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CHARLES THEODORE GALLAGHER 1851-1919

Deputy Grand Master, 1899
Grand Master, 1900-1902

TERM

1900 1901 1902

MEMORIAL

From Proceedings, Page 1919-345, Grand Master's Address:

Since our last Quarterly Communication in, September Freemasonry has suffered a great loss in the passing away of one of its bright and shining lights. There are few if any members of our order more widely known or more generally ]loved and respected than was Most 'Worshipful Brother Charles Theodore Gallagher. He died on Sunday, September 28, at his home in Roxbury. Although for some years his intimate friends have known that he was not in the enjoyment of good heal&, the news of his death came as a great shock. A memorial will be presented by a committee at the Stated Communication, December 29.

No one can estimate or measure the value of his long and splendid service to Masonry. From his very first membership in this Grand Lodge, when he was an officer in Saint Paul's Lodge, of South Boston, he was especially devoted to it. Many biographical and historical a,ddresses and articles were delivered or published by him, and our printed Proceedings bear convincing testimony of his zeal and Masonic learning. He was a member of all the Masonic bodies of the York and Scottish Rite, and at the time of his passing away was one of the four Active 33° members of the Supreme Council from Massachusetts, and also Deputy for the State. He was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge in 1900, 1901, and 1902, and for many years has been a member of its Board of Directors.

My relations with him in recent years have been so close and intimate that a deep sense of personal loss makes words but too poor vehicles of tribute to his memory. It is in the silent chambers of thought and in the nobler resolves of grateful hearts that the lives of such men are truly honored.-

"No step is on the conscious floor !
Yet Love will dream and Faith will trust,
(Sinee He who knows our need is just)
That somehow, somewhere meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress trees !
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking clay
Across the mournful marbles play !
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death
And Love can never lose its own."

From Proceedings, Page 1919-452:

The assertion that "Death loves a shining mark" seldom meets with stronger confirmation than when in the early evening of Sunday, the twenty-eighth of September last, Charles T. Gallagher - widely honored and beloved - was numbered with those who have passed, from our earthly association.

Born in South :Boston Mar. 21, 1851, he entered life richly endowed, for his father was a man of inflexible integrity - a descendant of one, of the soldiers of Cromwell and his mother a woman of unusual brilliancy and intellect whose ancestors had fought in our Revolutionary War and in that of 1812.

That mother passed from earth while he was yet a babe in arms, but his father married two years later, an estimable woman descended from Mayflower stock and blessed with sound New England sense, and her training was the foundation upon which was reared the, sterling, character of later years.

When Brother Gallagher was but thirteen years of age the blood o{ hrs soldierly forebears asserted itself and in patriotic response to the call of the immortal Lincoln and the Union cause, he enlisted as a drummer boy in the United State Army and at the close of the war he continued his service with the Tenth and First Regiments of the Massachusetts Militia.

He organized the first Drum Corps in the Boston School Regiment in 1865, and in 1868 he was Captain of the Company which won the prize for excellence of drill. Brother Gallagher was a studious youth, and at an early age he had read extensively, his special delight being biography and history, and later in life he added to the natural richness of his mind by years of travel and study abroad, and the degree of A.M. was bestowed. upon him by Dartmouth College in 1894.

It was the desire of his father that he should enter the legal profession arid, although deterred for a while by ill health, he took up a course at Harvard and later at Boston University Law School, from which he graduated in 1875 with the degree of LL.B., being admitted to practice in Massachusetts the same year and in the United States Supreme Court in 1882. During the larger part of his professional life he was engaged. in civil trials and he participated in many important cases, but later he devoted his attention to corporation matters and the trusteeship of estates.

His law practice was wide and lucrative, but he found time for active participation in important industries and he fiIled many positions of honor and. responsibility in public affairs. The business and art and education of the old Bay State owe much to his interest and his wise counsel.

He was Vice-President and Director of the Commercial Tow Boat Company; Director of the Dana Hardware Company; Director of the Gilchrist Company ; Trustee and Vice-President of the South Boston Savings Bank; Director of the Dorchester Mutual Fire Insurance Company; Director at one time in a National Bank, two Trust Companies, a Railroad and a Life Insurance Company. He was a Director of the Boston Legal Aid Society; Trustee of the Roxbury Latin School; Trustee and Vice-President of the Dartmouth Educational Association; Trustee of Boston University; Trustee of the Farm and Trades School, and Trustee of the South Boston School of Art.

Twelve years he was a member of the Boston School Committee, and four years he was President of the Board. He was a Trustee of the Boston Art Commission; a Trustee of the Benjamin Franklin Fund; a member of the Suffolk County Court House Commission; a member of the Boston Chamber of Commerce; a member of the Museum of Fine Arts; a member of the Massachusetts State Senate in 1882; a member of the Webster Historical Society, and a member of the Bunker Hill Monument Association.

He was also Attorney of the South Boston Railroad and a Trustee of the Bird School, and notwithstanding all these demands upon his time and talent, he was a Director of the Algonquin Club; he was five years President of the Art CIub; he was one of the Executive. Committee of the University Club; an officer of the Boston Bar Association; a member of the Exchange Club, the Boston Athletic, and the Curtis Clubs; the Bostonian Society; the Massachusetts Historical Society; The Young Men's Christian Union; the Camden, Maine, Yacht and Golf Clubs, the Seapuit Golf Club of Osterville, and a charter and active member of Dahlgren Post No. 2, Grand Army of the Republic.

Brother Gallagher was a Republican in politics and was a delegate to the National Convention in 1884.

In religion he was a Unitarian, a regular attendant at the old Eliot Church in Roxbury and a Trustee of the Hawes Church in South Boston.

He was married in 1880 to Nellie A. Allen of Scituate, a direct descendant of Peregrine White, the first white child born in New England. The widow and three children - Capt. Merrill A. Gallagher, Miss Emily Gallagher, and Mrs. Alvin Morrison survive. He also leaves four brothers- William, Edwin, Sears, and Percival, and one sister- Mrs. Burnham.

Brother Gallagher's Masonic record was as follows: He was raised in Saint Paul's Lodge, of South Boston, on December 2, 1873, and was Worshipful Master in 1878 and 1879. He was Commissioner of Trials in the Grand Lodge for twenty years; Grand Director of the Corporation for a long period, Deputy Grand Master in 1899, and. Grand Master in 1900, 1901, and 1902.

He received the Royal Arch Degree in St. Matthew's Chapter November 13, 1899; the. Super Excellent in Roxbury Council November 26, 1900, and the Order of the Temple in St. Omer Commandery November 20, 1899. He was admitted to Massachusetts Consistory December 22, 1899; crowned a Sovereign Grand Inspector General 33° of the Northern Jurisdiction, September 18, 1900; elected an Active Member of the Supreme Council September 16, 1903, and at the time of his death he was Illustrious Deputy for Massachusetts and Most Illustrious Commander-in-Chief of the District.

What a busy, useful, and many-sided life! What a remarkable embodiment of genius and ability ! What a loss to this community and to the world ! From whatever angle we look upon Brother Gallagher he rises preeminent.

He was one of the school of lawyers who have given Massachusetts its reputation. By his strong personality, his wise counsel, his brilliant mind, his inflexible integrity and his indefatigable zeal and labor he has built for himself an enduring place in our institution and our personal love and has sent far abroad an influence that tells and will continue to tell most effectually for all that is best in our American civilization.

Rooted and grounded in honor, he stood ever firm to his convictions and naught could swerve him from the course which duty dictated that he should follow. He set for himself the highest standard of character, and he was intolerant only of what he deemed to be pernicious.

This Grand Lodge, the Scottish Rite, and all our Masonic bodies owe to him a debt beyond our reckoning. For many years we enjoyed the benefit of his professional training and knowledge and he transacted a vast amount of legal business for us, in court and out, without fee or reward, and this gift from his hand, together with the many biographical and historical papers he prepared in our behalf and his wise assistance in the shaping of our polity and action, mark him as one to whom we are under lasting obligation.

As Brothers and Masons we lay upon his bier the wreath of a gratitude and appreciation that knows no bounds. We shall ever continue to revere his memory and bless his name.

On every golden page of time,
'Writ large, so all the Craft may see,
Masonic Brethren have inscribed
Their faith in immortality.

We mourn when we are called to part
With men most manly tried, and true;
But look with trust to Lodge above,
Where ties of earth we shall renew.

'We bow our heads a while today,
A prince has fallen at our side!
We hear it whispered that "Our Chief,
Our foremost Counsellor has died."

Believe it not ! He laid asicle
The earthly garment that he wore,
But he, our Brother, leader, friend,
Lives on, loves on forevermore.

Sound not the "Taps" - the call of night,
But rather sound the "Reveille";
For toward the morning has he gone,
Toward larger life that is to be.

Respectfuily submitted,
Edwin B. Holmes,
J. Albert Blake,
Dana J. Flanders

SPEECHES

AT HALL DEDICATION FOR BELMONT LODGE, OCTOBER 1899

From Proceedings, Page 1899-90:

WORSHIPFUL MASTER AND BRETHREN: What pleasing considerations attend our present convention! Our memory naturally turns to the period of 1864, when a handful of Brethren, inspired with a love for our Order, constituted your Belmont Lodge, then in humble circumstances. Contrast it with this year 1899, thirty-five years after, when you meet with increased numbers, and in this comfortable and spacious Lodge-room, so thoroughly equipped and so beautifully decorated.

The parallel that suggests itself to our mind at this time is that at the former date we were on the last year of a war where Brother had striven against Brother of the same nation, and where suffering and mourning had been carried into thousands of households, both North and South. Our country, particularly the South, had felt the effects of the war that had "rushed through like a hurricane," that "like an army of locusts bad devoured the land." "The war had fallen like a water-spout and deluged the land with blood;" the smoke that had formerly risen peacefully through the trees of the grove then "rose from villages burned with fire and from blackened ruins spread over the naked land." But peace soon followed, as it has followed the war through which we have just emerged; peace, lovely peace, lovely as her children, where the farmer finds his barns filled with plenty," and the peasant laughs at the approach of winter."

How different the contrast between the two wars! The former one of fratricidal strife for the settlement of a great constitutional difference of opinion; the latter having for its result the subjugation of a nation which for centuries had been the opponent of every progressive, educational and civilizing idea. The Institution of Masonry has cause for congratulation that this, its enemy, has been brought low; this empire "flown with glory and swollen with pride," that has to its credit the destruction of the Aztec civilization, with its temples and ancient inscriptions in Mexico, and of the Moorish civilization, with its high development of the arts and sciences in Spain; this empire that attempted the destruction of the Republic of the Netherlands, the home of liberty and freedom of thought and conscience for the whole world; this empire that with its Armada sought to change the course of civilization, and reduce Protestant England, the fostering home of Freemasonry, to its own condition of ignorance, intolerance and bigotry.

Freemasonry is to be congratulated that this power that had placed our Institution under a ban not only within the borders of its nation, but through all its colonies, should to-day be humbled to the dust, shorn of its possessions, and left to live in history's memory as a nation that marked its growth with a trail of blood, and one that has for its dominant institutions the inquisition and the bull-fight.

Spain, the land of error, has fallen; Freemasonry lives and stands because it is the child of Truth. "The eternal years of God are hers."

We congratulate this town that periodically are to be gathered within these walls a representative Body of men of our Institution, governed by principles of friendship, morality, brotherly love, relief and truth — men who as they go abroad in the world will be known by their acts as men "to whom the burdened heart may pour out its sorrows," "whose hands are guided by justice, and whose hearts are expanded by benevolence." Let your actions among men be such that the Institution will derive benefit by your example before those who know that you are of the Order. It is not the profession and statement of goodness made by a man that produces an impression, it is his action and manner; it is that indescribable something that Mr. Ingalls spoke of in his description of Mr. Blaine — a personality that no painter can reproduce, no sculptor can mould, no biographer can relate, and' no poet can describe. It is the ego of the individual: in our case let that something be the development of character, "the diamond that scratches every other stone."

In your daily walks let the precepts you here learn and the reproduction of the emblems you here see, call to your minds the nobility of the Institution, so that you may each be a living example of the principles of your Order. May your Lodge increase in numbers and develop in influence; may your members prosper; may happiness abound; and finally, "when earth's last picture is painted," may we all "enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life and die. in the hope of a glorious immortality!"

CENTENNIAL OF RISING STAR LODGE, DECEMBER 1899

From Proceedings, Page 1899-97:

WORSHIPFUL MASTER AND BRETHREN, LADIES AND FRIENDS: It is exceedingly gratifying to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts to be received by Rising Star Lodge at any of it's Communications. It is a greater pleasure, however, to be received in the felicitous manner which you have shown both here and in your Lodge-room. What makes the welcome more to be appreciated is the fact that the head of your Lodge is one who stands in the eighth generation from that little soldier of Plymouth who commanded his army of twelve in the protection of the settlers, and that the welcome is extended in the presence of our Brother, the grandson of Paul Revere, that signer of charters, noble patriot, and active Mason during the latter part of the last century and first part of this. Particularly attractive and pleasant is it also that the Grand Lodge should meet Rising Star Lodge as one of its flourishing children on this centennial birthday, and be welcomed by it, strong and vigorous after all the vicissitudes and hardships through which it has passed.

The Brethren who formed your Lodge brought to it both the active experience and the spirit that came from those men of sterling worth, those lovers of liberty, who fought through the Revolutionary War. Masonry was a flourishing Institution during the War of the Revolution, particularly on the American side. There were numerous travelling or Army Lodges, of which many of the officers and soldiers were members. Outside of the army, in Boston, the St. Andrew's Lodge, at the Green Dragon Tavern, on what is now Washington Street near Haymarket Square, was considered by the British a nest of rebels where patriot plots were hatched.

In its Lodge-room, under the leadership of men like Paul Revere, John Hancock and Dr. Joseph Warren, were concocted, no doubt, many of the schemes which brought about the War for Independence; particularly the plan for the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor, many of the so-called Indians disguising themselves there before going to Griffin's Wharf. The principles and spirit shown by such men and Masons had the effect to advance the cause of liberty, and develop and strengthen the individuality of the men performing the acts. Such names are noble in any land and any clime: Paul Revere, able and impulsive, who gave his time and talent to the cause of liberty; John Hancock, who devoted to it his entire fortune, then one of the largest in the Colonies ; and Doctor Warren, who gave to the cause his splendid talents, and his life at Bunker Hill. These men were all prominent and active in Masonry, Doctor Warren and Paul Revere being Grand Masters.

Many years before the Revolution, in 1734, the "many-sided Franklin" had received a charter from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts and was actively engaged in making Masons in Philadelphia, he having been made a Mason three years before that time. The centennial of that charter was celebrated in 1834, the Hon. George M. Dallas delivering the oration on that day. In the biography of the many-sided Franklin it is erroneously stated, however, that he started the first Masonic Lodge in 1730. No charter in America dates back so far as that and Franklin was not then a Mason. If there ever was argument for it, the suggestion was very well dispelled in June, 1888, and again during the past year in the able and lengthy statement presented by our Recording Grand Secretary, Brother Nickerson, at the Communication in the old Grand Lodge. quarters in June last, before moving into the new Temple. Masonry flourished in the times prior to and when your Lodge was constituted. During the War of the Revolution, nearly every American General was a Freemason. For many years Benedict Arnold was excepted, but it has been found that he was a Mason and visited Hiram Lodge in New Haven, his name having been scratched from the records after his treason.

General Lafayette was made a Mason in one of the Army Lodges at Morristown, N.J., in the Valley Forge campaign, the Lodge being called the American Union Lodge, the paraphernalia being loaned for the purpose from St. John's Lodge near there.

Everybody of prominence, particularly on the American side, was active in Freemasonry, and it has been a source of pride to Masons from that day to this that we could point to the Father of our country as retaining his love for, his devotion to, and interest in, the Order almost to the time of his death; letters to various Lodges in this country being now in existence asserting his devotion to the cause of Masonry, written after he had laid aside the robe of office as President and delivered his farewell Address. On the day when the charter was granted to your Lodge the angel of death had already cast a shadow across the path of our illustrious Brother, although unknown to him or to any one else, and four days later he expired at Mt. Vernon after a short illness, it being more than.two weeks later before news of his death reached this part of the country. The centennial of his death will be appropriately observed on Thursday next by the Grand Lodge of Virginia, when representatives of the various jurisdictions will place their, memorials on his tomb, emblems being sent from Great Britain, as well as from all parts of this country. The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts will be represented by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Bro. Charles H. Allen, of Lowell, who will present, as a tribute from our Grand Lodge to the Grand Lodge of Virginia, a gavel, the head turned from a piece of the Washington Elm at Cambridge, under which Washington took command of the Continental Army, the handle being made from a beam of the Old South Church in Boston, while a silver plate, suitably inscribed, will describe the nature of the gift.

It was in the time and atmosphere of the men of the Revolution and the birth of our Republic, that the men who founded your Lodge lived and breathed.. They recognized the great principles of liberty as a part of Masonry, and they sought to perpetuate in this patriotic and flourishing town of yours the principles of our Institution; those principles which teach the highest moral attributes and the highest development of character; so that when the world knows that a man is a Mason, an assurance is given that he stands for an Order whose principles are found in the best and highest qualities of honorable citizenship, morality and integrity. Let these principles, inculcated by and in the men who formed your Lodge and who maintained your charter during all these years, come to you, let them be as a heritage, and like as those same principles were to your fathers, may they continue to be to you. May your Lodge and its members flourish. May happiness and prosperity abound, and when your successors shall celebrate the second centennial of a hundred years hence, may there not be wanting men who will point with pride to this day and its doings, as we do to the day of one hundred years ago.

RESPONSE TO W. M. ON RECEIVING THE CHARTER.

WORSHIPFUL MASTER OF RISING STAR LODGE: The ordinary formula on occasions when a charter has thus been presented, is to return it with the statement, "I find it to be in a good state of preservation and well kept." This noble and venerable parchment should not be passed over with so slighting an allusion.

When we think what this charter has passed through in the past one hundred years, I cannot refrain from paying a tribute to it and the men behind it. During the years of the anti-Masonic craze, the lights were not extinguished on your altar; there were men with strength of purpose and will, in whom the principles of right and justice had been so strongly instilled that they could not be swerved from their duty, who retained this charter, refused to surrender it, maintained their organization, and submitting to the taunts and jeers, but never the contempt, of their fellow citizens, maintained the Order in its integrity, and kept alive the organization of your Lodge.

We of this day can little understand what those men went through, because we cannot believe it possible. The craze that started in Western New York about seventy years ago, and: swept over the country, divided households, separated friends, broke social circles, and divided political parties with the most bitter animosities. With the unreason of madness the wave swept like an epidemic over the country, and it required heroism, unequalled by heroes in the presence of storm or battle, to stand before its movement; and it is due to the principles of our Institution that there were found men who nobly braved the flood and subdued it. The Grand Lodge in Boston continued to hold its sessions, and during the time of the excitement laid the corner-stone and built the Masonic Temple at the corner of Temple Place and Tremont Street in Boston. The procession, which marched from Faneuil Hall to the site of the corner-stone amid opprobrious epithets and jeering allusions, prevented actual disturbance at the ceremonies by the dignity of purpose and charitable forbearance on the part of the Masons to resent the insults which were thrown at them. The ceremonies having been performed, the enemies under the cover of darkness found sufficient satisfaction in placing an insulting word upon the corner-stone.

The Legislature of Massachusetts was appealed to by enemies of the Order to investigate the whole system of Masonry, but failed. In Rhode Island a Legislative Committee of five, no one of whom was a Mason, appointed to investigate Masonry in Rhode Island, after hearing more than one hundred witnesses and examining all newspaper and documentary evidence that could be furnished, devoting ten days at Providence and eighteen at Newport in taking testimony, reported unanimously that the insinuations, statements and charges that had been made against the Order were the falsest and blackest of calumnies, unsupported by proof of any kind.

Scenes like these were enacted in other parts of the country, with similar results; and these followed by the declaration of several thousand Masons stating their principles, published not long after, set this Institution, founded on principles of justice and truth, properly before the public, and it has continued to flourish from that day to this.

That your original charter should have been borne triumphantly through such tribulation and even worse, as the people of your town can attest, occasions more notice than comes from a passing glance; and I hand your charter back with the injunction that you keep it unsullied and unimpaired, and transmit it to your successor, and he to his, with an injunction similar to that imposed on the Grand Master at each succeeding Grand Lodge when he receives from his predecessor the urn containing a lock of the hair of our illustrious Brother, George Washington.

AT DEDICATION OF HALL FOR PHILANTHROPIC LODGE, MARCH 1900

From Proceedings, Page 1900-41:

Worshipful Master, Brethren and Ladies : It is not my purpose to detain you with a lengthy charge on the duties of the Brethren as is customary on similar occasions. Your well-known zeal and devotion to the Order during many years attest how unnecessary that would be. Our pleasure to-day is simply, in addition to the performance of the ceremonies of dedication of your new and beautiful Lodge-room, to bring to you all from the Grand Lodge our warmest congratulations on this most auspicious occasion. A Lodge with a charter dating back one hundred and forty years, endorsed later by that noble patriot Paul Revere, is indeed a unique and noble stone in the structure of Massachusetts Freemasonry; and when so brilliant a gathering as is here assembled meets to receive the Grand Officers of our Grand Lodge, we can indeed feel proud that in Marblehead our Institution has so flourishing and prosperous an exponent of its principles. Although the lapse of time and the vicissitudes of business and commercial life have caused several surrenders of your charter, yet we are proud that to-day a numerous body of the best men of Marble-head still keep the Lodge hearth warm and the fires burning on her altar. All honor to you, men of Marblehead, and all honor to your good ladies who have graced this occasion, and by their presence have encouraged your good work.

As an incident appropriate to this occasion I have a pleasant announcement to make, which is, that the famous letter signed by Dr. John Lowell and sent in 1760 to John Leverett, our Grand Secretary in Boston, has this day been placed in the possession of the Grand Lodge by John Lowell, Esq., a lawyer in Boston, son of the late Judge John Lowell, of our United States Circuit Court. This letter, addressed to the Grand Lodge, was never found in its archives, and for some unknown reason has always been in the possession of the Lowell family, possibly returned or borrowed on account of its list of names of the Brethren.

A few years ago the original was loaned to Past Grand Master Charles A. Welch by the late Judge Lowell, and a copy was made by our indefatigable Grand Secretary, who, zealous for our welfare, keeps watch and ward and in close touch with all our Masonic interests. Stimulated by his zeal, I have endeavored for some weeks past to gain possession of this document, and I have to-day received it from the present John Lowell and have brought it here to assist in gracing the occasion. It will be read in full by your distinguished townsman, W. Brother Trefry, in his Historical Address, but I take great pleasure in exposing it to your view, old and time-worn, but still with every word legible and all its historic value unimpaired. It will find a final resting-place with our valuable curiosities and antiquities in our new Temple. It will be prized in your behalf by reason of its associations, and for the fact that it is the first and only report of the first meeting of the Lodge at Marblehead, though our records show that the Wardens did bring the funds to the Grand Lodge, as there described, though the amount delivered was less, and the reason was satisfactorily explained. Let this document and the names of the noble men inscribed hereon be, with the names that your historian shall describe as great not only in their day and place, but in the nation and its history, a continuing encouragement to the performance of good and great deeds, as you recall their acts and emulate their examples.

May this, your new Masonic home, be the abode of piety, virtue and benevolence; may your Lodge prosper, its union strengthen, and the happiness of its members abound; learn to practise outside of these walls the great moral principles here inculcated ; recall the symbolic teachings of our ritual and ceremonials ; carry with you in your minds the picture of this beautiful interior, its decorations and adornments, and so live that

"When earth's last picture is painted . . .

We shall rest, — and faith, we shall need it,
Lie down for an æon or two
Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall set us to work anew.

"And only the Master shall praise us,
And only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money,
And no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working,
And each, in his separate star.
Shall draw the thing as he sees it
For the God of things as they are."

CHARTERS GRANTED

• 09/10/1902 Friendship, Wilmington

RULINGS

None.

Grand Masters