Masons & The Westport Fight

by Brother J. Gary “Gar” Pickering, Managing Editor

Originally Published in the The Louisiana Freemason Weekly eEdition for Oct. 4, 2019

On Christmas Eve 1881, at the crossroads of what is now LA Hwy 113 and LA Hwy 462, in a place called No Man’s Land, a fight broke out. This fight was between the descendants of pioneers who had come to these woods several generations before, known as Ten Milers, due to their proximity to Ten Mile Creek, and new arrivals, outsiders, from other parts of Louisiana and the South. Many of these settlers had come from New Orleans, Alexandria, and elsewhere around the state. As they traveled West from Alexandria, they would have crossed the “Dead Line”, which was just west of Hineston. It is said that the fight started over a horse race a few days prior; the losers accusing the winners of cheating. History shows than the fight was over much more than just a horse race, and this day was the day it was settled that the new folks needed to move along. One of the families that had settled on this side of the Calcasieu River was that of a merchant named Joseph W. Moore, of County Mayo in Ireland, who had made his way to this frontier by way of New Orleans, where he had first arrived from Ireland. It is said that he left Ireland in an escape, after he killing the hound of an Sam Todd Lodge photo from 1915 with Brother Mayo Moore in attendance. Louisiana Masonic Library & Museum Archives.

English nobleman, arriving in America in 1853. After arriving in New Orleans, Moore found employment as a clerk on a steamboat on the Mississippi River, and in 1856 he moved to Alexandria, Louisiana. He kept books for a while, at the Washington Hotel, and he taught at Spring Hill Academy. Later he was married in 1858, and in 1862 he joined the Confederate Army. He served through the rest of the war, and served at the Battle of Vicksburg. Returning to Alexandria, he was served in elected Parish rolls, and in 1881, in partnership with two other gentlemen, he opened the store that would become the epicenter of “The Westport Fight”.

One of his partners was the young Doctor Hamilton, of Virginia, who was also present at the infamous skirmish, and the other was Captain Joseph T. Hatch, who also fought for the C.S.A., and was at Vicksburg. Some stories say that Capt. Hatch was just a “silent” partner, and others say that Hatch owned the Mill that was attached. The store has been referred to as “Hamilton & Moore”, and more frequently “Moore & Hatch” in historical records, and retellings of the events of that fateful day where Moore, Hamilton, and Hatch were all present. Two of Joseph Moore’s teenaged sons were there that day as well, the youngest being Mayo Moore.

Brother Joseph T. Hatch

This story has been told and retold, with various versions and other relevant history being fairly well documented. What isn’t included in the historical record of the Westport Fight, and what the reader will be will likely find quite interesting, is that the two partners, Lt. Joseph W. Moore, and Cpt. Joseph T. Hatch, were both Masonic brethren. Young Mayo Moore would likewise grow up to become a Master Mason. Another man, John Gordon “J.G.” Musgrove, was present during the shootout, and played a major role in its instigation. It was Musgrove who became involved in an argument over the race on the porch of the store, and who nearly died in the gun fight. Following the fight, Musgrove would give up the lifestyle that led him so close to death that day, and became a man of God. He would eventually became a Baptist minister.

The store was located near, what is now, Pitken, roughly halfway between Hineston, the last stop heading west before passing the “Dead Line”, in those days, and Sugar

town, the next established settlement as one headed southwest from “Westport”. One unique feature of Sugartown, in this area at that time, was that it had a Masonic Lodge. In his historical fiction book As the Crow Flies: The Westport Fight, Central Louisiana author Curt Iles has the narrator note that the presence of this lodge was one of the markers showing that Sugartown was “civilized”. This lodge, still active today, was Sam Todd Lodge #182, which was chartered in 1867. The lodge was named after the Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana F.&A.M., Most Worshipful Brother Samuel Todd, who served as Grand Master three times (1859, 1869-1872). At the time lodge was charted, MWB Todd was the Grand Secretary. That Most Worshipful Brother would travel by wagon from New Orleans to visit the lodge, taking him a full week to arrive!

Brother Joseph W. Moore would move to Sugartown in 1882, after losing the store to arson following the Westport Fight, but it was not his first time in the settlement. Brother Moore became a member of Sam Todd Lodge #182 in 1875, through affiliation by transfer. Though this writer has not yet confirmed it with certainty, it appears that Moore was a member of Quitman Lodge #76, in New Orleans, around the time of the Civil War. It appears that he was quit active in the lodge, and served as Worshipful Master shortly after moving to Sugartown permanently. His son Mayo Moore, a teenager at the time, would be initiated, raised, and passed in Sam Todd Lodge in 1897. Brother Joseph T. Hatch was a member of Fellowship Lodge #217, which was chartered in 1873 in Hineston, which put

the lodge just east of “No Man’s Land” at the time. Hatch became a member by affiliation in 1874. Revered J.G. Musgrove would become a member of the same lodge, also by affiliation, in 1887. Like Moore and Hatch, he was also a Confederate veteran, having served in the Louisiana Cavalry.

Looking back over history, it can safely be said that at least four Louisiana Freemasons were present that day, when old families waged war against new families in the back piney woods of No Man’s Land. Masonry in Louisiana has a long and interesting history, from New Orleans to the frontier, and everywhere in between. In an interview in 1988, George Washington Johnson, then 98 years old, of Pitkin said “Every man engaged in the Westport Fight was a hero. Only heroes lived in Western Louisiana in the early (19)80s…”.

In addition to being heroes, we know that among the men that day, we had brethren who took the same obligations as the rest of us, and sat in lodges in small towns, that are still here today.

Gravesite of Brother Joseph Moore and his wife Eliza in Dry Creek, Louisiana. Courtesty of Curt IIles.