Difference between revisions of "GoldenRule"

Latest revision as of 16:59, 12 December 2015

GOLDEN RULE LODGE

Location: Buckston (New Salem)

Chartered By: Benjamin Russell

Charter Date: 12/11/1815 III-12

Precedence Date: 12/11/1815

Current Status: unknown; last represented at Grand Lodge, 06/10/1829. Historical notes 1934-143, 1934-148, 1939-351.

REFERENCES IN GRAND LODGE PROCEEDINGS

• Petition For Charter: 1815

HISTORY

NOTES AT 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF ORANGE LODGE, SEPTEMBER 1934

From Proceedings, Page 1934-143:

In 1815 several Brothers here applied for permission to organize Perseverance Lodge in Orange and at the same time another group, headed by Rev. Mr. Harding, petitioned for authority to organize Golden Rule Lodge in New Salem. This immediate section was represented at that time on the Grand Lodge Board by two of the three Grand Chaplains, Rev. Ezekiel G. Bascom, of Phillipston, and Rev. Alpheus Harding, of New Salem, therefore it was but natural that the New Salem petition received favorable consideration and its rival the Orange petition, speaking in the slang of the day "got the gate." I have in my files considerable data regarding Mr. Bascom. He was the first Master of Harmony Lodge, the first Eminent Commander of Valley Encampment, Greenwich, and retained his Masonic interests through the exciting times of antagonism. In his later life he lived at Ashby, Massachusetts. Rev. Mr. Harding was probably raised in Harris Lodge, although I have no direct information to that effect, and probably was one of its earliest Masters as within a few years after the organization of that Lodge he was given the title of Right Worshipful. He was for sixty years a clergyman in New Salem, and the father of Alpheus Harding, Junior, long connected with banking interests.

The southern boundary of New Salem was then Millers River so that much present Orange territory was then in the township of the new Lodge. I remember one of its members, Maj. Warren Horr, who lived in his early years at Coolevville, later where Miss Helen Ellsworth lived in Athol, and in his last days where Mr. Purple resides at Athol Center, and know that its leader was Rt. Wor. and Rev. Alpheus Harding, a clergyman in New Salem for 60 years, but I know little else about it except that it met for a time, if not through all its life, in a house still standing east of Lake Mattowa. The Grand Lodge records show that it was often in arrears with it but like many another, it remained on the list of Lodges long after its actual death in "Morgan Times." Probably some from this village and "The Grant" affiliated with it, but as there were so few residents here it probably did not have many of your townsmen on its rolls.

OTHER

• 1821 (Note regarding delinquency, III-341)

ø Charter surrendered 06/11/1834

• 1934 (Historical notes, in "History of Early Masonic Activity in Orange and Vicinity", part of the 75th Anniversary of Orange Lodge, 1934-141)

GRAND LODGE OFFICERS

• Alpheus Harding, DDGM, District 7, 1821, 1822, 1823; Grand Chaplain
• Oliver Fletcher, DDGM, District 7, 1824, 1825, 1826; SN

DISTRICTS

1815: (North Central Massachusetts)

1821: District 7

LINKS

Massachusetts Lodges