UnionD

UNION LODGE (Dorchester)

Location: Dorchester; Norwood ()

Chartered By: Paul Revere

Charter Date: 06/16/1796 II-190

Precedence Date: 06/16/1796

Current Status: Active

NOTES

Union Lodge in Dorchester holds a Paul Revere charter.

Prior to meeting in Norwood the lodge met in Mattapan and previously Uphams Corner with other S Boston lodges.

MEMBER LIST, 1802

From Vocal Companion and Masonic Register, Boston, 1802, Part II, Page 19:

R. W. James Davenport, M.
W. Edward W. Baxter, S. W.
W. Samuel B. Lyon, J. W.
Thomas Williams, Tr.
Nathaniel Minot, Sec.
Amasa Fuller, Deacon.
Samuel Glover, Deacon.
Lewis Leach, Steward.
Samuel Howe, Steward.

No. of Members, 23.

Edmund Baker
Henry M. Lisle
John Mellish
Samuel Tolman, Jr.
Jesse Hawes
Edward Withington
James Blackman
George Bird

PAST MASTERS

Ebenezer Washington, III, 1796, 1797
Edmund Baker, 1798-1800
James Davenport, 1801-1803, 1808, 1809, 1813, 1814
Edward W. Baxter, 1804, 1805
Henry M. Lisle, 1806, 1807; SN
Daniel Washington, 1810-1812
Samuel B. Lyon, 1815-1817
Cyrus Balkcom, 1818-1821, 1832-1843
William Henley, 1822-1824, 1828
Timothy H. Blackman, 1825-1827
James Pierce, Jr., 1829-1831
James Davenport, II, 1843-1846
Thomas M. Vinson, 1847-1849
Robert M. Todd, 1850, 1851, 1855, 1856
Charles Breck, 1852, 1853
Calvin M. Thompson, 1854
Isaac W. Follansbee, 1857, 1858
James H. Upham, 1859, 1860
William Sayward, 1861-1863
William T. Adams, 1864-1866
Samuel B. Hildreth, 1867, 1868
Nelson N. Farrar, 1869
Lucius H. Dwelley, 1870, 1871
Thomas F. Temple, 1872-1874, 1886
William H. West, 1875, 1876; SN
John Pierce, 1877, 1878
Otis Eddy, 1879, 1880
William H. Dow, 1881, 1882
Isaac H. Eddy, 1883, 1884
Thomas Knapp, 1885
J. Lodge Eddy, 1886-1888
Lemuel C. Pope, 1889, 1890
James T. Sherman, 1891, 1892; Mem
Arthur H. Littlefield, 1893, 1894
Caleb D. Dunham, 1895, 1896
Harry G. Howe, 1897
William F. Schallenbach, 1898, 1899; N
Howard N. Knight, 1900
Samuel Crowell, 1901, 1902
J. Frank Hadley, 1903, 1904
Fred W. Abbott, 1905, 1906
Frank A. Ruggles, 1907
Walter R. Pond, 1908, 1909
Frank M. Weymouth, 1910, 1911; SN
Edward P. Starbird, 1912
Edward J. Ripley, 1913, 1914
Fred V. Murtfeldt, 1915, 1916
James N. Littleton, 1917, 1918
Charles C. DeLappe, 1919
William R. Elliot, 1920
George M. Hersey, 1921
John P. Morgan, 1922
Matthew H. Sheridan, 1923, 1924
John H. Rodgers, 1925
Ernest H. Washburn, 1926
Linwood F. Gifford, 1927
Henry G. Grush, 1928; N
Rollin H. Fisher, 1929
Charles A. Hanson, 1930
Frank N. Horton, 1931
Edwin C. Anderson, 1932
George Y. Berry, Jr., 1933
John R. C. Stard, 1934
James G. Russell, 1935
Guy M. Blaisdell, 1936
Arthur Somerville, 1937; N
Clarence B. Crook, 1938
Ralph S. Clarke, 1939
William B. Dinsmore, 1940
John P. Morgan, Jr., 1941
Chester L. Whittenmore, 1942; N
Conrad E. Schultz, 1943
Harold C. Davis, 1944
John E. Cheney, 1945
Charles P. Rolfe, Jr., 1946
John Hay, 1947
James Milton Graham Bright, 1948; SN
Charles J. Adams, 1949
Murray V. Stanton, 1950
John Hay, Jr., 1951
Frank J. Paris, 1952
John W. Little, 1953
Fredrick G. Harms, 1954
Richard B. Hinckley, 1955
C. Roy Hilchey, 1956
Albert F. Shaw, 1957
Albert D. Hay, 1958
Victor A. Caseau, 1959
William R. Hazard, Jr., 1960
William D. Yancey, 1961
Badia C. Shahood, 1962
William J. A. Zakur, 1963
James E. Sullivan, 1964
Frank H. Landry, Jr., 1965
Roy I. F. Pearson, 1966
Roy S. Morrison, 1967
Alfred J. Nicholson, 1968
Robert A. Shaw, 1969
Wendell R. Freeman, 1970; N
John J. Comerford, 1971
John S. Murphy, 1972
John L. Wilson, 1973
James G. Buckley, 1974; N
George T. Neill, 1975
Bernard G. Desmond, 1976, 1977
George A. Haskell, 1978
Alexander F. McHoul, 1979
Charles P. Buckley, 1980, 1987, 1988; N
C. Donald Ross, 1981, 1982
Copeland M. Draper, III, 1983
John G. Paderson, 1984, 1985
Paul W. Kasulis, 1986
John A. Pacella, 1989, 1990
Richard N. Portal, 1991, 1998
Herbert L. Woolf, 1992
David L. Molloy, 1993, 1994
Richard S. Clement, 1995, 1996
Anthony T. Visconti, 1997
Howard R. Graden, 1998, 1999
Douglas E. Stetson, 2000
Wajih N. Yazbeck, 2001, 2002
Michael D. Friedland, 2003, 2004
Louis Kabelka, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2012
Stephen M. Coan, 2011

REFERENCES IN GRAND LODGE PROCEEDINGS

Petition for Charter: 1796

ANNIVERSARIES

1896 (Centenary)
1946 (150th Anniversary)

VISITS BY GRAND MASTER

1864 (Parkman; Hall dedication)
1879 (Welch)
1882 (Lawrence; 3 visits)
1891 (Wells)
1892 (Wells)
1896 (Holmes; Centennial; Special Communication)
1899 (Hutchinson); 2 visits)
1904 (Sanford)
1905 (Sanford)
1908 (Blake); Ladies' Night)
1909 (Flanders)
1910 (Flanders)
1912 (Benton); installation)
1914 (M. Johnson)
1918 (L. Abbott) Patriotic Night)
1922 (Wells)
1923 (Ferrell); Ladies' Night)
1924 (Ferrell)
1925 (Ferrell)
1927 (Simpson); 3 visits)
1946 (Wragg; 150th Anniversary; Special Communication)
1973 (Vose)
1974 (Vose; Dedication of Masonic apartments in Milton; Special Communication)
1981 (Berquist)

BY-LAW CHANGES

1873 1878 1892 1896 1904 1905 1907 1910 1912 1916 1920 1922 1927 1931 1936 1939 1949 1953 1976 1979 1980 1988 1991 2004

HISTORY

1896 (Centenary History, 1896-114; see below)
1946 (150th Anniversary History, 1946-181)

CENTENNIAL HISTORY, JUNE 1896

From Proceedings, Page 1896-114, presented by Wor. William T. Adams:

W. Master, Brethren and Ladies: I have been designated as the Historian of this occasion. I had no claim to this position, unless it was that I had been a member of the Committee, whereof Worshipful Brother Upham was the Chairman, which prepared the Historical Sketch of Union Lodge for the first eighty years of its existence, and as the writer of a meagre supplement to this sketch, read in the Lodge at its Ninetieth Anniversary. Though hardly entitled to the dignified appellation applied to me by the Committee of Arrangements, I have examined the well-kept Eecords of the Lodge, to obtain the material to enable me to discharge the duty assigned to me. History is a record of past events; but it is composed largely of the details of wars, the descriptions of battles, and the struggles of the people for greater political liberty, or against the oppression of tyrannical rulers. In the history of Union Lodge there is nothing analogous to the records of the nations, but all has been peaceful and harmonious, as it should be in a society of Brethren. Not that the members have always been of the same opinion, even in relation to purely Masonic subjects; but they have always settled their differences in a fraternal spirit. The record, therefore, affords a historian but meagre material for his office. During the entire century, rounded up and completed at this time, the chronicles of the Lodge contain little more than the names and the advancement of the candidates for admission to the Fraternity, though the Records are not wanting in the details of important events in the history of the Lodge. The time allotted to this epitome of our history permits of only a brief allusion to some of those events.

Except during the period from 1826 to 1846, Union Lodge has enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity; and this is especially true of the last twenty years of its existence. In the space of one hundred years, immense changes, have .been wrought in the appearance and conduct of the Lodge. The present attentive and careful Secretary of the Lodge has indicated in pencil at the close of the third volume •of the Records the ten locations of the Lodge during the century of its existence. The first meeting of the Brethren was held at the house of Brother Samuel Richards, which afterwards became their permanent home for thirty-five years, the apartment in . which the meetings were held being called Union Hall. The second regular meeting was in Captain Pearson Eaton's Hall, where the first work of the Lodge was done, and where it continued to meet till November of the initial year. The building in which these early proceedings occurred is not now in existence, having been removed to make place for Eaton Square, at the junction of Adams and Bowdoin streets, Meeting-House Hill. Some of the present members of the Lodge can remember this house, with the grocery on the ground flooi', and it would not require a very vigorous stretch of the imagination to replace it.

While the imagination is working upon the exterior of the structure, endeavoring to fill up the details of the surrounding scene, it will prove a very difficult task to most of the members of the Lodge of the present day* for the First Church, Lyceum Hall, the Mather Schoolhouse, the.steam fire-engine house, the Soldiers' Monument, and the green Square around it were not there, though at the Masonic meetings on the other side of the road were some who had fought in the battles of the American Revolution. Dorchester was then a farming town, and doubtless we might find many places at the present time which are counterparts of what Dorchester was a hundred years ago, especially if they have not been annexed to Boston, or some pther important city of the State.

As we are all Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, we may permit the imagination to take a more daring flight while we present our visionary bodies before the Tyler of Union Lodge, one hundred years ago, craving admission as visitors, for, as we have not a single centenarian among our members to-day, our names were certainly not on the Lodge books of that time. If we had not been mindful of the incorporeality of our physical frames, we might well doubt the capacity of Captain Pearson Eaton's Hall to contain us all. If the first Secretary, Brother James Noyes, fully comprehends the situation, he will certainly wish that the three hundred visitors, more or less, came in corporeal form, for then he would have the pleasure of paying over to Brother Samuel Crehore, the treasurer, $112.50; for visitors in that day were required to pay a fee of two aud threepence, or thirty-seven and a half cents, for each person.

Being of the consistence of Hamlet's ghost, we pass into the sanctum sanctorum without being punctured by the Tyler's sword, and salute the Right Worshipful Master, Ebenezer Withington, 3rd, for at that time there were so many Withingtons in Dorchester, that they had to be numbered as well as named. He is seated in the East of the Hall, on a level with the less important members, for it was not until ten years later that the Lodge voted to elevate the Master's chair three steps, the Senior Warden's two, and the Junior Warden's one step above the floor. In the West is seated the Worshipful Edmund Baker, Senior Warden; and in the South, the Worshipful James Davenport, Junior Warden. The Hall is lighted with tallow candles, making but a dim illumination, with a smoky air and an odor of heated grease. Most of the Brethren wear knee breeches, and their other clothing is very plain and simple, for dress had not become a fine art among common people a hundred years ago.

The speech of the officers and members seems somewhat quaint and peculiar to the unaccustomed ears of the shadowy visitors, who revel in the contrast between the Masonry of 1896 and 1796. I have supposed that the Brethren of to-day, in their unsubstantial form, are present at the second regular Communication of the Lodge, in order to enable them to observe the work of that ancient period. In the course of time, the words a,nd the forms of the ceremonials became somewhat changed; but in recent years it lias been the object of the Grand Lecturers to restore the ancient ritual, which is believed to be substantially accomplished. Brother Benjamin Capen was the .first candidate, and as he had taken the first and second, a ballot was then necessary for .him to receive the third degree. Of course the shadowy spectators observe with the closest attention all the text and all the forms during the raising. If their immaterial condition had permitted them to do so, they would certify either verbally or in writing, that the work of to-day is practically identical with that of one hundred years ago.

While the imaginative powers of this audience are still wrought up to their highest tension, I cannot resist the temptation- to exercise these powers in connection with a more recent occasion — the thirteen hundred and fifteenth Communication of Union Lodge, held May 12th, of the present year. Whether Worshipful Brother Dunham extended a special invitation to the first three officers of the Lodge in 1796 I am not informed, but I shall assume that the Right Worshipful Ebenezer Withington, "3rd, Master, Worshipful Edmund Baker, Senior Warden, and Worshipful James Davenport, Junior Warden, were present on that occasion.

If it was necessary that the modern members of the Lodge should be incorporeal in order to visit the ancient Brethren, it is equally imperative that the delegation of their Masonic progenitors should come under the same conditions, since. they had been defunct fifty, sixty-four, and seventy-two years respectively; but whether by, the aid of some miracle of modern Spiritualism, Theosophy or other occult phenomenon, the ancient officials appear just as though they had not "shuffled off this mortal coil," and clothed in their usual Sunday garments. They wear the knee breeches, black stockings, shoe buckles, the long waistcoats and ample coats of their day and generation, and possibly some of the simpler moderns wonder if they did not come pn "wheels," and wear the bicycle costume of the present time. Our always polite and attentive Marshal Morey hastens to the door to receive the ancient visitors, and conducts them to the altar, where they salute the Chair in due form. They look about them, and.seem to be amazed, bewildered, confounded at the sight of the three hundred Brethren more or less, who fill the Hall to its utmost capacity, and at the elegant fixtures ; and furnishings of the apartment. They can hardly help contrasting the uncarpeted floor of Captain Pearson Eaton's Hall, with that upon which they stand; the kitchen chairs in which they sat, writh the carved and richly upholstered ones occupied by their successors ; the tallow dips, with the electric lights; the simple and modest costumes of those who filled the chairs one hundred years before, with the uniform and elegant clothing of the present officials, en grande tenue, as though they had just come from a ball or an evening party.

The ancient Brethren cast their eyes around the walls of the spacious Hall, and dwell for a moment upon the portraits that adorn them. They recognize that of the Right Worshipful George Washington, for he had visited Dorchester in the discharge of his military duties; but His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, Grand Master of England, was not bom till forty-five years later; and Worshipful Brother Breck, so long our connecting link with the remote past,- came into the world two years after the date of our charter. The courteous Marshal presents the ancient Brethren to the Worshipful Master, who may have some difficulty in recollecting this incident of the occasion, and to the Worshipful Grand Lecturer, happily present at this meeting, to the dozen or more of Past Masters who fill the East, and to the Senior and Junior Wardens of the Lodge. The ancient visitors witness the working of the third degree conferred by Worshipful Master Dunham, assisted by the visiting Present or Past Masters.

Worshipful Brother Withington, as may be remembered by the modern officials who have not forgotten it, declines to take part in the ceremonial, possibly because he does not care to have his work compared to that of modern officers, or perhaps because he fears he has become somewhat "rusty" after the lapse of a century; but he declares with no little emphasis that the work is identical with that of the ancient Brethren.

At their own desire, and by the courtesy of our worthy Secretary, the visitors of a century ago examine the Records of the Lodge, as written by twenty-two different Secretaries. The trio are intensely interested in this inspection, for it is filling up the, gap of a century. Brother Ruggles resigns his desk and chair to the ancient head of the Lodge, and his fellow-officials look over his shoulder ou each side of him. At the same time, they devote a portion of their attention to the proceedings of the Lodge until a late hour. Then the Right Worshipful Brother WithingtiSn begs permission to say a few words to the modern Brethren, of which the Secretary makes a note, and I am thus enabled to report the substance of his remarks.

"Right Worshipful Master," he begins, using the ancient form and dialect, though I shall not attempt to render the latter, "it affords me unspeakable pleasure to be able, through the materializing forces of modern occult science, to address you in relation to the beloved Institution in which this vast assemblage are so deeply interested.

"I have looked with amazement upon the wonderful changes which have taken place in the town, now, I am told, a part of a city of nearly half a million inhabitants, as we wandered over its ancient precincts. We rode in electric cars, which seemed to us to be diabolical devices of Satan, moving at great speed without horses, and I wonder that we were not awakened from 'our long' sleep as these strange machines passed the North Burying Ground, where with fear and trembling we got into one of them. As we were whirled along at a dizzy speed, we saw many things that not only astonished, but. frightened us. What they .called a train of cars, with a hissing and smoking machine at the head of it, whizzed across the bay on a bridge, like a flash of lightning. We looked anxiously behind it to see if the Evil One was not chasing it. If he was, we did not see him. A man drew a match across a. stone, and produced fire, with which he lighted his pipe. We concluded that he had some mysterious connection with the place we read of, where milk would sour if it were kept there, for we smelt brimstone as he rubbed the match. We could not understand how the news from all parts of America, and even England, as well as the remotest parts of the earth, was obtained in a few minutes or hours; and we feared that Satan, had possession of the whole world and all. that therein is.. We wished to visit the North Meeting House, loved and revered for its associations. We went; to what was called Meeting-House Hill; but the House was no longer there; A stranger told us the old Meeting House had stood in front of some blackened ruins of its successor, built in 1816. He pointed out a large tree near the Soldiers' Monument, and added that .the pulpit of the-1 old church had been directly over the-trunk of that tree. We desired to visit, the Hall where the first work of the Lodge had been done; but the, building was no longer there. A green square, with a fountain in the middle of it, occupied the site of the house, and was called 'Eaton Square,' commemorating the memory of the Captain.

"But, Right Worshipful Master, I am taking up too much of the time of the Lodge, though I must beg your indulgence while I make a few comments upon the revelations — for such they are to us — of the Records we have examined with so much interest. The books have been exceedingly well kept, especially during the last twenty years. The traditions of your elders appear to have been -carefully preserved and transmitted. While some of the manners and customs of a hundred years ago have passed away, those most vitally Masonic have been retained. I observe that the respect for the dead and the reverent commemoration of their memories have been a modern as well as an ancient feature of Union Lodge. I notice that the ' Sacred Scroll,' if not borne to the burying .ground, continues- to have a page in the books set apart for its record. Some of those thus Masonically embalmed were our friends and Brothers in the. Lodge, and it was with a thrill of my reembodied heart, that I read the sacred record of the departure of Worshipful Brothers John Mears and Jonathan Bridgham, and several others; and I would gladly allude to some of them if time permitted.

"Of the craze of anti-Masonry, which for twenty years iswept over the country, we know but little, though I remember the beginning of it, and Right Worshipful Brother Baker passed through the whole of it,- laboring diligently And faithfully to save the Lodge from dissolution till there seemed to be no hope for Masonry. From the Historical Sketch which your Secretary was kind enough to show me, prepared by a committee of which your present Chaplain was the Chairman, I have obtained an idea of the Period of Decline in Union Lodge;. and as the earliest representatives of this Body, we can join with you most heartily and most earnestly in honoring Worshipful Brother John. Mears, who is said . to , have done more than any other- member to save the Lodge and its venerated charter, as well as Worshipful Brother Bridgham, and others. Especially would I express. my tribute of gratitude to the Macedonians who had taken a contract to resuscitate Masonry in Dorchester. I did not recognize. Brother Breck's portrait as a man nearly a hundred years old, for when I took him by the hand as a visitor to our Lodge seventy years ago, he was a young man of twenty-eight. Most nobly did he and his associates from the 'Macedonia beyond Neponset. River' carry out that contract, and Masonry here entered" upon a more successful career than it had ever known before.

"Charity is one of the corner-stones of Masonry, and I am rejoiced to see that the Lodge still retains its charity fund, with trustees in charge of it; and I perceive from the Records that the custom which prevailed in our day of "passing round the hat," when pecuniary assistance was needed for a 'poor and distressed worthy Brother, is continued in these modern times. I noticed that on one such occasion about one hundred dollars was the yield of the hat; for the modern Brethren can afford to be more liberal than those of the early clays of the Lodge.

"Right Worshipful Master, though night and day are both the same to your three ancient visitors, I will not keep you here till the rising of the May sun, though I have many . things not inappropriate to this interesting occasion that I should be glad to say.

"It is time for us to shuffle off these material bodies, and resume our psychical existence only. I congratulate you and our modern Brethren upon the remarkable progress of our Lodge during the last half century, and I trust that the historians of the century upon which the Lodge is now entering will not have occasion to record any ' Period of Decline.' When the Brethren not yet born are moved to celebrate the Two Hundredth Anniversary of Union Lodge in 1996, I hope that the progress of materialization, theosophy, or other phenomena of occult science will enable us to be present, and to meet on that occasion the present officers of the Lodge, their heads whitened by the blossoms and the snows of long years of useful and happy lives. Unless the coming years shall develop a patent for the increase of longevity, all of them now in the flesh, with possibly a rare exception, will have passed on to the 'undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns,' and if the future Secretaries are as faithful as those of the past have been, we shall read the sacred roll that records their decease.

"During the period of decline, a few names of some of the most zealous of our departed Brothers were not thus honored at their decease. I hope to be pardoned for suggesting to Worshipful Brother Upham, the Chairman of the Historical Committee, that these omissions may be supplied on interleaved pages.

"And now, Right Worshipful Master, I bid you and all Brethren an affectionate and fraternal adieu."

The Worshipful Master calls up the Lodge, Marshal Morey conducts the ancient visitors to the rear of the altar, where they salute the chair in due form. All three of them look upwards, raising their right arms at the same time. Then, without any one being able to see or comprehend in what manner, they disappear. The occult forces which had rehabilitated them in the semblance of humanity appear to have been exhausted by limitation. Worshipful Master, I hope to be pardoned for indulging in fiction, perhaps from the force of habit, on such an important occasion as the present; but I have used it merely as a medium for contrasting the Lodge of to-day with that of a century ago. With a decent and proper regard for the limit of your patience, I have not been able to mention some of the events of recent years. Some of us remember with interest, and even with affection, Friendship Hall in " Cracker Hollow," which was occupied by Union Lodge at the time when it emerged from the deep gloom of the anti-Masonic dark ages, in 1846. Here the Lodge began its renewed growth, which in fifty years has culminated in making it one of the most prosperous in this jurisdiction. Within the next ten years the trio; of "Macedonians" filled official positions in the Lodge. All of them have passed on to the Silent Land.

In recent years Worshipful Brother Breck was honored and revered as the patriarch of the Lodge. In 1855, in, the still struggling period, Worshipful Brother James H. Upham became a member, forty-one years ago; and now the mantle of Brother Breck, as the oldest member of the Lodge, has fallen gracefully upon him, and we trust he will wear it till the years of his well-spent life are •equal to those of his venerated predecessor.

I remember my own first coming- into the Lodge in. 1860, when Worshipful Brother Upham sat in the East, Worshipful Brother William Sayward in the West, and Worshipful Brother Thomas Knapp in the South. Brothers Upham and Knapp are happily still with us; but Brother Sayward, one of the most devoted Masons,, and one of the most useful to this Lodge, has passed away.

The removal of the Lodge from Friendship Hall to Field's Corner proved to be a fortunate event in its history, for it greatly promoted its prosperity. The recent removal to its present locality has produced the same effect, and in a much greater degree. Certainly the Lodge is in the best possible condition on this huudredth anniversary, thanks to the present and recent officers, who have been diligent, faithful and ' progressive in the discharge of their duties.

It is not a daring flight of the imagination to look forward to the Two Hundredth Anniversary of Union Lodge; for Masonry in substantially its present form, and not combined with Operative Masonry, is said to have existed in Scotland over three hundred years. We may deal with the present if not with the future. Union Lodge now begins the second century of its life; and the same faith, the same devotion to the Institution, the same earnestness of puipose, and the same resoluteness of execution which have characterized the Brethren of the first century, will accomplish another century of successful and prosperous existence.

OTHER

1802 (Permission to meet alternately at Dorchester and Milton denied, II-205)
1882 (Petition by Union (Dorchester), to define its jurisdiction; referred; 1882-275)
1883 (Committee report on jurisdiction referral; 1883-42, 1883-281)
1884 (Final report, 1884-32)
1886 (Petition on jurisdiction; 1886-58)
1887 (Report on petition; 1887-32)
1895 (Participation on corner stone laying, 1895-253)
1896 (Participation in Washington Lodge Centennial, 1896-71)
1937 (Reduction in fees approved, 1937-44)