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overrun with cholera patients. Built at a cost of the outbreak and distinguished himself as one of early
$15,000, the hospital was run by General Albert Maver California’s most celebrated physicians. Aft er the
Winn. Winn was both a member of Tehama Masonic cholera outbreak, Morse—already the founding editor
Lodge No. 3 and ranking offi cer of the Odd Fellows of the Sacramento Union newspaper, and credited as
in California. Two physicians, John Frederick Morse one of the town’s fi rst historians—organized the fi rst-
and Jacob D. B. Stillman (both of Tehama No. 3), saw ever Sacramento Medical Society, and later graduated
to the sick and distressed free of charge. Patients who to organizing the fi rst California State Medical Society,
died at the hospital had their information sent to their serving as its fi rst chairman. Additionally, he became
home lodges in other states—one of the only reliable the fi rst medical offi cer of the state of California
methods of dispatching such information to relatives and served as editor of the California State Medical
back home. Along with other local medical heroes like Journal. In 1872, having relocated to San Francisco,
Dr. Volney Spaulding, Mayor James Hardenbergh, and he was elected president of the San Francisco Medical
Dr. Gregory Phelan, Morse and Stillman were largely Society.
responsible for remaking medical care in Sacramento.
Morse’s partner at the Masons’ hospital, Dr. Jacob
Th e hospital was the primary symbol of Masonic Stillman, was also a renaissance man of sorts: He was a
relief in Sacramento during the outbreak, but it wasn’t past president of the Sacramento Society of California
the only source. In fact, the three pioneering lodges Pioneers and a past Grand Master of the Odd Fellows,
of the city (Tehama No. 3, Jennings No. 4, and Sutter as well as a high-ranking member of the Royal Arch
No. 6) dispatched funds in 1850 to the indigent at a Masons, the Knights Templar, and the Knights of
rate that’s almost unthinkable today—an eff ort to care Malta. He later affi liated with Oriental Lodge in San
for the sick, provide respectable burials for the dead, Francisco, according to Whitsell.
and aid the widowed that’s been described as nothing
short of “heroic.” Together, the three lodges, although Other Masons were also infl uential in combatting
already in the red thanks to the construction of new the plague: Dr. Berryman Bryant, of Keith Lodge No.
lodge halls, took on a relief debt totaling more than 187 in Gilroy, in 1849 established a “home for the
$31,000 in direct funds and hospital costs during the sick” on L Street in Sacramento, very likely the city’s
outbreak. For context, the entire city of Sacramento fi rst private hospital, which aided scores of choleric
had only 69 Masons that year, of about 300 statewide. patients. John Bigler, originally of Connecticut Lodge
Meaning that on average, each Sacramento Mason No. 74 (among California’s fi rst lodges, prior to
shouldered something like $449 in relief debt— formation of its Grand Lodge) and later of Tehama
equivalent to almost $15,000 per person in today’s No. 3, was at the time of the outbreak speaker of the
dollars. Th at staggering commitment actually sunk state assembly. He would go on to serve as the third
Jennings Lodge No. 4, which disbanded in 1853. governor of California, though in 1850, he too was
described by Whitsell as working tirelessly, walking
Winn, as councilman and former mayor of “among the sick and dying, serving wherever he could
Sacramento, president of the Masons and Odd when the stench was so bad he had to keep a lump of
Fellows Association, and leader of the Masonic relief camphor at his nose.”
movement, was perhaps fi rst among equals with And fi nally, there was Dr. John Townsend, a larger-
regards to charity, “exhausting the contents of his own than-life fi gure in early California history. Townsend
purse and putting himself into severe fi nancial straits had been among the fi rst party to drive wagons cross
in an heroic eff ort to relieve the suff ering,” according the Sierra Nevada and became the fi rst resident
to John Whitsell’s Hundred Years of Freemasonry physician of San Francisco (where Townsend Street
in California. Four years aft er the outbreak, the is named in his honor). At the time of the outbreak,
Odd Fellows and Masons issued a joint report Townsend was the fi rst junior warden of San Jose
recommending that Winn be personally reimbursed Lodge No. 10, where he ministered to the sick right up
for costs he incurred during the outbreak totaling until both he and his wife succumbed to the disease
$19,140. (Ultimately, the city of Sacramento issued on December 8, 1850.
him $1,825.) Several years later, Winn moved to San
Francisco and founded the order of the Native Sons of Th ough largely forgotten by history, the cholera
the Golden West. outbreak of 1850 stands out in the history of California
Masonry as a shining example of the fraternity’s
Winn wasn’t alone among Masonic champions of commitment to fulfi lling its obligation of relief. “We
the outbreak. Dr. John F. Morse, as head of the Odd know beyond doubt that they stood true in hour
Fellows’ and Masons’ Hospital at Fort Sutter, was said of need,” wrote Whitsell in his Hundred Years of
to have tended to the dying by the hundreds during Freemasonry in California.
Montana Freemason Page 10 March/April 2021 Volume 97 No. 2