MASONIC MOMENTS a Lafayette Lodge No
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LAFAYETTE LODGE NO. 27 F. & A. M. 1550 Irving Street, Rahway, New Jersey 07065 MASONIC MOMENTS A Lafayette Lodge No. 27 Periodical Volume 1, Issue 10 – November 2019 Lodge Historian: RW Arjit “Artie” Mahal A Pennsylvania Quaker in Afghanistan; The Man who would be King The story behind the story By RW Arjit “Artie” Mahal, Grand Chaplain On Saturday 21st September, 2019, a masonic presentation and a movie screening event was held at the Lafayette Lodge No 27. It was attended by masonic brothers, their spouse/partners and friends. The fellowship was enjoyed with popcorn, food and beverages. What was it all about? The title of the presentation was: A Pennsylvania Quaker in Afghanistan; The Man who would be King; The story behind the story. The presentation and the narrative were delivered by RW Arjit (Artie) Mahal, Grand Chaplain and the Historian of the lodge. It is the story of Josiah Harlan, a Pennsylvania Quaker and a Freemason who, in 1820s went on a grand adventure to the East and ended up being declared a Prince of Ghoree in one of the provinces of Afghanistan. The movie that followed the presentation was: The Man Who Would Be King. This adaptation of the famous short story by Rudyard Kipling tells the story of Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan, two ex-soldiers in India when it was under British rule. They had deserted the army and ran away to Afghanistan. There, after several misadventures, Daniel became a King of Kafiristan. Brother Rudyard Kipling who wrote this story was aware of the American, Josiah Harlan, who actually was declared a Prince. His story was inspired by the adventure of Brother Josiah Harlan. The Story: Afghan’s say that Allah, when he made the world, he had a pile of rocks left over and with these he created Afghanistan. The first American who ventured into that land of the treacherous rocks and lead an expedition following the footsteps of Alexander the Great was Brother Josiah Harlan of Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was a doctor, soldier, spy, botanist, naturalist, poet, historian and also a mercenary. Harlan had grown up in the America of Thomas Jefferson and explorers like Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had started to explore the American West. British East India Company had conquered more than half of the Indian subcontinent; The Sikh Empire called Punjab lay between English territory and Afghanistan. The “Great Game” between England and Russia was underway with Afghanistan as the pawn on their game of imperial chess. Harlan travels overseas and becomes a Mason upon return. In the Spring of 1820, Harlan took a job as “suercargo” the officer in charge of sales, on a merchant ship bound for Calcutta and Canton. Before setting sail for the East, Harlan Josiah became a joined the fraternity of Freemasonry. He was raised in Union Lodge No. 121 in 1821. It met in Masonic Temple in 1 Philadelphia; and merged with Pilgrim Lodge No. 712 in 1985, which continues to meet there. Upon his return to Philadelphia in 1821 from a 13 months trip to Far East, China and India, Josiah Harlan had fallen in love with one Eliza Swain. His love was spurned and he was heartbroken. Harlan decided to leave America and never to return back. In 1822 he boarded an East India Company ship and ended up in Calcutta where he joined the English Army as a surgeon and served in Anglo-Burmese war of 1825 (served in Rangoon). Leaves British Service. As a free American thinker, he did not like being ordered by English, and after several years of service, in 1826 he decided to resign and go West – West of British India. He ended up in the frontier town of Ludhiana on the banks of river Sutlej—bordering the Sikh kingdom of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Shah Shuja the king of Afghanistan was in exile there with his large harem and pensioned by the British. He had dreams of going back to Afghanistan. Harlan proposed to Shah Shuja that he would go to Afghanistan as his secret agent and stirrup revolution to oust Dost Mohammed, the then Amir of Afghanistan. Shah Shuja provided him with funds. Harlan had a local tailor sew him an American flag with stars and stripes; which he put on a makeshift pole outside his tents and started to recruit staff and escort of about one thousand men. Harlan and his men had very difficult adventures on their way to Kabul. They crossed the river Indus in 1827 and then to Peshawar and onto Kabul. The North West Frontier was a wild country and to pass that land Harlan had guised himself as a Muslim Fakir, a Dervish and managed to enter Kabul. In Kabul he was greeted well by Dost Muhammad. Harlan discovered that the King’s subjects liked their ruler and therefore the environment was not ripe for a revolution. Governor of Gujrat. Now he needed other employment and a mission. He had heard that Punjab’s Sikh Maharaja had in his employ several European officers, many of them were Generals of Napoleon who after the battle of waterloo had ventured to places like Persia and India for employment. Harlan entered the Punjab territory via Khyber Pass and Peshawar and entered the capital Lahore dressed in red coat and cockaded hat and sword. (Some fifty years later Brother Rudyard Kipling would be initiated in Lodge Hope and Perseverance in Lahore). Maharaja Ranjit Singh, made Harlan governor of Gujrat, one of the provinces of the Khalsa Raj (Sikh Empire). After serving for seven years, having a disagreement with the Maharaja, Harlan left the service and again went back to Afghanistan. Harlan, as General of the Army. This time Harlan nurtured on the good will of Dost Mohammad who made him the General of his armies as Commander-in-Chief. Harlan was asked to prepare the army for an expedition across the Hindu Kush Mountains to subdue many of the areas who had become rebels and did not pay tribute to Kabul. An army of about 10 thousand men, 90 guns, horses, camels, camp followers and one elephant went on to this adventure which was on the trails that Alexander had marched on in 329 B.C. The journey was rough and tough, but the army reached the Hindu Kush summit at 16,000 feet. Harlan ordered a military review and one of the oddest American flag-raising ceremony ever staged. In his words “I surmounted the Indian Caucasus and there upon the mountain heights, unfurled my country’s banner to the breeze, under a salute of 26 guns. On the highest pass of the frosty Caucasus that of Kharzar, the star- spangled banner gracefully waved amidst the icy peaks and soilless rugged rocks of sterile region, seemingly sacred to the solitude of an undisturbed eternity.” 2 Josiah Harlan(1799 - 1871) Only known picture Possible self-portrait as Darvish, entering Afghanistan in disguise. Harlan becomes King. Beyond that lay the unchartered land of Hunza. Within Hunza was a principality of Ghore a.k.a. Ghoree. People of Ghore were terrorized by the barbarians. Harlan provided protection to Ghore. The leaders of Ghore begged Harlan to take tribute from them, train their men in the art of war and lead them as their sovereign. A treaty was written out in elegant Persian script, sealed with Mohammed Raffe Beg’s signet, witnessed by a holy man, and signed on the Koran. Its terms were simple and extraordinary: high on a desolate mountain, surrounded by Afghan tribesmen, the American was made a King. In Harlan’s words “The Hazara prince transferred the principality to me in feudal service, binding himself and his tribe to pay tribute forever, stipulating that he be made the Vazir.” Return from Afghanistan. In April 1839 Harlan’s expeditionary force returned to Kabul in triumph. However, this glory did not last long. British in their “Great Game” had decided to put Shah Shuja back on Kabul’s throne and get rid of Dost Mohamed. Their Army of the Indus marched to Afghanistan with 20 thousand soldiers, 30 thousand camp followers and over thousand pack animals. Dost Mohammed escaped from Kabul and as the Army of the Indus scouts entered Kabul. They found Harlan eating breakfast. They did not want this American around and ordered him to leave Kabul and British India. In October 1939 Harlan rode out of Kabul. But before he did that, he warned the English "To subdue and crush the masses of a nation by military force is to attempt the imprisonment of a whole people: all such projects must be temporary and transient, and terminate in a catastrophe." Harlan travelled two years in Egypt, Europe and Russia before returning to Pennsylvania in 1841. (Catastrophe did happen within the year. Army of the Indus British leaders were killed in Kabul and the army had to run for its life back to Pashewar through the Khyber Pass. The Khyberi tribes killed each one of the soldiers and the camp followers brutally.) Return to Pennsylvania. Back to Pennsylvania. General Josah Harlan, the Prince of Ghoree had returned to his family home in Newlin, Chester County. In 1849 he married one 3 Elizabeth Baker and had one daughter Sarah Victoria born in 1852. On December 30, 1853, the United States and Mexico signed a treaty under which the U.S. agreed to buy some 45,000 square miles of land from Mexico for $10 million dollars in a deal known as the Gadsden Purchase. The area covered by the agreement is located in present-day Southern Arizona and Southwestern New Mexico).