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CHAPTER 20: STORM AND STRESS (PART 2)

At the December Quarterly of 1840 Caleb Butler was elected Grand Master.

Butler was born in Pelham, N. H. September 13, 1776. He was a farmer boy and had very little formal education in his early years. His only schooling appears to have been attendance for less than a year at an academy in Pelham kept by one David Hardy. He was, however, intellectually ambitious and by private study and occasional teaching prepared himself for Dartmouth and raised money for his expenses. He was graduated in 1800, considerably above the usual age for graduation at that time, and at Commencement was awarded the Latin salutatory, the highest honor in the gift of the college. After graduation he taught for a year in the Indian school, then attached to Dartmouth. He was next employed by Isaiah Thomas to correct the proofs of a Greek grammar which Thomas was publishing.

In 1802 he was appointed Preceptor of Groton (now Lawrence) Academy. He spent the remainder of his life in Groton. In 1815 he gave up teaching for the law and was a successful counselor, though he practiced very little in the courts. At the same time he attained eminence as a civil engineer. In 1826 he was appointed Chairman of the first Board of Highway Commissioners for Middlesex County and when this board was merged in a Board of County Commissioners ten years later he became Chairman of the new Board and remained in that office until 1841. He was Town Cleric of Groton from 1815 to 1817 and from 1823 to 1831 and Trustee of Lawrence Academy from 1807 to 1836. He was elected to the State Legislature in 1829, but declined to serve. He was Postmaster of Groton for twenty years, and for a time Chairman of the Selectmen. He was an active and very serviceable citizen, but modest and even j retiring with it all. He cared more for service than for honor. As he deserved, he enjoyed in a very high degree the esteem and confidence of his fellow citizens.

He always retained his scholarly interests, writing a history of the town of Groton and many excellent Masonic addresses. He died in Groton November 7, 1854, at the age of seventy-eight.

He joined St. Paul Lodge in 1803 and was its Master in 1811 and 1812 and in 1834, 1835, and 1836, He was District Deputy Grand Master for the Fifth Masonic District from 1814 to 1817 inclusive. He was Senior Grand Warden in 1818 and 1819, declining reelection with his characteristic modesty. He served as Deputy Grand Master in 1824, 1825 and 1826, the years of Abbot's first administration. As a resident of an adjoining town and a Past Master of the same Lodge, Abbot had every reason to know and trust him.

As a Grand Master Butler is a somewhat shadowy figure. He served but two years. We find no impress of his personality on the work of of his first year. During his second year his health was so bad that he appeared in Grand Lodge only to be installed and not again, declining re-election in a dignified but rather pathetic letter. He never served on any important Grand Lodge committees either before or after his term of office as Grand Master. As a supplement to his own modest and retiring personality Butler appointed as Deputy the able and forceful Simon W. Robinson.

The Temple property, being on one of the best locations in the city, was already attracting attention and in 1841 some tentative offers were made for its purchase, but nothing came of them. The property was being carried easily and Grand Lodge was in no haste to dispose of it unless on very advantageous terms.

Toward the end of the year an overture was received from the Grand Lodge of Rhode Island proposing to extend the scope of the convention to be held in Washington in 1842 to empower the delegates to form a General Grand Lodge. Grand Lodge negatived the proposition sharply, voting: "That with our present information upon the subject, the formation of a General Grand Lodge for the United States or any institution equivalent thereto, would in the opinion of this Grand Lodge be highly inexpedient."

The fact that a national Masonic convention could be called and was held in 1842 shows that the storm of persecution had blown over. Much wreckage remained to be cleared up and the work of reconstruction was yet to be done, but the worst was clearly over. At the Communication of December 28, 1840, Dr. Winslow Lewis, Jr. just coming into prominence as a Masonic leader in Massachusetts,"delivered an able and interesting address in which he reviewed in a peculiarly spirited and caustic manner the persecution through which the institution has recently passed and congratulated the Grand Lodge and his Brethren generally on the present encouraging condition and future prospects of the fraternity."

Out of the meager records for the years from 1826 to 1840 there rises a picture of the heroic devotion of a few men to an ideal. The Grand Lodge was little more than a skeleton. Of the hundred and odd Lodges of 1826 hardly more than ten were even pretending to carry on. Outside clamor was loud and persistent. Many of the Brethren abjured their Masonry. Other's grew faint hearted even going so far as to attempt to secure the closing of the Grand Lodge and the dissolution of the Fraternity. Through the long years a faithful group gathered quarter after quarter in Grand Lodge and kept up the struggle. They never omitted a meeting. They never faltered. They never for an instant admitted the possibility of defeat. Their courage was indomitable: their patience was inexhaustible: their faith was unquenchable. The time had now come when they could.look back with satisfaction and look forward with confidence.

At the March Quarterly of 1840 the first definite evidence of the impending reconstruction appeared. "A petition was received from several Brethren at Worcester, praying that the Charter of Morning Star Lodge formerly held at that place might be restored to them."

The petition was referred to a committee of which R. W. Thomas Tolman, the Senior Grand Warden, was chairman and Charles W. Moore was a member. The committee found itself confronted by a problem which it could not solve. Morning Star Lodge had paid no quarterages since 1828. It had never surrendered its Charter, seal, records, or regalia. The Charter was not to be found among its archives and nobody knew what had become of it. The Grand Lodge could not return the Charter because it did not have it: it could not renew it because the Grand Constitutions gave it no authority so to do. Much as the Committee sympathized with the petitioners and desirable as it was to see Masonry revived in Worcester the committee felt obliged to recommend leave to withdraw. They suggested that the only recourse for the Worcester Brethren was to start all over again by petitioning for a new Lodge. The adroit hand of Moore is discernible in the broad hint conveyed by the report that the time had now come when the Grand Lodge would do well to get on with the general revision of the Grand Constitutions which had been under somewhat fitful discussion for ten years or so.

In December 1843 the Worcester Brethren asked reconsideration. It was decided that they should have a Dispensation for a new Lodge, as provided for in the Grand Constitutions adopted in the 11th of October preceding. The Dispensation was duly followed by a Charter. The Lodge was later given its original precedence as of 1794.

Moore had attended the Washington convention and presented his report at the June Quarterly in 1844. The Grand Lodge sanctioned and approved the action of the convention in disenfranchising the Grand Lodge of Michigan, expressing the hope that the Michigan Brethren would form a Grand Lodge which could be recognized and bidding them "God speed." The rest of the report was referred to a committee.

The vote regarding Michigan deserves a word of explanation. There had been Masonry in Michigan continuously ever since the eighteenth century when the territory was a part of Canada. In 1826 a Grand Lodge of Michigan had been regularly formed. It was not a good time for new Masonic enterprises and after a brief struggle the Grand Lodge "suspended" operation in 1829. During the next ten years there was a flood of immigration into the Territory which swept in many Masons from various parts of the country. These "new Masons" made few contacts with the "old Masons" who, because of the persecution, were very secretive. In 1841 these "new Masons," ignoring the suspended Grand Lodge, set up a new Grand Lodge. Their proceedings were vitiated by many irregularities and the existing Grand Lodges all firmly, but kindly and courteously, refused recognition. They tried for a time to carry on, but in 1845 a new Grand Lodge was formed in a regular manner, was promptly accorded general recognition, and is the present Grand Lodge of Michigan.

At the September Quarterly the committee reported, with recommendations on the Washington Convention, and the recommendations were adopted.

The convention was impressed with the need for uniformity of ritual and suggested that each Grand Lodge appoint a Grand Lecturer and that these officers should meet in convention every third year. Such a convention was called to meet in Baltimore in 1843 and Moore was appointed delegate. The convention was duly held, as we shall see, and was of considerable importance, but the triennial idea fell through.

The long-continued disturbance in the functioning of the Massachusetts Lodges had thrown the ritual work into something approaching chaos. Grand Lodge authorized the appointment of two Grand Lecturers, and they have remained regular officers of the Grand Lodge ever since. It was further voted that beginning with the Stated Communication in December next ensuing the Grand Lodge should meet in the morning of the day of the Stated Communication and spend the day in exemplifying the work and lectures of the degrees. This system continued until 1875, when the present constitutional provision for exemplification in the Districts superseded it.

The Convention recommended the adoption of the Representative system but the Grand Lodge did not concur, and Massachusetts did not adopt: it until 1928.

The Convention recommended the use of Grand Lodge certificates to be issued to individual Brethren as a safeguard against imposition and as a protection for widows and orphans. Grand Lodge voted to adopt such certificates and authorized the preparation of a plate for their production. They were used for many years, but were later discarded as inadequate because they did not certify to the present standing of the possessor. Production of a receipt for dues serves the purpose much better. It was decided to confine the business of Entered Apprentice and Fellowcraft Lodges to the work and lectures of these degrees, leaving all other work and business to be done in Master Mason's Lodges,

The convention had disclosed a wide difference of methods in dealing with members who were delinquent in dues. The committee expressed itself as satisfied with the Massachusetts method of suspension from the Lodge in such cases, but added a warning that care should be taken to ascertain that applicants for affiliation were clean on the books of their former Lodges. fi At the Annual Communication of 1842 reports showed the finances of Grand Lodge to be in a somewhat better condition and the Temple property still operating with success.

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