It is the monument to the memory of William Morgan who was kidnapped near that spot in the month of September, 1826, and whose fate is one of the mysteries of the last century.
To read the inscriptions I climbed the rickety fence; the grass was high, the weeds thick; the entire place showed signs of neglect and decay.
The south side of the shaft, facing the railroad, was inscribed as follows: Sacred To The Memory Of WILLIAM MORGAN, A NATIVE OF VIRGINIA, A CAPT.

IN THE WAR OF 1812, A RESPECTABLE CITIZEN OF BATAVIA, AND A MARTYR TO THE FREEDOM OF WRITING, PRINTING, AND SPEAKING THE TRUTH.

HE WAS ABDUCTED FROM NEAR THIS SPOT IN THE YEAR 1826 BY FREEMASONS, AND MURDERED FOR REVEALING THE SECRETS OF THE ORDER.
The disappearance of Morgan is still a mystery,--a myth to most people nowadays; a very stirring reality in central and western New York seventy-five years ago; even now in the localities concerned the old embers of bitter feeling show signs of life if fanned by so much as a breath.
Six miles beyond Batavia, on the road to Le Roy, is the little village of Stafford; some twenty or thirty houses bordering the highway; a church, a schoolhouse, the old stage tavern, and several buildings that are to-day very much as they were nearly one hundred years ago.

This is the one place which remains very much as it was seventy-five years ago when Morgan was kidnapped and taken through to Canandaigua.

As one approaches the little village, on the left hand side of the highway set far back in an open field is an old stone church long since abandoned and disused, but so substantially built that it has defied time and weather.