Masonic historical documents found

JOHN TESTER, SECRETARY of the Orwell Freemasons, talks to Orwell students Tuesday about the 800 historical documents that he found in a Masonic Lodge desk. The documents, some dating back almost 200 years, trace the history of the Orwell Freemasons.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell
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By MEGAN JAMES

ORWELL — When John Tester, secretary of Masonic Independence Lodge No. 10 in Orwell, sat down at the lodge’s 1864 flip-top desk to do some spring cleaning last May he made an unexpected find — almost 200 years of handwritten history. About 800 documents, written on tri-folded parchment in impeccable condition and neatly tucked into the back of the desk, told the story of the Orwell Freemasons like Tester had never seen it before.

He brought the documents — and a lesson in Freemason, town and U.S. history — to Orwell middle school students on Tuesday.

Most of the documents were created before 1880 and are petitions to apply for membership to the order.

“The Masonic rituals have been unchanged for 700 years,” Tester told the Orwell students gathered at the town hall. “The qualifications for acceptance have always been the same: A man freeborn, of good and worthy standing, who believes in a higher being, whether that be God or Allah or someone else.”

Tester recognized the names of prominent families in Orwell like the Bascoms, the Barbers and the Bottums. Roswell Bottum, who wrote his petition in 1817, had been a district court judge in Middlebury as well as Orwell town clerk.

Some members of Independence Lodge recognized the pencil handwriting on the back of each document, a brief sentence from the last time these papers had been sorted, as belonging  to Julius C. Thomas, whose 91-year-old son still lives in Orwell. Julius Thomas had been the secretary of the fraternity in the early 1920s, and in 1934, he was the first Orwell member to become Grand Master of Vermont.

The documents also include correspondence from other lodges in Vermont, discussing the expulsion or suspension of certain members — warnings to Orwell Freemasons not to allow the outcast to simply rejoin the fraternity in a different lodge. Most members were expelled for not paying their dues, which in the early 1800s were 50 cents a year. Others were kicked out for drinking distilled beverages in excess or committing adultery.

ORIGINS OF THE SOCIETY

Two different theories explain the origin of the Freemasons. One begins in the 1100s with a group of Frenchmen called the Knights Templar. Their mission was to protect Crusaders in the Holy Land, raising money and recruiting noble-born sons to fight on the front lines for Christianity. Two centuries later they became so powerful, that King Philip IV found them threatening to his authority, ordering his agents to capture, torture and kill them.

It was Friday, Oct. 13, when all but a few knights were executed, and the day became synonymous with bad luck. Those who escaped formed an underground society, so afraid the king’s men would catch them that they created a secret password and handshake and called themselves Masons.

The other, less romantic but more widely accepted story of the Freemasons begins in 926 A.D. when highly skilled stone masons in England formed an exclusive guild to protect the secrets of their trade. In the late 1500s, King James VI became the first political figure to join the order, and from then on, noblemen, politicians and other influential people were accepted as Freemasons. Most of the symbols used by Freemasons today — a compass, a square and the letter “G,” short for geometry, on the seal and the white aprons worn during meetings — originated with stone masonry.

Paul Revere was a Freemason, as were George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. After dumping crates of tea into the Boston harbor in 1773, American colonists went to a Freemason meeting to discuss the impending revolution. The Bible used at Washington’s inauguration was from a Freemason lodge in Philadelphia.

“America was to become what Freemasonry already was,” Tester said.

But Freemasonry fell out of public favor in 1826 when New York Freemason William Morgan had too much to drink and got himself kicked out of the order. Angry about his expulsion, Morgan threatened to publish a book revealing all of the Freemasons’ secrets. Before he could do it, Freemasons arrived at his house claiming he owed them money, $2 to be precise. Morgan was arrested and held until he could pay back the loan. He did pay, but when he was released, a group of men were waiting outside of the courthouse to abduct him. Morgan was never heard from again. 

The anti-Masonic movement lasted until the late 1840s, shunning members from churches, school boards and town offices. But by the 1880s, the Freemasons revamped their image from a social club to a community service organization, and 60 percent of American men were sworn into the order. In America today, there are 2.5 million Freemasons, and there is a Masonic lodge in almost every town of any great size.

ORWELL LODGE

Orwell Independence Lodge No. 10, which organized in 1814 and continued meeting in secret when other lodges had disbanded, now has 100 members, many of whom are the grandfathers and fathers of the middle school students at Tester’s presentation.

Marisa Supernault, whose father, George, is Worshipful Master of the Orwell lodge, said she was looking forward to becoming a member of Rainbow Girls, the club for young girls related to Freemasons. A student named Brandon even learned that his house was the original meeting place for Orwell Freemasons back in 1814.

Wyatt Traverse, like many students and teachers in the audience, was surprised to hear the organization wasn’t top secret.

“I knew they didn’t want people to know everything,” he said, “But I thought is was completely secret, that they wouldn’t even be able to tell you if they were in it.”

These days, the Freemasons run Shriner Hospitals, orphanages and homes for the elderly. Independence Lodge No. 10 has given money to the Orwell schools and churches, the Boy and Girl Scouts, and the 4-H club.

“Masonic meetings are pretty boring, believe it or not,” Tester said. “We talk about the minutes from the last meeting, our finances, fund-raising projects.”

But the meetings are always private. So much so, that when the Grand Master of Vermont came to visit the Orwell lodge back in the late 1800s, he advised them to move to a different location because he could hear their voices upstairs through the flue in the fireplace.

Freemasons still keep their books in a secret code. And when a student asked Tester to show him what kind of handshakes the Freemasons use, he said with a smile, “I could show you, but I’d have to kill you.” 

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