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By Alfred V. Swartz
Gold, as we all know, was
discovered on the Mother Lode in January 1848,
and it was not long before the news broke.
Everybody who could get away from the Coastal
Settlements was leaving for the mines and when
President Polk read to Congress the confirming
report of the discovery of gold in California
in December 1848, the overland migration
started. Caravans and wagon trains were
formed, new trails and roads were broken and
the Gold Rush was on.
Western Star Lodge No. 98
(afterwards Western Star Lodge No. 2 under the
California Jurisdiction) was chartered by the
Grand Lodge of Missouri on May 10 , 1848 and
was established in Tehama County in the fall of
1848 with Saschal Woods as the first Master.
This Lodge was far to the north of the gold
activity so the Lodge was not opened and set to
work until October 30, 1849. There were
ninety-one lodges formed in the Mother lode
area and fifty-two of these are now extinct (as
of this writing in 1978).
Mariposa Lodge No.24 is
the southern end of the Mother Lode, and like
every other section of this part of California,
the gold seekers reached here in 1848.
Dispensation was granted to form a Lodge in
1851. This was known as the "hard luck"
Lodge. Its first Master died during his term
of office and the records were twice destroyed
by fire, once in 1858 and again in 1866. While
recovering from the first fire it contracted to
build a new hall but the contractor got into
litigation and the property was attached and
all operations suspended. The brethren were
without a meeting place that much longer.
In 1858 they had 57
members but 50 of these were out in the hills
looking for gold in the diggings. In 1861 the
Lodge had a sort of house cleaning and
suspended 5 members for non-payment of dues and
dropped 3 Fellowcrafts and 1 Entered
Apprentice from the rolls. In spite of all
their troubles after the Civil War in 1865 they
showed better than a 25 per cent membership
gain.
After the fire of 1866
they operated under a five-mail roving
charter. The Brothers took their Ark, Bible,
Square and Compass, and working tools, the only
things saved from the fire, and set out in the
early evenings for their appointed meeting
place, perhaps in the hills back of town, at
the home of a member, under a tree, or in the
County Court House.
The local Odd Fellows
Lodge offered the use of its hall, rent free
for six months. Mariposa voted to accept the
offer but at the rental of $15.00 per month.
Until 1911, when Mariposa again built a lodge
hall of its own, it rented from the Odd
Fellows.
Mariposa Lodge holds the
record for relief. When Brother of that Lodge
died in 1863 the Lodge took upon itself to
provide his widow and daughter with most of the
necessities of life. After the mother died the
charity continued to the daughter who was
unable to care for herself. This relief
extended for a period of more than forty years,
and while the total amount is not known, the
records having been destroyed by fire, it must
have amounted to thousands of dollars.
It is interesting to note
that the minutes of 1877 show that the Lodge
had $1,000.00 in surplus funds available for
loan with no applications. Again in 1882 they
had another $1,000.00 to loan but no takers.
Editor’s Note:
Permission to reprint this article was
obtained from our Brothers of the Southern
California Research Lodge.
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