Report #2381 (Addendum)
©1998 Daniel Harms

Here's the information you requested on the Sextons. I'm still not sure whether Xavier's faith in the importance of this matter is justified, but I'll give it to you all the same.

As you recall, Agent Xavier was investigating an "Abbey" in upstate New York on an unauthorized fact-finding mission, believing that chemical shipments to the site were signs that the place's inhabitants were preparing for wide-scale chemical terrorism. While staking out the Abbey, he was approached by three individuals claiming to be affiliated with a fraternal lodge called the "Sextons". Deciding that using these individuals was less trouble than calling Delta Green for help, Xavier allowed them to accompany him inside the Abbey. During the ensuing conflict, Xavier was rendered unconscious by one of the Abbey's inhabitants. Upon regaining consciousness, Xavier found that his erstwhile allies had bound his wounds and then departed with a substantial portion of the Abbey's library. Xavier set the Abbey on fire, then drove to the nearest hospital. (Report #2381)

The Ancient and Fraternal Lodge of Sextons (a sexton being a church officer who digs graves) was founded in 1878 by Augustin d'Epinal, a second-generation French immigrant living in Chicago, and two of his close friends. The group was originally conceived of as a quasi-Masonic society that served as a place for social gathering and making business connections, as well as carrying out community service. The Lodge is by no means as large as the Jaycees or other similar organizations, but it boasts 20,000 members in 400 lodges spread out across the eastern United States. Members often wear a small pin in the shape of a shovel to express their allegiance to the group's ideals.

A check on the organization's finances revealed some oddities. Much of the funding is legitimate, but there's a few sources which were difficult to trace. I found links to one minor pharmaceutical concern, half a dozen prominent art and book collectors, a few small charitable institutions, and an organization called the "European Society for Paranormal Phenomena". I'm at a loss to explain what all of these have in common, though the money is occasionally earmarked for some sort of "healing mission", whatever that means.

There was one more unusual fact about the Sextons which I uncovered. In their private correspondence, the three founding members all claimed to be members of the Order of the Knights of Saint Lazarus. The Order is a supposed offshoot of the Hospitaller and Military Order of Saint Lazarus, an order connected with the Order of Saint John which maintained leper hospitals in the Holy Land during the Crusades. The Order was instructed to disband in 1489, but the French branch maintained its autonomy for a time, then fell under the control of the French crown, was abolished in 1791 and reappeared around 1910. (The Knighthood seems to have split into two parts - one in Italy and one in Germany - and from what I've heard, none of them are on speaking terms). Neither branch of the Order had been accepting members at the time the group was formed, but that hasn't stopped occultists from claiming such associations.

This is where the trail ends. So far, there seems to be no association between the Sextons and any of the other groups we normally cover, and our limited manpower means we don't have the resources to pursue this any further. My conclusion is that those "Sextons" who aided Agent Xavier were acting of their own initiative; their supposed removal of certain books from the target's library suggests they had personal gain in mind, possibly in association with the collectors I mentioned above. I think our current policy of noting the fraternal orders of which our agents and friendlies are members, and advising them of being cautious of such members, should be adequate for covering this problem.

Carl