“There are people in the village who would be happy to see this Captain Morgan.

“Canandaigua, August 9, 1826.”

This notice was copied in two newspapers published in Batavia.

About the middle of August a stranger by the name of Daniel Johns appeared in Batavia and took up his lodgings in one of the public houses of the village.  He made the acquaintance of Miller, offered to go in business with him, and to furnish whatever money might be necessary for the publication of the Morgan book.  Miller accepted his proposition and took the man into his confidence.  As it afterwards turned out, Johns’s object in seeking the partnership was to secure possession of the Morgan manuscript, so that Miller could not publish the work; the man’s subsequent connection with this strange narrative appears from the affidavit of Mrs. Morgan, referred to farther on.

During the month of August, Morgan with his family boarded at a house in the heart of the village; but to avoid interruption in his work he had an upper room in the house of John David, on the other side of the creek from the town.

August 19 three well-known residents of the village accompanied by a constable from Pembroke went to David’s house, inquired for David and Towsley, who both lived there with their families, and on being told they were not at home, rushed up-stairs to the room where Morgan was writing, seized him and the papers which he was even then arranging for the printer.  He was taken to the county jail and kept from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning, when he was bailed out.

On the same Saturday evening the same men went to the house where Morgan boarded, and saying they had an execution, inquired of Mrs. Morgan whether her husband had any property.  They were told he had none, but nevertheless two of the men went into Morgan’s room and made a search for papers.  On leaving the house one of them said to Mrs. Morgan, “We have just conducted your husband to jail, and shall keep him there until we find his papers.”

September 8, James Ganson, who kept the tavern at Stafford, was notified from Batavia that between forty and fifty men would be there for supper.  The men came and late at night departed for Batavia, where they found a number of men gathered from other points.  From an affidavit taken afterwards it seems the object of the party was to destroy Miller’s office, but they found Miller and Morgan had been warned.  At any rate, the party dispersed without doing anything.  Part of them reassembled at Ganson’s, and charges of cowardice were freely exchanged; certain of the leaders were afterwards indicted for their part in this affair, but no trial was had.

To this day the business portion of Batavia stretches along both sides of a broad main street; instead of cross-streets at regular intervals there are numerous alleys leading off the main street, with here and there a wider side street.  In those days nearly all the buildings were of wood and but one or two stories in height.  Miller’s printing-offices occupied the second stories of two wooden buildings; a side alley separating the two buildings, dividing also, of course, the two parts of the printing establishment.