BRANT, JOSEPH

A Mohawk Indian Chief, made a Freemason "and admitted to the Third Degree" at London, England, on April 26, 1776. This was in a Lodge of the Moderns, the Falcon, in Princess Street, Leicester Fields.

Brother Hawkins records that during the War of American Independence Brant was in command of some Indian troops on the British side, by whom Captain McKinsty, of the United States Army, had been captured. The Indians had tied their prisoner to a tree and were preparing to torture him, when he made the mystic appeal of a Freemason in the hour of danger. Brant interposed and rescued his American brother from his impending fate, took him to Quebec, and placed him in the hands of some English Freemasons, who returned him, uninjured, to the American outposts. Clavel has illustrated the occurrence on page 283 of his Histoire Pittoresque de la Franc-Maçonnerie. Joseph Brant, or Thayendanegea, to use his native name, was bom on the banks of the Ohio River in 1742 and was educated at Lebanon, Connecticut.

He was a member of Lodge No. 11 at the Mohawk village, about a mile and a half from Brantford, and was also affiliated with Barton Lodge No. 10 at Hamilton, Canada. Brother Robertson, History of Freemasonry in Canada, records (on page 687) that Brother Brant translated the Gospel of St. Mark into the Mohawk language and this was published in 1787.