FYI
The Lodge is still collecting pull-tabs from soft drink cans to help support the Ronald McDonald House at Cincinnati Children?s Hospital. Please continue to ask your friends and family to collect, save, and deposit the tabs into a special container located at the Lodge. The response to-date has been outstanding! Thanks!
MASONIC SENIOR SERVICES AVAILABLE
Masonic Senior Services was developed to serve masons and their wives and widows by identifying and coordinating community-based services that assist them in remaining in their own home and maintaining their independence. A service coordinator can meet with a client in their own home or at their lodge. This service is available at no charge. A donation can be made to the Ohio Masonic Home if desired to help fund this program. Examples of what a service coordinator can do is help with setting up in home services such as homemaking to assist with cleaning and shopping, personal care to help with a bath, Meals on Wheels, medical transportation, and getting medical equipment. Service coordinators can also help with other aging issues such as Medicare and Medicaid. Service coordinators help clients find the services in their community that they may be eligible for. If you or another mason, wife, or widow is in need of this service please contact the service coordinator for the Cincinnati area Amy Colley, LSW at 513-623-6528 or 800-706-1710.
Special Requests
1. Please remember to support the Ohio Masonic Home. Donations would be greatly appreciated.
2. Members are again requested to PLEASE PROVIDE THE SECRETARY WITH YOUR CURRENT EMAIL ADDRESS! An updated list permits efficient and timely dissemination of Lodge Information, and a reduction in cost of postage.
3. Brethren are reminded to make use of YOUR Masonic Library. The Library will be open from 7:00 - 9:00 P.M. on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at the Scottish Rite Center at 317 E. Fifth St. downtown.
4. We are still in need of Members to volunteer and help in establishing a solid Lodge "Fellowcraft Team". Several Brothers have stepped forward, and progress is being made. Practice is held on Tuesday evenings and/or Saturday mornings. PLEASE CONTACT PM TERRY KOEHLER AT (513) 353-4227.
Special Thanks
Brother Don Helcher has gone above and beyond the call of duty with all of the work he has done for the Lodge this year. Without Don a lot of things would not have gotten done around here. Thanks Don for caring about Columbia Lodge #44 so much.
Thought Provoking
"Thoughts on Pioneer Masonry in Ohio” (The following represents the first in a series of “tidbits” of information on the History of Masonry in Ohio. No claim is made as to the accuracy and detail of this information beyond my ability to recall past readings and/or the sited references noted). Before we begin the history of Masonry in Ohio, let us first “set the stage” and revert to those early Revolutionary War days, when the spirit of Masonry was so staunchly manifested on the field of battle. In February l776, the authority was given by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts (then called Moderns.) to four Colonels, three Chaplains, one Ensign and three other Master Masons, to organize the “American Union Lodge” and it was vested with the authority wherever it should be moved on the Continent of America, provided it was where no Grand Master had been appointed. The minutes of this exemplary Lodge were preserved and tell us that fighting was the first business in order and kept these Masonic soldiers busy, yet at intervals they performed their Masonic work. Of this Lodge, records show that Joel Clark was Master and Jonathan Hart Secretary. It was known as a Military Lodge, of which there were ten in the Continental Army, and in the eventful days of the army’s stay near West Point, it was the center of fellowship, and a social Masonic Home. Later, at the close of the war, its home was moved to Connecticut. George Washington was a frequent visitor and Paul Revere made the original seal for this Lodge; and it is now in the archive of the present American Union Lodge at Marietta, Ohio. General Rufus Putnam, the aid and staunch supporter of Washington, was made a Mason therein in 1779. His influence extends through all the early history of the Craft in Ohio. Putnam was born in Sutton, Massachusetts, on the 9th of April 1738. He served in the French and Indian War in 1757-60; was a millwright in New Braintree in 1761-1768, during which time he studied surveying; and from 1769 until the War of Independence was a farmer and surveyor. He became lieutenant-colonel in one of the first regiments raised after the battle of Lexington, and in 1777 served in the northern army; commanding two regiments in the second battle of Saratoga. In 1778 he laid out fortifications, including Fort Putnam, at West Point. In January 1783 he was commissioned brigadier-general. In March 1786 he founded, with other officers of the War of Independence, the Ohio Company of Associates for the purchase and settlement of Western lands. In November 1787, after Congress had made its grant to the Ohio Company, he was appointed by the company superintendent of its proposed settlement on the Ohio, and he led the small party which founded Marietta, Ohio. He was a judge of the court of the Northwest Territory in 1790-1796; was a brigadier-general in the army and a commissioner to treat with the Indians in 1792-1793; was surveyor-general of the United States in 1796-1803; and in 1802 was a member of the Ohio state constitutional convention. He died, in Marietta, on the 4th of May 1824. He has been called "The Father of Ohio", and he contributed greatly toward the material building up of the Northwest Territory. After the Revolutionary War was concluded in 1783, there came the great westward surge of Americans in search of land and new pportunities. Several Masons settled at what is now Marietta, Ohio. Across the Muskingum River from Marietta was Fort Harmar, and among whose officers was Capt. Jonathan Hart, the last Worshipful Master of American Union Lodge. Fort Harmar was named after Josiah Harmar. In 1784, the Confederation Congress dispatched Harmar to the Ohio frontier to discourage squatters from moving into Ohio. Harmar faced great difficulty in carrying out his orders due to a lack of supplies to equip and money to pay his men. Monetary issues plagued the government established by the Articles of Confederation throughout its brief existence. In October 1785, Harmar ordered the construction of Fort Harmar near present-day Marietta. The stockade was located on the Ohio River and the Muskingum River. Rather than discouraging squatters, the fort encouraged illegal settlement as the migrants believed Harmar's troops would protect them from Native American attacks. Due to the small number of soldiers at his disposal, Harmar could not guarantee the settlers' safety. Most early settlements, like the Marietta, were built near the fort, so settlers could flee to the stockade for safety if natives attacked. As stated, this had been chartered as a military Lodge under St. John's Grand Lodge of Massachusetts on February 15, 1776. When this Lodge moved to New York shortly after it was chartered, the Brethren obtained from Dr. Peter Middleton, Grand Master of the Province New York, permission to meet on April 23, 1776. In that same month he granted them a new Warrant under the name of Military Union Lodge No. 1. The Brethren, however, referred to the Lodge as American Union Lodge. On June 28, 1790, Bro. Jonathan Hart and a number of Marietta Masons opened American Union Lodge No. 1 in that community, and thus it was that Freemasonry formally appeared in what is now Ohio. The Charter for this lodge was destroyed by fire on March 22, 1801 and, after failing to have a new charter issued by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, a dispensation was issued on January 1, 1804 by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, to enable American Union Lodge No.1 to operate until such time as a Grand Lodge should be formed in Ohio. As seen below, the Grand Lodge of Ohio did not charter this lodge until 1816 because it refused to surrender its dispensation until that time. (To be continued).
|