GRAND
LODGE OF GOOD TEMPLARS
Sixty-seven years ago a delegation of
temperance workers from Cleveland, Ohio, connected with the Independent Order
of Good Templars, invaded the province of Ontario for the purpose of organizing
lodges, and in the month of May, 1854, they unfurled the banner of temperance
in the city of Hamilton. It did not require much effort to interest a few
prominent men and women in the work, and a list of about fifty member was
secured and Hamilton Lodge, No. 9, was organized with Dr. William L. Case, E.
D. Cahill, John W. Bickle, Joseph Faulkner, Joseph Hoodless, Thomas C. Watkins,
Rev. William McLure, C. H. Ather and Dr. J. M. VanNorman, Milton Davis, Rev.
John Hebden, nearly all the ministers in the city, and others whose names have
passed from the memory of the writer, as the leading spirits in the revival of
temperance. The Sons of Temperance had been organized a few years before, and
had done a grand work in Hamilton in reclaiming men from the alcoholic habit.
Through the instrumentality of the Sons, a lodge of the Cadets of Temperance
had been organized, the membership consisting of boys under eighteen years of
age. Hamilton then had a population of about fourteen thousand and not less
than two hundred licensed taverns and a number of what they called in Ireland
“shebeens,” the proprietors of which failed to call on Tom Beasley and deposit
the necessary $50 for a license. John Barleycorn was certainly at the head of
affairs in Hamilton, as he was in almost in every town in Canada in those days.
The grand division of the Sons of Temperance had about four hundred subordinate
divisions under its jurisdiction in Ontario, and the Hamilton division had
about fifty members. It was the hope of the Sons of Temperance that the boys
from the Cadets of Temperance would join their ranks when they reached the age
of eighteen years, but they were disappointed.
The same conditions existed in the
United States, and to save the boys from the temptations of the saloon, the
temperance workers decided that some new organization where the boys and girls
could be brought together might do more effective work. The Cadets of
Temperance was a good place to start the boys, but when they graduated from the
cadets they did not seem inclined to enter the lodge with the older men.
The Sons of Temperance had done a
grand work in persuading men to give up the use of intoxicating liquors, and
scores of homes were made happy by the reformation of husbands and sons, but
with a drinking saloon in nearly every part of the city, the temptation was too
strong to be overcome and many a man fell back into his old habits. With the
organization of the Good Templars in Hamilton in the month of may, 1854, there
was a revival in the temperance work, and the young people were attracted to
the lodge room. The girls had an influence in persuading their boy associates
to become members of the order, and it was not long before Hamilton lodge had a
membership of four hundred, and every Friday night saw the lodge room in
Temperance hall on King street crowded to its fullest capacity. This
necessitated the finding of a larger quarters in which to hold the meetings,
and the second and third stories in part of the Elgin block on John street were
purchased and transformed into a capacious hall, the members of the lodge
contributing the money to pay for the building.
On the 21st of November,
1854, the order had increased in membership to warrant the organization of the
Grand Lodge of Canada, when the grand officers from Ohio again invaded Canada,
and in Hamilton was instituted the Canadian Grand Lodge of the Independent
Order of Good Templars, with Dr. Case as grand worthy chief Templar. The order
grew apace, not only in Hamilton but also in Upper Canada, there being a lodge
in nearly every village. At the meeting of the Grand Lodge in 1857, two hundred
and twenty-five subordinate lodges responded to the roll call, representing a
membership of about 12,000. At that meeting, Dr. Case retired from the head office,
feeling that the burden was too much for his advancing years, and Dr. J. M.
VanNorman was elevated to the office of grand worthy chief.
Don’t fancy for a moment that all the
young and old men whose names at times appeared on the rolls remained faithful
to their pledge. Even with the old-fashioned lodge meetings of the Sons of
Temperance and the Good Templars, many weak brothers had to be held up and
encouraged. And it was in the Good Templars that the influence of woman had
good effect. Many happy marriages occurred in the old Hamilton lodge, and many
a bright young fellow became a valuable citizen to the community. On the ocean
of life one encounters, at rare intervals, men, and even women, whom it is
unfair to characterize as derelicts. Hamilton, unfortunately, had had its
share.
Thus works great changes. Of the
hundreds of young men and young women who were members of old Hamilton lodge
when it was organized sixty-seven years ago, so far as we can call to mind,
there are but three living in Hamilton today – and two of those have lived
together as man and wife for nearly sixty-four years.
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The writer of this bit of temperance
history was a charter member of the first grand lodge of Good Templars that was
organized in this city on the 21st of November, 1854, and as we
review the past, it has its pleasant memories. One good thing resulting from
the Good Templars was the provincial law closing drinking saloons at seven o’clock
on Saturday nights. The annual session of the grand lodge will meet in the city
of Toronto on Tuesday next, May 24, in Willard’s hall. Tom McNaughton, of
Hamilton, will preside as grand worthy chief. The session will be represented
by all of the subordinate lodges in Ontario. Toronto, London, and Hamilton are
expected to send large delegations, as much important business is expected. It
is believed that there will be many changes in the official list, as among the
officers who will not seek re-election in Tom McNaughton, who has been the very
efficient grand Templar for several terms. A. H. Lyle, of Hamilton, who has
been grand secretary for the past nine years and a member of the order for
twenty-two years, feels that he has done his duty and will go back into the
ranks. Mrs. Tom McNaughton has served in the office of grand vice-templar and
she feels like taking a rest. Both Tom McNaughton and his good wife are natives
of Scotland, and began in the temperance ranks in the city of Glasgow in the
juvenile templars. Since 1907, they have been actively engaged in temperance
work in this city.
Among the active temperance workers in
Hamilton who have devoted many years is F. S. Morison, a past grand chief
Templar, who was the organizer and first chief Templar of International lodge,
in this city, which shortly celebrates its thirty-seventh anniversary, and has
maintained its position as the premier lodge in Ontario. Hamilton has always
been the headquarters of the Good Templars, for it was in this city that the
first grand lodge was organized sixty-seven years ago, and from among its
founders were the head officers selected for a number of years. For many years
interest in the order died out, till thirty-seven years ago, when S. F. Morison
became interested in temperance work and organized International lodge, which
has been a blessing to many young men who might otherwise have gone astray had
they not seen the influence of the weekly meetings. A second lodge has been
organized, and is growing in numbers. A. H. Lyle and Tom McNaughton and his
good wife have been active members in the lodges, and with the Morison family
have kept alive an interest in Good Templarism. Sixty-four years ago, Hamilton
had two strong lodges, numbering over one thousand members. For ten years or
more, the lodges were on the top wave of prosperity, but, unfortunately,
designing men began to use their connection with the order to give them a hoist
in politics and then it gradually dwindled down till finally the members began
to lose interest and the result was dissolution.
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THE PAST AND THE PRESENT
What changes have the Spectator and
the writer of these Musings seen in Hamilton in the past seventy-one years!
Both of us were young in years away back in 1850, and Hamilton had but recently
become an incorporated city, with a population of about 10,200. The town had
six newspapers – the Gazette, the Journal and Express, the Spectator, and the
Canada Christian Advocate, the Wochenblatt, three of the papers representing
two of the political parties, and three the religious element. The Spectator
was not quite five years old, but seemed to have the inside track from the
start. The newspaper business in Canada, and especially in Hamilton, was not on
the fortune-making side, and the publishers had to do some close scratching to
make ends meet and pay the hands a part of their week’s earnings when Saturday
night came. But things are different now, and it is of the present we are going
to talk this week. Old Spec, we remember you when you were struggling to keep
your head up in the newspaper world. When Edwin Dalley kept a grocery store,
with drugs as a sideline, on York street, a few rock-bottom Tories used to meet
in his shop at night after the business of the day was ended, and talk over the
future of Hamilton, especially its politics, and they finally got to the point
of determining that the Tory party needed an editor who could hold his own with
Solomon Brega, who was editor of the Journal and Express, and Mr. Dalley was
delegated on his next business trip to Montreal to hunt up such an one. And
Robert R. Smiley was recommended. Mr. Smiley belonged in Kingston, but was
fortunate in getting a situation in the government printing office in Montreal.
To make a long story short, Mr. Smiley accepted the position. He had but little
capital to begin with, but Mr. Dalley became a godfather to the new enterprise.
In July, 1846, Mr. Smiley and his young bride came from Kingston to make their
home in Hamilton, and on the 16th of July, the first number of the
Spectator came into being. The only living person in Hamilton who has any
knowledge of that event is the fair young bride who eleven years later became a
widow and is now living on the mountain top, at the head of James street. What
changes has that dear woman seen in Hamilton the past seventy-one years! Old
Spec, you and I have seen great changes.
Then the Spectator was printed on a
second-hand Washington hand press at the rate of a “token” an hour. How many of
the printer boys today know how many sheets of paper it took to make a “token?”
It took ten quires of paper of twenty-four sheets to the quire. The venerable
and honored president of the Spectator no doubt remembers it well, having
played “the devil” at the old Washington hand press in the Free Press office in
London, when he was but a lad taking his first lessons at the printer’s art.
The writer of these Musings had played “the devil” at the same hand press in
the Free Press office some years before, with Charles Kidner as his tutor. Just
fancy the time it took to run off four “tokens,” on one side only of a
four-page paper. It took a pretty active pressman in those days to run off a
thousand papers on both sides for that day’s work. Compare that old Washington
hand press that cost about $250, on which the Spectator was first printed, with
the $100,000 Hoe press on which today’s Spectator is printed. It was a good day’s
work for the old-time hand-pressman to print one thousand copies of the paper.
Today the new Spectator’s $100,000 Hoe cylinder press printed and folded the
edition of over 25,000 copies of 28 pages to each copy, in less than an hour,
and then the press was not run up to nearly full speed. The full capacity of
the new press is 75,000 per hour for thirty-two pages per paper, folded and
ready to be handed out to the carrier boys or the mailing clerks. When the
souvenir number of this Great Family Journal is printed the reader will get a
better idea of the change that has taken place since seventy-one years ago.
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TODAY’S OPPORTUNITY
Every little while you get some fellow
who explains his failure by saying that opportunity no longer exists. He takes
some successful man as an example, and gets off such stuff like this : “Look at
Smith; he’s got money, of course; but how did he get it? His father was so poor
when he first settled along the banks of the Grand river that it was nip and
tuck how he was going to support his family when he first settled in Canada;
but he put every penny he could raise and scrape into the cheap land that was
to have been had seventy-five years ago for almost a song. He just naturally
held on to it, and in time the natural increase in land values made him rich.
When the old man died, the estate was divided up, and Smith got his portion,
some of which he sold at a fabulous price. It was all bull luck.” Smith was not
the only man who got rich in Canada out of the increase in land values, and he
had his father to thank for it. He never would have made a dollar if it had not
been left him. A good many have grown rich in Hamilton through the careful
habits of their fathers who bought lots when land was cheap and held on to
them.
But opportunity is not dead, nor is
the chance to make money confined solely to real estate operations. Luck plays
a very small part in the affairs of a successful man. The ability to look
ahead, to work hard while one is young, and to save, are still the important
factors in laying by a competence. Nor is opportunity a matter of geographical
location. The chances are as good here in Hamilton as elsewhere.
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