Page 317 - Cornelius Hedges Story

For This And Succeeding Generations Gardiner 304

The old controversy about the place of meeting again broke out,
but the fact that Helena would have a commodious temple to meet
in carried the resolution that Helena should be the place of meeting
for the next five years. Brother Joseph A. Hyde of Deer Lodge,
member of No. 14, was elected Grand Master. Brother Hyde
had long been an active, zealous Mason as well as an active and
successful business man at various places within the State, widely
and favorably known.
The year 1886 and the Twenty-second Annual Communication
held in October of that year were comparatively uneventful. Only
one new lodge, Acacia No. 33 at Anaconda, a new mining town
not far from Butte; where Marcus Daly had established great
smelting works to work the copper ores from his Butte mines.
To offset this addition, Jefferson Lodge, No. 15, which had failed
to make returns or pay dues the previous year, forfeited and
surrendered its charter. It had been left to one side by the railroad
and its members had become so scattered that a quorum could
not be got together to vote a surrender of its charter. The annual
increase of membership was only sixty-six, and the total 1,298.
The local craft in Helena had been fully occupied the previous
year in erecting their Temple, which was so far completed that
in January, 1886, the Grand Secretary’s office was ready for
occupation, and was at once occupied. The Temple itself was
finished and furnished early in the year and was dedicated by the
Grand Lodge at its Annual Communication in October of that year.
Our printing was still done in the East, that year by Brother Staton
of Kentucky. To expedite the publication my correspondence
report was printed in advance and copies supplied to members at
the Annual Communication. This has been done every year since
that time.
A dispensation had been issued to organize a new lodge at
Walkerville, a suburb of Butte, under the name of Rainbow. But
the brethren fell out and surrendered their dispensation.
Brother A. C. Logan had been deputized to constitute Glendive
Lodge, and the charter was entrusted to him on this mission. But
this singular event to relate that the charter was stolen from him on
the cars and never was found or heard of afterwards. Considerable
time of the Twenty-second Annual Communication was taken up
by the trial of the Worshipful Master of one of the Butte lodges on
the charges prepared by the committee of the last previous Annual