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Have you actually looked closely are your lodge furniture ?

Bloke

Bloke

Premium Member
I'm one of the experts on our lodge and lodge building. I know who the foundation sec was, how must it cost to build, the process they went to achieve this etc etc. I know who donated our ashlars and chairs, the VSL cushion (a "Ms" and several other items from "Mrs.." to support or in memory of their husband).

Recently, the Square and Compass we use during meetings went missing. I hunted in the cupboard because we have several spares.. and grabbed one and headed into lodge. After the meeting, I collected it again, but had a closer look because it was nice; I turned it over. It was engraved and I discovered it was donated to our lodge by the Foundation Treasurer at Consecration. No one knew about it. Not one of us knew we had a lodge foundation S&Q which goes with our Foundation VSL.

I've found all sorts of gems in our building - minutes books from the 1800's, mechanical stamps, lots of treasure... no "Inca gold" from 1877 in Peru " (
- like our Grand Librarian found fallen into the back of a display cupboard nor Geneva Bible ( http://www.freemasonsvic.net.au/news/article/from-the-archives-the-geneva-bible ) however I have found lots of historically interesting and significant (to us) material.

Next time you are in lodge - have a hunt around ! You just might have something like a Geneva Bible which even gets used, but no ones really looked at for decades.

Have you ever found any gems in your building or travels ? Know any good stories about those who have ?
 
Bloke

Bloke

Premium Member
Matt L said:
My lodge was chartered in 1825 and moved into our present building in 1923. A few years ago, we were doing some renovations and found a civil war confederate sword hidden behind a panel.
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How cool is that !
 
dfreybur

dfreybur

Premium Member
If you look closely at the altar in one of my Illinois lodges, the S&C are in the Fellowcraft position not the position usually seen on signs outside of our buildings.

At that lodge the S&C used at Installations is yellow gold that looks just slightly off in color. Looking closely I figured out why. Engraved in faint lettering it says it was made from gold melted from MM and PM rings donated by widows of deceased members. Since rings are variously made from 18k, 14k or 10k gold, the resulting mix is not an exact karat rating.

Details like this tend to be all over the place in our buildings.
 
Bloke

Bloke

Premium Member
dfreybur said:
If you look closely at the altar in one of my Illinois lodges, the S&C are in the Fellowcraft position not the position usually seen on signs outside of our buildings.

At that lodge the S&C used at Installations is yellow gold that looks just slightly off in color. Looking closely I figured out why. Engraved in faint lettering it says it was made from gold melted from MM and PM rings donated by widows of deceased members. Since rings are variously made from 18k, 14k or 10k gold, the resulting mix is not an exact karat rating.

Details like this tend to be all over the place in our buildings.
Click to expand...

That's an awesome story of the sort that keeps coming back here along with the type of guy who just told it. Thank you Dfreybur
 
dfreybur

dfreybur

Premium Member
Odd stuff in the building of my mother lodge -

On the wall in the tiler's room there's a contraption what looks like rows of sheet metal bent to hook shapes. It's a frame with about a dozen of these hooks. No one remembers it ever being touched. It turns out it's a cigar holder. There's been no cigar smoking in tiled meetings for about a century. Long ago the Brothers would put their cigars on the rack in the tiler's room.

In the tiler's room there's a door leading to a spiral staircase. Up stairs there's a room with a lot of old stuff. If you look carefully at the floor there are rows of bolt holes. At some point the meetings had so many in attendance there was a balcony for overflow! In the decades since then the opening was closed off and it was turned into a storage room. I've seen balconies or signs of balconies in a number of lodge rooms, though I've never see anyone up there.

There's a cabinet of personal PM aprons for use by visiting PMs or any PM that doesn't carry his own. The ones in the cabinet are from PMs that passed away. Many lodges I have attended on cloth PM aprons for PMs in attendance; this is a much more fancy version that carries the memory of leaders of past generations.

There's a French speaking lodge that's a tenant in our building. When they switched their charter to California they kept their more fancy first degree including the Chamber of Reflection. They might be the only lodge in California authorized to have one. It's a fascinating room up in the attic.
 
B

Brother JC

Moderating Staff
Staff Member
dfreybur said:
There's a French speaking lodge that's a tenant in our building. When they switched their charter to California they kept their more fancy first degree including the Chamber of Reflection. They might be the only lodge in California authorized to have one.
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My Cali lodge uses the CoR. We even built an assembly to fill the otherwise drab space that we do it in.
 
deministri

deministri

Registered User
I know there are "relics" in the Grand Lodge halls, it would be Nice to have a look around and see.

There is One mystery: the exact same wooden box which are in display in my Grand Lodge, is also in my house.

No One can tell me whats up with that box. But i find it REALLY REALLY WEIRD.

Sent from my XT1563 using My Freemasonry mobile app
 
S

SørenSweR(I)

Registered User
Much of our furniture is from my city's original lodge founded in 1779 - sadly that building was lost to a fire, but the furniture was saved! So we now use the old furniture in our new lodge building which is quite young being from 1865. But it still does what we need it to :)
 
Warrior1256

Warrior1256

Site Benefactor
SørenSweR(I) said:
Much of our furniture is from my city's original lodge founded in 1779 - sadly that building was lost to a fire, but the furniture was saved! So we now use the old furniture in our new lodge building which is quite young being from 1865. But it still does what we need it to :)
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Cool!
 
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