Brutal Outrage on a Wesleyan Minister:
By J. L. Bush
THAT the reader may better understand the facts, I will give a brief history of events which immediately preceded the cruel brutalities described below. The Rev. D. F. Rathbun was invited to lecture on Masonry while spending a few days in Sullivan County, Pennsylvania. After consenting to do so, he was met by a man claiming to be a freemason, and proved himself by Masonic signs, &c. Soon he entered into earnest conversation respecting the promised lecture, holding up the fraternity, by saying, “No such brotherly love exists in any church on earth.” He also asked brother Rathbun “from whence he came,” and what was his nearest railroad station. He told him Canisteo, on the York and Erie railroad. Then the Mason asked him if there were any Masons at that place. He replied, “There is a lodge there.” The Mason then said to brother Rathbun, “I do not think you understand Masonry, or you would not oppose it.” Brother Rathbun stepped up to him and whispered in his ear, which made him very much excited, and, with an oath, he told him to keep his head shut. The above conversation occurred Tuesday, June 7th. The evening of the next day brother Rathbun lectured in that place. After the lecture, this Mason began to talk roughly and loudly; so much so that an officer told him to keep still, or he would arrest him. Brother Rathbun spoke kindly to him in Masonic language, saying, “We met yesterday on the level, let us now part on the square.” The reply was, “No, not by a d——d sight.” On Friday, brother Rathbun returned to Buena Vista. In a very few days' word came from Canisteo to him, charging him with having lectured against Masonry, while in Pennsylvania. In a morning or two after receiving this word, he found a paper stuck up in his barn, with a coffin and a pair of scales drawn on it. Thursday evening, June 16th, he attended a prayer-meeting at the Church in Buena Vista. After meeting, he and others remained at the church to practice singing. While there, at about eleven o’clock, he thought he heard his horse kicking in the barn. He ran without a light to see to his horse; entered the barn and found the horse all right. But here opens a scene of a different character. Just as he stepped out of the door, he was caught by the collar, and at the same time struck in the face by a ruffian with such violence as would have knocked him down had he not been held up by the grip; then he was so badly choked as to be rendered unconscious, until they had dragged or carried him about forty rods. On becoming conscious, he found himself surrounded by a mob of six or eight persons. They then took a rail, put him on it, and it upon their shoulders, with one holding to each limb; and in this way they jammed and jerked him. Then changing the programme, they took him from the rail and dragged him through a mud-hole, feet first, upon his back; then turned him on his face and drew him through the mud again. They then placed him upon the rail again, carried him still farther; all told, probably sixty rods. Again they threw him off, and one man taking him by each limb, they jammed him, head foremost into a mud-hole, where the water was four or five inches deep over the mud, violently forcing his hand and face under the mud until he became strangled and choked; after which they took him out. On recovering enough to speak, he asked them what he had done to merit such treatment; whereupon, cursing him, they said, “Kill him! kill him!” and caught him and tore his vest, shirt, and pants nearly off from him in front. Then they threw him in the mud again on his face; and two of them jumped upon him and stamped him down into the mud; one on his head and shoulders, and the other on his hips, till life seemed almost extinct; then drawing him out, said to him: “This is not meeting on the level and parting on the square,” and added that they would give him just thirty days to leave the vicinity, or they would cut his d——d throat—swearing most bitterly they would do it. They then placed him on the rail again, turning about, and after proceeding some thirty rods, dropped their load and ran off suddenly. Brother Rathbun thinks they heard his wife calling for him. If possible, the most fiendish and villainous of the whole treatment was a free use of the spirits of turpentine upon his lacerated flesh torn by the rail, particulars of which modesty forbids me to narrate. Suffice it to say, that the whole transaction was such a character as well might cause shame to the inhabitants of the northernmost regions. But it is my business to characterize this barbarous treatment of a faithful Christian minister, and a free American citizen, but to chronicle the facts. And in this connection I would add, that I have submitted the above statement to brother Rathbun, and he says it is a fair representation. It is not for me to say this was a Masonic mob. But an intelligent public will judge in the light of the facts. These facts are substantially the following: Sullivan County, Pennsylvania, brother Rathbun had an appointment to lecture on Masonry—the evening before the lecture, he informed a Mason what was the nearest railroad station, and that there was a Masonic lodge there—this Mason attended the lecture, became angry and talked and behaved in an unbecoming manner—at this state of affairs brother Rathbun, in Masonic language, said, “As we met on the level, let us part on the square”—in a few days after, it is known at the nearest station in Steuben County, New York, that he had lectured against Masonry in Sullivan County, Pennsylvania—a paper is stuck up in his barn having on it drawn, a coffin and a pair of balances; the balance being a Masonic emblem which may be seen with square and compass, in the encircled red on the face of United States bills of all denominations; as if Masonic emblems had any business on United States currency—in the dead of night he is savagely assaulted and disgracefully abused, and ordered from the country on peril of having his throat cut, by men who assigned no reason for such conduct, but quote the very Masonic language respecting meeting “on the level” and parting “on the square,” he had addressed to the infuriated Mason in Sullivan County, Pennsylvania, but nine days before; and to my certain knowledge, excepting the Masons and their sympathizers, brother Rathbun is respected and beloved by the community in which he lives. These are the facts. The case is a clear one. An intelligent public will have no trouble in determining who were the agents in this worse than brutal outrage perpetrated upon the person of a zealous and devout man of God, who is giving his entire life in labor for the highest good of his fellow-men. We do not live in Central Africa, nor in New Zealand, nor in the wilds of Arabia, nor even among the murderous Ku Klux of the South. We know full well what all right-minded persons must think of any institution in our midst, whether secret or open, which will in any wise allow itself to be responsible for such cruelty and outlawry upon unoffending citizens. No institution can quicker seal its doom than to even tolerate such conduct, on the part of any of its members. But I add no more. Brother Rathbun will not leave; neither is he the least intimidated by what he has suffered, nor yet by what has been threatened. He is in the hands of his75God. And he knows in whom he believes. Let all who read this pray that he may be kept from murderous hands; and let us stand with him and by him in the cause of Christ, for which he suffers.—J. L. Bush, in Am. Wesleyan, July, 1870.