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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."

AT DEDICATION OF HALL FOR PAUL REVERE LODGE, APRIL 1900

From Proceedings, Page 1900-77:

Worshipful Master and Brethren: What a pleasing convention is an assembly of Brethren, under any circumstances, to dedicate a Hall to the purposes of Freemasonry, Virtue and Universal Benevolence; but when such spacious apartments as these, so beautifully decorated, so conveniently arranged, and so thoroughly furnished, invite the presence of the Officers of the Grand Lodge to perform the ceremonies of dedication, we have indeed cause for abundant congratulation. This is especially true on this occasion, since the building itself is owned by one of our Grand Directors, a former Deputy Grand Master, R. W. Bro. Belcher, and who, with Brother White, his co-owner here present, has built and equipped these Halls for your purposes.

It is a disappointment that R. W. Bro. Belcher is not with us to enjoy the felicities of this occasion and take part in our ceremonies, for we depended on him to deliver the working tools of our profession to the Grand Master in behalf of the architect, before the ceremonies of dedication, as an appropriate feature.

You are to be congratulated, Brethren, oil the generous number of the Fraternity who have come together to witness this ceremonial; it evidences something more than the mere prosperity that Masonry has achieved in your city of Brockton. With a membership of between four and five hundred growing from the little number who, in 1850, worked under Dispensation as Paul Revere Lodge, you have indeed accomplished wonders in your development; and the presence of such goodly numbers to-day demonstrates an active and lively interest in that prosperity. It is not strange, however, when we consider that old North Bridgewater derived its rapid growth to Brockton from the manhood and womanhood it drew from the surrounding towns in Plymouth County; from that stout yeomanry of our Commonwealth, the finest-fibred quality of men and women, who, through generations of the highest principles of God-fearing morality and virtue, bred and developed in themselves and in their children's children, have in the past two generations found in the teachings of our Order in your town symbolical representation and reproduction of those same truths and precepts already implanted in them.

Your Lodge indeed bears a noble name, that of Paul Revere. Your ante-room contains his signature as Senior Warden of the Lodge of Rising States, a Lodge which he was instrumental in forming in the latter part of the last century, before he had been Grand Master of our Grand Lodge; and although the Rising States Lodge disbanded, yet the interest he had taken in Masonry and his devotion to our country's cause have been immortalized in prose and verse, and in commercial and industrial life he was second to none of his contemporaries. Proud indeed must you be to bear his name!

May the ceremonials of your ritual, that shall be performed within these Halls at initiations and otherwise, ever be as impressive and instructive as the ceremonials provided by the ritual of the Grand Lodge for dedication. Our work is not simply an entertainment; not merely a spectacle to please the eye; but every word and act has its significant and symbolical meaning, conveying to us instruction in the higher virtues and nobler traits of character such as we should apply in our daily walks of life. To teach men that they should be temperate, prudent and strong, that they should be honest, virtuous and truthful, that they should love one another, as naked precepts, convey no such meaning nor obtain so fixed an impression as the same teachings and precepts delineated by symbolical word and act, with attending form and ceremony. To state that one individual is ambitious, that another is jealous, and that a third is infamous, conveys a certain amount of information, and the application is soon forgotten; but when we see the character of Macbeth portrayed on the stage, when we witness the action of Othello, and when we behold the base and subtle intrigues of Iago, we can never forget the impression produced that Macbeth was ambitious, that Othello was jealous, or that Iago w;is a designing villain. So also with the teachings of the New Testament;— a mere statement of Bible truth conveys much less impression than when the same is illustrated by a parable describing the actors of the scenes, and relating the story that furnishes the example ; so it is with our own forms and ceremonies, whether in initiation or dedication, all have their meaning, all produce an impression that is fixed and lasting, and we go out " from this blessed retreat to mingle again with the world," carrying with us the best and highest thoughts for our own future action, indelibly impressed on our winds, and which we can never forget.

With the Masonic prosperity that is your portion you should be ever grateful that it is your good fortune to witness the development of our Order and the performance of its work, and receive these lasting impressions amid such convenient and enjoyable surroundings.

May the prosperity that you have shown since your organization continue; may these Halls ever be the abode of piety, virtue and benevolence; may your union strengthen, and may happiness abound. Remember that in your Lodge name you have a combination of the best type of American citizenship with that of the upright Mason ; remember that a great mission of Masonry in this our country is the development of those best and highest types of character that shall make good citizens as well as good Masons; remember that we are engaged in developing to the fullest extent Victor Hugo's ideal for the Twentieth Century: — MAN ! Remember

"The world wants men, large-hearted, manly men,
Men who will join the chorus and prolong
The psalm of labor and the song of love;
The times want heroes; —
Heroes who shall struggle in the solid ranks of truth;
The age wants scholars; —
Scholars who shall shape the doubtful questions of dubious years,
And lead the ark that bears our country's good
Safe to some peaceful Ararat at last."

AT DEDICATION OF HALL FOR WARREN LODGE, SEPTEMBER 1900

From Proceedings, Page 1900-130:

I thank you and the Brethren for your cordial reception, and am pleased to announce that the Officers of the Grand Lodge are here on this beautiful day, in the presence of this large and delightful gathering of ladies and Brethren, to dedicate your new apartments to Masonic purposes.

It is an especial pleasure for us to perform this duty for a body of Masons who have shown so' much enterprise aDd courage in overcoming misfortune as have the members of your Lodge. Your apartments and properties having been twice destroyed by fire, you have again arisen, as it were, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the last conflagration in 1899; saving, however, the charter that was renewed after the one destroyed in the previous fire of 1884, but in such condition as to be no longer serviceable. To take the place of that mutilated and defaced document I have brought with me, and I now present to you in behalf of the Grand Lodge, your charter renewed a second time, bearing the proper attestations by our Recording Grand Secretary R. W. Brother Nickerson, the face of it being a reproduction of the original, bearing the signature of John Dixwell, the Grand Master who studied medicine in the office of Dr. John Warren, a brother of the lamented Dr. Joseph Warren, who fell at the battle of Bunker Hill, both of whom were in their day Grand Masters of Masons in Massachusetts, and from whom your name of Warren Lodge is derived. The other signatures are of the officers of that day, and the charter members are here enrolled, the name of Bagley being found a number of times, one of them, Valentine Bagley, being the first Treasurer of your Lodge, made famous by the poet Whittier in The Captain's Well," a familiar landmark in this town for many years.

This charter you will carefully preserve and transmit to your successor in office, and I have no doubt that at each annual visitation of the Grand Master's Deputy, it will be found to be " in a good state of preservation and well kept."

From Proceedings, Page 1900-132:

The ceremony of dedication by the Officers of the Grand Lodge is always pleasant, representing as it does an encouraging feature of our Institution, evincing a spirit of progress and enterprise on the part of the Brethren composing the Lodge; but on this occasion there is an added interest and special feature when we consider the history of Masonry in this town and vicinity, — the trials and struggles through which the members have passed, your losses by fire, and the unholy crusade conducted here as in other parts of the country against our Institution and those who belonged to it, make this occasion one of especial interest to us all.

Through all vicissitudes you have retained your organization and kept your chartered rights inviolate. This manly struggle against adversity is characteristic of Amesbury and its people, if we read its history from the time when the "thirty families agreed to remove from Salisbury west of Powwow River," more than two hundred and fifty years ago, to the present day; in all its history, political, secular and religious, independence of thought and strength of character have been predominant features among the freemen of the town.

This is equally true of your Lodge and its members from the time of its formation, Dec. 11, 1822, and its constitution on St. John the Baptist Day, 1823, to the present time. The records of our Grand Lodge show that the Lodge was constituted on the latter date, and "after the ceremonies were closed the procession was again formed and proceeded to the well-provided table. The festivities of the day closed with great order and decorum." Let us hope this latter suggestion is not a reflection on the conduct of the Brethren in those days at other festivities.

The early history of your Lodge is replete with significant historical facts, a recital of which would carry to the Brethren throughout the Commonwealth acts which are certainly worthy of emulation.

Your Lodge is rich in relics of the past, and abounds in interesting gifts suggestive of events of later times. Your Master's gavel made from the frigate Constitution and other historical vessels begins a list which with the working tools of teak-wood from Admiral Dewey's flagship, — the Olympia, completes a span in the history of our Republic; while about your Lodge Room the evidences of kindly thought on the part of the Brethren of your Lodge and of those in this vicinity, bespeak a spirit that other Lodges may well emulate, and of which you should be justly proud; the chairs of the Officers, the pillars on either side of the Master's station, your beautiful altar, all gifts from your members, and the Tyler's sword from the Master of your adjoining Bethany Lodge, of Merrimac, are a part of the generous contributions; while in your ante-room is to be seen the reproduced original portrait of Valentine Bagley, restored through the kindness of his niece, and whose name, as I have said before, has been immortalized by the Quaker poet of your town.

The life and death of Valentine Bagley, which latter occurred in 1839, recalls to us those dark days in the history of Masonry when it required courage and strength of character for a member to assert his belief in our Institution and remain loyal to its tenets; but through all the misconceptions of our Order and the slanders that were uttered by its enemies, your Lodge retained its organization, holding its meetings "on the top of high hills or in deep vales," sometimes on the hilltops of New Hampshire and at others on the beaches of Salisbury, the charter being kept safely and preserved; at one time, if I am correctly informed, being retained by our venerable Brother Cowden, who is here present, aud concealed by him beneath the sheets of the bed on which he slept; thus your charter remained in its integrity unsullied, to be destroyed by the fire which devastated your Lodge Room on the morning of Feb. 29, 1884, when it was lost with all the paraphernalia of the Lodge.

It is a noble record for your Lodge that in the midst of those troublous anti-Masonic times, when the opposition was at its height, there were found members of your Lodge who publicly appeared in full regalia and performed the burial service at the cemetery on the occasion of the funeral of Valentine Bagley, your first Treasurer. Noble indeed are the names of those who so steadfastly stood by our Institution in your Lodge in those dark days. If their names do not already appear on your Lodge records with a tribute to their memory and work, the record of this dedication furnishes a convenient opportunity to now inscribe them as a roll of honor to be shown to your Brethren of the present day and to those who will come hereafter, for the great good your fathers have done.

"Our fathers to their graves have gone;
Their strife is past, — their triumph won;
But sterner trials wait the race
Which rises in their honored place, —
So let it be. In God's own might,
We gird us for the coming fight,
And strong in Him whose cause is ours
In conflict with unholy powers,
We grasp the weapons he has given, —
The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven."

Although your poet Whittier, whose name is respected and beloved throughout the world, was not a member of our Fraternity, yet in these chosen words from "The Moral Warfare " he has furnished to us as Masons an appropriate suggestion for the past and present. Indeed, in looking through his poems after many years for a reading of " The Captain's Well," abundant evidence is found of a loyalty on the poet's part to principles and virtues such as we claim for our Order and which might well have been penned by a poet-laureate of Freemasonry. In his lines on " Democracy " he says:

"The generous feeling pure and warm,
Which owns the rights of all divine,
— The pitying heart, — the helping arm, —
The prompt self-sacrifice, — are thine.

" Beneath thy broad, impartial eye,
How fade the lines of caste and birth!
How equal in their suffering lie
The groaning multitudes of earth!"

And again he speaks of those who remain:

" Still to a stricken brother true,
Whatever clime hath nurtured him."

Such sentiments demonstrate that the heart of the author must have been in sympathy and touch with the cardinal virtues and tenets of our profession, although he knew them not.

But the loyal, the patriotic and the good, whether poet or Mason, are engaged in a common work for the benefit of mankind and country. The higher and nobler principles of humanity, the relation of man to man and brother to brother, the " dependence which constitutes the strongest bond of society," generates in the well-meaning and well-thinking man the higher principles of patriotism and loyalty to country. More valuable to the State and Nation are "strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands," than accumulations of wealth and treasure. As your poet has again sung:

"The riches of the Commonwealth
Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health;
And more to her than gold or grain,
The cunning hand and cultured brain.

"For well she keeps her ancient stock,
The stubborn strength of Pilgrim Rock;
And still maintains, with milder laws,
And clearer light, the Good Old Cause.
,br> "Nor heeds the sceptic's puny hands,
While near her school the church-spire stands;
Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule,
While near her church-spire stands the school."

With these thoughts and precepts in our minds, let us continue the good work in which we are engaged, not only in this Hall dedicated as it is " to Freemasonry, to Virtue and to Universal Benevolence," but when abroad in the world let the character of each one as it shines represent the teachings that he has here received, let him by example reproduce the truths that he has here learned, so that when the world shall know that a man is a Mason, he will be known as one to whom the burdened heart can pour out its sorrow, whose heart is warmed by justice and whose hand is expanded by benevolence, and to whom self-sacrifice for his country comes as a joy.

That you may flourish as a Lodge and prosper are the best wishes the officers of the Grand Lodge can give you, and we now express to you our hope that this Lodge Room may ever be the abode of piety and virtue; may brotherly love ever prevail, may no discord or contention ever mar your proceedings, may your Lodge flourish, its members prosper, and may happiness abound; and when the summons shall finally come to you and all of us may each receive the glad welcome of "Well done, good and faithful servant."

CENTENNIAL OF MOUNT ZION LODGE, OCTOBER 1900

From Proceedings, Page 1900-141:

Worshipful Master, Ladies and Brethren: A sublime and ennobling feeling accompanies the centenary of a Masonic Lodge. Each centennial has its pleasing advantages and incidents, but all inspire in us a common commendation arising from the feeling we have of respect that is due to a vigorous and strong old age. Peculiarly is this true in the case of Mount Zion Lodge where the strength and vigor, both in the personnel of members and in the numbers which you have paraded to-day, are appropriately in keeping with the traditions of your town and this vicinity since its settlement in 1686; when for twenty-three pounds sterling there were purchased twelve square miles from the Indians, including Rutland, Oakham, Hubbardston, a part of Princeton and Paxton, and your present town of Barre. A sturdy nature was possessed by the yeomanry who settled these hills, developed the farms and encouraged your infant industries; augmented by that magnificent civilization that came to Maine, New Hampshire, and a large part of Worcester County — the Scotch-Irish — mingled with New England customs, has furnished the best blood we have had in our Republic, and furnished more Presidents of the United States than any other race, not excepting the English; from them a community has developed that for strong manhood and womanhood can nowhere else be duplicated in o»«r country. It was shrewd on the part of Cotton Mather and his associates in Boston when they assigned the Rev. Mr. Boyd and his one hundred and odd families of Scotch-Irish to lands to the North of Massachusetts Bay extending from Worcester County to Southern Maine; the theory being that they would thus furnish a check to the incursions of the Canadian Indians and French who occasionally devastated the Massachusetts Bay settlements; what they did in developing the parts of New England where they came is historically recorded and needs no encomium of mine as to their sterling worth.

Stories of heroism in those early days are not wanting among the women as well as .the men. It is historical in your town that when the young man Perry married his wife in Martha's Vineyard and moved up here, having five children in the ten years following, he left with his wife for a visit to her home, and he dying within three weeks after, she returned alone, braving all the dangers of the wilderness, to her home and children in Barre, bringing his horse and property with her; she lived here to a ripe old age, and forms a landmark in the town's history.

Similar examples of physical endurance and personal heroism might be multiplied, and such acts developed a race of people naturally sturdy, strong, patriotic and liberty-loving, and it is no great wonder that the town of Hutchinson, named for the royal governor in 1775, should in 1776 be changed to that of Barre, the name of the famous colonel, a devoted friend of the colonies in Parliament.

The activity of the people too in the cause of freedom was proverbial; it was William Buckminster, of Barre, who fell at Bunker Hill protecting Colonel Prescott; and the men of this vicinity nobly took a most active and varied part in the war of the Revolution.

It was from this town, in 1781, in the case of the slave Quorke, that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts decided that property in a human slave was not recognized in this State.

Many are the incidents, historical and otherwise, of this kind which mark the character of the people for originality and tenacity of purpose; it is not strange, therefore, that the anti-Masonic craze, started in 1826, did not affect your Lodge till 1832, and even then was never strong enough to terrorize the members of your Lodge into surrendering this Charter, which I hold in my hand, which had been kept so successfully and prosperously by men like Daniel Ruggles, to whose tavern in 1809 went the Rev. James Thompson, prominent as a District Deputy and member of the Grand Lodge from that time to 1812, to deliver an oration; and men like Major Gardiner Ruggles who in 1842 reorganized the Lodge so that it was successfully carried on until March 15, 1855, when it was removed from Hardwick, the place of its incorporation March 11, 1800, to the present town of Barre. Among others of later date whose names are enrolled in honor in our archives, and whose portraits adorn our Temple at Boston, is Bro. Lucius R. Paige, so well known to you and to Masons generally in our State.

Great credit and honor are due to the men of those times from 1832 and previously, to 1842 when Masonry and its fate hung in the balance in our country, who kept your Charter sacred and inviolate, and who have transmitted it unimpaired through successive administrations, until it is to-day received by me from the Master of your Lodge "in a good state of preservation and well kept," with the original signature of Samuel Dunn as Grand Master and its proper attestation. It is a sacred thing and should be exhibited among your Brethren and to those who come after you as one of those emblems of fortitude among Masons when it meant something for a man to publicly avow himself a member of our Order.

God has abundantly blessed you in these hill towns with health, strength and vigor to wrestle with nature and develop from the forests and rocks beautiful towns and industries, with roads, landscapes and valleys that delight the eye; but you have been blessed also with " strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands," fitting material from which to develop the upright Mason.

We come from the Grand Lodge congratulating you on the success of your endeavors, on the numbers of the Brethren, and the fine appearance that has been made to-day at these exercises. We are fortunate indeed that Dame Nature smiles upon us with so beautiful a day; and pleased are we indeed to carry back to our Temple in Boston and place upon our records a report of so successful an observance of the centennial of so prosperous a Lodge as Mount Zion.

To you, Worshipful Master, I return the Charter which you have presented to me, and I charge you to deliver it to your successor in office, with the injunction that it be transmitted to succeeding Masters, and that it shall always be "in a good state of preservation and well kept."

AT DEDICATION OF HALL FOR PHOENIX LODGE, SEPTEMBER 1900

From Proceedings, Page 1900-162:

Worshipful Master and Brethren: The dedicatory service in a Lodge-Room is always a cause for congratulation, as it evidences prosperity and success on the part of the Brethren of the Lodge. At times such feelings are not unmixed with sadness at remembrance of the causes that have required new rooms to be prepared, and peculiarly is this so in your case when we recall the unaccountable catastrophe by which the building standing on this spot was demolished, and from which the only article of furniture remaining intact is the chair which was occupied by the Grand Master in opening the Grand Lodge in Ample Form in the ante-room adjoining your Lodge. It is an interesting relic, and should be suitably inscribed and kept not only as a memento of that unfortunate occurrence, but also as a monument to your zeal and industry in rising "Phoenix"-like from the ashes of your consumed building to these new, convenient and well-appointed accommodations. It is fortunate, too, for you that you can retain your Masonic associations in so close proximity; for the Old Colony Lodge, from which you have grown, was organized in the Waterman house on the opposite corner, formerly the old tavern, and for many years held its Communications in the other building across the driveway from this building, where it remained until removed to Hingham.

But in addition to these historical associations you are indeed fortunate, and the Grand Officers bring to you the congratulations of the Grand Lodge, that you have so beautifully decorated, so well furnished and so comfortably arranged apartments as we have this day dedicated. Lodge-rooms may differ in size, appointments, architecture, construction, and conveniences, but the Lodge that is prosperous and successful is the one that has maintained the character of its members during its growth at the standard which we set for a true Mason.

We are fortunate and proud that with us to-day is our respected Grand Secretary, R. W. Brother Nickerson, who as Grand Master in 1873 constituted your Lodge; the example which he gave you has borne its good fruits: and it is not strange, for he is the embodiment of all that is good and great in Masonry, and -by his genial and kindly spirit and manner imparts to all who meet him a feeling of kindness and benevolence. He is not only an encyclopedia of Masonry, but is always open and free to impart his information to any of the Brethren who desire to have it. He has the universal respect of the Masons of our Commonwealth, and the hope is that he may be long spared to be with us to be of use and value to his Brethren.

Your growth from 1873 to the present time, from thirty-two in number to eighty-two, is not phenomenal, but it is a healthy growth in the community in which you live, and the character of the men whom you have made Masons is a good and sufficient guarantee of the success that you have made in the Lodge; for there is no need here to admonish you against taking into your Lodge those whose characters require them to be squeezed through its moral doors. Masonry should command the attention of the highest and best men in the community, so that when a man has acquired a favorable opinion of our Institution and voluntarily becomes a member of it, he should often be not only up to but above the standard which we set, so that our average should be continually higher than our standard ; but no suggestion of this kind is needed among the yeomanry of your town where the character of the Masons whom we meet is an index of the character of the Lodge. Care in receiving candidates, joined with the impressive work of our ritual, develops in Masons characters the best and noblest in the community.

Freemasonry is not servile to worldly success, but it does pay homage to the honest heart, the willing hand and the industrious brain. In its growth and history it has ever been an advocate for itself, for it has always advanced hand in hand with prosperity, enlightenment and advancement in the history of the world. The liberty-loving, educated and intelligent nations of Holland, Germany, England and America, have fostered and protected our Masonic Institution, while Spain and Italy, sunk in the lowest grade of modern civilization, have ever proscribed and forbidden it. Spain, with a record of having destroyed the Aztec civilization in Mexico and the Moorish civilization in Spain, that attempted to destroy the Netherlands, the home of freedom and liberty for the civilized world, and with its Armada intended to subject and reduce England to the condition of a mediaeval barbarism, has happily been relegated to the confines of ignorance and semi-barbarism among its hills, its pride and arrogance limited and humbled by the descendants of those whom she three centuries ago attempted to destroy. Spain goes into history having for her institutions the inquisition and the bull fight; the northern nations point with pride to free schools, representative governments and the Masonic Fraternity. But we deal with the present, and our duty is plain. A true Mason is one who, without proselyting or using vain repetitions as to his own goodness, shall by his acts and bearing so impress himself upon the community that he will be regarded as a man of high character, honest in all his dealings, industrious in all his works, for whom all who meet him shall maintain respect, and whose word and name shall be honored as reliable and trustworthy. Such was the relation of Masonry to the community in the days of our fathers, such as these were the Masons of Plymouth County in older times, and such are the descendants of those who settled and built it up. We follow in their footsteps with changed conditions, but similar problems, to continue the good work, remembering that

"New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good unconth;
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;
Lo, before us gleam her Campfires! We ourselves must pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower and steer it boldly through the desperate wintry sea."

AT DEDICATION OF HALL FOR NOQUOCHOKE LODGE, MAY 1901

From Proceedings, Page 1901-35:

W. MASTER, LADIES, AND BRETHREN: What abundant cause for congratulation we have that the storms of the night have been dispelled and in the bright sun and clear air we are enabled to enjoy the felicity of meeting such a numerous body of Masons with their ladies, not only in the Lodge-room, but in the open air, where under Heaven's canopy we have sat and feasted together! We of the Grand Lodge have enjoyed the hospitality of you all at the bountiful "clam-bake" which you prepared and of which all have partaken with so much apparent relish. "The Groves were God's first Temples," and in conjunction with the impressive ceremonies of dedicating, this Hail to Masonry and to high purposes, it is appropriate that a part of our service should be held in the Groves dedicated by nature to the Most High as his Temple. Your entertainment has been bountiful and we shall go back to our Temple in Boston feeling it proper to characterize it as we do the Feast of St. John — the Grand Feast. The Grand Officers are under great obligations for the zeal you have shown and the care you have taken to make this dedication a pleasant event for them. The delightful drive from Fall River through the country teeming with evidences of spring, the air fragrant with blossoms, and the earth hard under the wheels of our carriages has furnished indeed a delightful and enjoyable outing from the crowded and stifling conditions of city business life. We shall carry back to our Grand Lodge and place on our records our appreciation of what you have done and we have enjoyed.

You are indeed to be congratulated on the success you have attained since twenty-two years ago when R. W. Brother Nickerson, our Grand Secretary, and others came to New Bedford and constituted your Lodge. From a small number you have grown to your present membership of seventy Masons. You have kept the Ancient Landmarks in the little old Hall in the "deep vale" at the other side of the river, and now in your prosperity, not forgetting to accord to the Brethren of other surrounding Lodges credit for their generous assistance, you have grown onward and upward to the top of this high hill" where your conveniently appointed building stands as a monument to your zeal, care, and progress, and to the surrounding country is a landmark of an institution representing the higher and nobler qualities of the Masonic character. While we take just pride in the correct and impressive rendering of rituals whether of the degrees or services of this character, while we enjoy all that sociability and good-fellowship bring to us, we must not forget that above and beyond .all are the great moral truths that are inculcated by our Order, and should so live that from each Mason shall emanate in his contact with the world an evidence of the good principle that is in him; that all who deal with him shall know that by reason of his Masonry he is a better man and a better citizen — so that as this building shall be a monument to that Institution whose cardinal virtues are practised and whose tenets reach into every walk of life, so each Mason should in himself be a landmark of our beloved Order.

In the ancient ritual of dedication is provided a charge to the Brethren, which, though appropriate to the times when it was written is not necessary as an admonition to Brethren inheriting the traditions of morality and virtue from a yeomanry in a peaceful, quiet, pastoral, and fishing community, on ground that was historical before the landing of the Pilgrims; the character of the strong men and women who for conscience' sake seceded from the Plymouth Colony and settled in the district extending from Fairhaven into Rhode Island has left their imprint by heritage and tradition in the community here represented; and although the Quaker and the Baptist may no longer exist as they then did, the same sterling qualities of independent thought and action have shown themselves, and from them a type of character has developed from which the true principles of Masonry are easily and naturally evolved; it is from rural districts where the traditions are of the acts and lives of God-fearing men that great moral truths find their practice, and from such as these are the best type of Masons developed.

The Grand Lodge and the body of Masonry "are to be congratulated on having such a Lodge of such Masons in such a well-equipped Hall as we have now dedicated. May peace and prosperity be within your walls, may your Lodge and its members flourish, may your.union strengthen, and may happiness abound; and when we shall each be called to render his account in the Hall not made with hands may we receive the reward of "well done, good and faithful servant."

AT DEDICATION OF HALL FOR MAY FLOWER LODGE, JUNE 1901

WORSHIPFUL MASTER, LADIES AND BRETHREN: The Grand Lodge in its wisdom has provided by its ritual that the part of the dedicatory services relating to the charge written one hundred years or so ago may be omitted, and in place thereof the Grand Master may address the Brethren. Elevating and ennobling as are the sentiments in that ancient document, it is hardly appropriate to the present time except in such portions as admonish us to maintain a proper standard of character, with apt words of congratulation on the success of the Lodge and a hope for continued prosperity in the future.

This visit as the representative of the Grand Lodge, accompanied by the Grand Officers to perform the service of dedication, recalls a remembrance of the last visit I made to Middleboro' Four Corners, as it was then called, in the year 1864, the year in which your Lodge was instituted and worked under Dispensation. In those days, as a boy spending my summers among relatives in what was known as the Lowlands, where Middleboro' adjoins Halifax and Bridgewater, a trip to the '"Corners," which was the greatest place next to North Bridgewater known to the youth of that vicinity, filled the heart with delight and occasioned a subject for conversation and comment during the entire summer, and it was a great event if more than once in the summer a trip was made with some of the "men folks" who had business at this place; but from the hospitable nature of your reception, your entertainment in the Hall below so gracefully decorated, and your banquet so tastefully prepared and served by the daughters of your Brethren, all being provided, as I am informed, by your Unitarian Society, I feel that I shall look back on this day with the same feelings of pleasure and gratification, although in a different way, that I experienced in those childhood days of years ago. This country and its surroundings were always to me a source of delight, and with your treatment on this occasion the name of Middleboro' is one that ever will remain pleasant and agreeable in my memory.

Landing, as I used to, at Titicut, a station of your town on the Old Colony Railroad nearest to my destination, "the place of a great river," as the Indians called it, as they named your settlement there Namasket, - "a place of fish," the whole association, from that end of the town to East Middleboro' at the other, recall the most pleasing memories with delight. Your town is all a pleasant locality, and it is not surprising to find in the Plymouth Colony records as early as 1669, "Namasket shall be a township and to be called by the name of Middleberry," so attractive were the surroundings; half way between Plymouth and Mount Hope, the home of Massasoit, the Indian chief, it formed also a convenient rest for travellers. It thus became one of those good old colony towns, filled with the strength of the God-fearing men and women who came over in that staunch little ship that staggered and struggled into the Provincetown Harbor and landed her precious freight first on Clarke's Island and then on 'that rock that has become "the corner stone of the nation."

The founders of your Lodge who, in 1864, on March 8, received a Dispensation from Grand Master William Parkman, and organized a Lodge with J. Shaw, W. M., C. H. Carpenter, S. W., R. B. Barnes, J. W., with five others, if they were not all descendants of the Plymouth people, had in their hearts and the fibre of their character a regard and respect for that noble little band of pilgrims who settled these shores.

On the anniversary of the date of your Dispensation the By-Laws and Records were approved, and the charter for a Lodge was recommended to the Grand Lodge by a committee consisting of Dr. Winslow Lewis, Henry P. Perkins, and William Sutton; the first and last being familiar names in Massachusetts Masonry and in the annals of the Grand Lodge. It lacked only the presence of the venerable Marshall P. Wilder in place of Brother Perkins on that committee to have made the subject of the portrait in our Grand Lodge ante-room a fit accompaniment to your Lodge-room here. Dr. Winslow Lewis, a Grand Master of whom every Mason knows and his name being that of the Lodge of which our Recording Grand Secretary is an active member; William Sutton who next to Brother Nickerson probably did more in a financial way to uphold the credit of the Grand Lodge than any member up to his time, and for whom the Corinthian Lodge-Room in the old Temple was named as Sutton Hall. Twelve days later your Hall was dedicated and the officers installed; and it is pleasing to note that the following year when the District Deputy Grand Master of the then Seventh Masonic District made his report to the Grand Master, he states that your Lodge "has made good progress since receiving its charter, and I am assured by its members they intend to mark well the words of the Grand Master and allow no bad links to be woven into the chain of members."

It is not strange that the men who formed your Lodge selected so appropriate and beautiful a name as that of May Flower, the name of that little ship that withstood all perils of sea and came into Massachusetts Bay, providing a shelter before landing in its cabin for the men who wrote that famous compact which has. been happily declared the first Constitution or Declaration of Rights looking to the founding of an independent Commonwealth, that has been prepared in modern times; all the elements of a modern representative self-governing republic being found therein; and when they landed permanently on the shores their first work was to establish the meeting-house, the school-house, and the town meeting as institutions the principles of which have spread throughout the land and fixed the foundation on which a government "of the people" should rest. When they fall, when they cease to be the principles on which our Government rests, then our liberties are endangered and our form of government ceases to be the mighty bulwark of civilization of which we boast. They were indeed strong men who formed your Lodge and they lived in strenuous times. It was the closing year of the War of the Rebellion, that dreadful scene of carnage of which the present generation can know only by history, but which is to those of us who remember it crowded with memories of mourning, of bloodshed, of heroism, of privation and suffering, and finally the exultation of victory followed by lovely peace.

It was during your Dispensation that Gen. Sherman made his famous march to the sea, and Gen. Grant assumed full command of the armies; during the year following the memorable and bloody battles of Spottsylvania, the terrible fighting in the Wilderness, the capture of Atlanta, the dreadful slaughter of Petersburg, and the famous Sheridan's ride took place; on the sea the Kearsarge had sunk the Alabama, and the heroic Lieut. Cushing had destroyed the Albemarle. In that great struggle, as indicative of the character of the men who lived in this town and formed this Lodge, Middleboro' sent four hundred and six brave souls to the Union Army, of whom sixty-two laid down their lives.

Is it strange then that such men, living in such times, should have selected for the name of their Lodge the synonym of all that was good, virtuous, pious, brave, independent and strong? "They builded better than they knew" with their little handful, but the promise made to the representative of the Grand Lodge that no bad links should be woven into the chain of members, has certainly been kept, and the one hundred and thirty members which you show to-day evidence a body of men of which this Lodge or any Lodge or the whole body of Masonry may be justly proud.

You have prepared and fitted this building and these rooms tastefully and completely for your purposes; the decorations and furnishings delight the eye and are useful for your work, while all that electricity can do for effects of light has been added as a part of your paraphernalia. What thoughts indeed would come to the minds of the founders, could they be with us in these to them spacious and magnificent apartments, as they viewed the magical effects that please the eye and instruct the mind! But were they here they would be no strangers, for they would recognize our ritual and our work, they would join with us naturally in our devotion; for the principles which guided their lives were the same as ours; the tenets of our Institution and the virtues which we claim are unchangeable from one generation to another; and while we congratulate ourselves upon the success that you have achieved and the enjoyment that we have had, let us not forget the religious character of their origin and be guided by their example; let us repeat again as a tribute to their memory the words of Professor Everett at the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, where, after speaking of what their ancestors had done for this country, what they had encountered in privations and sufferings and hardships, he concludes as follows:

"Nay, let the strain soar higher; still louder swell the song;
Claim all the starry honors that to our sires belong;
Two hundred years and fifty, brothers, this day have flown,
Since first from out the godless world our Fathers came alone.
Then France was flown with glory, and Spain was swol'n with pride,
And England rested in her might, and Rome the world defied;
The scoff of sword and sceptre, of mitre and of frock,
The seed of God in tears was sown this day on Plymouth Rock.
One-fourth of time's great cycle hath o'er the ages passed,
And the stroke of God's great vengeance the guilty finds at last.
Helpless the Roman tyrant is shaking on his hill,
And Spain before a stranger boy must bend her haughty will!
The plains of France are trampled in gore by steel-hoofed foes,
And England hears a warning in every breeze that blows;
At all the godless thresholds Death's equal footsteps knock,
But peace and joy and safety are ours on Plymouth Rock."

With the lapse of thirty years history has changed itself, but the theme there worked out by the poet is easily recognizable,. and applied to-day makes the parallel still striking between the Old World and the new.

The Grand Lodge takes pride in presenting its congratulations on your name, on your existence, and on your success. May these halls ever be the abode of peace and virtue, may brotherly love ever prevail among you, may your Lodge prosper, may its union strengthen, your members, flourish, and may happiness abound, ever remembering as a watchword those beautiful lines of Lowell where your Lodge name is immortalized:

"New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth.
Lo! before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,
Launch our 'Mayflower,' and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key." </blockquote>

CENTENNIAL OF RURAL LODGE, JUNE 1901

From Proceedings, Page 1901-51:

W. MASTER, BRETHREN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: There is a touch of sadness in the celebration of the centennial of a Masonic Lodge when the circumstances of its formation and the incidents connected with the men who were the founders of the Lodge are so limited as to be almost unknown. The disastrous fire starting under the stairway of the Grand Lodge rooms in the old Winthrop House on the night of April 5, 1864, preventing all access to the upper part of the building, caused the destruction of everything belonging to the Grand Lodge, except the contents of a safe, and the record books which by chance were, at the house of the Grand Secretary, Charles W. Moore, at the time. In this conflagration all correspondence, petitions, papers, archives, and everything of written word or memento that would connect us with the century that has passed and bring us in close touch with the acts and feelings and almost with the faces and forms of those whose day we are celebrating, are lost to the world and to Masonry forever.

The history of the formation of your Lodge from the Grand Lodge standpoint is largely, therefore, a subject of conjecture. The number of Lodges at that time, however, was increasing rapidly; for during the year in which Rural Lodge was formed the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts issued fourteen Charters, eight of them on June 8 of that year, the remainder at different periods, three being in the State of Maine and one at Demerara in British Guiana. There had been no Charters granted for two years previously, and at the March meeting of the Grand Lodge in 1801 it was voted that no Charter should be granted to any Lodge until the same had been considered by an appropriate committee. That committee apparently did their work expeditiously, for on the 8th of June following eight charters were granted.

But the correspondence, the petitions, the discussions, the minutes and statements of what caused the delays and differences would be interesting reading, and would let a side light into the lives and character of those men that would be interesting if not instructive. Suffice it that Masonry was in a most prosperous and flourishing condition at that time. The causes of it have been the subject of conjecture, but so far as I know have never been analyzed historically, and it is left for us to infer that the reasons for the rapid growth were various. The soldiers of the Revolution returning to their homes and the walks of peace, having either enjoyed or seen the benefits of Masonic life in the Army Lodges during the war, were largely instrumental in forming new Lodges. Then, too, in Massachusetts the old differences that had existed between those Lodges owing allegiance to the Grand Lodge of Scotland and those to the Grand Lodge of England, of which the Lodge of St. Andrew, chartered in 1756, was of the former and the St. John's Lodge, chartered in 1733, was of the latter kind, had united in 1792, leaving but one Grand Lodge still having jurisdiction over all North America, except those portions in which Grand Lodges had been created.

Then, too, the interest shown in.and expressions of sympathy and wishes for the prosperity of the Masonic Fraternity published in letters written by Washington soon after he laid down the robes of public office in 1796, coupled with the universal expressions of grief and sorrow and Masonic demonstrations immediately after his death in 1799 —- all no doubt had contributed to the prevalence of the strong, friendly Masonic feeling in the country; and among the numerous Lodges thus resulting, at the beginning of the last century, is found your own.

Beginning in Randolph (as your historian has said, accidentally spelled in our Grand Lodge records "Rehoboth") it soon found itself removed to Quincy, where under the administration of Isaiah Thomas, Grand Master, on the 19th of September, 1804, it being a Wednesday, your Lodge met in this old meeting-house, was constituted, and an installation of its officers took place. An account of this Communication appears on the records of our Grand Lodge, but a fuller account I have seen in a newspaper published soon after, and it is interesting to learn that after the ceremonies there walked in the procession and graced the occasion at the banquet the late President of the United States, John Adams, and his son, then a United States Senator, John Quincy Adams. The Grand Master of New Hampshire was also present, while Past Grand Masters of Massachusetts Josiah Bartlett, and that noble patriot Paul Revere, took part in the proceedings. The toasts, beginning with the "Masonic Institution " following with the "Clergy " were all appropriately presented; but the one exciting the most notice apparently, as it referred so delicately with veneration and regard for our immortal patron, and which was received with enthusiasm, was the toast to the town of Quincy: "May the laurel of Mt. Vernon long continue to bloom on the brow of Mt. Wollaston;" and we know how that hope was realized, as soon after the presidential chair of Washington and John Adams was filled by the then United States Senator present at this gathering.

Appropriately to the mention of Mt. Vernon is the precious relic which has accompanied the Grand Officers here on this day and occasion. This lock of hair taken from the head of the immortal Washington, incased in this golden urn, fashioned by the hands of Paul Revere and by him suitably inscribed, the whole surmounting the mahogany inlaid casket also from his hands, was esteemed and revered by the Masons of that day as it was by the patriots of the country, as one shining through a light such as is given by painters to the pictures of the transfiguration, an object before which the most worthy might bend the knee and to which they might look as an inspiration for direction and aid: the effulgence of this light shining about that venerable head has come to us through generations undimmed and undiminished; before it we bow and to it we pay homage; when that light shall fail and shall cease to exist in the minds of Masons and patriots, when those feelings of veneration and respect for it that were held by our fathers shall no longer be held sacred, then our Institution, our own and constitutional government, shall perish from the earth. His name has come to us unblemished, because Nature kindly decreed that posterity should not by chance couple his name with dishonor, and "Heaven left him childless that all the Nation might call him Father."

A most interesting and extended address might be made on the relations of the American patriot to the American Mason, beginning with the time of the Stamp Act and the destruction of the Gaspee in Narragansett Bay, through the Revolutionary War to the time of the formation of our Government.

The Lodge of St. Andrew room, where the Massachusetts Grand Lodge met at one time, in the old Green Dragon Tavern, a property still owned by the Lodge of St. Andrew in Boston, was regarded by the British as the nest of sedition, for within its walls were concocted many of the schemes of strategy employed by the patriots at the time the British troops were occupying Boston, and while the strained and troublesome relations between the Colonies and the mother country were fomenting. It was from that Lodge-room the patriots disguised as Indians rushed up what is now Washington Street, giving the imitation war-whoop at the door of the Old South Church, where Sam Adams and others were addressing the populace, and made their way to Griffin's Wharf and. threw the hated tea into the tide.

The Committee of Public Safety, consisting of four Masons, two of whom, Paul Revere and Joseph Warren, were Grand Masters, were, the ones to whom only should be disclosed by patriots the movements of the enemy, etc. One of that committee, John Hancock, gave his fortune, and Joseph Warren his life to the cause of American liberty, and the breastworks over which Warren fell at Bunker Hill were laid out by Col. Richard Gridley, an engineer, who was a Deputy Grand Master of Masons. Paul Revere before taking his famous ride, took into his confidence John Pulling, of Marblehead, a member of the Lodge of that place. Although the Mason has ever been and ever will be a loyal subject, and will not be concerned in plots or conspiracies against Government; the same principles that may make him tenacious of right and justice, compelled those people to resist aggression, taxation without representation; and any attempt: to deprive them of constitutional rights against all of which their independent thoughts and characters revolted. Hours might be devoted to thus showing the relation of the patriot to the Mason, not only before and during the Revolutionary war but afterwards in the formation of our Government.

The great impetus given to Masonry after the adoption of the Constitution, which was at its, height one hundred years ago, found itself strengthening year by year until about the year 1826 when the so-called anti-Masonic excitement took place. That craze was purely political.

Following the adoption of the Constitution, political parties saw in their opponents only extreme dangers to the Republic. The followers of Adams and Jay feared the advanced views of Jefferson's followers, and saw in them only the excesses of the French Revolution; while in their turn the party of Jefferson readily traced the tendency of the Adams party to a supremacy not unlike that which their fathers had just overthrown. Each feared the other, and suspicion aroused their fears to a fever heat. The peaceful administration of different political parties had demonstrated. that no great danger was to be feared from the opposition, but the spirit of political controversy and the restlessness that exists among political parties found itself necessary to be recognized in some form.

This great organization, that had been so active and successful during and after the War of the Revolution, had excited suspicion by its popularity, and by the ignorant and envious was regarded as a menace to our institutions.

The disappearance of one William Morgan in 1826, near Niagara, divided his community into a small political disturbance. DeWitt Clinton was then Governor of New York and a Grand Master of Masons. Thurlow Weed was his political enemy, and immediately began so bitter an attack upon him and upon Masonry that it spread through New York, and finally became national. Morgan was known as a dissolute and disreputable character, and was under arrest when last seen as he was conveyed across Niagara River; Major Ben Perley Poore, so many years Washington correspondent of the Boston Journal, declared he saw him alive in Smyrna, Turkey, in 1839. Governor Clinton did everything in his power to assist in ferreting out and punishing wrong-doers charged with the abduction; there never was any legal evidence to maintain the prosecution against his abductors, and there was no evidence of his death; in fact the body found floating in the Niagara river and claimed as Morgan's was identified by the widow and son of one Monroe as his body. This latter event gave the opportunity to Thurlow Weed to make the historical remark: "It is a good enough Morgan until after election." Notwithstanding the absurdity of the facts charged, the political controversy grew in intensity until the anti-Masonic party in 1832 nominated William Wirt for President against Andrew Jackson, Past Grand Master of Tennessee, and Henry Clay, Past Grand Master of Kentucky. Jackson being elected, Wirt receiving only the electoral vote of the State of Vermont, political anti-Masonry saw its death-blow.

This, with the famous Declaration of over six thousand Masons in New, England, published Dec. 31, 1831, sounded the death-knell of the anti-Masonic crusade. No political contest in the North ever approached it in intensity and bitterness. No society, civil, military or religious, escaped its influence; no relation of family or friends was a barrier to it; no retreat was so sacred it did not enter; teachers and pastors were driven from their stations; children of Masons were driven from schools and members from their churches; families were divided; legislatures passed laws endeavoring to take away chartered rights and preventing meetings of the organization; investigations were set on foot which needed only the rack to place them on a par with the Spanish Inquisition. In Massachusetts the Grand Lodge surrendered its Act of Incorporation to the Legislature and proceeded to hold its property by trustees rather than engage in a controversy on the subject.

In one sense the anti-Masonic crusade was a blessing in disguise to the Institution. With its decline the best work of the Craft revived. The Craft had been purified by the withdrawal of time-servers, the over-timid, and those who had become members to subserve their own interests. Those remaining being men of the highest character and strongest wills, were as positive in their notions of keeping the Institution unsullied as they were in maintaining its principles; thus starting anew with such men, we can understand how the high character of Masonry has been kept to its present standard. Their ideas as to who should become members being transmitted from generation to generation, the present high standard has thus been fixed and maintained.

As Masonry has prospered during the past fifty and one hundred years, so has our civilization gone hand in hand with it. During the nineteenth century the world has witnessed the greatest development of modern history. While the greatest and grandest of developments have been made in commercial, industrial and scientific life, the principles of civil and religious liberty, of which Masonry forms so great a part, have been developed under the most favorable conditions. While the genius of our country's development has been demonstrated by its material growth, it has advanced in immortal principles, in great and sublime truths, in deep religious feeling, in the advancement and development of education, and in the higher ideals of mutual respect and regard, an advancement that has been made by its men of sterling worth and strength of character, by the enunciation of principles and the practice of precepts of morality, brotherly love, temperance, virtue, justice, truth;—our own cardinal virtues and the first principles of the true Mason.

To Rural Lodge, its Brethren and friends the Grand Lodge brings its warmest encomiums, it wishes for you a brilliant and prosperous future, and it will take to its records at the Grand Lodge in Boston a pleasing account of this day's doings, coupled with its congratulations on so successful and auspicious an event.

CENTENNIAL OF AURORA LODGE, JUNE 1901

From Proceedings, Page 1901-62:

WORSHIPFUL MASTER AND BRETHREN: On June 8, 1801, the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts chartered eight Lodges, — its jurisdiction, then extending over a considerable portion of North America. During the same year the Grand Lodge chartered fourteen Lodges in various parts of its jurisdiction. Of the eight Lodges chartered June 8, almost all are now in existence; among them Amity Lodge, of Camden, and Eastern Lodge, of Eastport, in Maine; Fraternal, of Barnstable, Pacific of Amherst, Mount Lebanon, of Boston, Rural, of Quincy, and others, with your own Aurora Lodge, of Fitchburg, are still in existence, working with the ancient emblems and inculcating immortal precepts. Yesterday we attended the Centennial celebration of Rural Lodge, at Quincy, and this evening we propose to attend the Centennial of Mount Lebanon Lodge, in Boston. In this way, you see, the Officers of the Grand Lodge are compelled to exemplify the principles of expansion, even without imperial attributes; three, centennials in twenty four hours, and three or four more during the month, if they all hold to their intentions, must be the excuse that, the Grand Officers give if they are obliged to limit their stay, and be deprived of the joys and pleasures of your later festivities.

The organization and charter of your Lodge in 1801 would be veiled in obscurity, so far as the records of the Grand Lodge are concerned, were it not that by good fortune, on the evening before the fire that destroyed all of the Grand Lodge property in the Winthrop House Temple, the Grand Secretary had taken to his home the record books which contained an account of the various organizations named. These, with a few relics in the safe, were all that were rescued from that disaster; all correspondence, petitions, letters, jewels and regalia being destroyed.

The fire starting under the stairway leading to the Masonic apartments, the upper floors were shut off from communication from the very first, and everything owned by the Grand Lodge, except what I have named, was lost. Thus a great deal among the records of the Grand Lodge relating to Aurora Lodge, in its formation and during the earlier years of its existence, has passed into oblivion, and all that we have, outside of the record of the issuing of your charter, is a clipping pasted in one of the books of our library, at the time of the fire, in private hands, describing the celebration of the Feast of St. John by your Lodge in 1828. But your name and deeds have lived and will continue to live, shedding ever a new light like the dawn that you hail in your name, on the principles and practices of our Order.

The relics in the safe and thus saved at that fire were not many; but there was one to which on entering your Lodge room I referred and which we have thought appropriate to bring with us, because it was presented to the Grand Lodge through the Grand Master who signed your charter. I speak of the lock of hair of George Washington contained in this urn.

Always appropriate at any Masonic gathering, it would be less appropriate at the centennial of a Lodge chartered before or after Samuel Dunn was Grand Master. Yesterday marked its first presence at any centennial so far as I can learn. It is with you to-day at the Centennial Celebration of Aurora Lodge, and will be borne in honored procession at the Centennial Celebration of Mount Lebanon Lodge this evening. At each installation of a Grand Master it is presented, with solemn injunction as to its custody, with words as appropriate and a charge as sacred as that with which the Grand Master is invested with the insignia of his office. A sacred obligation is placed upon each Grand Master to keep and transmit it to his successor in office. The venerable head from which this lock of hair was taken is enshrined with a glory that has shone through the generations that have passed since his time, and comes to us in memory undimmed in its lustre, and is to all who look to him and call him patriot, and to us who look to him and call him Brother, a beacon that has been as "a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night;" a light that has guided us as Masons to all Truth, and will continue to guide us and our children's children in the steps of happiness. May it never fail! When that light fails, when there shall cease to be reverence, regard and respect for that glorious effulgence, then will crumble the foundations of our government and our beloved Institution, and all we hold dear in Masonry and liberty will perish from the face of the earth. Long may this relic be spared to us as a visible token of a great and noble memory on which we can look and toward which we can bow.

Posterity had no opportunity to place a blemish on the name of that immortal patriot; and "Heaven left him childless that all the Nation might call him Father."

Your Lodge has existed for one hundred years with an unbroken record. The spirit of the immortal Washington animated the Brethren during the formation period, and never more than in the dark and perilous times of the anti-Masonic movement, when it required strength of character and purpose for a man to announce himself a Mason; when it required strength of body with courage and determination, to retain inviolate your Charter, to hold meetings by night and in secret, and keep your chain of years unbroken, until we and you meet to-day, large in numbers and strong in organization, enjoying the respect and esteem of the community, to celebrate the Centennial of your Lodge's organization. The fanaticism of the anti-Masonic movement purged Masonry, weeded.out the weak and cowardly, and left in it the strong, the vigorous, the men of convictions and strong beliefs; and these men reestablished and renewed Masonry so that it has come down to us to-day strong and healthy, imbued with virile life, hopeful and confident for the future.

Reference has been aptly made to the presence of Masonic rites in the ancient Egyptian civilization. The question is naturally asked, Why have they been lost? Because of the difference in application between the ancient Egyptian and the modern Mason. Arts and sciences, skill of various kinds, mysteries and high thoughts were in those days confined to the Pharoahs, to wise men, to royalty and to the favored few. The great body of the people, the subject-class, had naught to do with anything above the hand-labor of the servile bondman. The mysteries of Freemasonry and her emblems found at the base of the obelisk were monumental inscriptions that died when the rulers and dynasties perished. In modern times with the diffusion of knowledge and the spread of Masonry among all classes and peoples and not limited to the favored few, their universality and extent is so assured throughout the world that they "can never, never, never die."

The problem met and faced in the past one hundred years has been one of development, and it has been a century of progress and advancement, as your Worshipful Master has said. But this advancement has not been made in the world in countries which have proscribed Freemasonry. The Latin nations under a bigotry and intolerance ruling over ignorance have ever been the enemies of the organization we profess; the Northern nations of Europe that have known liberty and our own that is the synonym of freedom for both conscience and body, have ever fostered Freemasonry and it has gone hand in hand with civilization and development; here the free school, the free church, the town meeting and representative government have grown with the needs of the people, and have advanced side by side with Freemasonry and its principles ; so long as there is free and intelligent civil government, so long Freemasonry will stand; and so long as Masonry uplifts and upholds the true development of the hand and heart of mankind, so long will good government, progress and advancement in civilization continue.

Let us practise the tenets of our profession; let us bear in mind that our great and whole duty, our moral and religious duty and our duty to our country forming a part, is to see that there is a development of high character and strong moral conviction, and that the application of it to life shall be of the highest capable in man. Let our Institution develop men of strong faith and high endeavor; men ready to do and dare in the great march of civilization; men who, possessing influence, shall use it to shape aright our destinies in public life, and in private duty shall be examples of what is noble and true.

We extend our warmest congratulations to you on having achieved the success you have shown, and we shall bear to our records at the Temple in Boston our appreciation of the good you have done and are doing in our common noble cause.

CENTENNIAL OF MOUNT LEBANON LODGE, JUNE 1901

From Proceedings, Page 1901-73:

W. MASTER, LADIES AND BRETHREN: The "great awakening" in Masonic interest that was taking place one hundred and more years ago, consequent largely upon the return of Revolutionary soldiers to their homes who had seen, if not themselves enjoyed, the benefits of the Masonic Institution during active service, found its expression in this vicinity during the year 1801 in the organization by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts of fourteen Lodges: three in the State of Maine, one at Demerara in the Spanish Main, and the remainder in Massachusetts. Among the latter was the organization of that noble little body of men, who, recognizing the sturdiness of the cedar that grew on the scriptural mountain, took to themselves the name which you still bear, and as a part of the "great awakening" of their time we are to celebrate the centennial of their doing.

The manifest interest in Masonry, and the zeal for its advancement have been ably seconded and supported through the century past; the same spirit of generous emulation, the desire to excel, and above all to place your good old Lodge on the highest plane of success in all undertakings, has found a similar expression in your action this clay, developing as it has one of the most brilliant, successful, and enjoyable anniversary occasions that it has been, the lot of the representatives of the Grand Lodge to witness. It is delightfully pleasant always to enjoy the centennial ceremonies of any organized body, but when is shown a keen interest, a thorough preparation and organization such as you present this night in the elaborate program that is before me, the heart of the guest should indeed be full, and his expressions of gratitude co-equal to the occasion.

You have indeed a noble heritage, and you have nobly achieved the work committed to you in commemoration of your founders. They were worthy men of a worthy town, enlisted in a worthy cause, in behalf of a worthy Institution. They had all witnessed and many of them taken part in the development of a colony into a nation. They had seen their beloved town of Boston dwindle to five thousand inhabitants after the siege and rise again to five times that number. They had known either personally or intimately of the actions of the great Washington, their and our patron, and in addition to other causes, they were no doubt largely influenced by the generous words of commendation and hoped for success which he expressed in his letters to various jurisdictions, after laying down the robes of office as President, when he wished success to the Masonic Institution which he so dearly loved.

It was during the administration of Samuel Dunn, whose name appears upon your charter as Grand Master, that he received for the Grand Lodge from the hands of Martha, the widow of George Washington, a lock of his hair, which was placed in a golden urn fashioned by the hand of Paul Revere and by him suitably inscribed, the whole being kept in a mahogany casket, likewise the handiwork of Paul Revere. This sacred relic is at each installation transmitted from Grand Master to Grand Master with appropriate ceremonies and most solemn injunction as to its. care and custody. Appropriately to the time, for it would hardly be appropriate at any other year, I make the connecting link between the hand that is on your charter and the hand that received this precious trust, by bringing with me and presenting to your view to-night this graceful relic from that saintly head. Its memory is an inspiration to us as its form was to our fathers. Our homage goes out toward it, and when it shall cease to have our reverence the Institution we represent and all its principles will fail. Worthy and beloved of all Masons, all men and all people, Nature kindly provided that posterity should not sully his name, and "Heaven left him childless that all the nation might call him Father."

What miracles of change time has wrought in the past century. When your Lodge was formed this little city with its handful of a few thousand inhabitants, every man knowing every other man, the entire town almost self-observant from one end to the other, was almost without industries, had but little commerce, and was limited in almost every form of modern institution except churches, and absolutely unprovided with many things now regarded by us as necessities. The fifty-miles' radius from the State House was sparsely settled and the communities were pastoral and agricultural. Beyond the fifty-miles' radius there was little in common with the inhabitants of this section. To-day, within that fifty-miles' radius one-thirtieth of the population of the entire United-States resid.es. It contains one-twentieth of the wealth of the whole country, and one-fifth of the savings of the American people is to be found in Massachusetts Savings Banks.

Within the radius referred to more than two million people reside, a greater number than within the same radius of any of the great cities of the United States, excepting New York. The valuation of real and personal property owned by these people is more than $2,600,000,000, unfound in the same fifty miles' radius of any great city except New York. The same is true of the business transacted by the Clearing House of the Boston Banks.

We are apt to think of Philadelphia and Chicago as beyond and above Boston in all things, but here we have a striking object lesson of the marvellous growth and development of a people whose aim in life being guided by strict integrity and industrious application, has surpassed them both in material things; and while we are second to New York in all that I have named, in the total railway mileage within the fifty-miles' radius, for steam and street railway facilities, we have 2,894 miles against 2,606 miles for the same distance about New York city. All this wonderful development and growth have come from the fertile brain, the industrious hand, the high integrity and business standing of its commercial people. With a soil arid and rockbound, yielding little in agricultural products and no valuable minerals, our people have developed and fostered industries with the magnificent record I have stated, until our city stands as the great centre of New England, proud in the achievements of the past and hopeful with great promise for the future.

Among the men who formed a part of this great development, prominent and active in the history of our city and State, were men of your Lodge. They were men of sterling worth and character. They passed through the ordeal of fire in anti-Masonic times, and a sufficient number had sufficiently 'the courage of their convictions to maintain their loyalty to the principles of our Institution, so that when that political craze had passed, they were able to renew with fidelity and zeal their devotion to the ancient landmarks which they had never abandoned. All honor to them and their associates. May their names ever remain with you, a roll of honor for the distinguished services they performed. Cherish their memory and emulate their example, so that in the hour of need we may be made strong in our might to maintain the principles of right and justice and all we hold dear.

The great material prosperity to which I have alluded has of course carried with it the advancement of great principles, immortal truths, and the development and advancement of education and religion. Hand in hand with this development have gone the principles and precepts dear to us and taught by our fathers as they will be by our sons, principles and precepts which everywhere mark the cardinal virtues of the true Mason. One hundred years ago the first cotton mill was running with 250 spindles. Whitney invented the cotton gin, and one mill has extended to a thousand, and 250 spindles have become eighteen million. The first wool carding machine was in operation under American invention not three years beyond the past century. One hundred years after there are 2,500 wool manufacturers in the United States.

All the development in all branches of machinery, of manufacture, of metals, of glass industries, of furnace and mill products, of railway and electrical appliances, the handling of great supplies for domestic life and agriculture, the extension of commerce on the seas, the greatest development in these and other lines has been done in this our country during the past one hundred years. Not only in the arts and sciences and material prosperity, but in human thought and development, old prejudices have been eradicated, and this past century of civilization and humanity has closed with a complete emancipation and freedom for human thought. The problem for us is the century that we approach.

The divine attribute of the Mason is Truth. Our civilization having become fixed and no longer experimental, the duty of the future is to develop what we have achieved and apply it in the most honest and useful method for the further advancement of civilization, to the end that the next Centennial Anniversary of your Lodge will close what may be termed a Truth-seeking century. It will be the duty of the Brethren of the Craft to see that in our future progress, neither dishonesty nor fraud shall enter into the work of the hand or the expression of the mouth; that in the mart, the workshop and in the government; in science, literature and art; in the professions, and on land and sea, the methods employed shall be those of Honesty and Truth. The equitable adjustment that must take place in the relations of capital, labor, trades, occupations, markets and commercial highways must be borne out by thinking men governed by the most honest intentions. In the development of these great problems the principles of our Institution cannot fail to be a potent influence in stimulating the minds and characters of men in every station of life; and by the application of the great principles of Truth, the next century will close with a country no longer torn by differences or dissensions, but all will be "united" in one common purpose, with unselfish devotion to the public weal.

Not only in our own country, but in dealing with the world, the principles of reciprocity and mutual international assistance throughout the civilized world must be perfected and developed by the humanitarian influences of the English-speaking people ; and as they have encouraged civil and religious liberty, representative and constitutional government, free public schools, freedom of thought, and all that has been an encouragement to education, commerce, industry and the arts, so they have ever fostered and developed the Institution of Freemasonry and its principles, justly and properly to be regarded as the handmaiden of the highest and best civilization.

We point with pride to England, saved from the Spanish Armada, and Holland withstanding the atrocities of Alva and Philip, as being saved to civilization to foster and develop all we hold dear, and all that is great, noble and grand in the civilization and development of our race. May the light saved by them and transmitted to us continue to burn as a beacon that shall guide other less favored nations to Truth as part of the great plan of the. coming century. May this development go hand in hand with Masonry so that its influence may extend to all parts of the earth, demonstrating its universality, and that its precepts shall be equally extensive.

May we not say then with the great orator of the Landing of the Pilgrims:

"Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail.you, as you rise in your long succession to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our own human duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the Fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred and parents and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth!"

AT HALL DEDICATION FOR GEORGE H. TABER LODGE, JUNE 1901

From Proceedings, Page 1901-109:

WORSHIPFUL MASTER AND BRETHREN: Ordinarily one of the most pleasing of the ceremonials which the Grand Officers are called upon to perform is that of the dedication of a new Lodge-room. It is pleasant and agreeable because it evidences a growth in interest among the Brethren and evinces a prosperity that is always a cause for congratulation. If this is true ordinarily, how much more so is it. in a case like the present, where we. are called upon to join with you in the dedication of halls and apartments devoted to Masonic purposes, in a building presented to you as a gift by one of your own townsmen and Brethren, at a cost, as I am told, of at least $50,000; and to perform it for a Lodge now named for so eminent and distinguished a Mason and beloved Brother as Right Worshipful George H. Taber; that good Brother for whom you have changed the name of your Lodge as a fitting monument to him during his lifetime.

This is the first change of a Lodge name, so far as known to us, in Massachusetts or New England. (Note: there are at least two other examples of which the Grand Master was not aware.) In fact, for the first time since my connection or acquaintance with the Grand Lodge, our Recording Grand Secretary, Brother Nickerson, appeared to be embarrassed; because he had to create a precedent in the form of endorsement to be made on your charter in changing the name from Concordia, the name he gave it as Grand Master. But the change and endorsement have been completed in all respects to the satisfaction of Brother Gillingham and myself as lawyers, having in effect all that the Grand Lodge had voted should be done under the attestation of the Grand Secretary; and in addition, apparently to make it entirely secure, Brother Nickerson required the Grand Master, the Deputy Grand Master and the two Grand Wardens also to sign the authorization.

I doubt if such a combination of circumstances as we meet to-day has ever existed in Masonic annals, and I doubt if any of us present will ever live to see it repeated. A Brother, Henry H. Rogers, a native of this town of Fairhaven, presenting a magnificent building to a Masonic Lodge named for a Brother now in his 93d year, the name of the Lodge being changed in his honor, and all being dedicated by the Grand Lodge, is a combination of events that not only calls for the warmest expressions of congratulation on the part of you as Brethren, but on the part of the Grand Officers who witness and perform the ceremony and take back to its Temple in Boston a record of the event. The causes of these congratulations have been a joy to us all in anticipation during the weeks that have passed. They have been spoken of in public and private with delight, have been referred to in our Communications with pleasure, and we have come here with hearts overflowing with gratitude and praise for those who have been not only donors to your Lodge and your town, but have thus become benefactors to our Grand Lodge and to Freemasonry in general.

Although the changing of the name of your Lodge was without precedent, a knowledge of the circumstances was sufficient, notwithstanding the usual prevalence of conservatism in our Grand Lodge, for the vote to be unanimous in favor of the change.

The fame of Brother Rogers as a benefactor had preceded him, and his name was coupled instinctively with that of Right Worshipful Brother Taber, who was remembered at our June Grand Lodge meeting, when the vote was taken, as the good Brother in his 93d year, who was escorted from the Grand Lodge at its March meeting. After the announcement was made by the Grand Master that Brother Taber was in his 93d year, that he had performed distinguished Masonic services, that he had never been ill, ashore or afloat, twenty-four hours in his life, that he never had expended five dollars in his life for doctor's services on account of sickness; as he walked out of the Grand Lodge he was accompanied by a burst of harmony from the organ pealing forth the music of "Auld Lang Syne," in which the entire gathering of Brethren joined in song. There could be but one response when the proposition came to change from even so sweet a name as that of "Concordia" to that of our present venerable Brother. When the Grand Lodge was called upon to act, its action was unanimous. And as he parted from us with the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" ringing in his ears, so we come back, from the Grand Lodge to this your Lodge named for him, bringing with us the same refrain and again repeating to him the beautiful sentiment "Should auld acquaintance be forgot?"

While it is your good fortune to be the recipient of such bounty as has come from Brother Rogers, the Grand Lodge - feels itself proud also to claim a part of the benefit that comes to it for the good that it is to Masonry. It desires to express its appreciation that the Almighty has placed it in the heart of our good Brother in his benefactions to have considered our Institution, from which are to be derived in this and every community the higher and nobler sentiments of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth. We are proud not only that you as one of our children have received this benefit, but we feel still stronger the association and alliance with what is near and dear to him. We feel that warm touch of kinship by which he has allied us with his family; for in thus memorializing our Brother Taber one of his family, in the giving of this Masonic building to his name, he has placed Masonry in a class more closely to his heart than we could have ever presumed to place ourselves; and it is with pride without presumption that we claim a parallel with those noble gifts that he has already given to the town: the Millicent Library in memory of his daughter, the Town Hall a memorial to his wife, and here, as a memorial to another member of his family, this magnificent Masonic building. The gift in itself were sufficient, but to come with this spirit and with this alliance, will be ever to us a noble and glorious remembrance.

The name of Brother Rogers and that of Brother Taber would never have perished from the minds of those of us who know them, but their names now being placed imperishably in this monument, will not only never be forgotten by those of us here, but can never be forgotten so long as Masonry and the Grand Lodge exist. It is a monument to both of them, to the highest, noblest and best qualities that animate the heart of man on the one hand, and to the memory of an earnest, generous and beloved Brother on the other.

In attempting to pay a proper tribute to the work of the one and standing of the other, I find myself almost void of proper expression. The English language is too poor in adjectives to fittingly describe the gift and the occasion for it. In attempting to do so, I am confronted with the same feelings that arise in the presence of great emotions, either of, extreme joy or sorrow. "I sometimes think it half a sin to try to put in words the grief one feels" at the loss of a friend or at the happiness in the success of another. It is a time for quiet, peaceful meditation, with each one enjoying within himself the conscious satisfaction that comes from looking upon the faces of those who have been benefactors to their kind either with the heart or with the hand; and so I leave it to you, Brethren, to draw an inspiration from this day and from this happy combination of events, from the character of these men who have been your and our benefactors. As you continue your ceremonials and work in this beautiful building, in this Lodge-room so completely fitted and furnished, remember that it is all for the purpose of advancing humanity and human kind along the lines of noble deeds that shall develop high character; remember that the Institution of Masonry has a mission to do good in the world by making men better, nobler, stronger ; let this day and occasion be another stimulant to good acts and kind deeds; to the end that Masonry shall advance with progress, enlightenment, and the best and highest type of civilization.

Finally, my Brethren, with all your blessings and happiness, the Grand Lodge brings you its congratulations. May your Lodge flourish, may your union strengthen, may your members prosper, and may happiness abound; and when we, with our Brothers whose day we have come to celebrate, shall be called to our last reward, may each of us receive the word: "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord."

CENTENNIAL OF FRATERNAL LODGE, JUNE 1901

From Proceedings, Page 1901-73:

W. MASTER, LADIES AND BRETHREN: At the second centennial of the founding of the town of Barnstable, the distinguished orator of the occasion referred to the noble band that, settling on these sterile shores, laid the corner-stone of a Nation at Plymouth. He said: "I see the mountains of New England rising from their rocky thrones. They rush forward into the ocean, settling down as they advance, and there they range themselves, a mighty bulwark around the heaven-directed vessel. Yes, the everlasting God himself stretches out the arm of his mercy and his power in substantial manifestation, and gathers the meek company of his. worshippers as in the hollow of his hand." Appropriately adjusting this scholarly "and concise description of the landing of the Pilgrims, may we not in a figurative sense connect it by simile with the noble little body of men who founded Fraternal Lodge during that memorable year 1801, when our Grand Lodge chartered fourteen Lodges, — three in Maine, one on the Spanish Main at Demarara, and the remainder in Massachusetts?

What a great misfortune it is that the history of the Lodges formed one hundred years ago, with the causes that led to their formation, the petitions, correspondence, remonstrances, papers, and the general discussion which must have, taken place in each case, have been lost. Although they were destroyed in that unfortunate fire of April 5, 1864, when the old Masonic rooms over the Winthrop House with their entire contents were a prey to the flames, fortunately the record books of the Grand Lodge were at the home of Charles W. Moore, then Grand Secretary, and so were saved. But excepting the contents of a safe, everything else in the building, many things that would be interesting to us to-day in connection with this centennial, were wiped out in a night. It would indeed be interesting reading if we could have the variety of expressions of opinion that must have arisen concerning the organization of a list of Lodges so scattered as were the following:

Amity, Camden, Maine, March 10; Mount Lebanon, Boston, Mass., June 8; Forefathers Rock, Plymouth, Mass., June 8; Fraternal, Barnstable, Mass., June 8; Pacific, Sunderland, Mass., June 8; Aurora, Leominster, Mass., June 8; Eastern Lodge, Eastport, Maine, June 8; St. John's, Demarara, B. Guaina, June 8; Rural, Randolph, Mass., June 8; Sincerity, Partridgefield, Mass., Sept. 14; Sumner, Dennis, Mass., Sept. 15; United, Topsham, Maine, Dec. 14; Corner Stone, Duxbury, Mass., Dec. 14; Constellation, Dedham, Mass., Dec. 15, all in 1801.

Representing as they do every section of our State, and extending from the wilds of Maine into the tropics, their original papers might shed light on the action of the Grand Lodge this same year 1801, in refusing to grant any more charters to Lodges until a Committee had been appointed and favorable report being had thereon; also why charters were held up until eight were granted on the clay the founders of your Lodge received this venerable document under which you now work. All such questions must now be settled by the conjecture of the ingenious, for the evidence has been consigned to oblivion.

You have indeed kept your charter in a good state of preservation. Bearing as it does the signature of Samuel Dunn, it carries our minds back to the important event of his administration, to which we now appropriately refer, as it will be less appropriate after the present year with any centennial association; and that is the receiving by him as Grand Master from the hands of Martha Washington, the widow of our great patron and immortal Brother George Washington, a lock of his hair, which the Grand Officers have brought with them on this occasion, and which I now present to your view enclosed in this golden urn fashioned by the hand of Paul Revere, and by him suitably inscribed, the whole encased in the mahogany casket which accompanies it.

It is appropriate indeed to hold in one hand your charter, bearing the signature of Samuel Dunn, and in the other this precious, relic that was delivered to him from the hands of that noble matron. As this charter is transmitted from Master to Master of your Lodge with appropriate ceremonials and ritualistic direction, so each succeeding Grand Master receives from his predecessor this precious relic as a sacred trust, with injunction as solemn as that with which he receives the Emblems of the power and authority under which he performs his work. And so through successive generations it has come to the present Grand Master, who, holding it under this solemn obligation, feels that he can execute that trust no better than at occasional feasts and celebrations of great importance like this of yours, when the time is auspicious and appropriate, to present and display this relic that it may be an inspiration to those present as recalling the memory, of that great man whose person and presence were an inspiration to our fathers.

May we ever continue to reverence his name and all that we have of him that is mortal. As he and his name were the beacon which guided our fathers as "a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night," so may the contents of this urn ever be a reminder of the watchword of duty which shall ever be upon our lips, evincing a devotion to the cause of Masonry, its principles and precepts, that shall reflect credit on the great and good name of him whom we immortalize as one of our patron saints. When Masonry shall cease to regard him and all he was, when the people of this country shall forget what he. stood, for, then indeed the light of liberty and freedom will have failed, and all that has been fought for will have been in vain. Happy indeed is the nation or people that can have so grand an ideal exemplified in one man, and happy indeed is an Institution that can have in one man so constant a reminder of so many virtues.

Our good friend who has so courteously and gracefully welcomed the Grand Lodge and its officers, who, by reason of his profession I am pleased to denominate not only as a Brother in Freemasonry, but also a brother in law, has expressed the great obligation which your Lodge feels for our presence. Let me reverse the shield. The obligation of thanks is on the part of the Grand Officers that they have been received by such a numerous and brilliant gathering of your members and friends; that they have been so hospitably entertained from the moment of their arrival to the present time. And, if prevailing threats are to be believed, the hours that are to come will find a continuance of your good-fellowship and feeling,. No! the obligation is on our part, and we are sorry to add with it our regrets that we cannot all remain and enjoy the festivities which are to reach their climax, as we understand, during the evening.

For all this kindness we express our sincere thanks. We are proud indeed of r your old Lodge and your present membership. Proud indeed of the men who have carried your charter through all these years, and, keeping it unstained and unspotted, now present it to the Grand Lodge for inspection after one hundred years. We return it to your custody, and hope, with the years that shall come, this rural community, wherein the strength of nations is found, shall, by the fraternal spirit which your name and organization display, be a potent factor in working out the great problems that shall present themselves during the coming century, with that spirit of brotherly love and fraternal feeling, that should actuate the dealings of all Christian and civilized men.

It is not my purpose to elaborate further, though a multitude of ideas naturally arise in the thought of what has occurred in Masonry and in our civilization in the past one hundred years. It is a noble history in both regards. But I am here in my official capacity only to express the appreciation of your good work, and carry back to our Temple in Boston a record of what you have done and are doing in the making of history. Placed between our W. Brother Chase, the historian of the past, and our good Brother Horton, the Reverend Grand Chaplain, who is to speak for the future, I thus find myself figuratively, in the matter of speaking, between the upper and under crust of the uplifting pastry of this feast. It Would be inappropriate for me to detract from the interest their presentations will inspire, or to divide my time with the space that is allotted to them in your program.

With such interesting and instructive literary presentations as shall be made to you, there remains nothing for.me to say for entertainment or instruction. I simply give to you in closing an expression of the exceptional appreciation the Grand Lodge feels for your efforts; offer praise, that, you have been so abundantly blessed; forecast the future with a devout hope that you may continue to prosper both as to Lodge and membership, and that happiness and fraternal feeling may ever abound. We will return to our Grand Lodge and there put upon our records an appreciative expression of what you have done in thus placing permanently on the Masonic landscape another landmark among the one hundred milestones of Freemasonry in our good old Commonwealth.

CENTENNIAL OF PACIFIC LODGE, JUNE 1901

From Proceedings, Page 1901-151:

WORSHIPFUL MASTER: What good fortune attends you and the Brethren, that you are able to present on this occasion a parchment so well preserved, with every line distinct and every signature legible? Particularly is this true when we note by the endorsements on it the wanderings of your Lodge and its charter through the towns of Sunderland, Leverett and Amherst, then to Boston, and its final restoration here. It is a satisfaction to have retained a Masonic charter; it is more than that and indeed a gratification, to hold a conserved charter tbat has had such a devious and at the same time so successful a life.

What a disaster to all of us that by the fire of 1864 in Boston the original papers, petitions, correspondence and everything pertaining to the Lodges prior to that time should have been destroyed. I cannot refrain from mentioning the fact at each centennial. If we could have the original petition with something of the correspondence, and even the remonstrances, if there were any opposed to your creation, we might know something of the origin of your name, and more of the individuals who formed the original organization. Certainly they must have been men of peace, and therefore peaceful men, when they selected the name of Pacific.

The Lodge being formed in this patriotic centre had its origin no doubt among Revolutionary soldiers who had seen or partaken of the benefits of Freemasonry in the tented field. To whatever extent this is true, they were indeed men of noble character and sterling worth. They appreciated the great principles of which we are justly proud and which are the cardinal virtues and tenets of our profession. These principles and tenets exist to-day as they existed then, and by a due attention to inculcating and practising these teachings of our Fraternity there can be but one result in the standard of character developed, and that is the highest, noblest and best in the community.

The founders of your Lodge who were past middle life at the time of its charter remembered the days of Louisburg, Crown Point and Ticonderoga; and remembered no doubt the naming of this District in 1759, (not a chartered town until 1776), when the inhabitants took for their name that of their patron and leader the great Amherst, who that year had accomplished results against the French and Indians where Pitt and Wolfe had failed. A grand man was Jeffrey Amherst, both before and after he was knighted at Staten Island in 1761. Having fought under Frederick the Great and acquired a military training, he was called by Pitt to command the Louisburg expedition, that place considered impregnable until captured by provincial New England troops in 1745. It being afterwards restored to France and rebuilt, until it was said by one of the ministers of France that its area had been covered with gold coins, the task devolved upon General Amherst to again reduce it, which he did in 1759; and that stronghold, with the Island of Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island fell into English hands.

Afterwards Ticonderoga and Crown Point surrendered to this military genius, with the result, as the historian Parkman says: *In 1760 half a continent changed hands by the scratch of a pen." No doubt the character and success of the man were the leading motives in the naming of this District for him. But as a bit of local color it maybe added, that after taking Ticonderoga and Crown Point, he opened a road from there to the Connecticut river; an undertaking in those days which certainly must have touched the hearts of the pioneers of .that time, who knew the perils and hardships of the trackless forests, and may have, attracted their attention toward him and thus won for you the historical name your town now bears.

The Grand Lodge is proud indeed to be welcomed by such a body of Masons, in such a town, and in such a centre of education and learning; for besides your own two colleges, you are located in a section where probably there are more higher educational institutions than within any similar radius in the United States or the world. It is a flourishing section and one wherein the successful Mason may feel justly proud to live. With the great antiquity of our Fraternity, with its historical associations, and the part that Masonry has taken in the. development of science and the useful arts, we cannot but feel a bond of sympathy in coming among you in the educational centre to join in this centennial celebration.

Although at the fire of 1864 all the property of the Grand Lodge in the Temple was destroyed except the contents of a safe, the record books were by chance at the home of the Grand Secretary on that disastrous night; in them, we find recorded that in the year 1801 your Lodge was chartered with thirteen others, three in the State of Maine, one in South America at Demarara, aud the remainder in Massachusetts.

In the same book of records, and but a few pages in advance of the record of your charter, there is found the record of a special meeting called by the Grand Lodge to consider whether they would take part with the civic authorities in a memorial service and procession on the death of George Washington. It is unimportant that the Grand Lodge declined to take part with the civil authorities and held their own service of mourning with exercises and procession. But at that meeting a committee, consisting of three Past Grand Masters: Dr.John Warren, a brother of the lamented Joseph Warren who fell at Bunker Hill, Paul Revere and Josiah Bartlett, was appointed to request a lock of hair of the late dead President and provide an urn for its safe keeping. Within a few days thereafter the Grand Lodge, through this committee, received from the hands of Martha Washington, the widow of George Washington, a lock of his hair, which was placed in a golden urn fashioned and suitably inscribed by the hands of Paul Revere, all placed in a velvet-lined mahogany casket, also the work of Paul Revere's hand. This gift of inestimable value was presented to Samuel Dunn as Grand Master, and his name appears upon this parchment which I hold and which you have brought for our inspection.

It is peculiarly appropriate during the centennial year of the Lodges chartered by Samuel Dunn that this sacred relic received by him should be exhibited on so important an occasion as this. I have, therefore, brought it with me, and I now present it to your view, a golden cluster from that blessed head, that shone in the darkness of tribulation through which our fathers passed, "as a light unto their feet and a lamp unto their path." This lock of hair is received by each Grand Master and transmitted by him to his successor under injunction as solemn as that by which he is invested with the insignia of his office. It is appropriate that your charter, so sacred to you, and this trust, so sacred to the Grand Lodge, should be borne aloft together before you as emblems of that inspiration which you draw from both, and of the devotion that you have to what they represent. When your charter fails, the light of your Lodge goes out; when the light from that head shall fail, and the name of Washington shall no longer inspire to deeds of greatness arid courage, and be a shining mark in the civilization of our country, then our country, its principles, its institutions, and all that it fosters and holds dear, shall fail with it. Cherish then these memories, and let them ever be as a beacon star in your lives, transmitting their remembrance to your children's children, as representing the same principles which have come to us through generations as the best guides to intelligence and truth.

Between your two historians, the one to review the past and the other to forecast the future, there is little that I can say that will interest or instruct. But as the problems of the past century have been worked out through great experimental genius in the development of science, the mechanic arts, commerce on the seas, education and learning on the land, and all the developments of metal products and electricity, we cannot at the close of the century fail to express our reverent recognition of God's bounteous goodness that we have been among those who have enjoyed the benefits and fruits thereof.

As these have been developed through honest endeavor although largely by experiment, they have now become fixed and settled as a part of our daily existence; things formerly unknown or classed as luxuries have become the necessaries of life, and all that has been wrought by the hand and brain has become a heritage that remains to be worked out by the men of the coming one hundred years.

In the execution of the great trust thus bequeathed to us, in assuming the responsibility for the use of what we enjoy, in the handling of the great engines of power used in the development of humanity, in the solution of the great questions of transportation, of labor, capital and industrial conditions, the application of principles must be made that shall be on the lines of honesty and fraternity. The development must be along the lines of absolute Truth, and nowhere in the civilized world, and to no institution can the eye look or the finger point for assistance with greater assurance of what is needed for the human race with more distinct advantage than to the Freemason and Masonic principles. This is true not only in our own country but in the progress of the Nations of the earth. Wherever development is to be made, the application must be made on right lines with the principles of immortal Truth. In thus being an active factor, our own Institution will develop and flourish; and may we thus hail the coming century as one in which our country may be prosperous, and advance in higher thought and action; in which the world may become nobler and better, "that all the nations of the earth may be at peace with one another:" then, will the Brethren appreciate the universality of our principles and rejoice in their extensive application. The part performed by Pacific Lodge and its members in the great problem "will be weighed in the balance" and may the historian of your second Centennial be glad that they "have not been found wanting."

CHARTERS GRANTED

• 09/10/1902 Friendship, Wilmington

RULINGS

None.

Grand Masters