Albert Pike

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why he became an important figure. why he became an important figure.

Pike was a lawyer who played a major role in the Pike was a lawyer who played a major role in the developme

development of the early courts ofnt of the early courts ofArkansasArkansas, took an, took an active role in the state’s politics prior to the Civil active role in the state’s politics prior to the Civil War, and was a central figure in the development of War, and was a central figure in the development of Masonry in the state and later became a national Masonry in the state and later became a national leader of that organization. During the Civil War, he leader of that organization. During the Civil War, he commanded the Confederacy’s Indian Territory, commanded the Confederacy’s Indian Territory, rais-ing troops there and exercisrais-ing field command of ing troops there and exercising field command of them in the Battle of Pea Ridge. He also was a them in the Battle of Pea Ridge. He also was a tal-ented poet and writer.

ented poet and writer.

Albert Pike was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on Albert Pike was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 29, 1809, the son of a cobbler. He received December 29, 1809, the son of a cobbler. He received an education that provided him with a background in an education that provided him with a background in classical and contemporary literature. He was fluent classical and contemporary literature. He was fluent in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, and he passed the in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, and he passed the Har-vard entry examination when he was sixteen. He was vard entry examination when he was sixteen. He was unable to pay the tuition at Harvard, however, and unable to pay the tuition at Harvard, however, and began to teach. In schools where students were often began to teach. In schools where students were often as old as their teacher, his size and intellect made him as old as their teacher, his size and intellect made him a figure students didn’t dare try to “run off.”

a figure students didn’t dare try to “run off.” Pike left Massachusetts in 1831 for Santa Fe, Pike left Massachusetts in 1831 for Santa Fe, which was part of Mexico. During the excursion his which was part of Mexico. During the excursion his horse broke and ran, forcing Pike to walk the horse broke and ran, forcing Pike to walk the remain-ing 500 miles. From Santa Fe, he joined an ing 500 miles. From Santa Fe, he joined an expedi-tion into the lands around the headwaters of the tion into the lands around the headwaters of the Arkansas and Re

Arkansas and Red rivers.d rivers.After traveling abouAfter traveling about 1,300t 1,300 miles (650 on foot), he walked into Fort Smith with miles (650 on foot), he walked into Fort Smith with nothing but the education bookended between his nothing but the education bookended between his

D

uring the night of June 11 last year, flashuring the night of June 11 last year, flash flood waters rolled down the Little Missouri flood waters rolled down the Little Missouri River into the secluded

River into the secludedAlbert Pike Camp-Albert Pike Camp-ground in the wilderness of the Ouachita National ground in the wilderness of the Ouachita National Forest in

Forest inArkansas, swArkansas, sweeping 19 campers to their eeping 19 campers to their deaths. People were naturally more concerned with deaths. People were naturally more concerned with the deaths of neighbors and loved ones than the man the deaths of neighbors and loved ones than the man who was the namesake of the campground.

who was the namesake of the campground.

But the man who has some dozen namesakes in But the man who has some dozen namesakes in Arkansas

Arkansas, including the, including theAlbert Pike HighwaAlbert Pike Highway be-y be-tween Hot Springs and Colorado Springs, Colo., who tween Hot Springs and Colorado Springs, Colo., who commande

commanded the Natived the NativeAmerican forces at the BattleAmerican forces at the Battle of Pea Ridge and became the only Confederate of Pea Ridge and became the only Confederate gen-eral to have a public sculpture in Washington, D.C., eral to have a public sculpture in Washington, D.C., who wrote the Masonic treatise

who wrote the Masonic treatise Morals and Dogma,Morals and Dogma,aa codified guide, philosophy

codified guide, philosophy, and , and historyhistory, is , is littlelittle known today to most people.

known today to most people. However

However,,Albert Pike, a giant in 19th century his-Albert Pike, a giant in 19th century his-tory, politics, and culture, is making something of a tory, politics, and culture, is making something of a comeback in the public consciousness, thanks to Dan comeback in the public consciousness, thanks to Dan Brown’

Brown’s s thriller about thriller about Masonic WaMasonic Washington inshington in TheThe Lost Symbol.

Lost Symbol.

Revered by Masons,

Revered by Masons,Albert Pike’Albert Pike’s most famouss most famous quotation is “What we have done

quotation is “What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others what we have done for others and the world remains, and is and the world remains, and is im-mortal.” It is inscribed near mortal.” It is inscribed near Pike’s bust in the House of the Pike’s bust in the House of the Temple in Washington. In Dan Temple in Washington. In Dan Brown’s

Brown’sThe Lost Symbol The Lost Symbol , Har-, Har-vard symbologist Robert vard symbologist Robert Lang-don pauses for an instant to take don pauses for an instant to take note of this bust and quotation on note of this bust and quotation on

his way up the stairs to save Peter Solomon. his way up the stairs to save Peter Solomon.

Making him seem even more the giant of his time Making him seem even more the giant of his time was Pike’s size, both vertical and horizontal. He was was Pike’s size, both vertical and horizontal. He was said to be three or four inches over 6 feet and easily said to be three or four inches over 6 feet and easily weighed in at 300 pounds. That towering presence weighed in at 300 pounds. That towering presence was topped by a massive head, with long, flowing was topped by a massive head, with long, flowing locks and a thick beard—jet black in his youth and locks and a thick beard—jet black in his youth and white in his old age.

white in his old age.Add intellect to his imposinAdd intellect to his imposing fig-g fig-ure, and ambition to his character, and it is easy to see ure, and ambition to his character, and it is easy to see

Albert Pike:

Almost Forgotten Son Of Arkansas

By Fred Pfister

He Put His Name

On

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Pike had a commanding appearance with long,

flow-ing locks and a thick beard. Both were jet black in

ing locks and a thick beard. Both were jet black in

his youth and snow white in his old age, as in the

photo by Matthew Brady, taken in 1865.

( ( p p h h o o t t o o : : W W i i k k i

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kinds of motions to be filed in the state’s courts. His reputation as an attorney also secured him the appointment of receiver for the failed Arkansas State

Bank in 1840. As receiver, he attempted to collect the debts owed to that institution, and the fees he re-ceived for this work were lucrative and secured his fortune, allowing him to build the Greek Revival mansion at 411 East 7th Street in Little Rock on 12 lots he purchased in 1839 from Chester Ashley, a prominent lawyer and land speculator who later became a U.S. senator.

An ambitious man who desired to become a public figure, Pike joined others in 1845 in supporting ac-tions against Mexico, in what became the Mexican War. He helped raise the Little Rock Guards, a com- pany incorporated into the Arkansas cavalry regiment

of Colonel Archibald Yell, and served as its captain. Pike concluded early on that the senior officers of his regiment were incompetent, and he shared his obser-vations with the people back in Arkansas through letters to the newspapers.

After the Battle of Buena Vista, he leveled particu-larly harsh criticism against Lieutenant Colonel John Selden Roane, who had assumed command after Yell was mortally wounded. After a particularly vitriolic letter by Pike in the Arkansas Gazette, Roane de-manded that Pike apologize or “give him satisfac-tion.” Pike refused to apologize, and the two fought a duel near Fort Smith on a sand bar in the Arkansas River. In the exchange of fire, neither hit his antago-nist, and the two were persuaded to halt the duel, with “honor now satisfied.” Roane later became gov-ernor of Arkansas from 1849 to 1852 and served as a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army.

After returning from Mexico, Pike reestablished ears. He taught in rural schools around Fort Smith for

a short time. His literary skills, however, soon in-volved him in Arkansas politics and attracted the at-tention of Charles Bertrand, owner of the Whig Party’s Arkansas Advocate, who invited Pike to Little Rock to work as the paper’s editor. Pike accepted the job and moved to the capital city. In addition to

edit-ing the newspaper, Pike secured additional work in Little Rock as a legislative clerk.

He married Mary Ann Hamilton on October 10, 1834, who bore him 11 children. She brought to the marriage considerable financial resources, and she helped Pike purchase an interest in the Advocate from Charles Bertram in 1834. The next year, he became its sole proprietor. Pike studied law while editing the newspaper, ultimately passing the Arkansas Bar exam in either 1836 or 1837. In the latter year, he sold the newspaper and devoted his time to the law.

As a lawyer, Pike was known for his good speak-ing voice and his sharp intellect. It was also said he had a good singing voice, and he played the violin.

With these personal assets, Pike developed a lucra-tive law practice, but his clients also included many of the tribes in Indian Territory. Among his clients at this time were the Creek and Choctaw, whom he rep-resented in a case against the U.S. government that secured payment for lands taken in the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814. Pike learned several Native

American dialects while working as their attorney. In 1842, he published the Arkansas Form Book , a tool for lawyers providing models for the different

In 1944 and 1953, special Acts of the United States Congress allowed the remains of Albert Pike and, later, John Henry Cowles, to be placed in vaults in the House of the Temple. Memorial busts of Pike and Cowles, each on a marble pedestal, were added at that time. (photo: courtesy of Phoenixmasonry Masonic Museum and Library)

The log building in which Albert Pike was reputed to have taught in 1832. It now stands on the court-house lawn at Van Buren. It has been said that Pike found Freemasonry in a log cabin and left it in a

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order to get Ben McCulloch and Sterling Price to co-operate. In the spring of 1862, Van Doren ordered Pike to bring his 2,500 Indian troops into northwest-ern Arkansas.

Despite his opposition to the move, Pike obeyed, and his Indian force of about 900 men joined Confed-erate forces in northwest Arkansas. On March 7–8, 1862, they participated in the Battle of Pea Ridge, led by Pike. Pike evidently failed to keep his force

en-gaged with the enemy or in check. Charges circulated widely that the men had stopped their advance to take scalps. After the battle, Pike and his men returned to Indian Territory.

Opposition to Confederate policy over Indian Territory would continue to be a source of conflict between Pike and his superiors. Unhappy with Pike,

in the summer of 1862, General Thomas C. Hindman, who had replaced Van Dorn as commander of Con-federate forces in Arkansas, attempted to extend his authority over Indian Territory. Pike responded by issuing a circular that refused to surrender control and charged Hindman with trying to replace constitu-tional government with despotism. Their dispute went to Confederate authorities at Richmond, who decided in favor of Hindman, and Pike was repri-manded. On July 12, Pike resigned from his position in protest and retired near Greasy Cove along the Little Missouri River in Montgomery County. The Albert Pike Campground was later established on the spot.

At the end of the Civil War, Pike moved to New York City, then for a short time to Canada. After re-his law practice and promoted the construction of a

transcontinental railroad from New Orleans to the Pacific coast. He moved to New Orleans in 1853 to further his railroad activities, although he also contin-ued to practice law. He translated French legal vol-umes into English while preparing to pass the bar exam for Louisiana.

Pike had a great facility with languages. He read Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He had learned various Native American dialects in his legal work with the

tribes in Indian Territory. He was reputed to read, write, and speak 16 languages.

Pike had become a Freemason in 1850, in part be-cause of his political ambitions. In 1853, the

Arkansas Freemasons established the library of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas with Albert Pike as chair-man. It is the second-oldest library in the state. In 1859, they opened St. Johns’ College in Little Rock and educated many of the state’s leaders. In the decade after the war, Freemasonry was reestablished slowly in every section of Arkansas. By the end of the nineteenth century, there were 12,522 Masons in 442 lodges, and Albert Pike was the best known Mason in Arkansas.

In the years following the Mexican War, the devel-oping sectional crisis brought on by the issue of slavery became a concern of Pike’s. He was a Whig, but the Whig Party repeatedly refused to address the

slavery issue. That failure and Pike’s own anti-Catholicism led him to join the Know-Nothing Party upon its creation. In 1856, he attended the new party’s national convention. It was equally reluctant

to adopt a strong pro-slavery platform, and he joined other Southern delegates in walking out of the con-vention.

Pike believed in the idea of state’s rights and con-sidered secession constitutional. He philosophically supported secession, demonstrating his position in 1861 when he published a pamphlet titled “State or Province, Bond or Free?”

When secession and war came, the Confederate War Department appointed him a brigadier general in the Confederate army in August 1861 and assigned him to the Department of the Indian Territory because of his experiences there and his knowledge of their languages.

Pike assisted the tribes that supported the Confed-eracy in raising regiments. He believed that these units would be critical to protecting the territory from Union incursions, but his belief that the Indian units should be kept in Indian Territory brought him into early conflict with his superiors.

One of those superiors was General Earl Van Dorn, one of the Confederacy’s most promising general officers early in the Civil War. He proved to be a dis-appointment and died, not at the hands of the enemy but at those of a jealous husband, in 1863. But early

in 1862 he had been sent to command in Arkansas in

The temple replaced the old brick one in which Pike lived while in Washington. It was designed by noted architect John Russell Pope, who modeled it after the tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The building was dedicated on October 18, 1915.

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After he ceased practicing law, Pike’s real interest was the Masonic Lodge. As early as 1853, he also as-sociated with the Scottish Rite of Masons and rose rapidly in the organization. In 1859, he was elected Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, the administrative district for all parts of the country except for the fif-teen states east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio, and held that post until his death.

After the war, he devoted much of his time to rewriting the rituals of the Scottish Rite Masons. For years, his Morals and Dogma (1871), was distributed to members of the Rite and is still readily available. Over his career, he published numerous other works on the order, including Meaning of Masonry, Book of the Words, and The Point Within the Circle.

As he aged, he also became interested in spiritual-ism, particularly Indian thought, and its relationship to Masonry. Late in life, he learned Sanskrit and translated various literary works written in that lan-guage. As a result of his work in this area, he pub-lished Indo-Aryan Deities and Worship as Contained in the Rig-Veda.

As a young man, Pike began to write poetry and continued to do so for the rest of his life. When he was 23, he published his first poem, “Hymns to the Gods.” Subsequent poems appeared in contemporary literary journals such as Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and local newspapers, and Edgar Allan Poe praised him as America’s greatest classical poet. He

later gathered many of his poems and republished them in Hymns to the Gods and Other Poems (1872). After his death these appeared again in Gen. Albert Pike’s Poems (1900) and Lyrics and Love Songs

(1916). Highly regarded in his day, his poetry is now mostly forgotten.

Pike died in Washington, DC on April 2, 1891, aged 81, in the old brick Scottish Rite Temple where he had taken up residence in 1883. He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery—against his wishes, as he had left instructions for his body to be cremated. On December 29, 1944, the anniversary of his birth, his body was removed from Oak Hill Cemetery and placed in a crypt in the new House of the Temple,

headquarters of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite.

Much has been written against Freemasonry by fundamentalist Christian sects, and a quick search of the Internet will reveal that Albert Pike is pictured by them as a demonic, Satanic prince and prophet, and a member of the shadowy Illuminati, intent on estab-lishing “a new world order.” Of course some of the same sects revere the nation’s founding fathers, many of whom were also Masons – Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, William Ellery, John Hancock, Joseph Hewes, William Hooper, Robert Paine, Richard Stockton, George Walton, and William Whipple.

ceiving amnesty from President Andrew Johnson on August 30, 1865, he returned for a time to Arkansas and resumed the practice of law.

In 1867, he moved to Memphis and entered a new law partnership with General Charles W. Adams. He also edited the Memphis Appeal . He may have be-come involved in the organization of the Ku Klux Klan at this time, although this is not certain.

He moved to Washington, DC in 1870, engaged in politics and edited The Patriot , a Democratic newspaper. He also practiced law in partnership with

Robert W. Johnson, former U.S. senator, until 1880.

In this eleven-foot bronze statue, erected in 1901, Pike is presented in civilian dress as a Masonic

leader, not as a Confederate General. He carries a copy of Morals and Dogma in his left hand. The granite pedestal below him contains a bronze lady in

Greek dress who sits on one level of the pedestal and holds the banner of the Scottish Rite. In 1977 the monument was relocated to its present site be-tween the Department of Labor building and the Municipal Building, between 3rd and 4th Streets, on D Street, NW. Pike’s statue is the only Confederate

officer represented among the outdoor Civil War statuary of Washington. (photo: courtesy of Phoenixmasonry Masonic Museum and Library)

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The Masons’ penchant for secrecy, their mystic rituals, and their long history, as well as their associa-tion and influence in the symbolism, design, and ar-chitecture of the nation’s capital, make possible, and seemingly credible, the fiction thriller of Dan

Brown’s The Lost Symbol. Of course then, as now, Masons are open about their membership, being more of a society with secrets than a secret society. Just as today, Masons proudly acclaim their membership with bumper stickers, Pike, in his era, never hid his Mason membership.

Albert Pike’s passion, almost an obsession, as a poet, scholar, and Mason, was that all men should

seek knowledge, or “light.” From that light came in-formation and understanding. In a sense, Pike, a “Re-naissance man,” was an extension of those figures of the 18th century “Enlightenment.” Perhaps the atten-tion Brown’s book has given to the early history of our nation’s capital and its architecture, producing a veritable flood of keys, “explanatories,” and histories about Washington, DC’s monuments and buildings, will also generate a new appreciation for the man who left his name on so many places in Arkansas. =

—Fred Pfister, Branson, Mo., is editor of The Ozarks Mountaineer and an avid reader of biogra- phies and historical fiction.

“Shriners”: Another Set Of Masons

An appendant body of the Masons is the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, or “Shriners.” Like the Scottish Rite and York Rite, all Shriners are Masons, but not all Masons are Shriners. The Shriners first developed in 1870, and the very first chapter (Mecca Shriners) met in 1872. Today the Shriners have over 350,000 Nobles (members) at-tending 191 chapters in four different countries.

The original intent of the Shriners was to give Ma-sons a fraternity that focused on friendship and fun. While that intent is still the same today, in the 1920s a community focus was added in a big way, and in 1922, the first Shriners Hospital for Children was

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opened in Shreveport, La. Since then, 21 more hospi-tals were opened with a focus on orthopedic care, burn and spinal cord injury, and cleft lip-palate care.

All of this care is delivered at absolutely no cost to the patient or their family.

Recently, two Ozarkers (Aleena Havens, 8, and Alexia Havens, 5) became patients of the Shrine Hos- pital due to burn injuries sustained in a house fire on

Jan. 15, 2011. The air transportation and medical at-tention till age 18 will be handled entirely by the Shriners. As if the treatment wasn’t enough, on March 14 the girls were treated to a Circus perform-ance night at the Abou Ben Adhem Shrine Center in Springfield, Mo. A “flock of clowns” (including Dou-glas Pitts), greeted the young ladies to a fun night of amazing circus performers and caring Shriners.

To find out more about the Shriners please visit www.beashrinernow.com or call813-281-8101.

— _{thanks to Douglas Pitts for Shriner information}

( p h o t o : m u s e u m o f t h e S c o t t i s h R i t e C o n s i s t o r y , D e s M o i n e s , I o w a )