Page 287 - Cornelius Hedges Story

For This And Succeeding Generations Gardiner 274

advice and assistance of our Virginia City friends we applied for a
dispensation from Colorado, which three months before had granted
a dispensation to Montana Lodge, the second one at Virginia City.
In the Colorado Proceedings of 1865 Grand Master A. J. Van Deren in
his address reports having granted a dispensation to Helena Lodge
in Edgerton (now Lewis and Clark) County, Montana. We held our
first meeting under dispensation July 10, 1865. Four petitions were
received the first evening and we could have had twenty-five if we had
been willing to receive them, for it was the time when we were having
the death struggle with the gamblers and road-agents and every good
citizen who wasn’t a Mason wanted to become one, for the conflict
had progressed far enough to demonstrate that the Masons were the
head and front and back-bone of the law and order party and were a
terror to the roughs. We were at some trouble to find a suitable place
for meeting. There was not a two-story building in the infant city, and
only one that had an unfinished half-story. That was on upper Main
Street, over an auction store, one of the proprietors, S. J. Perkins,
being a Mason. We put up a stairway to get an outside entrance, laid a
floor and covered it with a deep layer of saw-dust, in lieu of a double
floor or carpets. Lumber was expensive, 25 cents a foot in gold, and
greenbacks at a discount of 50 to 75 per cent. The roof was covered
with “shakes” in lieu of shingles, and the constellations were visible
through many an opening. Uncle Johnny Morrison, who was Brother
Langford’s Junior Warden at Bannack, made our furniture, which of
course was rather rude, and our tin jewels were in strong contrast
with the wealth in gold that was daily coming from our mines.
Taking out a month before which we could act upon the petitions,
there was about six weeks in which to do work, and during that
time we shared our room with another organization which were
establishing law and order by raising candidates in a hundred
strong, not all Masons, by any means, had marched a few times
into a room full of gamblers with cocked pistols and taken out
some victim whose criminal career had been investigated and led
him over to the pine tree and there left him in suspense, there was
a sudden change that came over these outlaws. After about seven
had been hung in about as many days, there was a general exodus
and effort to get out of the country. About two hundred left in one
day, by any kind of conveyance that could be procured, and those
who could not procure any other means of transportation went afoot
and did not tarry till they were beyond the boundaries of Montana.
It was wonderful what a transformation came over the face of
society. The more decent gamblers were on their good behavior,