USA > Kansas > Marshall County > History of Marshall County, Kansas : its people, industries, and institutions > Part 32
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The Axtell Woman's Relief Corps No. 206. was organized on May 3, 1910, by Cora M. Deputy, department president, Woman's Relief Corps, with the following charter members: Ivy Farrar, Nettie M. Scott. Lillian Farrar, Maggie Saff, Permelia Scott, Martha Farrar, Martha Gaston, Margaret Stout, Belle Pierce, Stella Harrison, Lena Phillips, Eugenia Ream, Lila Egan, Carrie Brawner. Emma Nork, Euphemia Strayer, Ella L. Scott, Ida M. Kerr, Lizzie Yauslin, Mamie Rabe, Harriett Hurlburt, Ida Nork, Minnie Bird, Rose Martin, Florence Simpson.
The present officers are: President, Nettie Scott; senior vice-president, Lucindia Allen; chaplain, Martha Farrar; treasurer, Lila Manley; secre- tary, Stella Harrison; conductor, Bessie Harrison.
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LADIES OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC.
Allison Circle, Ladies of the G. A. R., at Vermillion, was organ- ized on January 18, 1902, and named in honor of F. W. Allison, who was a member of the post at that time. Miss Gertrude Harris was the first presi- dent.
SONS OF VETERANS.
Vermillion Camp No. 64, Sons of Veterans, was organized on June 19, 1886, with eighteen charter members-James W. Jellison, captain. This camp had the distinction of having the first uniformed camp in the state. It was a live organization until 1895. when it ceased to exist.
The Ladies Aid Auxiliary to the Sons of Veterans was organized about 1890 and existed for a year. The first president was Mrs. A. D. Crooks ; vice-president. Carrie Arnokl: secretary, Anna Calnan : treasurer. Mrs. Ruby.
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION.
The Young Men's Christian Association at Vermillion was organized in 1914. Dr. F. B. Sheldon being the first president : Virgil Nash. vice-president : Virgil Russell. secretary: Howard Bowers, treasurer.
WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION.
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union at Vermillion was organ- ized in April, 1914, Mrs. Joseph Lockwood Rogers being the first president : Lillian Weeks, secretary, and Amy Nauman, treasurer.
Mrs. Anna De Walt, of Vermillion, was county president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union during 1915.
ANCIENT FREE AND ACCEPTED MASONS IN MARSHALL COUNTY.
By Dr. Robert Hawkins.
When the permanent white settlers in what is now Marshall county gathered on the banks of the Big Blue river, about twelve miles south of the Nebraska line, around Frank Marshall's ferry and his little trading store, they found that they had many topics which to them were important and upon which they could not always agree.
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All through the fifties the gathering storm which in the sixties broke into the War of the Rebellion, cast the shadow of its clouds over this little group of the advance guard of the growing civilization.
Here we had the pro- and anti-slaver; here the strong follower of Jeffer- son and his "States Rights" belief, was neighbor to his opponent; here all shades of religious belief and church formalities, from the ardent follower of the leader at Rome to the most fanatic "protestor," associated with the atheist.
After the War of the Rebellion the young hot-headed Northern soldier, heated by the fires of victory and the gray-haired farmer, with his large family of boys and his well-developed bump of conservatism, came with the floating adventurer to find a home among the Southern members of the Palmetto Town Site Company.
In the late sixties and early seventies, hundreds of foreigners flocked here from Canada and northern Europe. This mixture was to be remolded from a common melting pot into modern Americanism.
NUCLEUS OF MASONIC FRATERNITY.
The centers around which clustered the sacred and time-honored ties of families, clans, customs, and institutions of all foreign peoples and countries must be forgotten. When one by one we each, of our own free will and accord, appeared before the district court and asked for admission into this amalgamation, that we might share on terms of equality with our new neigh- bor the advantages of this newly-cemented union, we, who were of foreign birth, turned our backs upon our former homes and pledged our support to a common cause here. We entered into a solemn covenant to support and defend all that is symbolically represented by the stars and colors of the national flag. Among this motley throng we find a few master Masons.
A few more had taken claims and were farmers in the southeast part of the county. Those men all soon became acquainted and bound together by the teachings which they had received concerning the basic principles of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. If the individual is .found worthy, each in his own way becomes an influence in the molding of the growing county, by directing "the sacred longings that arise which this world never satisfies."
They knew that modern Freemasonry is one of the many helps designed to guide the earnest traveler on his journey in search of that which will
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satisfy. They also knew that modern Freemasonry is founded on those basic principles which tend to make good men to be better citizens and better neighbors.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF MASONRY.
These few scattered master Masons, who came from all points of the compass and from many nationalities, saw in Masonry a fraternal organ- ization formed along the lines of our national Declaration of Independence. In fact they knew that many, very many of the makers of our nation were Masons, and that Masonic phraseology and thought were largely used in that historie document. "Masonry unites men of every country, sect and opinion and conciliates true friendship among those who might otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance, and heart and hand join in promot- ing each other's welfare and rejoicing in each other's prosperity." Every candidate is required to be a believer in a Supreme Being, to have a desire for knowledge and a sincere wish to be serviceable to his fellow men. And he is informed that Masonry consists of a course of moral instruction ; that it is not a religion, but is closely interwoven with it. He is admonished to Le true to his government and just to his country, not to palliate or aggravate the offenses of others, but "in decisions on every trespass he should judge with candor, admonish with friendship, reprehend with justice."
Although modern Freemasonry, in its present mode of organization, dates back scarcely two hundred years ago, it was then an outgrowth of what had been developing for many hundreds of years. Kilwinning lodge in Scotland has an unbroken line of the secretaries' records back into the fourteenth century, when it was a trade union associated with the priests of the church.
In Goukl's History of Freemasonry, published in 1904, is found this statement :
"In the famous old Scotch Lodge of Kilwinning all the Kings of Scot- iand have been Grand Master Masons without interruption from the days of Fergus, who reigned there more than three thousand years ago."
.All the old charges required of every Mason a faithful support of the church. 'The symbolic teachings and direct admonitions today in all lodges, direct the Masonic student to seek a closer knowledge of his relationship to his Maker and his own destiny.
That the reader may better understand what Masonry is today 'it will be well to know that it is for good reasons represented by a secret organ- ization. Outsiders may be divided into three classes-its friends, who have a favorable opinion : a second class, which neither knows nor cares anything
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about it, and its enemies, who know nothing about its truths and have been misinformed about its mission.
Masonry is a progressive science, in search of knowledge and a higher qualification in its votaries.
MASONRY DEFINED.
That the reader may gain a clear conception of what Masonry is and why it was organized in Marshall county, it is well to know that the basic principles of its teachings are as old as human intelligence. That among other things, it has always stood for the freedom of the oppressed as expressed in the Magna Charta of England and the Declaration of Independence of the American colonies and has met with opponents and enemies wherever the oppressor is found. Thinking man has, through all the ages of the past repeatedly asked of his intelligent neighbor, "From whence came you and whither are you traveling." There has usually been an answer, but it has not usually been entirely to the satisfaction of the thinking inquirer. The practical, active history-making Roman of two and three thousand years ago, was not entirely satisfied with the teachings of the priests and the services of the vestal virgins in the temples of the national gods. In their conquests they adopted all that they found and considered worthy in the provinces, and erected temples for the services of the gods of the provinces. In all this they were in search of that which had been lost, and were supply- ing a substitute.
ANCIENT HISTORY IN RELATION TO MASONRY.
"In hoc signo vinces", "In this sign, conquer", Constantine, in despera- tion, placed on his war banner with the Christian cross and won the battle of the Milvian Bridge near Rome and changed the future history of Europe, thus making the Christian cross another symbolic substitute for that which was lost. The old philosophers among the ancient Athenians, in an attempt to answer this same question, erected temples to all the known gods, but not being satisfied they built one more and dedicated it to the unknown god.
The ancient Egyptians applied to their kind, affectionate, home-loving Osiris and Isis : the Scandinavian turned to his fierce Thor and his associates. Away back in the dim mists and uncertainties of old Babylon and on the banks of the Ganges, in the mountain recesses and caves of northern India, and over in old, sleepy China, the same questions were asked and answered
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with the same unsatisfied result. Moses, born of a slave woman but reared in the luxury of royalty and versed in all the learning of the old Egyptians, gave to his people an answer to these same questions in the history and promises given to their ancestors.
In this system of an explanation and in its continuation as we have it in the great light of Masonry, the dream of Jacob at the foot of the ladder, the faith of Abraham on Mount Moriah and the substituted thousands of sacrifices of Solomon, were fulfilled in the carpenter-builder's son and a new world power had a lowly start again. Once more a new impetus was given to the search for that which was lost. The Master Teacher from the hills, after serving His Apprentice and Fellow Craft time as an operative builder, became a Speculative Master Builder. His followers continued His teach- ings and propagated them by His methods for more than three hundred years.
Constantine in his efforts to gain supremacy in the crumbling Empire of Rome, placed the sacred emblem on his war banners and victory followed victory. Constantine established himself and endowed the Christian church, which grew in worldly power as the empire crumbled. As the church grew it lost its originality and Europe was racked and torn by the semi-religious and political wars for more than a thousand years. When the church and the sword were united the old order. "Simon Peter, put up thy sword," was forgotten.
Freemasonry, as we have had it for the last two hundred years, has come down to us through all the vicissitudes of time as common ground on which all the warring factions may unite on the level, if they but under- stand its symbols.
MASONRY IN KANSAS.
For this reason a little band of Masons found what they needed-com- mon ground on which they could meet on the level after the war of the sixties. Masonry was first promulgated on the North American continent among the very early English colonies. The most worshipful grand master of the Masons granted dispensation for several lodges in Kansas before it was a state, and the grand lodge of Kansas was organized by representatives from three of those lodges in Leavenworth on March 17, 1856. Twelve years later the grand master granted a dispensation on March 28, 1868, and a lodge was organized in the farmhouse of A. G. Barrett in the southeast part of Marshall county, near where Barrett station is now located. 'The members continued to meet in the little farmhouse all summer. New mem- bers were accepted and many visitors were entertained from all parts of the county, state and nation.
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WOMAN LEARNS SOMETHING OF MASONRY.
On account of the limited house conveniences the tyler was outwitted by a woman's curiosity, and Mrs. Barrett became well schooled in the monitor and ritual. In the fall of the same year the lodge moved to Frankfort and for a time held their communications in one end of the new railroad depot. The lodge furniture and equipment consisted of such pieces of freight as could be conveniently utilized. It was a common thing to have more visitors than members.
As the company usually came from distant points, and in some cases it required all night and most of two days to make the round trip, it was necessary that the lodge be opened in the "knife-and-fork" degree. The morning- following such occasion, it- was the common experience of the dray- man to deliver boxes of groceries that were light weight.
At first the master used a carpenter's clawhammer for a gavel and one of the wardens used his pocket knife. while the other had a big spike. Elijah Bentley, a visiting brother from Marysville, hired a carpenter to make a full set of working tools, which he presented to the lodge.
On account of unmasonic conduct, committed by a few of the members, this, Marshall county's first Masonic lodge, was deserted by the better ele- ment and the charter was forfeited.
In 1877 a new lodge was organized under a new charter with the same old name and number and Frankfort Lodge No. 97 became, and has ever since remained, one of the prosperous and honored lodges of the county.
The first master of the old lodge was A. G. Barrett and the first master of the present lodge was S. B. Todd, with F. J. Snodgrass, senior warden; E. Brady, junior warden; S. J. McKee, treasurer : WV. L. Sanders, secretary ; P. C. Carver, senior deacon : Joseph Whitley, junior deacon; H. B. Massie. tyler.
The present officers are: A. Anderson, worshipful master; H. W. Scheld, senior warden: W. T. Scholtz, junior warden; J. M. Bishop, treas- urer ; D. A. Brodbeck, secretary : Leonard Twidwell, senior deacon: Charles L. Andrews, junior deacon; J. V. Hartshorn, senior steward : Joseph Clima, junior steward; W. W. Barrett, tyler.
The total membership of this lodge on December 31, 1916, was eighty- one.
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SUTTON LODGE NO. 85. WATERVILLE.
The early records of Sutton lodge appear to be rather defective, and the exact date of its origin is uncertain. One statement says "Sutton Lodge No. 85, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, was instituted June 1, 1870. and chartered 1870."
A historical pamphlet published in 1892 says, "On November 3. 1869, Right Worshipful John H. Brown, most worshipful grand master of the grand lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Kansas, granted a dispensation to Brothers Edward A. Berry, Harry C. Whistler and John D. Wilson as Sutton Lodge U. D. at Waterville, Kansas."
The records of the grand secretary are stored at the present time. on account of the erection of a new office building, at Topeka and proofs as to the correct date are not now available.
Upon this point depends the proof as to where the first permanent lodge was established in Marshall county.
In the records of the secretary of Marysville Lodge No. 91, date of March 22, 1870, nine a. m .. is this statement : "Dispensation being received. a call was made by me to assemble the lodge, viz: Harmony Lodge U. D. at their hall on Tuesday evening the twenty-second day of March at seven o'clock p. m., Peter H. Peters, W. M."
On the next page are the minutes of the secretary dated March 22. 1870. telling how the lodge was organized.
On the grand lodge records will depend the proof as to which of these two lodges has the honor of being the first permanent lodge in the county.
The first lodge was the old Frankfort lodge, but its charter was revoked.
The historical statement that gives November 3, 1869. as the date of the dispensation for Sutton lodge with E. A. Berry. H. C. Whistler and J. D. Wilson, makes no mention of any meeting. under dispensation. The record states that the lodge was instituted June 1. 1870, with the following officers : E. A. Berry, worthy master; W. C. Johnson, senior warden : W. P. Mudgett, junior warden; F. Spaulding, treasurer; G. B. Vroom, secretary: F. Leach. senior deacon; J. D. Farwell, junior deacon.
A charter was granted to Sutton Lodge No. 85 at Waterville, October 20, 1870. Since that time the lodge has been in a very satisfactory condi- tion. Peace and harmony have always prevailed and the work has pros- pered, the worthy have not been neglected nor has the work of the helping hand been advertised. The present membership is seventy-seven. The
THE LAST OVERLAND STAGE COACH TO PASS THROUGH MARYSVILLE IN 1866.
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present officers are: O. H. Rommell, worthy master; M. I. Parker, senior warden; C. W. Edwards, junior warden; M. Delaney, treasurer; H. C. Willson, secretary: G. I. Thatcher, senior deacon; L. D. Argonbright, junior deacon; R. E. Berner, senior steward; M. Brammer, junior steward, C. M. Sawin, tyler.
MARYSVILLE LODGE NO. 91, MARYSVILLE.
To establish a lodge of master Masons in the home of A. G. Barrett in the Frankfort district after the close of the war. or in Waterville after the new railroad made that town its western terminal, was easy, because neither of these places had widely diverging ambitions nor warring factions. At Marysville the conditions were vastly different. In the early fifties, Frank Marshall's ferry landing marked the extreme frontier and last trad- ing post of civilization. At times the camp ground was thronged with a motley gathering of a thousand people.
It would not be well to go into the early history of some of these men, or inquire why they were here, perhaps some of them had no homes where they could stay. Sveral companies of soldiers had been recruited here for the Northern army. The members of the old Palmetto Town Company were Southern supporters. The very fact that Marysville had been the hotbed of strife and hatred and warring faction, was the reason why the influences of the teachings of Masonry and its levelling of differences, were here most needed.
During the earlier period of the war the people of Marysville held and expressed very radical differences of opinion as to the cause involved. Peter H. Peters, who edited and printed a very radical and outspoken pro-slavery paper. had his press smashed and type scattered in the street by Union sol- diers. An organization of the Methodist church, South, supported the gos- pel of secession and slavery. It failed of financial support and one of its members who had furnished all the material for the church building. R. Y. Shibley, sold it to the county for a court house. Northern church mem- bers came and preached the faith of the North, and even after the close of the war, these differences of opinion had not been eliminated.
Were half the power that fills the world with terror. Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts.
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Speculative Ancient Free and Accepted Masonry has for its object the redeeming of the human mind from error. Masons are in search of truth and strive to bar from their membership the quarrelling. fault-finding dissenter. The dissenter may be all right, provided he does not impose his peculiarities on his neighbors, but is broadly charitable and will grant to others that free- dom of individuality which he himself enjoys.
PETERS BECOMES A MASON.
As soon as the Barrett brethren had received their dispensation, the Marysville master Masons were frequent visitors and a few young men from Marysville became members at Barrett. One day a master Mason returning from Colorado met several strangers here and they all became friends at once and arranged to visit the Frankfort lodge. Peter H. Peters, who had resumed and renamed his paper, seeing this familiarity among strangers, inquired the cause. At once he found that he had a favorable opinion of the institution, a desire for knowledge and a sincere wish to be of service to his fellow men. In due time and form he was made a Mason; passed on to the workman's degree and then elevated to the honored place of a master Mason. So thoroughly was Brother Peters impressed with the nature and object of Masonry that he hired an additional foreman to man- age his business in Marysville, while he went to Frankfort for a month to study the work and meaning of the lodge.
Peters and a few others applied to the grand master for a dispensation and received it. There is no record of this dispensation in the Marysville lodge. Under date of March 22, 1870. nine a. m., there is a statement that a dispensation had been received and a call for the brethren to assemble. and on the next page under date of March 22, 1870, are the secretary's minutes of the first meeting and organization of the lodge under the name of Harmony Lodge U. D. with nine members. The officers were: Peter H. Peters, worthy master ; Perry Hutchinson, senior warden ; Absalom Jester. junior warden; James S. Magill, secretary: Thomas McCoy, treasurer; Elijah Bentley, senior deacon; David Wolf. junior deacon; J. M. Carter, tyler, and Brother Joseph Samuels as the only member not an officer.
At this first meeting there were two visitors-both members of Frank- fort Lodge No. 67-Alonzo Cottrell. a druggist in Marysville, and C. S. Bolton, county superintendent of public instruction. At this communica- tion four applications for degrees were received. Just four days later, March 26, 1870, their second communication was held and they voted on the four
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applications and elected and initiated three of the applicants; Dr. A. G. Edwards was the first.
The first few communications were held over D. Wolf's grocery store on the south side of Broadway, where the White Brothers building now stands, but they soon moved out of this building because intoxicating liquors were being sold in the store below. The second floor of Bendel's hall, a new building on the north side of Broadway, was rented, but after a few months the first floor of this building was fitted up for a saloon and again the lodge moved out and used the upper floor of the old stone school house on the hill, where they remained until the east half of the Koester block was built. They occupied the upper part of this until the three-story building on the west was finished, when they moved to the third floor, and it has been the home of the lodge ever since.
MASONS OPPOSED TO LIQUOR TRAFFIC.
Here was the first public positive step taken in the county in the cause of prohibition. in the cause of freeing the oppressed victims of John Barley- corn. Harmony lodge moved out because Masonic law would not permit a lodge to convene in such close proximity to the liquor traffic. Here was an example of the basic principles on which the institution has always stood. Its mission is to assist the erring, but to do it in such a tender manner that it will elevate and not humiliate. These nine men who assembled in Har- mony lodge may not have been perfect models themselves, but Masonic law would not permit the lodge with all that it represents to be so desecrated. These nine men had lived in and around Marysville for some time and they knew of the warring factions among them; they came from several nationalities. Here were found the late Northern soldier and the strong Southerner: Jews and Gentiles, Democrats and Republicans, Catholics and Protestants, so they called their organization Harmony lodge.
RESOLUTION PROHIBITING TOBACCO.
In the year 1893 Marysville lodge passed a resolution prohibiting smok- ing in the lodge room. This, we believe, was the first positive stand taken in the county to check the use of tobacco.
This resolution did not simply provide for the control during the time the lodge was open, but at all times. Masonry teaches the control of the
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passions: charity concerning the interests of others, and that we are not to impose on others our personalities which may be unpleasant to them.
In 1870 Marysville lodge took a stand against the liquor traffic. In fact. Masonry has always been a leader in the uplift of humanity and in the suppression of everything that lowers its standard.
The lodge continued to work under a dispensation until the fall meet- ing of the grand lodge, October 20. 1870. when a charter was granted and on November 3, 1870, at a stated communication, Deputy Grand Master E. D. Hillyer informed the lodge that a charter had been granted and the name changed to Marysville Lodge No. 91. The following officers were clected under the charter, and were installed by the deputy grand master : P. H. Peters, worshipful master: P. Hutchinson, senior warden; Joseph Samuels, junior warden: . A. J. Edwards, treasurer ; J. S. Magill, secretary ; E. Bentley, senior deacon; D. Wolf, junior deacon: G. Borgman, senior steward; R. Y. Shibley, junior steward ; I. B. Davis, tyler.
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