THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 10, 1994 TAG: 9411090138
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
Neighbors have noticed it. Passers-by also have wondered about it. A large granite marker, recently erected in the middle of a vacant lot on Lee Farm Road in Bennett's Creek, has attracted its share of attention.
Although at first glance it resembles a grave marker, the stone is really a monument to the future, marking the site of the future home of Nansemond Lodge 77 Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.
Nansemond Lodge 77 made Masonic history last year when it was created through the merger of three former Suffolk Masonic lodges. According to David W. Wright, the lodge's Worshipful Master, this is the first time in more than 200 years of Masonic history in Virginia that a merger of this kind has taken place.
The new lodge, with 285 members, bought the Lee Farm Road property in March with plans to build a new lodge hall some time within the next two to three years. The proposed 6,000-square-foot hall, designed to blend with the architecture of the neighborhood, will cost more than $250,000.
Nansemond 77, chartered in January 1993, brought together Masons from Hiram Lodge 340 in Suffolk, Chuckatuck Lodge 77 and Harmony Lodge 149 in Driver. The Masons are now meeting in the old lodge hall in Driver and have put the former Chuckatuck lodge up for sale.
For several years, the three lodges had been concerned about a decline in Masonic membership.
``Members are getting older and dying off and not that many young men are coming in,'' Wright said, adding that while the Driver lodge was doing well, the Hiram 340 and Chuckatuck lodges were barely surviving.
Hiram 340 had been renting meeting facilities from the older Suffolk Masonic Lodge 30 and had a healthy treasury, but no property. The Chuckatuck and Driver lodges owned property but also could see benefits from a merger.
When a thorough search of Masonic law turned up no guidelines for such a merger, the leaders realized that their idea was new to Virginia Masonry. It took a year of discussion and meetings to work out the details leading to the new lodge being chartered January 1, 1993.
Free and Accepted Masons are one of the oldest and largest fraternal organizations in the world. Inspired by the unity of stone masons working for King Solomon, Masonry was further influenced by the guilds or lodges of stone masons who worked on the great European cathedrals of the Middle Ages. By the early 1700s, Masons organized into a fraternal order in Great Britain and brought the order to the United States shortly afterward.
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were among some of the more famous early Masons in the country. Although unproven, Masonic lore has it that the Boston Tea Party was carried out by Masons during a break in one of their lodge meetings.
Masons have been organized in Suffolk since 1790 when Suffolk Lodge 30 was chartered. The Chuckatuck lodge was originally chartered just seven years later to accommodate Masons who lived some distance from the downtown meeting place.
The Driver lodge dates from 1856; Hiram 340 is a relative newcomer with a charter date of 1923.
The charters of all three lodges that merged into the new Nansemond 77 will be prominently displayed in the new lodge hall, along with other historic artifacts.
During the Civil War, a Union officer who also was a Mason, removed the charter, Bible, saber and minute books from the Driver Masonic lodge hall and sent them to his home lodge in Connecticut for safekeeping. Several years later, when the war was over and when the threat of the items falling into non-Masonic hands had disappeared, everything was returned intact to the Driver lodge.
Those same four items were among the few things to survive a lodge hall fire in 1937 and are still in the lodge today. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MICHAEL KESTNER
David Wright, left, Lodge 77 worshipful master, and Robert R. Warf
Sr., District 33 deputy grand master, visit the site of the future
home of Nansemond Lodge 77 Ancient Free and Accepted Masons on Lee
Road Farm.
by CNB