Secret Band of Brothers | Page 2

This order is not confined in its operations to the dark places of life. It
numbers among its members the professional man, the "respectable
citizen," the prominent and wealthy of various towns throughout the
Union; nay, it has sometimes invaded the house of God, and secured
the services of those who are ostensibly his ministers.
There is not a line of fiction in these pages. The solemn truth is told, in
all its strange and horrible interest. To the public, to the candid of all
classes, to the friends of reform, to the honest citizen, and to the sincere
Christian, the author makes his appeal.
Let not his voice of warning be unheeded. Let all be up and doing, so
that the monster may be exterminated from the face of the earth, and
the youth of the present age be saved from destruction.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE SECRET BAND OF BROTHERS.

Why this exposure is made at the present time--Who oppose
reform--My lectures--The New-Light minister--How some get
rich--My opponents 9
CHAPTER II.
A DARK CONSPIRACY.
Goodrich, the gambler--His malicious conduct--Cause of it--The
Browns--Their plan to escape punishment 16
CHAPTER III.
THE CONSPIRACY IN PROGRESS.
The colonel takes medicine to bring on sickness--Ruse will not
take--Character of the administrators of justice in New
Orleans--Colonel Brown deserted by the Brotherhood--Dearborn
county, Indiana, delegation 22
CHAPTER IV.
THE CONSPIRACY FURTHER DEVELOPED.
The secret correspondence brought from Canada--The Brotherhood
desert Brown--How I obtained the secret writings--Not suspected--Mrs.
Brown and the landlady---Cunningham suspected of purloining them
27
CHAPTER V.
BRIBERY AND COUNTERFEIT MONEY.
Brown's lawyer attempts to bribe me to testify falsely against
Taylor--Acquaint the deputy-marshal with the fact--Brown's ineffectual
attempts to find bail--Suspected of having removed the hid money--The
colonel's visitors 34

CHAPTER VI.
MYSTERIOUS DISCLOSURES.
His Lawrenceburgh friends--A hypocritical lecture--Further
disclosures--A searching examination--First intimation of the existence
of The Secret Band of Brothers--Colonel Brown's narrative of the
conspiracy against Taylor 42
CHAPTER VII.
DISCLOSURES CONTINUED.
The colonel resumes his narrative--The missing papers.--Fare advice 57
CHAPTER VIII.
DEATH OF COLONEL BROWN.
Conspiracy against my life--Conversation with Cunningham regarding
the mysterious papers--Death of Colonel Brown 62
CHAPTER IX.
THE SECRET BAND OF BROTHERS.
Explanatory remarks--The Grand Master of The Secret Band of
Brothers--Vice-grand Masters--Ordinary members--Objects of the
Order--Colonel Brown sacrificed lest he should betray them--Taylorites
and Brownites 66
CHAPTER X.
THE MYSTERIOUS BOX.
Anxiety about the missing papers--Cause of the hostility of the Band to
me--The papers supposed to be deposited in the United States

Court--Clerk's office broken into, and the box containing Taylor's
indictment and the spurious money stolen--Suspected--Placed in prison
for safety--The robber discovered--My release--The mysterious
box--The stranger--Conversation with Wyatt--The box opened 75
CHAPTER XI.
THE PORK TRADE, OR DRIVING THE HOGS TO A WRONG
MARKET.
The trading operations of the Band--Lectures at Lawrenceburgh--The
Browns and the hog-drover 84
CHAPTER XII.
CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS OF THE SECRET BAND OF
BROTHERS.
Initiation--Penalties--The Grand Masters--The secret writing--The six
qualities, Huska, Caugh, Naugh, Maugh, Haugh, Gaugh--Vocabulary of
flash words--The post-routes.--The horse-trade
explained--Allowances-- Specimens of correspondence--The biter
bit--A letter of introduction with an important note--Subsequent inquiry
into the case 90
CHAPTER XIII.
A CHAPTER OF AFFINITIES.
Thieves and thief-catchers--A family of five--Penitence and
Penitentiaries--The chain-driver and his gang--Lawyers' fees and
Lawyers' privileges--Our representatives 139
CHAPTER XIV.
GAMBLING EXPEDITION IN THE CHOCTAW NATION.
Character of the inhabitants on the Texas frontier in 1833--The murder

of Dr ----. Operations at Fort Towson--Edmonds and
Scoggins--Robbery-- Journey to Fort Smith--The dumb negro
speaks--His character of Scoggins and Edmonds 147
CHAPTER XV.
CORRESPONDENCE CONNECTED WITH MY VISIT TO THE
AUBURN PRISON, AND CONVERSATION WITH WYATT, THE
MURDERER.
1. Chaplain Morrill's letter commendatory of my visit--2. My own
account--3. My second visit--4. Mr. Gary's letter--5. Reply to the
accusations of Mr. Morrill--6. Mr. Merrill's charges--7. Vindication
from these charges--8. Further particulars relative to the life of Wyatt
alias Newell alias North, and a horrid murder committed near
Perrysburgh, Ohio--
Conclusion 184
Debate on Gambling 193
LOTTERIES.
Drawing of Lottery Tickets 267
Insuring Numbers, or Policy Dealing 288
Lottery Combinations, etc. 299

THE
SECRET BAND OF BROTHERS.
CHAPTER I.
In perusing the following pages, the reader will learn the history of a
class of men, who, for talent, cannot be excelled. He may startle at the

horrid features which naked truth will depict--at deeds of darkness
which, though presented to an enlightened people, may require a stretch
of credulity to believe were ever perpetrated in the glorious nineteenth
century.
It will, no doubt, elicit many a curious thought, especially with honest
men, and the "whys and wherefores" will pass from mouth to mouth in
every hamlet, village, and town, where the following recital may find a
reader or hearer. All will declare it mysterious. It is a mystery to myself
in some particulars, but in others it is not. It is strange, passing strange,
to think that