Page 152 - Cornelius Hedges Story

139 The Cornelius Hedges Story

At the initial session of Grand Lodge, he was elected Right
Worshipful Senior Grand Warden.446 He was not in attendance
at the Second Annual Communication of Grand Lodge, held in
October, 1866, because he was on his way east, to get his family and
escort them back to Montana. It was the only Grand Lodge session
during his lifetime which he missed. At the Third Communication,
Hedges, along with N. P. Langford and Hezekiah L. Hosmer, was
appointed to the standing committee on Masonic Jurisprudence.447

At the next meeting of Grand Lodge, Grand Master W. F.
Sanders appointed Cornelius Hedges to the Committee on Foreign
Correspondence, along with Sol Starr and Hezekiah L. Hosmer.448
Hedges held a position on that committee for the remainder of
his life and for the most part was the sole author of the Fraternal
Correspondence Reports for Montana. And it was in these reports,
which were sent to most other jurisdictions that he did the Masonic
writing which gained him national and world renown as a Masonic
scholar. On November 2, 1870, the members of the Grand Lodge
honored him by electing him to the position of Most Worshipful
Grand Master, and the following day, he was installed.449

After he had completed his year as Grand Master with much
competence and had reported to Grand Lodge in the form of his
Grand Master’s Address, the committee to apportion the address
remarked:

“If the sentiments promulgated by the Grand Master could
be generally adopted by the Craft of Montana, Masonry would
attain to a standard of excellence here that would honor its loftiest
principles. The end and aim of its creation would be fully realized.
This, in our unsettled, almost primitive condition of society, is too
much to hope for, but we feel that it is no less an honor to us,
and to Masonry, that this Grand Body is presided over by one who
exemplifies in his daily walk and conversation, the sincerity of his
faith in the grand principles he has so impressively enunciated”450

Upon retiring from that office, the Grand Lodge presented him
with an honorarium of a “splendid Gold Watch, Chain, and Seal,
appropriately engraved.”451 Also upon retiring, on October 5, 1871,
he was appointed Grand Historian by his successor, James R.
Weston.452 And as one of the few Grand Historians who ever did
anything in the early years, he gave a Historical Address to Grand
Lodge the following year.453