MountVernon1
Contents
MOUNT VERNON LODGE
Location: Belchertown
Chartered By: Timothy Bigelow
Charter Date: 03/09/1807 II-352
Precedence Date: 03/09/1807
Current Status: unknown; dissolved 1828, erased 1855; historical note 1875-215, and in the Historical Sketch of Masonry in Belchertown, 1983-193.
REFERENCES IN GRAND LODGE PROCEEDINGS
- Petition for Charter: 1807
HISTORY
- 1970 (Historical Notes in the Centenary History of Vernon Lodge, 1970-346)
- 1983 (Notes in Historical Sketch of Masonry in Belchertown, 1983-192)
HISTORICAL NOTES, JUNE 1970
From Centenary History of Vernon Lodge; Proceedings, Page 1970-346:
. . . Mt. Vernon Lodge, chartered March 9, 1807. This Lodge evidently worked and prospered for a number of years until the Anti-Masonic period, which began in 1826. According to a notation in the Mt. Vernon Lodge Bible, the Lodge was dissolved in 1828. . .
. . . Anti-Masonry even divided the Congregational Church here in Belchertown, with the Masons leaving to form a new church. Brother Mark Doolittle, a lawyer and member of Mt. Vernon Lodge, wrote in 1847 that: "There was a violence an implacability and persecuting spirit prevalent that surpassed anything that I ever before witnessed. It was manifested in town meetings, society meetings, church meetings. It began in 1829 and raged for six or more years, and its dregs are yet among us". The Anti-Masonic Party was not founded upon a firm foundation and it disappeared as a political menace almost as quickly as it appeared. By 1840 it had all but vanished, but the bitternesses left in the community after its passing took a whole generation to erase.
OTHER
- 1827 (Report on delinquency, IV-114)
DISTRICTS
1807: District 7 (North Central Massachusetts)
Listed as part of District 9 in 1853 Randall Address, and removed to District 10.
