I can give you a brief answer, copied from an earlier question I answered on this sub. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can step in to supplement:

An incident occurred in the 1820s that sparked a wave of anti-masonry. A man claimed he was going to publish the masonic "secrets" (rites and symbols) ...and then went missing. Some blamed the masons for his death. This spark was fanned both by religious groups who just so happened to be going through a massive religious revival, and an anti-Jacksonite political party (as Jackson was a mason) who were running non-masonic candidates. The sentiment and political party largely diminished after a few years.

 

^(Edit: I just noticed that you said '17th century America' ... I'm assuming that's a simple typo, as the political party was formed in the early 19th century / 1800s.)

Finally a question here that I can help answer!

tl;dr: A local scandal provided the catalyst for a regionally-successful political party. Its success was likely due to a variety of factors, including political and economic disenfranchisement, religion, and some genuine concern over the role that a secret society was taking in the young American Republic.

As other posters have noted, the event that formally gave rise to the Anti-Masonic Party was the 1824 disappearance of William Morgan, an itinerant (literal) stonemason who broke from his Masonic Lodge and wrote an expose on Masonic rituals. The State of New York, under pressure from Gov. DeWitt Clinton, indicted dozens of Masons in Morgan's disappearance. The trial ended with a handful of convictions for misdemeanor kidnapping. Within a matter of months, local outrage over Morgan's disappearance and the handling of the subsequent trial gelled into a successful regional political party that also tried to play at the national level with an 1832 presidential candidate.

Of course, the Morgan incident by itself does not explain why the Anti-Masonic Party grew as quickly and successfully as it did. Nor was anti-Masonic sentiment a new concept in America, though it had not previously reached the cohesion necessary for a political party. Also interesting about the Anti-Masonic Party is that it drew members from a number of social strata (for example, farmers, merchants, professionals) and attracted members who were drawn to political/religious activism and later went on to join Evangelical, Sabbatarian, Temperance, and Abolition movements.

The serious historiographical study of the Anti-Masonic Party began at the tail-end of McCarthyism in America, for reasons that are not entirely surprising. The historians Richard Hofstadter and Lorman Ratner attributed Anti-Masonry's success to the same characteristics in the American psyche that drove social movements like McCarthyism, Know Nothingism, and anti-Mormonism. As Hofstadter's fascinating 1964 article terms it, this is the "Paranoid Style in American Politics." (http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/). These views, while in my opinion not completely wrong, are subject to criticism for viewing taking a simplistic view of these social movements in a vacuum.

The next wave of study, for example, William Preston Vaughn’s The Antimasonic Party in the United States (1983) (for what it's worth, Vaughn was himself a very active Freemason), looked to social factors and not just major trends in American politics. Vaughn focuses on the evangelical Christian membership of the Anti-Masonic Party. Many prominent party members were evangelical ministers, and much of the public concern over Masonry was its supposed embrace of mysticism. Vaughn also identifies "political" members, who were more concerned over Masonry's role in the American Republic (i.e., as a secret society with politically-prominent members) than its impact on religion. In his view, Anti-Masonry's eventual failure is largely driven by its inability to reconcile these groups of members.

Paul Goodman's Towards a Christian Republic: Antimasonry and the Great Transition in New England, 1826-1836, provides another view. Per Goodman, Freemasonry was a private and exclusive association that appeared to influence the public spheres of politics and religion. This created inevitable social tension that led to anti-Masonry and the Anti-Masonic Party, whose members perceived themselves as the guardians of Christian Republicanism. Paul Goodman's archive for this book is available for inspection at UC Davis and is a wonderful source for people interested in this period of American history.

Finally, as some others posting here have suggested, Anti-Masonry was able to take advantage of existing translocal political structures in a politically- and religiously-active area of the country. For example, so-called Anti-Masonic Conventions were fairly regular, and the Anti-Masonic Party had reasonably successful regional/state-level organization. This cohesion allowed the party to broker deals and play the margin between established political parties in order to "punch above its weight." By way of example, the Anti-Masonic Party never polled above 15% in Rhode Island, but was still able to push through legislature revoking Masonic charters and banning Masonic oaths. This kind of dealmaking ultimately backfired and helped lead to the downfall of the party, causing contemporaries to observe that “Anti-Masons are doing precisely what they condemn in the Masonic fraternity; namely, an attempt to engross power and office.” (Calvin Philleo, “Calvin Philleo’s Light on Masonry, and Anti-Masonry, and a Renunciation of Both” (Providence: H.H. Brown, 1831).)

edit: typos and clarification