CHARTIERS LODGE NO. 297 F. & A.M. OF PENNSYLVANIA
The Petition: “We the undersigned being regular master masons formerly members of the lodges mentioned against our respective names, and at this time not members of any lodges pray for a warrant of Constitution empowering us to meet as a regular Lodge at Canonsburg, Washington County, state of Pennsylvania to be called Chartiers Lodge - and there to discharge the duties of Masonry in a constitutional manner, according to the forms of the Order, and the rules ten nine Master Masons in good standing. Washington Lodge No. 164 in Washington “Resolved that the accompanying Petition be recommended to the favorable consideration of the Right Worshipful Grand Lodge.”
“Issued a Warrant, to hold a Lodge in Canonsburg (!), Washington County, Pennsylvania called Chartiers Lodge No. 297 Two Hundred and Ninety Seven Dated March 3rd 1856 A.L. 5856.” The Warrant was signed by Right Worshipful Grand Master Peter Williamson and the other Grand Lodge Officers. The Lodge Officers named were Brothers John Jay Shutterly, Worshipful Master; John Murphy, Jr., Senior Warden; and James Wallace Robb, Junior Warden, as attested by William H. Adams, Grand Secretary. District Deputy Grand Master J.B. Musser constituted Chartiers Lodge No. 297 on May 16, 1856. Chartiers Lodge welcomed Brethren from McMurray Lodge No. 807 on July 1, 1989 and Garfield Lodge No. 604 on July 1, 1995, as these lodges merged with Chartiers Lodge.
Washington County was formed from part of Westmoreland County March 28, 1781 by an act of Assembly. Originally part of Virginia, it borders on the present West Virginia. Celebrating the most popular man in America, the new county was the first one named for Brother and General George Washington eight years before he became President of the new United States. The county was the scene of the Whiskey Rebellion, when a local lawyer, David Bradford organized the local farmers into a revolt against the taxes placed on whiskey. It was also here that Dr. Francis J. Lemoyne, an abolitionist, founded the Western Abolition Society. Washington was the first county organized after the Declaration of Independence, and the only one erected during the Revolution. The early industries of the County were agricultural, especially cattle and sheep, from which an extensive wool industry grew. Bituminous coal and limestone were the two chief non-agricultural products. The National Road (US Route 40) the first federally-funded highway crosses the county and city of Washington.
Washington, the county seat, was laid out in 1781 by David Hoge, who called it Bassettown. In 1784, the name was changed to Washington. Incorporated a borough on February 13, 1810, Washington was chartered a city in 1924. The place had been called
“Catfish’s Camp” for a Native American chief of the Kuskee (part of the Cherokee Nation?), possessor of the land, who had conducted business with the Provincial Council in Philadelphia as early as 1759. The site of the town was a favorite resting place for travelers between Red Stone Fort and Wheeling, (West) Virginia. Bituminous coal, oil, clay and natural gas, as well as glass are the main products. Washington is also the home of Washington and Jefferson College, founded in 1780. In 1790, the year of his death, Brother Benjamin Franklin donated £50 to help start a library at the fledgling Washington Academy. Jefferson College had been founded in 1791 at Canonsburg, seven miles from Washington. It, too, had originally been incorporated as an academy. On March 4, 1865, the Pennsylvania Legislature incorporated the two colleges, subject to the trustees’ vote. It was indeed decided that the two colleges would unite in 1865 and by February 2, 1870, the consolidation was complete.
Canonsburg, the home of Chartiers Lodge No. 297 and Pierino Ronaldo “Perry” Como, owes its name to Col. John Canon, originally from Virginia, a militia officer and member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. His name designates the church officer associated with a cathedral. It was Canon who donated the land for the first home of Jefferson College. Located in central Washington County, near the Chartiers Creek, Canonsburg was incorporated a borough in 1802.
The President of the United States was Franklin Pierce; Brother John C. Breckenridge was vice president. James Pollock was Governor of Pennsylvania
The Know-Nothing Party convened for the first time in Philadelphia, nominated former President Millard Fillmore for President, and abolished secrecy (!). The Republican Party held its first national meeting in Philadelphia.
The question of Kansas becoming a state with or without slavery was a very hot issue. Abolitionist Brother John Brown and his four sons, hoping to prevent Kansas from becoming a slave state, led a group retaliating for the proslavery sacking of Lawrence, Kansas, a station
on the Underground Railroad. Brother John White Geary, former mayor of San Francisco, became the territorial governor of “Bleeding” Kansas, but resigned in 1857 when he did not get the support of Brother President James Buchanan. Brother Geary would go on to become a Union general in the Civil War, and serve two terms as Governor of Pennsylvania, the first person to govern both a territory and a state.
Henry Ward Beecher remarked that a [Brother Christian] Sharps rifle was a better argument against slavery than a Bible: Hence the term “Beecher’s Bibles.”
Manifest Destiny, the extension of the United States’ influence into new territories, took a bizarre turn, when Brother William Walker (1824-1860) an adventurer, managed to have himself made governor of Nicaragua, and be recognized, more or less, by the United States government. A colorful character, he was twice arrested, released, and finally rearrested, court-martialed, and shot.
The Treaty of Paris, ending the Crimean War, was signed.
Queen Victoria instituted the Victoria Cross for bravery.
The Western Union Telegraph Company was formally organized. Telegraph was the only method to communicate ahead of trains, so that operations could be regulated. The first railroad in California was built from Sacramento to Folsom.
Pre-human remains were found in the Neanderthal (Valley of the Neander River) in Germany.
John Greenleaf Whittier published The Panorama and other Poems (which included “The Barefoot Boy”). George Fitzhugh’s essay published this year in the Richmond, VA Examiner, on the antagonistic nature of slavery and free labor, having to come into conflict with each other, would become the source for Abraham Lincoln’s theme of “a house divided.”
Mrs. Carl Schurz founded the first kindergarten in Watertown, Wisconsin. Her husband, Brother Carl, a refugee from the Revolution of 1848 in Germany, was a Union brigadier general, U.S. Senator from Missouri, and Secretary of the Interior.
Gregor Mendel began his research in genetics.
John Veatch discovered borax (Na2B4O7) at a spring in California. It is used for making glass, fiberglass, cleaning products, flame retardants, enamels and (other) coatings.
Blotting paper was first manufactured by Joseph Parker & Son in New Haven, Connecticut
Patents were awarded to: Hamilton Smith for the tin-type camera; Anthony Fass for the accordion; Cyrus Chambers, of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, for the (book and newspaper) folding machine; Ambrose Everett Burnside (later Union General, and originator of sideburns) for the breech-loading carbine which bears his name; D.E. Hughes for a telegraph ticker that successfully printed type; Cullen Whipple for a machine for making screws; Gale Borden for condensed milk.
John Ericsson invented the caloric (hot air) engine. It was too large for ships and locomotives but was used for stationary industrial use. Ericsson later designed and constructed the ironclad Union ship Monitor.
The first bridge across the Mississippi between Davenport, Iowa and Rock Island, Illinois was completed and opened to railroad traffic.
Born: John Singer Sargent (died 1925), artist; Louise Blanchard Bethune (died 1913) first woman architect and Louis Henri Sullivan (died 1924) father of modern American architecture; Lyman Frank Baum (died 1919), author of The Wizard of Oz; Frederick William Vanderbilt (died 1938), railroad tycoon; Andrei Markov (died 1922) mathematician, the Markov chain; Sigmund Freud (died 1939),
Founder of psychoanalysis; Brother Robert E. Peary (died 1920) polar explorer; Brother Booker T. Washington (died 1915), educator; Nikola
Tesla (died 1943), inventor and developer of alternating current; George Bernard Shaw (died 1950), playwright and critic [non-Mason who, when he was asked about marriage answered, “I might say it is like Freemasonry; those who are not received into the order cannot talk about it, and those who are members are pledged to eternal silence.”]; Eddie Foy (died 1928) vaudeville performer; Justice Louis D. Brandeis (died 1941); [Thomas] Woodrow Wilson (died 1924) President of the United States; Marshal Henri Petain (died 1951); Frederick Winslow Taylor (died 1915) developer of scientific management; Peter Henry Emerson (died 1936) who first promoted photography as an independent art; Daniel Guggenheim (died 1930) promoter of aviation, of the family for whom the Guggenheim Museum in New York is named; Joseph John Thomson (died 1940), physicist who discovered the electron; Brother Frank B. Kellogg (died 1937) Secretary of State who would try to outlaw war, and receive the 1929 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
Died: Heinrich Heine (born 1797) author; Amedeo Avogadro (born 1776) chemist, Avogadro’s number – equal volumes of gases at the same temperature and pressure contain an equal number of molecules; Pierre David (born 1789), sculptor; Robert Schumann (born 1810) and Adolphe Charles Adam (born 1802) composers.