secret societies have long been known. Truth is
certainly stranger than fiction. The Hellfire Club
was no ordinary club. Located deep beneath the
disguise of an innocent looking church in
England, members of the Hellfire Club
descended hundreds of feet deep into the earth;
into a series of excavated tunnels, rooms and
caverns; where members fornicated with
prostitutes; and occult sacrifices were offered to
Satan. The very term "Hellfire Club" is a
mockery of the Scriptures. The elaborate
labyrinth of passages in Franklin's secret society
were fashioned in such a manner that it
appeared as if one were descending into Hell;
hence the term, "Hellfire Club." The members of
the Hellfire Club were evil and are no doubt
burning in the very flames that they scorned and
sinfully made light of.
Authorities were shocked on February 11, 1998
when workmen restoring Benjamin Franklin's
London home dug up the remains of six children
and four adults hidden below the home.
WORKMEN have dug up the remains of ten
bodies hidden beneath the former London home
of Benjamin Franklin, the founding father of
American independence.
The remains of four adults and six children were
discovered during the £1.9 million restoration
of Franklin's home at 36 Craven Street, close to
Trafalgar Square. Researchers believe that there
could be more bodies buried beneath the
basement kitchens.
Initial estimates are that the bones are about
200 years old and were buried at the time
Franklin was living in the house, which was his
home from 1757 to 1762, and from 1764 to
1775. Most of the bones show signs of having
been dissected, sawn or cut. One skull has been
drilled with several holes. Paul Knapman, the
Westminster Coroner, said yesterday: "I cannot
totally discount the possibility of a crime. There
is still a possibility that I may have to hold an
inquest."
The principal suspect in the mystery is William
Hewson, like Franklin a Fellow of the Royal
Society, and the husband of Polly Stevenson, the
daughter of Franklin's landlady, Mary Stevenson.
In the early 1770s Dr Hewson was in
partnership with William Hunter, who, with his
brother John, was one of the founders of British
surgery. Dr Hunter and Dr Hewson ran a school
of anatomy in Soho, but after an argument Dr
Hewson left to live in Franklin's house, where he
is believed to have established a rival school and
lecture theatre. Dr Knapman added yesterday:
"It is most likely that these are anatomical
specimens that Dr Hewson disposed of in his
own house, but we are still not certain about
the bones' exact age or origin."
Evangeline Hunter-Jones, deputy chairman of the
Friends of Benjamin Franklin House, the charity
concerned with restoring the property and
opening it to the public, said: "The bones were
quite deeply buried, probably to hide them
because grave robbing was illegal. There could
be more buried, and there probably are."
Brian Owen Smith has volunteered to lead
researches on behalf of the friends. He said
yesterday: "The discovery represents an
important insight into very exciting years of
medical history. Benjamin Franklin, through his
support for Polly and Dr Hewson, socially and
scientifically, was very much part of that."
To the suggestion that Franklin might have been
a grave robber, or an accomplice to Dr Hewson,
Hilaire Dubourcq, of the Friends of Benjamin
Franklin House, responded: "It is possible that
he has an alibi. It seems likely that he actually
let Dr Hewson have use of the whole house for
his school for a time, and went up the street to
live with Mary Stevenson. He did not necessarily
know what was happening below stairs in the
house during his absence."
Dr Hewson fell victim to his own researches at
an early age. He accidentally cut himself while
dissecting a putrid body, contracted septicemia
and died in 1774, aged 34.
Franklin, who wrote the opening words to the
Declaration of Independence, continued to
support the widowed Polly, and when he
returned to Philadelphia he invited her there to
live as his neighbour. Both her sons became
eminent medical men, as have successive
generations of Hewsons in America.
If the first Dr Hewson did obtain bodies for his
experiments and demonstrations by robbing
local graveyards, he risked the death penalty or
deportation. He might have had the help of his
students in secretly burying the remains beneath
the four-story house, where the dissections may
have been performed.
It is hoped to reopen the house to the public at
the end of the year. Regular visitors during
Franklin's residency included Pitt the Elder (the
Earl of Chatham), Edmund Burke, James Boswell,
Adam Smith and Thomas Paine, the author of
The Rights of Man.
The Hellfire Club was the popular name for an
exclusive English club that met irregularly from
1746 to around 1763, run by Sir Francis
Dashwood. During the time of the club's
operation, they were commonly thought to hold
notorious, orgiastic and Satanic meetings at
Medmenham Abbey, beside the Thames and later
at West Wycombe Caves.
The term was not invented by the 1750 club;
they first met to celebrate an earlier club
founded in 1720 by Charles Edward. Other clubs
using the name were set up throughout the 18th
century.
The club was founded by Sir Francis Dashwood
after he returned from his Grand Tour of
Europe. According to the 1779 book Nocturnal
Revels, on the Grand Tour he had visited various
religious seminaries, "founded, as it were, in
direct contradiction to Nature and Reason; on
his return to England, [he] thought that a
burlesque Institution in the name of St Francis,
would mark the absurdity of such Societies; and
in lieu of the austerities and abstemiousness
there practised, substitute convivial gaiety,
unrestrained hilarity, and social felicity."
At the first gathering in May 1746, they met at
the George and Vulture public house in Lombard
Street, London, the meeting place of the 1720s
group. The initial membership was limited to
twelve but it soon increased. Of the original
twelve, seven have been almost certainly
identified: Dashwood, Robert Vansittart, William
Hogarth, Thomas Potter, Francis Duffield,
Edward Thompson, and Paul Whitehead. Though
not a member, Benjamin Franklin occasionally
attended the club's meetings. The later
membership is potentially immense, including
John Wilkes and John Montagu, 4th Earl of
Sandwich.
They did not call themselves the Hellfire Club,
but used a number of mockingly religious titles,
initially the Brotherhood of St. Francis of
Wycombe. Other titles used included the Order
of Knights of West Wycombe and later the
Monks of Medmenham. The members called
each other brothers and referred to Dashwood
as abbot; female guests were nuns. Unlike the
more determined Satanists of the 1720s the club
motto was Fay ce que vouldras (Do what thou
wilt) from François Rabelais, later used by
Aleister Crowley. Although indulging in pseudo-
Satanic rites the 'monks' were keener devotaries
of Bacchus and Venus.
The George and Vulture burned down in 1749,
possibly owing to a club meeting. However, it
was rebuilt shortly afterwards and survives as a
City chop house off Cornhill. Dickens lived and
wrote here for some while and the Pickwick Club
still meets there to this day. After a hiatus
meetings were resumed at members' homes.
Dashwood built a temple in the grounds of his
West Wycombe home and nearby 'catacombs'
were excavated. The first meeting at Wycombe
was held on Walpurgis Night, 1752; a much
larger meeting, it was something of a failure and
no large-scale meetings were held there again.
Despite this and the fictionalizing of the club
Dashwood acquired the ruins of Medmenham
Abbey in 1755, which was rebuilt by the
architect Nicholas Revett in the style of the 18th
century Gothic revival. In 1762 factional
stresses and political rivalries turned the affairs
of the club into public clashes and under heavy
pressure the club finally disbanded.
The HellFire Club - Descent Into Darkness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uAQsMWs
yQc
The Hidden Faith of The Founding Fathers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmFPfEYRZF8
Benjamin Franklin Freemason Illuminati
Luciferian Satanist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ugYz_fXunw
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