ODD-FELLOWSHIP IN ATCHISON.
Address delivered October 18th, 1887, at the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Friendship Lodge, I. O. O. F., Atchison.
Mr. Chairman: Thirty years ago, yesterday, Friendship Lodge, No. 5, I. O. O. F., was organized, under a charter granted by the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the United States. Its charter members were Cornelius A. Logan, Edward K. Blair, A. J. Petefish, Alex. McKewn, and James Dillon. Nearly two years later, in 1859, the first official report of the Grand Lodge of the State shows a membership of thirty-eight, fifteen by initiation and nine by card. So that its total membership, at the date of its organization, must have been fourteen.
The meetings of the lodge, when I was admitted to membership, early in 1860, were held in an odd-looking cottonwood building near the corner of Commercial and Eighth streets. And Eighth street, at that time, was out in the country. There were no pavements in those days, and the streets were quagmires. Reaching the lot on which the hall was located, you found the building oddly placed upon its rear half, and approached by an odd-looking cottonwood bridge, spanning a deep ravine, and nearly always in a condition of general dilapidation and decay. Passing over this bridge—and on dark nights it was a passage attended with fear and trembling—you reached the building. Then, oddly still, you had to go around it, to the rear, where an odd, rickety, cottonwood stairway, built on stilts, led to the second story. The steps of this stairway had an odd habit of turning up, unexpectedly, and the victims of this perverse disposition were inclined to declare, in their wrath, that never again, until that infernal old man-trap was fixed, would they attend another lodge meeting.
Reaching a platform at the head of the stairway, you passed into the ante-room—a room about as large as a good-sized dry-goods box; and thence made your way into the lodge-room.
We confidently believed, in those old days, that it was a comfortable and commodious place. In reality, it was not more than one-third the size of the present lodge-room. It was dimly lighted by coal-oil lamps; its floor was covered with the oddest—not to say the most atrocious—pattern of a carpet ever woven; and the tawdry hangings of ten-cent red-and-blue chintz over the officers’ chairs were agonizing in their cheap affectation of adornment. The walls were rough, and black with smoke, until the lodges finally, in a moment of puffed-up wealth, covered them with wall-paper whose figures must have conveyed to the initiate, when his eyes were first opened to the light, the impression that a house-painter’s apprentice had essayed high art, and ended, in a fit of disgust, by hurling his paint pots and brushes at the canvas.
This old lodge room had a roof which, like that of the Arkansas gentleman, didn’t leak when it didn’t rain and couldn’t be mended when it did rain. Some one of the Masonic brethren—who met in the same room—had been prowling about in the loft, and, making a misstep, had left in the ceiling a ragged, yawning hole. This served, for years, to impress outsiders, on occasions like the present, with the suspicion that some mysterious and perhaps awful event had occasioned that break. Repairs were rarely made, for the very excellent reason that the treasury of the lodge, in those days, resembled the pocketbook of a tramp. There was no danger of defalcations, and an official bond was entirely superfluous.
It is not my purpose, however, to abuse that venerable lodge-room. It was a pleasant place, notwithstanding its numerous deficiencies, for it was warmed and lighted by the true spirit of Odd-Fellowship. The brethren who came there, did so because they enjoyed the meetings. They had for each other a genuine feeling of mutual regard. They did not quarrel over non-essentials; they valued each other’s good name, and took a sincere pleasure in the prosperity or success achieved by any one of their number, in any vocation or pursuit. The town was a straggling cottonwood village, but they had an abounding faith in its destiny; their lodge was weak and poor, but they had unfaltering confidence in its future. I think some of the most pleasant meetings I have ever known were those held in that old lodge-room.
The war came, and its fierce enthusiasm swept nearly all of the younger members into the army. The years that followed were indeed dark and perilous to Friendship Lodge. I was told, when peace dawned on the land again, that frequently, for months in succession, a quorum could not be obtained for a meeting; that when the Grand Lodge dues were payable, a few of the members had to advance them; and that when the semi-annual election nights came around, it was frequently difficult to find enough members to fill the offices—an odd-enough thing, even in Odd-Fellowship.
With the return of peace came better times for the old lodge. The town began to grow, and the order kept pace with it. Its roll of members rapidly lengthened, and in a few years there was talk of removal to more commodious quarters. These were obtained, after much discussion, in the third story of the building on Second street, now the St. James Hotel, and on the 17th of March, 1868, the new lodge room was formally dedicated in the presence of a large assemblage of members, with their wives and daughters.