| OUR Order is now everywhere known as a benefactor of the human race. Our flag proudly floats in the breeze of every clime, as a beacon to the pilgrims of life’s fitful journey, and a welcome guide to the tempest-driven mariner across the troubled waves of human woe to its calm haven of rest. |
| It exists in response to the cravings of the soul for a domain of brotherhood, a fraternity wherein sweet and congenial companionships and mutual offices of kindness and regard would soften the asperities of life and remove the evils of prejudice, bigotry and intolerance. |
| An Order that teaches a higher ideal of life, that gives men a new faith in virtue, charity and love, assuredly deserves a considerate study by all those who are interested in the welfare of the human race. As a means to an end, it has become one of the most powerful weapons in the warfare upon ignorance, vice, and the host of evils that beset man at every step in his earthly career. |
| It does not seek a veiled origin in the misty shades of the past to surround it with the false glamour that arises from the belief in the doctrine of omne ignotum pro magnifico. This age of enlightenment has emaciated us from the gross credulity of the past. Antiquity bears with it no passport of truth or goodness. |
| The Order of Odd Fellows originated in England in the Eighteenth Century. In the early part of that century the celebrated Daniel De Foe mentions the Society of Odd Fellows, and in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1745, the Odd Fellows’ Lodge is mentioned as |
| “a place where very pleasant and recreative evenings are spent.” |
| The poet James Montgomery, in 1788, wrote a song for a Body of Odd Fellows. The Odd Fellows’ Keepsake states that the early English Lodges were supported and their members relieved by each member and visitor paying a penny to the Secretary on entering the Lodge. These allusions are sufficient proof of the existence of the Order at the time, but they tell us nothing of its aims, objects and characteristics. |
| From other sources it is known that the Lodges were originally formed by workingmen for social purposes, and for giving the brethren aid and assisting them to obtain employment when out of work. When a brother could not obtain work he was given a Card and funds enough to carry him to the next Lodge, and if unsuccessful there, that Lodge facilitated his farther progress in the same way. |
| Where he found employment, there he deposited his Card. |
| At first there was little or no Ritual, and no formal method of conducting the business of the Lodge. These were matters of gradual and slow growth. The English are and were very conservative, and do not readily yield to innovations. Time, however, works wonders, so that in the end many radical and necessary changes were made in the Order. |
| Even to this day some of the original and characteristic features of the Order are still practiced in the English branch of the fraternity. In the early days of the institution, after the formal business was transacted, conviviality and good fellowship became the order of the night, and the brethren, glass and pipe in hand, made the welkin ring with the melody of their favorite songs: |
“When Friendship, Love and Truth abound
Among a Band of Brothers,
The cup of joy goes gaily
round Each shares the bliss of others.’ |
| Or |
“Then let us be social, be generous, be kind,
And let each take his glass and be mellow,
Then we’ll join heart and hand, leave dissensions behind,
And we’ll each prove a hearty Odd Fellow.” |
| It is said that the titles of the officers of the Lodge were taken from the “Order of Gregorian's,” which met at St. Albans, in May, 1736. In the early history of the Order each Lodge was the arbiter of its own fate and practically supreme. |
| The doctrine of self-institution prevailed then, as it did afterwards, in the establishment of the Order in the United States. Secessions from Lodges were frequent and rendered the Lodges less able to fulfill the object of their being. The brethren were slow to learn that |
| “in union there is strength.” |
| They finally learned this wholesome truth and with it came, in 1809, the formation of the Manchester Unity, the most gigantic beneficial society in the world, the history of the birth and growth of which will be found in a subsequent chapter. |
| FOUNDING OF THE INDEPENDENT ORDER OF ODD FELLOWS IN AMERICA |
| Wildey, the father and founder of American Odd Fellowship, brought with him to this country the seed, which carefully sown and nurtured, has grown to such a mighty tree that, in the shade produced by its wide-spreading branches, the brethren may seek and obtain solace and security from most of the storms incident to human life. |
“Ours is no sapling, chance-sown by the fountain,
Blooming in summer, in winter to fade;
And when every leaf is stripped from the mountain,
The more shall our brethren exult in its shade.
Moored in the rifted rock,
Proof to the tempest’s shock,
The firmer 'tis rooted, the ruder ‘t may blow;
Heaven send it happy dew,
Earth lend it sap anew,
Greenly to bourgeon and broadly to grow.”
|
| Its perennial growth is now well assured, for the grateful tears of the widow and orphan have watered the tender plant and it has been warmed and vivified by the sunny smile of approving heaven. |
| The natal day of American Odd Fellowship was the 26th of April, 1819. The attempts made, prior to this date, establish the Order here, failed, or the sickly and sporadic growth became absorbed in the more vigorous family planted by Wildey. The circumstances attending this his toric event are here briefly presented. |
| Thomas Wildey was born in London on the 15th day of January, 1782. On reaching manhood he was initiated into an Odd Fellow’s Lodge in which he distinguished himself by his zeal and integrity. |
| This was prior to the formation of the Manchester Unity, so that the body to which he belonged, existed and worked according to the early mode of self-institution. |
| Desirous of spreading the Order to which he was so ardently attached, he, with others, started a new Lodge, styled Morning Star Lodge, No. 38, located in London. |
| Until 1817, he continued to be actively interested in the work of the Order and more than once passed through the chairs. The cheering news and the favorable reports received by him from countrymen here, decided him to seek, in this new and highly favored land, a fairer fortune. He possessed hope, health and industry, sure passports to prosperity anywhere. The exigencies of commerce had greatly mollified the hatred and animosities engendered by the late war, so that he had every reason to expect the full fruition of his hopes. |
| As was natural to a stranger in a strange land, he immediately sought to make the acquaintance of his fellow countrymen residing in the City of Baltimore. Among the first of these whom he met was John Welch, an Odd Fellow. Animated by his former zeal for the Order, and feeling the loss of his wonted field of labor and its allied social pleasures and advantages, he at once took steps to form a Lodge. |
| The requisite number was five, so that with three the way to success would be clear. They advertised for the lacking number in the Baltimore American, at first with partial success. They inserted the following in the same paper on the 27th of March, 1819, and met with complete success: |
| NOTICE TO ODD FELLOWS |
| “A few members of the Society of Odd Fellows will be glad to meet their brethren for the purpose of forming a Lodge, on Friday evening, 2d April, at the Seven Stars, Second street, at the hour of seven P. M.“ |
| |
|
FOR THE YEAR ENDING FEBRUARY, 1825.
| GRAND LODGES | WHERE HELD | NO. OF LODGES |
Maryland
Massachusetts
New York
Pennsylvania | Baltimore
Boston
New York
Philadelphia | 3
2
1
3 |
FOR THE YEAR ENDING APRIL, 1826.
| GRAND LODGES | WHERE HELD | NO. OF LODGES |
Maryland
Massachusetts
New York
Pennsylvania | Baltimore
Boston
New York
Philadelphia | 3
2
3
4 |
|
Information obtained from:
Odd Fellowship It's History and Manual
The History and Manual of Odd Fellowship
By
Theo. A. Ross
Past Grand Secretary of the Sovereign Grand Lodge
Copyright 1887 - 1895 - 1897 - 1899 - 1908
M. W. Hazen Company
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