Gene Conrad and Shari Hurny for their wide ranging improvements; to Joan Notebloom, former Town Clerk of Romulus for her valuable insight; to Eric Lindstrom, Patrick Gillespie, and Peter Voorhees for passing on important Ithaca area information; to Tompkins County Historian Carol Kammen for providing local research sources; to Larry Turner, Groveland Historian, for clearing up inaccuracies in Boyd’s ambush; to Bill Stinson and Steve Mount for lending me their rare copies of the History of Seneca County (1786-1876); to VW Tom Savini, Director of the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library of Grand Lodge in New York for inquiry into the Freemason’s Code; to Karen D. Osburn, archivist for the Geneva Historical Society, for finding several articles in relation to Seneca Lake; to Luzerne County Historical Society and Northumberland County Historical Society for research assistance; to Sampson State Park Ranger Tom Watts, Sampson WWII Navy Veterans Association, Inc., and Sampson Air Force Base Veterans Association for their valued correspondence and knowledge on base structures; to Bill Hecht for his incredible effort in providing a free source of online information on the history, geology, and geography of the Finger Lakes as well as discussing the possibility of underground caves; to Cornell Army ROTC Captain Kurt W. Belawske for officer training course information; to Lt. Pete Tyler of the Ithaca Police Department as well as the New York State Troopers for answering my law enforcement related questions; to Al Heitmann for access to his property at Cranberry Marsh; to the Waterloo Volunteer Fire Company and the Seneca Falls Fire Department for honoring me with their service — sometimes literally under fire; to the office personnel at Sampson State Park for providing emergency relief from bee stings; to Stevi Mittman, author and TC3 instructor for her writing tips; to my fellow Masonic brothers of Hobasco Lodge No. 716 for their fraternity; a special thanks to Laura Karpovage; and finally to my sons Jake and Alex for their inspiration.
HISTORICAL TIMELINE
1142 A.D.: Atotarho, the ancient Onondaga wizard, reigned the lands as a brutal murdering dictator. After a meeting with Deganawida, Hiawatha, and Jecumseh he suddenly reformed his ways. The evil snakes were combed from his hair and he emerged as a key founding figure in the birth of the Iroquois or Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
1779: By this year the Iroquois Confederacy had expanded into the mightiest empire in North America until it was almost entirely destroyed during the Sullivan-Clinton campaign of the Revolutionary War. The Confederacy still remains intact to this day.
September 5, 1779: American scouts of the Sullivan campaign rescued Luke Swetland in the Seneca Indian village of Kendaia. The Seneca had captured Swetland in Pennsylvania a year before. An elder clan mother spared his life and adopted him into the tribe. After the war, in his memoirs, Swetland wrote that the scouts, mistaking him for a Tory, stole a silver broach from his shirt and threatened his life. He also wrote of finding a secret cave in the side of a hill not far from the village, a place he took refuge during the cold winter months of his captivity.
September 13, 1779: American Lieutenant Thomas Boyd, a Freemason, along with two soldiers in his scout detachment, were taken prisoner by British and Iroquois troops during what is now called the Groveland Ambush. Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant, also a Freemason, allegedly received the secret Masonic hail sign of distress from the prisoner Boyd. Later that night Brant was called away on other duties and was unable to offer protection. Boyd was turned over to Freemason British Colonel John Butler and the Seneca warriors under Little Beard. The next day Boyd suffered the most heinous torture death of the American Revolution. Read my research article into this tragic mission, titled Betrayed By A Mason?, in the next section
Early 1940s: The U.S. government enacted eminent domain and acquired seventeen square miles of farmland in central Seneca County, New York for construction of the Seneca Army Depot and the Sampson Naval Training Base. Both bases were key weapons storage and training facilities during the second half of the 20th century.
1941: According to a construction worker and WWII veteran, during the Depot’s construction a well shaft was sunk and struck an underground flow of water. Dye was added to detect the direction of the current and was soon discovered in Cayuga Lake to the east. Some say this is evidence of a real underground river linking the two largest Finger Lakes of Seneca and Cayuga. Others who have conducted research on this possibility have concluded it an absurdity.
Present Day: After the Depot became fenced in during the forties the famous white deer herd of the area was corralled and thus protected. They’ve since grown to become the largest white deer herd in the world.
BETRAYED BY A MASON?
The Tragic Mission of
Lieutenant Thomas Boyd
by Michael Karpovage
This article was first published by
The Plumbline: A Quarterly Bulletin of the Scottish Rite Research Society.
Fall 2010, Volume 17, No. 3.
Visit www.scottishrite.org
Moments before deploying on the longest military campaign of the Revolutionary War, Freemason Thomas Boyd was given a final ultimatum by his repeatedly spurned and pregnant lover. In front of his superior officers she warned Boyd, a lieutenant with Morgan’s Rifle Corps of the Continental Army, “If you go off without marrying me, I hope and pray to the great God of heaven that you will be tortured and cut to pieces by the savages.” An embarrassed Boyd, his pride tarnished, responded by drawing his sword and threatening to stab her unless she removed herself.1 She acquiesced. Unfortunately for the young lieutenant, he should have heeded her ominous prediction for that was exactly the fate that befell him.
Thomas Boyd’s death was one of the most heinous acts of torture and murder recorded during the Revolutionary War. Did it really occur because of the curse of a scorned lover? If you believe that centuries’ old quote, “Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn’d,”2 then you might believe there was a divine retribution against Boyd.
But historical evidence, direct from battlefield participants, tells a different story. Boyd’s death was not the result of a spurned lover’s curse; rather it was a classic example of Masonic brothers pitted against each other on opposite sides of a battle. Their beliefs, duties, and loyalties were put to the ultimate test to uphold Freemasonry’s most sacred tenet: relief of a distressed brother. For upon Boyd’s capture at the end of his ill-fated final mission, he made the ultimate gesture of a Freemason when he feared for his life. He asked a highly unlikely enemy Freemason for protection and surprisingly he received it. However, his relief was short-lived when another enemy Freemason stepped into the picture. Soon thereafter Boyd experienced exceedingly brutal acts
of torture and finally, death. And herein lies the question: was Thomas Boyd – along with the most sacred tenet of Freemasonry – deliberately betrayed by a fellow Mason whose loyalties to a King meant more than saving the life of a brother?
The Mission
In the summer of 1779, Major General John Sullivan marched his 5,000 Continentals into the Finger Lakes region of New York. Known as Sullivan’s Expedition, it was ordered by General George Washington as an invasion into Iroquois Confederacy lands in retaliation for several brutal massacres by British Rangers and Indian warriors. This enemy force had conducted a terror campaign against American frontier settlements supporting the fledgling rebel army. Washington wanted all enemy villages and crops destroyed – a scorched earth policy to disrupt the Tory’s, and their Indian allies’ ability to wage war. Sullivan had, for the last two months, executed his orders to the fullest by destroying over 40 villages and soundly defeating his enemy at the Battle of Newtown on the New York-Pennsylvania border. His foes had since retreated back into their wilderness lands. Leading Sullivan’s troops, acting as his eyes and ears, were the famous scouts of Morgan’s Rifles. Thomas Boyd led a company of these marksmen and pushed miles ahead of the main army on the heels of their fleeing enemy, sometimes entering villages where corn still boiled in a kettle.
On September 12, 1779 the army marched toward the Seneca Indian stronghold of Genesee Castle – also known as Little Beard’s Town, after the Seneca chief who lived there. It was their last campaign objective. Upon reaching Conesus Lake the army halted and encamped because of a destroyed bridge over a marshy area. Across that bridge and leading west up a forested ravine-filled bluff ran several Indian trails to the objective. But the correct path remained unclear to Sullivan because of inaccurate maps and unreliable intelligence. A nighttime reconnaissance mission to locate the proper trail was ordered.
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