The first European settlers in what was to become southeastern Linn County arrived about 1837. The town of “Pinhook,” platted in 1847, the year after Iowa became a state, was located on top of the hill that makes modern Mount Vernon “one hill of a town.” Here were located—because the steep hill made poor farmland—several businesses, established originally in canvas tents, with their wares displayed by attaching them to the stores’ exteriors with wooden clothespins—thus “Pinhook.” Soon the settlement adopted the more sober, if less descriptive name Mount Vernon.
In 1844, four Masonic Lodges, all chartered by the Grand Lodge of Missouri, met in Iowa City and founded the Grand Lodge of Iowa. The new Grand Lodge chartered the original four Lodges as Numbers 1-4, and granted dispensations for the formation of two more Lodges. Total membership of extant Lodges was 101 Brothers, as of December 31. 1844. Among early settlers in Iowa were many Freemasons, nor were the Iowa Lodges remiss in attracting new men to the Fraternity. By 1850 there were 22 Lodges and just under 500 members.
Then the growth of Iowa Masonry exploded. By 1857, when Masons in Mount Vernon applied to the Grand Lodge to establish a Lodge, there were 100 Lodges and nearly 4,400 members; 709 new Master Masons were Raised in 1857, and another 480 were admitted to Iowa Lodges by affiliation from Lodges in other Grand Jurisdictions.
Mount Vernon Lodge records indicate a number of early Brethren who settled in Iowa before 1850, although the records are incomplete, and several of these men settled in other locations before moving to the Mount Vernon area. Nonetheless, among these early pioneers were: Abraham R. Knott (1836) Frank L. Knott (1836), Edward L. Day (1837), J. B. Sargent (1838) William McClelland (1839), Ruben (or Reuben) Ash (1840), Charles W. McCune (1841), Elijah D. Waln (1841), William H. Goudy (1842), Thomas S. Kepler (1843), Richard J. Harbert (1843), Alonzo S. Waln (1844), D. F. McCune (1844), Andrew J. Cook (1845), Joshua Doron (1846), George W. Beldin (1847), Christian H. Kurtz (1847), George W. Harvey (1848), and Amos D. Witter (1849). Some of these men were Masons when they arrived in the area, and others would join the Lodge in the early years of its existence.
Early records from Mount Vernon affirm that Bros. Ash, E. D. Waln, Goudy, and Harbert settled in or near the nascent town in the years noted above.
It is clear that there were a number of Masons in Mount Vernon by the mid-1850s. There were several Lodges within 25 miles of Mount Vernon: Iowa City Lodge No. 4 in Iowa City, Marion Lodge No. 6 in Marion, Cedar Lodge No. 11 in Tipton, and Anamosa Lodge No. 46 in Anamosa. Masons in the Mount Vernon area traveled to one or another of these Lodges on occasion, and particularly to the Lodges in Anamosa, Tipton, and Marion. These are all short trips today, but in the 1850s, with primitive roads to travel on horseback or by wagon or buggy, these were consequential trips, often requiring that the Brethren stay overnight with the Brethren they were visiting. Indeed, three charter members of Mount Vernon Lodge, Elijah D. Waln, George W. Beldin, and Martin Floyd, received their Masonic Degrees in Marion in 1850 and 1851, and Frank L. Knott received his work in Golden Rule Lodge No. 24 in Rochester in 1855.
While it is pure speculation, it seems credible that the precipitating event in the founding of Mount Vernon Lodge was the arrival in Mount Vernon from Dixon, Iowa of Dr. Amos D. Witter in 1857. Dr. Witter had been a physician in Tipton between 1850 and 1854. It is probable he was active in Cedar Lodge during that time, and that some of the Mount Vernon Masons sat with him there. He moved to Mount Vernon because of the availability of better educational opportunities—the Iowa Conference Seminary, soon to become Cornell College—for his four children.
Dr. Witter arrived in Mount Vernon in the Spring of 1857. Shortly thereafter, in a document dated July 16, 1857, nine Freemasons resident in or near Mount Vernon petitioned the Grand Lodge of Iowa for a dispensation to establish a new Lodge in their town. Dr. Witter had traveled to Marion Lodge No. 6 less than a week earlier (on July 11), and served as Master of Marion Lodge at their meeting. He proved himself proficient to open and close Lodge in all three Degrees, to the satisfaction of the Brothers in attendance. A letter of attest from the Master and Secretary of Marion Lodge accompanied the petition to the Grand Lodge from the Masons of Mount Vernon, and affirmed the regularity of the petitioners.
Grand Master John F. Sanford and Grand Secretary (and Past Grand Master) Theodore S. Parvin granted Mount Vernon’s dispensation on July 26, 1857. Dr. Witter was appointed Master, Dr. Andrew T. Safely Senior Warden, and Postmaster Elijah D. Waln Junior Warden. Other signers of the petition were Lucian B. Gere (merchant), Dr. George W. Beldin (physician), Martin Floyd (mechanic), A. B. Kendig (Methodist clergyman), Frank L. Knott (merchant), and Isaac A. Hammen (physician). [Note: there were apparently more physicians practicing in Mount Vernon in 1858 than there are in 2008.]
Mount Vernon Lodge UD held its first meeting on Oct. 29, 1857, with Amos Witter as Master, Andrew T. Safely as Senior Warden, Elijah D. Waln as Junior Warden, Martin Floyd as Treasurer, Lucian B. Gere as Secretary, Isaac A. Hammen as Senior Deacon, Frank L. Knott as Junior Deacon, A. B. Kendig as Chaplain, and Charles S. Gordon as Tyler. The Lodge was opened in due form successively on all three Degrees. Communications of the Lodge were to be held the Friday on or before the full moon of each month. By-laws of Cedar Lodge No. 11 in Tipton were adopted to serve until the Lodge drafted their own, and Bros. Safely, Hammen, and Waln were appointed to draft new by-laws, to report at the next stated meeting.
The Lodge met in the second story of a building owned by E. D. Waln at the northwest corner of First Avenue and First Street. Rent was $150.00 per year, but $50 of the first year’s dues were remitted by the landlord.
Seven petitions for the Degrees of Masonry were read at the first meeting. Indeed, the Lodge spent most of its time and activity between Oct. 29, 1857 and June 2, 1858, conferring Degrees. During a period a few days longer than seven months, the Lodge met 26 times. On Christmas Eve, 1857, the Lodge held its Stated Communication, read five new petitions, and conferred five (!) Fellowcraft Degrees. (How delighted their families must have been!)
The Lodge under dispensation conferred 57 Degrees on 19 candidates in just slightly more than seven months, more than tripling the membership of the Lodge. That means they met at least once a week, and conferred an average of two Degrees per meeting!
On May 28, 1858, a Thursday, and less than a week before Grand Lodge was to convene, Mount Vernon Lodge UD opened in due form 9:00 a.m., called from labor to refreshment for the noon meal, returned to labor, broke again for supper, and opened again in the evening. During the course of that marathon they conferred three separate Fellowcraft Degrees, and Raised five other Fellowcrafts, in five separate Third Degrees, to the Sublime Degree of a Master Mason.
Among the new Master Masons that day was Bro. Stephen N. Fellows, who was just two days short of his twenty-fourth birthday. He had arrived in Mount Vernon in 1854. His half-brother, Samuel M. Fellows, was the first principal of the Iowa Conference Academy (the high-school section of what was to become Cornell College) in 1853, and became the second president of the College in 1859.
Bro. Fellows, before even receiving his baccalaureate degree from De Pauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, was named Professor of Mathematics and Natural Science at the Iowa Conference Seminary. The school opened in Mount Vernon in 1853. Bro. Fellows joined the Upper Iowa Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1856 (e.g., he was ordained), and, in 1857, entered the ministry full-time.
In 1867, Bro. Fellows was unanimously elected by the State University in Iowa City to be the first principal of the Normal Department. This was to become the first Department of Education at any college or university in the country. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Cornell College in 1871.
At its Annual Communication in 1858, the Grand Lodge was pleased with the work in Mount Vernon. Grand Master Sanford and Grand Secretary Parvin affixed the seal of the Grand Lodge of Iowa to Mount Vernon’s Charter on June 2, 1858. The new Lodge was numbered 112.
Fifteen new Lodges had been chartered in 1857. 1858 set a record. Mount Vernon Lodge No. 112 was one of THIRTY new Lodges chartered that year! On December 31, 1858, there were 4,577 active Master Masons in the state of Iowa, a 16% increase over the previous year, and a whopping 514% increase since 1850.
The first Stated Communication of the fully-chartered Mount Vernon Lodge No. 112 was held three weeks later, on June 24. At 6:00 p.m. a Lodge of Master Masons was opened, and officers were elected. The Lodge was called from labor to refreshment. All then disembarked for Cedar Lodge in Tipton, 22 miles distant, where the new Grand Master, James R. Hartsock of Iowa City, installed the first officers of Mount Vernon Lodge. The Mount Vernon Brothers then returned to Mount Vernon. They had intended to arrive back home by 10:00 p.m. according to the minutes, but that estimate was a bit hopeful, given the 44-mile round trip and the installation ceremonies. They returned about 11:00 p.m. to close Lodge. Even at that, as the centenary history notes, “those horses must have been some steppers!”
Officers for the first year as a chartered Lodge were Dr. Amos D. Witter, Master; Dr. Isaac S. Hammen, Senior Deacon; Dr. Joseph P. Gordon, Junior Warden; Noah W. McKean (merchant), Treasurer; and Elijah D. Waln (postmaster), Secretary. These Brethren, in addition to Bros. Andrew T Safely (physician), Martin Floyd (merchant), Lucian B. Gere (merchant), Frank L. Knott (merchant), A. B. Kendig ( Methodist clergyman), C. S. Gordon (mechanic), George W. Beldin (physician), Edward S. Bargelt (Presbyterian clergyman), Abraham R. Knott (merchant), Lucas A. Weeks (farmer), J ohn G. Hayzlett (merchant), Thomas McFarland (mechanic), Henry E. Hoover (farmer), Morgan L. Ink (farmer), David E. Wheeler (professor and clergyman), Andrew J. Cook (farmer), Thomas G, Isherwood (farmer), Thomas Bumgardner (mechanic), and Stephen N. Fellows (professor and clergyman), were the charter members of the Lodge.
It is interesting to consider the list of charter members. Except for what seems an inordinate number of physicians and clergymen, it is a cross-section of the growing community in 1857-1858. If one examines the history of Mount Vernon, many names on the Lodge Charter resonate in the establishment, governance, and prosperity of the town in the mid-nineteenth century. Moreover, there are men of all social strata represented. In short, this is a Lodge of Masons, representatives of the community in which they lived, and meeting together as equals. Within a few years other citizens—a banker, a newspaper editor, several more professors, a college president, more merchants, mechanics, and farmers, a railroad man, an engineer, a painter, still more clergymen and physicians—were added to the Lodge rolls.
Minutes from December 16, 1858 until June 24, 1859 have not survived. On the latter date—the first anniversary of the Lodge’s first chartered Stated Communication—the Lodge celebrated. June 24 is not only the anniversary of the first meeting of Mount Vernon Lodge. It is also the Feast of St. John the Baptist, one of two feast days celebrated by Masons (the other is the feast of St. John the Evangelist, on December 27).
On June 24, 1859, the Lodge opened at 9:00 a.m. Fourteen members were present, as well as four visitors from Marion Lodge No. 6, and four local Masons who had not yet affiliated with Mount Vernon Lodge. New Lodge officers were elected. Lodge was then called from labor to refreshment, and reconvened at 2:00 p.m. Led by the Mount Vernon Town Band, the Masons processed from downtown Mount Vernon to the Cornell College campus, and gathered in the “old chapel building,” the predecessor of King Memorial Chapel (the lower level of King Chapel was not opened until 1878). There a public installation of officers was held, with Bro. A. B. Dumond of Marion Lodge No. 6 as Installing Master. The Lodge called from refreshment to labor at 6:30 p.m., and conferred two Third Degrees.
In 1860 the Lodge moved from its first home to new rooms diagonally across the intersection of First Avenue and First Street. They met on the third floor of a building owned by F. L. and A. R. Knott, at an annual rent of $50 (in 1957 the building was devastated by fire, and the third floor was not replaced).
The March 1862 minutes note that Bro. G. W. Beldin presented the Lodge a sword that had been captured during the battle of Mexico City in 1847 between General Winfield Scott and General Antonio López de Santa Anna. The sword was a gift to the Lodge from Captain A. R. Saasman, and it was to belong to the Lodge forever. It serves still as out Tyler’s sword.
As was the case among the general population in Iowa—Iowa, per capita, provided more soldiers to the Union Army during the Civil War than any other state—Mount Vernon Lodge contributed its share of troops to the cause. Dues were regularly remitted for men in service. In 1864, toward the end of the war, 14 Lodge members—more than a quarter of the total membership—were serving in the Union forces.
Unfortunately, not all returned safely.
Dr. Amos Witter, who had been so influential in establishing the Lodge, and had been Master in 1857, 1858, and part of 1861, served heroically under fire during the battle of Fort Donelson in Tennessee on February 12-16, 1862, with General U. S. Grant in command. Although he rose from a sickbed to do so, Dr. Witter spent nearly 96 consecutive hours tending the wounded on the battlefield, before he himself collapsed. Gravely ill, he returned home to Mount Vernon, and died on March 13, 1862. He was buried in Mount Vernon Cemetery with military and Masonic honors. He was 11 days short of his fifty-fifth birthday at the time of his death—an old man in that day. Yet he sacrificed himself to save others.
Another, and younger, man, Bro. Wilbur C. Dimmitt, was Initiated in Mount Vernon Lodge on July 1, 1861, before he entered the army. A Cornell College student at the time of his Initiation (class of 1862), he was the son of the Methodist pastor in Mount Vernon, Rev. Jacob Dimmitt, himself a Mason. Bro. Wilbur Dimmitt’s remaining two Degrees were conferred through courtesy work, perhaps in a military Lodge, in 1863. Captain Dimmitt was wounded at the battle of Sabine Crossroads in Louisiana on April 8, 1864. He was captured by Confederate forces, and died in a prison hospital on May 4, 1864. The local post of the Grand Army of the Republic was named in his honor, and his name is inscribed on one of the magnificent windows in King Chapel on the Cornell campus.
A significant addition to Lodge membership occurred in November 1862, when William Fletcher King petitioned to affiliate with the Lodge. Bro. King received the Degrees of Masonry in Hiram Lodge No. 18 in Delaware, Ohio, while teaching at Ohio Wesleyan University. He joined the faculty of Cornell College as Professor of Greek and Latin in August 1862, and in June 1863 was named Acting President (upon the death, at age 44, of his predecessor, Samuel Fellows). Bro King was named President in 1865. He served as President until 1908 (when he was 78 years old), and continued to be active as a member of the Board of Trustees until his death, at nearly 90, in 1921. He is memorialized by William Fletcher King Memorial Chapel on the Cornell campus.
Mount Vernon Lodge continued to grow. By 1864, despite the Civil War, the Lodge had grown to 51 members. In 1871 membership reached 84 members, although financial crises during the ensuing decade or so reduced numbers slightly.
During the first five decades or more of the Lodge’s life, there were no easily accessible hospitals, and no facilities whatsoever for the elderly and infirm. When people became ill, they were cared for at home whatever the severity of the illness. The elderly and infirm likewise were cared for by their families.
But what of those who had no family to care for them? If they were Masons—or the widows or orphans of Masons—other Masons had sworn to care for them.
The Grand Lodge of Iowa was founded in 1844, two years before Iowa became a state, and there were many older Grand Jurisdictions in the United States. These provided several models, usually Masonic Homes or Masonic Widows’ and Orphans’ Homes, where ill, indigent, or infirm Masons and their surviving dependants were cared for.
Iowa chose a different model, one that came to be known nationally as the “Iowa Plan.” This system seems to have been in place decades before the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, and continued well into the twentieth century.
A Mason from Kentucky wrote to the editor of The Builder, an Iowa-based Masonic periodical, in April 1916, and expressed puzzlement that Iowa did not have a Masonic Home. The editor, Joseph Fort Newton, responded as follows:

In general, the Iowa plan is to assist those in need by keeping them, so far as possible, in their old environment, among their friends and associates - assisting them secretly, so that no one save the Brethren having the matter in charge, and a few local Masons, know anything that is being done. Iowa, however, is a young state, and does not yet feel the pressure of the problems confronting older Jurisdictions; but it is beginning to feel them. So far we have cared for those needing a home in various institutions in the state for that purpose; but it is probably only a question of time until the Grand Lodge of Iowa will need a home of some kind, albeit with its present system it will not require as large an institution as other Jurisdictions maintain.

Mount Vernon Lodge followed the Iowa Plan. If a person were to become seriously ill, and 24-hour care was required, Lodge members determined that they would provide night-time nursing services for each other: if one of their number needed continuous nursing care, they would provide night services as volunteers.
That worked well—for a while.
Then, following several months of wrangling on the topic (if one reads between the lines of the minutes), they determined that they would “levy a tax of twenty-five cents per month” on each member, and with those funds hire overnight nurses to care for their ailing Brethren or their survivors. The motion, duly made and seconded, was passed unanimously.
These sorts of arrangements continued for many years. The minutes of the regular meeting of July 23, 1907, note: “T. I. Mitchell reported in the matter of J. W. Kynett as having arranged with Mrs. Nina Cowen to keep him for $30.00 per month. Also had arranged for part of the money to come from other sources than the Lodge.”
Bro. Kynett was a retired clergyman who had at one time served Linn Grove parish, north of Mount Vernon. when it was still a Methodist church. He had affiliated with Mount Vernon Lodge from Cedar Lodge No. 11 in Tipton on March 18, 1893. By 1907, he certainly was elderly, because there is evidence of his having officiated at a marriage ceremony in Scott County in 1865, and a report that he sold 42 acres of land west of Tipton to Cedar County in 1866; the land was to be used as the Cedar County fairgrounds. He laid down his working tools on October 31, 1907, and was buried with Masonic honors.
Freemasonry in Iowa flourished between the end of the Civil War and 1900, despite several financial panics and a brief resurgence of anti-Masonic sentiment in the 1890s. There were more than 10,000 Masons in Iowa for the first time in 1868, more than 15,000 in 1871, and more than 20,000 in 1881. Between 1890 and 1891, there was a net gain of 5,662 members in a single year. By 1900, there were 39,507 Masons in Iowa. By 1921, and particularly following World War I, that number had more than doubled. Membership reached a peak of 90,171 in 1929, declined substantially during the Depression, and then rose again following World War II and the Korean Conflict, reaching its largest membership of 99.044 Masons in 1955. Since that time, total membership has declined more or less steadily, with a total Iowa membership of 23,987 in 2007, the lowest number since 1889.
In general, Mount Vernon Lodge membership has followed a similar pattern, although the post-WWII increase in membership was not so pronounced as it was statewide.
In 1881 the Lodge moved back across the street, to the second floor of the reconstructed Waln building, where they remained until 1915.
On September 4, 1884, the Lodge received a “communication from Helion Lodge No 36 [Maquoketa] opposing the 25 cent per capita tax to finish [Grand Lodge] Library building.” Upon motion, the idea was judiciously tabled.
At some point in the late 1880s the Lodge began to sponsor a Strawberry Festival in June. On June 6, 1891, however, they voted not to have it that year.
A Chapter of Royal Arch Masons was formed in Mount Vernon in 1895, and the Eastern Star Chapter was founded in 1901. With this increased Masonic activity, Lodge members found their meeting rooms increasingly inadequate and, in 1915, moved to the second floor of a building on the south side of First Street owned by Bro. J. G. Fox. With the assistance of the Eastern Star Chapter, the rooms were redecorated, and some of the furnishings from that time are still in use by the Lodge today.
During June, July, and August 1900, ten Master Masons, all of whom lived in or near Lisbon, demitted from Mount Vernon Lodge to form a new Lodge in Lisbon; they were J. E. Shidley, James G. Bovey, Jonathan Richards, George A. Patterson, Henry Sailor, J. Ganby, Willard Yeisley, Alonzo Minnick, A. W. Runkle, and Joel C. Ringer. Benjamin Franklin Lodge was under dispensation until June 1901, when it became Lodge No. 574. In 1988, Benjamin Franklin Lodge and Mount Vernon Lodge consolidated, and the resulting Lodge continued to be known as Mount Vernon Lodge No. 112.
Benjamin Franklin Lodge was extremely active for a number of years. Originally the Lodge met up not two, but THREE sets of winding stairs, on the third floor of a downtown Lisbon building. When St. John the Baptist Catholic Church moved from Lisbon into the new church in Mount Vernon, Bro. Willard Heneks purchased the church building, and the Lodge remodeled it to serve as a Masonic Temple. In later years, the Lodge met in the upper floor of Gwen’s Restaurant in downtown Lisbon.
Both Mount Vernon and Lisbon Lodges had active chapters of Rainbow Girls and Eastern Star, and both investigated establishing a DeMolay Chapter as well. The availability of Masonic activities for family members of Masons was an important stimulus in both Lodges for more activities of different kinds, and for publicizing the Lodges as well. It is interesting to note that the periods of the greatest Masonic activity in both communities in the twentieth century seem to coincide with the most active periods of Eastern Star and Rainbow.
The end of World War I, in which several Lodge members served, saw an increase in Masonic membership, in Mount Vernon, in Lisbon, and in Iowa. The 1920s were a time of expansion and exuberance, and Mount Vernon Lodge decided it would be wise to increase dues and initiation fees, with the new money paid into a fund for building a Masonic Temple. Because times were good, the fund grew quite rapidly.
The prosperity was not to last. Following the financial collapse of October 1929, Bro. J. G. Fox, who owned the building where the Lodge met, suffered severe financial reverses, and the building was taken over by Citizens State Bank. Then, in 1931, Citizens State Bank itself failed (as did many other banks that year). The building needed to be sold by the receivers of the bank’s remaining assets.
The Lodge inquired, and learned that a price of $5,000 had been set for the building. The Lodge, having slightly more than $5,100 in the building fund, offered $4,000, with back taxes and all fees to be included in the price. The receivers summarily dismissed the offer, and the Lodge waited.
By late October 1932 the building still had not been sold, and financial times had not improved. Again the Lodge offered to purchase the building for $4,000, inclusive. This time they were successful.
For many years the retail space on the bottom floors of the building provided an excellent revenue stream for the Lodge, providing for adequate maintenance and upkeep for the property. For many years in the 1960s and 1970s the rental income surpassed $13,000 annually.
During World War II, younger Lodge members again answered their country’s call. In addition, the Lodge was able to provide a significant service.
Cornell College served as the base for a Navy training unit. However, there were no U. S. O. facilities available at the college or in town. The Lodge stepped forward to fill the need. They rolled up the rugs in the Lodge room and transformed the Lodge into a temporary social center. As Bro. Glenn Rogers noted in remarks prepared for the Lodge’s Centennial, “Masonry all over the country did not suffer from this, as the boys came from every state in the union.”
And, indeed, the period immediately following World War II saw the largest membership in Iowa Masonry in the history of the Fraternity in this state.
Mount Vernon Lodge’s membership statistics are a bit different. The largest membership numbers occur in the period between the end of World War I and 1933, with the peak being in 1923, when there were 190 members. While there was a significant increase in membership in the decade following World War II, the average membership between 1946 and 1957 (when the Lodge celebrated its centennial), was about 169 members. After 1957 membership declined slowly until 1988, when the consolidation between Benjamin Franklin Lodge No. 574 in Lisbon and Mount Vernon Lodge No. 112 incorporated 45 Masons into Mount Vernon Lodge. Between 1989 and 2002 membership again declined slowly. Beginning about 2002, however, there seems to have been a resurgence of interest in Masonry in southeastern Linn County, and this seems as well to reflect a growing interest in the Fraternity in the state of Iowa,
These numbers need to be put into some context. Since the middle of the twentieth century, the American populace has become increasingly mobile. This is reflected in the membership of Mount Vernon Lodge. At any given time, and particularly during the past 30 years or so, perhaps half of the total Lodge membership has lived at a distance from Mount Vernon, but still retains Lodge membership here. These men are Masons in every sense of the word, but they cannot regularly participate in the day-to-day activities of their Lodge.
The end of every American conflict, from the Civil War through Korea, contributed significant numbers of new Masons to the Fraternity. This phenomenon was conspicuously absent at the end of the Viet Nam war. That generation of men, with some notable exceptions, were not particularly interested in Freemasonry—or in other fraternal or civic organizations, for that matter. These data are borne out both in the number of Masons in Iowa and the number of Masons in Mount Vernon Lodge.
In addition, the rental retail space on the ground floor became less profitable as more and more of Mount Vernon’s retail customers did at least a part of their shopping in larger retail centers like Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. Rental costs in downtown Mount Vernon declined, and so did the Lodge’s income. At some point between 1960 and 1980, the building was remodeled, and access to the Lodge rooms was moved from a wide staircase in the center of the retail space to a narrow staircase on the east side of the building. There were 26 very steep steps to the Lodge rooms, and the membership was aging.
The Lodge at continued to meet in the second-floor rooms in the building the Lodge had purchased in 1933. The building, of course, aged, and needed more and more costly repairs. While there had been cash to purchase the building in 1933, there was not a continuing effort, particularly during the 1940s and 1950s, to establish an ongoing fund to care for the building. Thus, when repairs became necessary in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, the Lodge was forced to mortgage the building to repair the roof, to replace the furnaces, and to make other necessary repairs.
Thus several trends converged upon Mount Vernon Lodge in the 1990s: (1) the increasing number of Lodge members who lived far from Mount Vernon, (2) the disinterest in fraternal organizations of the Baby Boomer generation, and (3) decreasing income as the number of dues-paying members declined and rental income decreased. The result was a brief period when the Lodge appeared to be in some danger of survival, as some men moved away, others aged and were less able to be active in the Lodge, and still others passed away. There appeared to be no replacements for these losses.
As financial pressures on the Lodge’s treasury increased, the Brethren still did not see fit to increase their dues accordingly, and resources diminished even faster. Finally it became impossible to support ownership of the building, and in 1998 it was sold to the retail tenants, Mr. and Mrs. William Lighthall, with the proviso that the Lodge be allowed to use the Lodge rooms in perpetuity, or so long as they desired to use them.
Shortly thereafter, and with the permission of the Lodge, a martial arts academy began to share the space with the Lodge.
By the late 1990s, there was significant discouragement among the Brethren resident in Mount Vernon, and there was serious discussion of consolidation.
Things were about to change. Masonry in Mount Vernon had not expired completely, and the Lodge needed only a sparkplug or two to reignite the banked fires of activity and fervor.
Several men refused to let their Lodge die. Bros. Jim McCutcheon and Dana Wilcox were already 50-year Masons by the late 1970s. Bro. Wilcox had joined the Lodge in Onslow in 1921, and transferred his membership to Mount Vernon in 1923, when he moved here. Bro. McCutcheon joined Mount Vernon Lodge in 1927, and was a staunch supporter of the Lodge and its activities for the rest of his life.
Among the “younger” enthusiastic Masons were men like Bro. Roy Bowman and Bro. John Moser, both long-time secretaries of the Lodge, and Bros. Frank Benesh III, Louis Floden, D. Mervyn Armstrong, Carroll Stoll, and Wesley Whitley. A still younger generation, men like Bros. William Meyer, Jr., Martin Novak, Paul Harrington, David Stoner, Jon Grindle, David LeVan, Tim Bennett, David Nolte, and Thomas Forbes, among others, also refused to see their Lodge die.
Not one, but two sparkplugs arrived. Bro. Kenneth Hurmence was named Deputy Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, and moved to town with his family. Rather than affiliating with a Lodge in Cedar Rapids, Bro. Hurmence affiliated with Mount Vernon Lodge. And Bro. Paul Schwiebert returned to Iowa following a number of years living out-of-state. Things were about to change.
There was a renewed and growing spirit of enthusiasm for Freemasonry that began sometime about 1999 or 2000. As the members themselves became excited anew about their Craft, they began to attract new members. Membership increased from a low of 64 in 1999 (20 fewer members than in 1869, and the lowest number since 1877) to an average of 84 members between 2002 and the present.
Meanwhile, the Lodge instituted two new traditions. The first was a monthly “soup supper,” scheduled two weeks following the Lodge’s Stated Communication. These meals are open to all, with a free-will offering being collected. While there is soup in the title of the occasions, there is seldom soup on the menu. There have been a number of elaborate casseroles, stews, and family recipes. Bro. Ken Hurmence and his lady Connie prepare the best lasagna on earth every year, and Bro. John Klaus has begun a tradition of preparing corned beef and cabbage for the March occasion, and deep-fried turkey with “all the fixin’s” in November.
About the same time the soup suppers showed up, so did a new Lodge newsletter, From the Soup Kitchen. This publication has grown from a modest beginning to a usually irreverent, sometimes informative, and regularly entertaining six-page affair. It is distributed widely throughout Iowa, and to a number of people in other Grand Jurisdictions. The silly thing has done the Lodge a great deal of good.
Beginning about 2001, the Lodge began to get serious about leaving its long-time rooms and finding another location that would be more accessible (e.g., without many steep steps) and have adequate parking space.
The Lodge began fundraising in earnest.
At the invitation of Bro. Denny Morgan, the local funeral director, the Lodge met for a number of months in the social area of Bro. Morgan’s funeral home on the edge of Mount Vernon. The Lodge continued actively to consider available buildings and real estate in Mount Vernon and Lisbon, going so far as to prepare preliminary plans for seven or eight locations.
One location appeared to be the most attractive. This building had been built originally by the Pepsico Corporation as a Pizza Hut restaurant. For whatever reason, Pizza Hut had closed some time in the 1990s, and the building had remained vacant.
There were at least two reasons why the building had not been sold. The location, on U. S. Highway 30 just east of the intersection with Iowa Highway 1, made this one of the prime retail locations in the area—but Pepsico insisted that there be a 20-year no-compete clause in any sales contract, meaning that the site could NOT be used for retail food sales, the purpose for which the building had been designed. The second reason was the price tag: when the Lodge first looked at the property, the cost was a non-negotiable $250,000.
So the building remained vacant, and deteriorated, and Pepsico continued to pay property taxes.
The Lodge began serious negotiation to purchase the property in the summer of 2003. On December 18, 2003, the paperwork was complete, and “the Old Pizza Hut” became “The Mount Vernon Masonic Temple.”
Then the real work began! The original plan was—and remains—to remodel the existing building, and then to add a new Lodge room to it. The work has, thus far, proceeded in two stages.
First, the former dining room of the building was gutted to the studs, and completely reconstructed. The exterior siding was removed and replaced. In the second stage, the northern half of the building, where the kitchen had been, was completely gutted and rebuilt to house a modern commercial kitchen for the Lodge’s use and a small “break room.”
The lion’s share of this work was accomplished by our own membership, many of whom labored long hours to build what one Masonic wife has called “the clubhouse.” Essentially, the remodeling of the existing building has been completed, we have done it ourselves, and we have done it while remaining debt-free.
A huge project still looms ahead of us. That is the construction of appropriate Lodge space. While the former dining room allows us to perform the work of Freemasonry, it is too small for us to grow appreciably, and larger meetings are often cramped. When the time is right, and our finances are in order, we can build facilities appropriate to the ritual work of a Masonic Lodge, and the dining room can revert to being a dining room and social area.
For several years the Lodge sponsored a Bicycle Rodeo for elementary-school children, and helped to teach bicycle safety to these young people. Through cooperation with the American Automobile Association, the Mount Vernon Police Department, and the local Ace Hardware store, the Lodge provided not only safety instruction, but prizes of bicycle helmets and new bicycles as well. The Lodge also began to participate in serving food at local public celebrations as fundraisers, and increased the amount of its annual scholarships to graduating seniors at Lisbon and Mount Vernon high schools. In recent years there have been occasional Saturday morning breakfasts for members, and the Lodge is equipped to show DVD copies of motion pictures on a large screen.
In addition to Bro. Kenneth Hurmence, who has served the Grand Lodge of Iowa not only as Deputy Grand Secretary, but also as Grand Treasurer and Deputy Grand Master, Mount Vernon Lodge has provided other Grand Lodge officers and committee members. Bro. John Klaus served as Grand Musician, and Bro. Damian Hurmence has been asked to serve as a Grand Lodge officer during 2008-2009.
Mount Vernon Lodge now completes a century-and-a-half of Masonic activity in this area. Founded in a rough-and-tumble pioneer community, it has seen changes and innovations that could not even be imagined in the late 1850s. It is one of only four institutions in the area to have survived all that time. The others are the Methodist and Presbyterian congregations and Cornell College.
And, indeed, the lives and destinies of these four ancient institutions have been inextricably intertwined throughout much of this time.
Many pastors of both churches have been members of the Craft, and the Lodge has drawn the majority of its members from among the membership of the two congregations.
Of the fourteen Presidents of Cornell College, at least five have been members of Mount Vernon Lodge, and many prominent faculty members have associated themselves with Masonry in Mount Vernon. From its earliest days until World War II, Mount Vernon Lodge Initiated many Cornell students as well.
The roster of names of members of Mount Vernon Lodge, when compared to lists of prominent Mount Vernon citizens from 1857 to the present, shows a remarkable degree of congruence. Particularly from 1857 until the mid-1970s, the majority of local business and professional leaders were members of the Lodge as well.
As the Lodge enters upon its fourth half-century, its future is bright. Iowa Freemasonry is changing and growing, and Mount Vernon Lodge is in the vanguard of that movement. The central Masonic tenets of brotherly love, relief, and truth are still central to the Lodge as well, and, if they are expressed somewhat differently from the ways in which they appeared in 1858, they are nonetheless alive and prospering at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
The most frequent question Masons hear is probably, “What do the Masons do?” This certainly seems to be a logical question, and yet it does not address the true meaning of Masonry at all. Masonry can best be described not by what it does, but by what it is.
To be sure, “the Masons” contribute to the communal good of their towns, regions, states, and country. To be sure, Freemasons, through any number of charitable groups and channels, contribute millions upon millions of dollars to charity every year. To be sure, individual Masonic Lodges undertake local projects of immense value to their communities. But all of those things are, finally, beside the point.
The only reason for Freemasonry’s exists appears at first blush to be painfully selfish. The Fraternity exists primarily to improve the lives of each of its members individually. The structure of Freemasonry is a vast allegory of human life, and using the tools of stonemasons symbolically, it provides a philosophical framework. In applying the ideas of Masonry to his own life, each Mason can reach a deeper understanding of his own place in the universe, and can find ways to improve his own character. The Lodge and his fellow-Masons are there to help him, as each pursues his own spiritual growth. By the conscientious application of the ideas and methods taught in Masonic Lodges, if history is a guide, better men DO result from the process.
But the more subtle and far-reaching implications of the Masonic institution extend far beyond the enhanced characters of its individual adherents. As good men become better men, their influence extends far beyond their own family circles, and even beyond their local communities. Thus the oft-mentioned fact that many Masons have been leaders in most areas of human endeavor becomes more understandable: it was the character of these men that propelled them into positions of leadership. In many cases, their characters were developed and strengthened through personal understanding of the lessons of Masonry.
This process has very much been a part of Mount Vernon Lodge throughout its history. There has never been a nefarious plot for the Lodge to take over the city, the churches, the college. But men of character have been attracted to the Lodge, and, through applying Masonic lessons in their own lives, have become stronger, wiser, and thus better men, and better able to give back to society.
Mount Vernon Lodge in 2008 stands on the shoulders of Masonic giants, men who lived among us for a time, and then laid down the working tools of this life. Today’s Masons have picked up those same tools to continue the labors. The individual and communal temples of character being built today are founded on the identical principles in existence in 1858. It is the Masonic duty of today’s Lodge members to establish a solid foundation for Masons who will come after us in this place.
May that foundation be secure!