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Temple Lodge 47 to celebrate ‘175 years of making good men better’
To say that 1843 was a different time is a bit of an understatement.
Indiana was just 27 years old. Putnam County had been around for 21 years.
Although Greencastle had been around as a village since 1821, it was still 18 years away from becoming a city.
And yet, in this village in June of 1843, a group of seven or eight Masons got together and started an organization that is still alive and going strong in 2018.
At 11 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 18, Temple Lodge 47 F&AM (Free and Accepted Masons) will celebrate the 175-year history of the lodge.
The achievement has been highlighted in recent weeks by a banner in front of the lodge at 118 E. Washington St. that reads “175 years of making good men better.”
It’s a simple idea that conveys lofty ideals. It is also a goal that has not really changed in 175 years.
“One of the big themes of Masonry is, it doesn’t matter what your station is, we all meet on the level,” Past Master Randy Seipel said. “We are equal in minds and position and so no one is above anyone else. That’s one of the things I like about it.
“Not only now, but from the beginning, the Lodge accepts men of every background,” Seipel said.
As Seipel, a former police officer, said these words, he was also living them out, sitting in the lodge dining room with Worshipful Master Kerry Williams, a local farmer and crop adviser, and Master Mason Elliot Dunbar, a recent college graduate.
“If not for this place, we wouldn’t know each other,” Williams said.
When a group of these men gather, in a way it’s no different than any gathering of men. During the meal there are nicknames, playful ribbings, inside jokes.
Yet there’s more. When the meal is over and the men head upstairs for their meeting, things are serious and religious and political differences are set aside.
There’s also a level of caring that’s intrinsic to Masonic teachings. As Dunbar says, it’s “a group of men who care about each other and their families.”
“That’s been the coolest part as a young guy,” Dunbar said. “You can sit there and talk about what’s going on in school and a guy in his 70s will ask about what I’m learning.
“As I start to have a family, I know I’ll be taken care of.”
While this illustrates the first Masonic principal of brotherly love, it also begins to get into the second principal, that of relief.
“When a Mason asks for the help of another Mason, he’s going to get something,” Seipel said, saying it could take the form of advice or perhaps financial or material help.
Seipel and Williams saw this play out in a big way for the family of a member of the lodge. When he passed away unexpectedly in an automobile accident, the lodge did what it could to support the family he left behind.
What was ironic was that the man’s widow had been the person most strongly encouraging him to join, having seen the relief principal in action in the past.
“His wife had pressed pretty hard for him to join,” Williams said. “She told us that when her grandma was widowed, she saw the lodge come through for her.”
The newly-widowed woman had wanted her husband to be that help for someone else if needed.
“She said, ‘I didn’t know it was going to be me,’” Williams said.
The final principal is that of truth.
“In Masonry, you’re always seeking light,” Seipel said. “You’re constantly seeking knowledge.”
This is done through degree work, with three levels of degrees Masons can attain: Entered Apprentice Degree, Fellowcraft Degree and Master Mason.
Symbolically, the degrees are meant to represent the workmen who built King Solomon’s temple, with Entered Apprentice representing bearers of burden, Fellowcraft representing quarry workers and Master Masons symbolic of the overseers of the work.
Additionally, the degrees are symbolic of youth, manhood and age.
Age is something the lodge is seeing a lot more of these days, with three members with more than 65 years and Masons ranging in age from 18 to 97.
Of the 274 current members of Temple Lodge, many have trouble making it up the stairs in the current building. This is one reason the lodge is looking into a possible move, with Putnam County possibly purchasing the building for a new courthouse annex
“Through 175 years, we’ve been in different locations,” Seipel said, before alluding to the possible move. “I look at it as bittersweet.”
“But it’s an opportunity,” Williams interjected.
“A new chapter,” Dunbar added.
Going back to the early chapters, one finds that a number of notable men have called Temple Lodge 47 home.
There was Cyrus Nutt, an Indiana Asbury (now DePauw) professor who served as acting president of the college before becoming the president of Indiana University in 1860.
Another early Asbury connection was William C. Larabee (of oft-misspelled Greencastle street fame), who was the third ever Asbury professor, sixth master at Temple Lodge and later the state’s first ever superintendent of public instruction.
E. R. Kerchival was also a Mason in Temple Lodge back when Greencastle was just a village. When it finally became a city, he was the first mayor.
It’s this history and much more that will be celebrated on Saturday, with a meal, appearances from officers of the Grand Lodge in Indianapolis and a ceremony commemorating the 175th anniversary.
It’s a way for the men of Temple Lodge 47 to perhaps introduce some new folks to their organization while celebrating a brotherhood that immediately links them to men from around the world.
“You never know when you’ll run into somebody,” Seipel said. “That’s the beauty of it. You can go just about anywhere and run into a Mason.”