Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1914 — HISTORY OF NO. 82 KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS [ARTICLE]

HISTORY OF NO. 82 KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS

Interesting Paper Prepared and Read by Leo Reeve at the Golden Jubilee Feb. 19th.

On the evening that the golden jubilee of the Knights Of Pythias was celebrated in this city, Feb. 19th, Leo Reeve, past chancellor qf the local lodge No. 82, of that order, road the following history of the order in this city and the publication of it will bring pleasant memories of the days of organization. We are under obligation to Mr. Reeve for the manuscript and here present the history just as he had prepared it: Rensselaer lodge Knights of Pythias was instituted June 13, 1878. Chas. Price, at that time county clerk of Jasper county, who held his membership in the Remington lodge, assisted by one or two others, who held membership in other lodges, became desirous, of founding an order of Knights of Pythias in this town. They solicited members for some time and finally succeeded in securing 24 names of men who were willing to pledge themselves to the cause of Pythianism. They secuerd a charter and the Lafayette lodge was asked to institute them. This they consented to. do and came up on the narrow gage railroad, which at that time ran from Delphi to Rensselaer. James R, Carnahan, later the Ma'jor General of the Uniform Rank, was the acting C. C. of the Lafayette lodge. * Even at that time the instituting of our lodge was looked upon by the members of the town as an important event. The Rensselaer Cornet Band furnished the music for the occasion. The visiting lodge was given supper at the Hopkins Hotel, which occupied a frame building where the Nowels House now stands. At 5 o’clock in the afternoon of June 13, 1878, the-Lafay-ette lodge started to work in a hall on the third floor of a building then occupied by the C. C. Starr grocery, now' occupied by the Wright furniture store. When they left the room at 7 o’clock the next morning, the work was completed, the officers installed and lodge 82 was, launched on the sea of Pythian ism. Only the officers and enough members to constitute a quorum were initiated that night, the balance of the charter memJb rs being left for the new lodge to -start work on. Chas. Price furnished the necessary funds to start the lodge and he was reimbursed on the first meeting night. The total bills confronting the lodge on that night amounted to $53.12. An assessment of $2.50 was made on each member to meet the expenses.

The charter members were: Chas. H. Price, Bcnj. Woldori!, M. F. Chilcote, Elza Phillips, Geo. M. Robinson, Edward D. Rhoades, F. B. Meyer, D. B. Miller, I. N. Lawman, Benj. Tuteur, Moses Tuteur, F. H. Robinson, C. C. Starr, T. A. Knox, R. B. Patton, A. W. Cleveland, L. Hopkins, G, W. Allen, N. W. Reeve, and E. Peacock. Of these only three are now resident members. Chas, Price was the first C. C. The first by-laws were drafted by Robert B. Patton,’ N. W. Reeve and D. B. Miller. They were adopted, on Oct. 17, 1878, and approved by the grand lodge Jan. 28, 1879. They set the weekly meeting night of the lodge on 'Thursday night and it remained so for a number of years, but was finally changed on vote of the lodge to Tuesday night,

as it' now remains. Those by-laws governed the lodge until 1911, but were so amended and changed that the originals were almost lost. The present by-laws were drafted in 1911 by a committee composed of Geo. H. Healey, Jos. P. Hammond and \V. L. Myer. In the early days of the lodge, when the membership was smaller and the revenue from dues was loss, they frequently gave dances, entertainments, etc, which furnished them with funds without special assessments on the members. And thus the lodge proved somewhat of a social center for outsiders as well as for the members themselves. A number of years after the institution of the lodge, a Uniform Rank was founded in connection with the lodge, with Erastus Peacock as the first captain. They had aj one time as many as thirty me:i in line.. They at first drilled in the old Methodist church, which was then located where Joe Hardman’s residence now stands, but later held their drills in the lodge room. For a number of years the members were enthusiastic and the rank flourished and attended several encampments. Interest finally waned and the members kept falling out and moving away until it was necessary to abandon. The lodge finally decided to buy or build a home for themselves and after considerable controversy they voted to buy the ground on which the present K. of P. building stand?. This they did and in 1902 erected the buildings. The project proved to be a bigger financial proposition than they could carry through and the building finally passed out rtf their hands, but the lodge still maintains a room in the building. One event which is so recent as to need but mention, is the district meeting held in this lodge room a few weeks ago, but which will undoubtedly go down in the lodge’s -history as one of its greatest meetings. And so we find ourselves at the 50th anniversary of the order; a lodge 35 years old with a membership of dose onto two hundred, th irty-two of whom are prominent business and professional men of our city. As we look back over the past history of the K. of P. lodge, No. 82, and see the stumbling blocks that have been in its path and the losses and disappointments that it has had and then look -at its present membership, most of whom are actively engaged in the lodge work, and its eleven men, who are now going into the lodge, it would seem that the future prospects of the lodge were never brighter and better than at the present time.