158 HISTORY OF respected citizen of Walton. It was, so far as I have been enabled to learn, the only adventure in duelling to be recorded in the annals of the county, which I trust will prove a suffi- cient apology for its insertion. He says : " The principal hero of the following narrative was Benja- min Tanner, teacher of a district school, two and a half miles from the village of Walton, about fifty years since. Tanner is described by those who knew him, as in bodily shape exceed- ingly tall, lank, and sharp-featured, and of a very jealous and excitable disposition. He was, indeed, one of those peculiar characters that idle and designing persons love to annoy and play tricks upon. Being in the village one day, he fell in with a number of his acquaintances, who, as the sequel illus- trates, were notorious alike for their shrewd tricks and meddle- some dispositions. While in their company. Tanner expressed a desire to join the masons, which movement was at that time exceedingly popular. The persons to whom he addressed him- self were all freemasons, (of which he was aware,) and had a lodge in the same district in which he was teaching. This lodge was then in a flourishing condition, a majority of its members being amongst the most respectable citizens of that vicinity. " The idea flashed upon the minds of the party that they might enjoy some fun at the schoolmaster's expense; he was accordingly informed that a branch of the lodge existed in the village, and that a meeting should be called that evening to initiate him. " Frederick Hocty, one of the leading actors of the farce, was at the time a merchant of the village, and had a room in his house, in which himself and companions frequently met to carry on their frolics. These meetings had already come into notoriety, as the ' Cro^'py Lodge, from the circumstance of its members having shaved the heads of some of their subjects
