‘Researchers discover Acacia in Pennsylvania’

    

Most of the group at Civil War Lodge of Research 1865 yesterday at Acacia 586 in Pennsylvania.

Another great weekend with Civil War Lodge of Research is behind us. Time to look forward to the next one.

Worshipful Master Bill presents Bro. Creighton his Past Master apron. Our Chaplain this year, Creighton is Pastor at Danieltown Baptist Church in North Carolina. He served in the East last year.

We sojourned from our Virginia home to the Keystone State for a visit to Acacia Lodge 586 in Waynesboro for our meeting and additional stops in the area. It’s great to sit in lodge again with Bennett, almost fully recovered from a recent injury, and the brethren. An encouraging turn-out too, with twenty-two present, including a delegation from our host lodge (we don’t always see many from the lodges that welcome us into their temples).

The Worshipful Master in the East at Acacia 586.

We balloted and added another Virginia brother to our ranks too, as Bro. Donald of, I think, Mount Carmel 133 was elected to membership, so our roster numbers 331 members. (That’s a high number for a research lodge, but brethren from Virginia, across the country, and beyond join us.)

Next year’s meeting schedule is taking shape, so look for communications at MAHOVA for our installation in December; then travels to North Carolina in April; the District of Columbia next July; and Frederick, Maryland (or proximity) in October.

The Masonic Building is located
in a beautiful downtown.

Bro. Carl Lynch, Senior Warden of Acacia 586, was our speaker Saturday, presenting his “Thunder on the Mountain: South Mountain During the Civil War.” This is military history with only scant mentions of Freemasonry (a young William McKinley served in the September 1862 Battle of South Mountain, for example). Unfortunately, we were pressed for time, having lunch reservations at a local restaurant, so Bro. Carl had to abridge his talk, but managed to pack a lot of detail into our brains about that region’s great significance in the war.

The altar from the north side.

The Senior Warden’s station in the West.

The Master’s gavel’s sounding block
is a small ashlar.

I’ve always loved the English-style Past Master jewels made and worn in Pennsylvania. I tried to purchase one years ago, but neither of the manufacturers wanted to help me.

This portrait hangs in a place of honor.

Waynesboro itself factored into Gen. Robert E. Lee’s battle plans, as it was a locus of industry then. If you’ve ever heard the improbable story of the Confederate battle plan (Special Order 191) that was lost in transit from Lee to Gen. D.H. Hill—the papers wrapped around three cigars when found by Union soldiers—that was there at South Mountain. Another future U.S. president, a young Rutherford B. Hayes, also among Ohio’s troops, fought and was wounded at this battle. Confederate Lt. Col. George S. James died at South Mountain. He had commanded the mortar battery that initiated the attack on Fort Sumter the year before. He doesn’t get the blame for starting the Civil War, but he in fact fired the shot that was first to hit Fort Sumter. His story continues postmortem because his brother traveled to the battlefield in search of his remains to bring home for burial only to be killed in action himself before finding the unmarked grave a local resident promised to show him.

Lynch did a masterful job of presenting these stories, which is not surprising. He is a Frederick County Park Ranger with lots of experience in explaining to the uninformed these aspects of the war. Plus, he’s a hilarious raconteur!

And this history occurred nearly a year before the Battle of Monterey Pass, immediately after Gettysburg, which is what brought us to Waynesboro in the first place.

Carl spoke for about forty-five minutes; after he finished, we crossed town to eat at a casual lunch spot, which was surprisingly good. The bad news is this left little time for our intended visit to the Monterey Pass Battlefield Park & Museum. Civil War Lodge pointedly pairs our meetings with visits to relevant historic sites. There wasn’t a group visit planned this time, so we each were on our own. I could have done it, but would have needed to return to the hotel, change out of my suit & tie and into clothing appropriate for the heat and humidity, which would have made the park’s closing hour even nearer. Instead, I returned to the lodge’s neighborhood, where I’d noticed a few businesses worth visiting.

56 West Main Street in Waynesboro.

Christie’s House of Pipes & Cigars has been located across the street from Acacia since 1980, when founder Eric Christie opened his doors. It’s a small space; don’t expect a huge inventory. Still, I think having an old school tobacconist right outside the temple’s doors is a sign from Providence.

I visited for a few minutes and chatted with Eric. I possess an inventory of pipe mixtures that will outlast me, so I don’t need any more, but I purchased an ounce of what Christie’s names Vesta, an English that “has just the right amount of Virginia, Burley, Toasted Cavendish, Perique, Latakia and Turkish tobaccos,” says his website.

I don’t need more pipe tobacco,
but another ounce can’t hurt.

I will sample this tonight. (In the 1931 Bela Lugosi movie Dracula—but not the Stoker novel—the Vesta is the schooner that brings our favorite vampire to England.)

There are several antiques stores only steps away. To my mind, an antique is something that predates the Second World War, but evidently bric-a-brac from my childhood now occupy the cubic inches of these shops. ($40 for a vinyl Van Halen Diver Down. Cripes.) But there were older items, just don’t look for bargains. Still under the influence of Christie’s, I sought out whatever tobacciana might be about.

These places always have
a lot of Edgeworth tins.

Then I had to return to the hotel for a shower and fresh clothes. The hot wet July air was polluted by Canada’s latest wildfires, and I was wilting in my dark suit. We had dinner reservations at Cashtown Inn, located in Orrtanna, approximately twenty miles away.

 

A familiar statuette decorates
Cashtown Inn’s sitting room.

Cashtown Inn is located in Adams County.

Another pipe!

Most of us remained satiated from lunch, so we disappointed our waitress with modest orders of appetizers, soups, and salads. I tried to compensate by drinking more Yards Porter than I medicinally required. (Is there a more thoughtful man? I think not!) Still my bill totaled less than $30.

But let me recommend this establishment. In addition to the most charming restaurant, the rooms upstairs are for hire for your overnight stays. A place with its own amazing history.

Finally, bedways was right ways, so it was back to my own hotel for the night’s spatchka. Then it was homeward bound this morning.

Grand Lodge’s 250th anniversary pins
are available. (Not actual size.)

Civil War Lodge of Research 1865 will meet next on Saturday, October 10 at Fort Monroe in Virginia, but don’t forget the Grand Master’s Research Lodge Official Visit next month on Saturday the 29th at Haymarket Lodge 313, starting at one o’clock.

     

‘Civil War Lodge to take Monterey Pass’

    

Civil War Lodge of Research 1865 will return to Pennsylvania next month to visit the site of the Battle of Monterey Pass.

I admit this campaign has been unknown to me, possibly because it is overshadowed in history by Gettysburg, only about twenty miles northeast, and fought days earlier. As the Monterey Pass Battlefield Park & Museum website puts it:

After three days

of battle at Gettysburg…

...both sides had taken substantial losses. Robert E. Lee’s 50,000 remaining troops of the Army of Northern Virginia needed to withdraw from 80,000 remaining Union troops in George Meade’s Army of the Potomac. Where did they go?

Monterey Pass was the site of a battle that would determine whether Lee would be able to retreat and fight another day. Sixty miles of wagons, loaded with supplies needed to sustain Lee’s army, headed for the river crossing at Williamsport, Maryland to escape to Virginia. Twenty miles of those wagons made their way via Monterey Pass. During the night of July Fourth, 5,000 Union troops, including George Armstrong Custer, attacked this retreating wagon train in the middle of a raging thunderstorm.

The Monterey Pass Battlefield Park and Museum is a 125-acre natural, cultural & historical park located in Washington Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. The park and museum preserves a portion of Pennsylvania’s second largest Civil War battle.

The battle included the Toll House, site of the fiercest part of the battle where the Union broke the Confederate line. The Toll House still stands and is privately owned and occupied, though negotiations are underway to bring it into the Park. The Park includes miles of trails with magnificent views of the area….

The lodge, one of six research lodges at labor under the Grand Lodge of Virginia, will meet at Acacia Lodge 586 in Waynesboro on Saturday, July 18 at 10 a.m. After lunch, we’ll leave for the battlefield site.

Cashtown Inn

For dinner on both Friday and Saturday, we will gather at Cashtown Inn, itself at the center of the wartime storm.

Read about that here.

Looks like another great weekend with the lodge—my only Masonic appointment for July, and then I’m off duty until the John Skene Masonic Conference at the end of August in New Jersey. (Unfortunately, that will coincide with the Official Visit of MW Matthew Szramoski to Virginia’s research lodges, scheduled for Haymarket Lodge 313, on August 29. Listen, I can’t do everything.)

      

‘The smallest lodge room I’ve ever seen’

    

Truly, if I already hadn’t known this was a research lodge meeting, I’d have assumed it was a beauty pageant—with seventeen Masons having to share one crown! April 11 at Mt. Jackson Lodge 103 in Virginia.

Still catching up on reporting recent events, and today it’ll be last month’s meeting(s) of Civil War Lodge of Research 1865 in Virginia. We sort of enjoyed two lodge communications for the price of one on April 11 in that we opened at Magnetic Lodge 184 in Stanley; we went out to lunch; and then resumed labor and closed at Mt. Jackson Lodge 103, about twenty miles away, in Mt. Jackson. Unorthodox, but we had the necessary dispensation.

We transacted the regular and constitutional business at hand, like electing four new members plus awarding Honorary Membership to Grand Master Szramoski. Those of us who noticed it were perplexed by the appearance of one blue ball inside the box amid the usual white and black ballots.

MAGNETIC EAST—The Master’s station in Magnetic Lodge 184 in Stanley.

But that wasn’t the only notable trait at Magnetic Lodge. The room itself is memorable. Well, the building is small, so you have to expect a little lodge room, but it isn’t until you enter that you can appreciate such an intimate sacred retreat. I guesstimated the square footage, but didn’t write it down, and I’ve since forgotten, but the room is about the size of the budget hotel room I booked.

I failed to capture in a photo the smallness of Magnetic Lodge’s meeting space, but that dining room table at right is squeezed into the West of the room! That’s our Junior Warden, Bro. Alan, in the foreground. The tables and chairs are removed for the meetings.

Best address in town!

While at labor, it was asked whence came Magnetic Lodge’s name but, unfortunately, no one knew, even Jeff and Kenny from the lodge. Afterward, I poked around online, but didn’t find anything conclusive. My best guess is the founders were connected to the mining industry. Magnetic 184 was chartered December 15, 1876 to meet in Marksville (Page County) on the Saturday night after the full moon each month. That area was renowned for mining iron and other minerals throughout the nineteenth century. Furthermore, the Virginia Department of Energy says magnetite, the most magnetic mineral on Earth, has been among the major sources of iron in the Commonwealth. Perhaps lends deeper meaning to divesting the candidate of all minerals and metals!

For lunch, we stopped at the Hawksbill Diner which, simultaneously, looks like nothing remarkable, while obviously being the place preferred by local citizens for their morning and midday meals, to wit:

They also serve RC Cola, which I haven’t had since I don’t know when, but have been seeking since that day. (Yes, I remember John’s of Bleecker Street has it on draught, but these were bottles!)

“Being half past high twelve,” as Worshipful Master Bill Hare phrased it, we settled into our “second meeting” at Mt. Jackson 103 for the work of the lodge. We were treated to a trilogy of Civil War tales, little pertaining to Freemasonry, unfortunately, but stories about local wartime events that, while colorful, don’t seem to have made the history books or the movies. The most detailed narration given concerned the fate of Confederate soldiers executed for horse-theft. It actually was on this date—May 22—in 1865 when Capt. George Summers, age 22, and Sgt. Isaac Newton Koontz, age 20, with others, committed the thefts. A month later, the two were executed without trial at New Market (site of my diminutive hotel accommodation), for the crime, despite already having been forgiven. Please read about this here.

We need another Northerner in the East of CWLR 1865 soon for equal time.

Another history was related by one of our Honorary Members, MW Bro. Kenneth S. Wyvill, Jr., Past Grand Master (2015-16) of the Grand Lodge of Maryland. He spoke of his grandfather, Dr. Wyvill, a physician in Maryland who also served as a courier for the Confederacy. 

On the not quite research side of things, we also heard about a legend dating to the Battle of Gettysburg when the Right Worshipful Grand Master of Pennsylvania arrived on the scene and allegedly opened a lodge where soldiers of both armies met on the level. I can’t recall the name of the brother who shared this account, but he said he’s still trying to find evidence of that lodge meeting and is encouraged by proof he found that Grand Master David C. Skerett, a doctor from Philly, in fact was at Gettysburg.

I love these lighting fixtures. I think this was an exterior light on the lodge’s previous building.

The current light. Somehow not the same.

Speaking of Gettysburg, Civil War Lodge of Research 1865 will meet next on July 18 at Acacia Lodge 586 in Waynesboro—which was constituted on this date—May 22—in 1891. Our Civil War focus that weekend will be the Monterey Pass Battlefield Park and Museum, located only about twenty miles west of Gettysburg.

Everyone stops to photograph the reproduction Gulf station at 6023 Main Street in Mt. Jackson. Read about that here.

Let me again send best wishes to Bro. Bennett Hart, who is both our Secretary and our DDGM, as he recovers from an injury and couldn’t be with us last month. I look forward to shaking his hand soon.

After closing, we dispersed into the late afternoon, not having a group visit to any historic site planned. I headed back to my hotel, where nearby are both the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park and the Virginia Museum of the Civil War. Closing time for both was near, so I had to hustle. Bumped into Bro. Alan inside the museum. Some photos:

Stonewall Jackson greets you outside the museum.

And T.J. inside.

Self-portrait of Julian A. Scott, renowned artist...

…and heroic 16-year-old soldier. Click here.

The Bushong House.

This rustic pile
The simple tale will tell
It marks the spot
Where Woodsons Heroes fell.

The obligatory cannon shot.