Sons of Malta

Origin

• Griswold may have meant to convey that Steedman instituted the Fort Wayne lodge and that Barnett and Taylor did the actual organizational work necessary to launch that particular lodge, but the apparent implication that Barnett and Taylor originated the Sons of Malta as an organization was repeated explicitly in the endnotes to More of a Man: Diaries of a Scottish Craftsman in Mid-Nineteenth-Century North America, though they curiously did not cite The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, or any other source that did so.
• In the Fort Wayne Sentinel of February 15, 1890, Dr. W. H. Brooks confirms that "the Sons of Malta had been in existence for a number of years and its branches had been pretty widely scattered among the larger cities in America before a lodge was established in Fort Wayne," as well as that A. G. Barnett was a member of the Fort Wayne lodge.

• The "mystic societies" of Mobile originally paraded on New Year's Eve and continued to do so until 1861, so any connection of the Sons of Malta to Mobile had nothing to do with Mardi Gras festivities

• Narciso López's first Cuban expedition took place in September 1849; his final invasion was in August 1851, resulting in his execution on September 1, 1851.
• The Daily Delta and its editor, Laurent J. Sigur, were indeed noted for their support of filibustering in general and López in particular ; but any suspicion of direct involvement by A. L. Saunders in organizing or rallying support for the López expeditions seems to have gone completely unrecorded.
• A. L. Saunders was, however, a prominent figure in the subsequent attempts, starting in 1853, by John A. Quitman to organize an invasion of Cuba; this attempt started to fizzle out in 1854 after the Federal government took steps to more strictly enforce the 1818 Neutrality Act, making participating or investing in filibusters potentially riskier and less rewarding. Among these steps was a grand jury investigation of rumored preparations for filibuster invasions of Cuba before which Saunders refused to testify. They were subsequently required to post bond of $3,000 each as a pledge against violating the Neutrality Act for nine months, which they did under protest. Saunders subsequently went to Kentucky, where he claimed a thousand men could be raised for an invasion. There is no indication extant that Saunders' attempts to aid Quitman were anything but earnest.
• It's difficult to determine what year Mr. Howard might have meant by that in which "the yellow fever for the first time became sporadic in New Orleans." There were no recorded deaths from yellow fever in 1821, but from 1822 to the peak year of 1853, there were only five years in which recorded yellow fever deaths were in the single digits, with year to year recorded deaths swinging wildly: 452 recorded deaths in 1839, 3 recorded deaths in 1840, 594 recorded deaths in 1841, 211 recorded deaths in 1842, 487 recorded deaths in 1843, 83 recorded deaths in 1844, 2 recorded deaths in 1845, 146 recorded deaths in 1846, 2306 recorded deaths in 1847, 808 recorded deaths in 1848, 769 recorded deaths in 1849, 107 recorded deaths in 1850, 17 recorded deaths in 1851, 456 recorded deaths in 1852, and 7849 recorded deaths in 1853. 1841 and 1846 would seem the obvious pre-Lopez expedition years, coming as they did after a lull in yellow fever deaths, if the account of Mr. Howard's recollections is to be trusted. A possibility worth considering is that Mr. Howard was confusing A. L. Saunders' post-Lopez efforts to organize an invasion of Cuba with the Lopez expedition.
• An organization called the Order of the Lone Star was formed in New Orleans shortly after López's execution in 1851 at the offices of the Lafayette True Delta, with rituals written by Senator John Henderson.
• The Times-Picayune of New Orleans ran announcements of meetings of Division No. 2 of the Order of the Lone Star from November 5, 1851, to August 11, 1854. The Daily Globe of Washington, D.C., pronounced the Order of the Lone Star "dormant"on September 29 of 1854.
• On November 17, 1854, two months after the last notice for a meeting of the Order of the Lone Star appeared in the Times-Picayune, the same paper carried a notice: "I. O. S. M.-Brahmah Lodge No. 1 There will be a regular meeting of this lodge THIS EVENING, at the Mechanics Institute Room 4, at 7 1/2 o'clock."

• "...the order of the LONE STAR, under whose auspices men and means were raised for the Lopez raids upon the Island of Cuba, in the years 1850 and 1851, and for the subsequent forays into the Central American States under the leadership of the 'grey-eyed man of destiny,' William Walker. These hostile designs upon the territory of our Southern neighbors having failed, the order fell into disrepute, and its secrets were exposed and burlesqued by the Sons of Malta." Note that this indicated, as did Phocion Howard's later recollection of A. L. Saunders' claims, the Order of the Lone Star existing prior to López's filibuster attempts.
• K. Loric wrote in 1883: "Just a quarter of a century ago a secret society, known as the Sons of Malta, sprang suddenly into existence in the city of New Orleans. The original object of the organization was the capture of Cuba, and many prominent military men of the South were the leading spirits in the movement. For reasons which the writer is not at liberty to divulge, the filibustering plans of the order were abruptly squelched, and soon thereafter a well-known newspaper man, who had been initiated, conceived the idea of making 'some fun for the boys.' The whole business of initiation, etc., was transformed into a series of the most stupendous sells, practical jokes and outrageously comical proceedings ever dreamed of. The order spread rapidly all over the Union."