We Seek to Improve and Elevate the Character of Man

Independent Order of Odd Fellows
Covenant Lodge # 6
P.O. Box 8356,Missoula Montana 59807
Web Page: ioofmissoulamt.org
Lodge Phone # (406) 543-4550

Prospective members, we the members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Covenant Lodge # 6, Missoula, Montana would like to introduce you to the world of Odd Fellowship. Where you and your family can enjoy working together, participating in many beneficial projects within our organization and the community. Now a brief history of our lodge. In the beginning Covenant Lodge was called Missoula Lodge. Frank Woody, Christopher P. Higgins and Francis Warden started the initial groundwork,during the years 1856-1857. Eventually the Missoula Lodge became the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. This transition started in 1870. By1875 Covenant Lodge # 6 was in place. John Rankin, David Pattee and W.H. Dickerson were involved in this transaction, which took place at Dechamp's Black Smith Shop on Front Street.
Establishment of the first Odd Fellow Hall was a log house purchased by the members. The structure at the time was located on the corner of Washington Street and Front Street.The above members were very instrumental in the success and growth of this organization. They were also the first officers elected to conduct lodge business. The current lodge lot where Covenant Lodge # 6 is now located, was donated by C.P. Higgins and his wife. Building construction was in three phases, starting in 1875 and finally completed in 1887. Missoula has honored these individuals for their dedicated work by having streets named after them. Organizations that we support in the community are: Carousel of Missoula, Special Olympics, Missoula Food Bank, Rose Bowl Float,  Camp Make a Dream, Shodair Children's Hospital, Florence Crittenton Home,U.N. Pilgrimage for Youth,Watson Children Shelter, and many more.

 

THE AMERICAN ODD FELLOWSHIP

The first lodge established on this continent was Shakespeare No 1, New York City, on 26th December 1806. The five Odd Fellows composing this lodge were of the Loyal Independent Order and the moving spirits were Solomon Chambers and his son; mechanics from the south of London. The early members were zealous workers and other lodges were soon organized. In 1809 the roll of membership, in the six New York City Lodges comprised 36 prominent citizens and business men, as well as many others of less influence.
In Boston during 1819, James B. Barnes and four others instituted Massachusetts Lodge No. 1 and held regular meetings, the method being, like New York, ancient usage and self-institution.
On the 13th day of February 1819, the following notice appeared in the Baltimore American, addressed to all Odd Fellows: "A few members of the society of Odd Fellows will be glad to meet their brethren for consultation upon the interest of forming a Lodge. Meetings will be held on Friday March 2, 1819" Four members of the Order, all of whom had taken the degrees in England, responded to this call. As five members were necessary to form a lodge, the meeting adjourned until Friday evening, April 2nd and a second notice was inserted and it was not until Monday evening April 26th that Thomas Wildey, John Welch, John Duncan and John Cheatham, who had been present at the first meeting and Richard Rushworth, who had afterward joined them, met at the Seven Stars Tavern in Baltimore, and instituted Washington Lodge No 1 of Odd Fellows.
Thomas Wildey, now recognized as the founder of American Odd Fellowship, came to the United states from England in 1817, he had been affiliated with one of the branches abroad since 1805, had "passed the chairs," and was known as leading Odd Fellows.
The Order in Baltimore secured a charter, under date of 1 February, 1820 from the Duke of York Lodge, Preston; and this charter not only recognized the regularity of Washington Not and its associate lodges, but created the Grand Lodge of Maryland and of the United States of America of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
The Order made history rapidly during the succeeding six months. Each locality was dominated by a master mind: Wildey in Maryland; Morris in New York; Barnes, in Massachusetts; Pearce, in Pennsylvania. Massachusetts readily surrendered its claims to priority and accepted a charter from the Grand Lodge of Maryland and the United States on 9 June 1823; and the Grand Lodge of that Commonwealth was duly opened 11 June 1823, all the lodges participating.
The Order in that State accepted a like charter dated 4 June 1823 and the Grand Lodge was duly instituted 24 June 1823. It having become known that Wildey had endeavored to unite the Odd Fellows of Massachusetts and New York, overtures were also made to Pennsylvania and immediately accepted. The charter is dated 13 June 1823, and the Grand Lodge of the Keystone State was organized 27 June 1823. The consolidated Order became at once homogeneous and prosperous.
Following the centralization of the government of the four pioneer Commonwealths, the "Grand Lodge of the United States" was evolved, on 15 January 1825 by the representatives of the Grand Lodges of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, the last named taking her place with the State Bodies, subordinate to the Sovereign head.
The last link in the chain of regularity was forged 15 May, 1826 when the American body was chartered by the Manchester Unity. Significant of this, the early charters were issued to the Order of Independent Odd Fellows and the branches originating in the United States were organized irrespective of the consent of the English body even prior to 1842-43, the date of official separation.
Between 1826 and 1885 the government of the Order had been evolutionary in its nature. The inheritance from England in ritualistic matters was the merest outline of a possible unity. When the foundations of government had become settled, attention began to be paid to degrees of higher significance that the lodge system.

The new organization, while independent of the Manchester Unity, from which it sprang, maintained fraternal relations with the Order in the mother country for many years, but in 1842 differences which had sprung up between the two societies on matter of policy led to the adoption of a resolution by the Grand Lodge of the United States declaring that it had been constrained to absolve the ties which had before connected the Order in America with the Manchester Unity.
The revision of the ritual in 1881, by which the number of degrees in the Order in America was reduced from five degrees to three, completed the separation, and the two Orders are now, for all practical purposes, separate and distinct societies.
Lodges for conferring the Encampment degree were first organized in this country under authority of the Grand Lodge of Maryland in 1827, though the practice of conferring these degrees in the subordinate lodges upon members who had attained the rank Past Grand, had been introduced from England before that time. Authority for members of Encampments to parade in uniform was granted in 1872 and the style of uniform to be worn was prescribed in 1874. But the demand for a military department of the Order was not fully met until 1885, when the Patriarchs Militant Degree was formally engrafted upon the order.
The subject of providing a "Ladies Degree" was first brought before the Grand Lodge of the United States in 1848, and in 1850 a resolution was adopted , instructing the committee of the State of the Order to consider the propriety of instituting two degrees, one for the wives and daughters of Scarlet Degree members, and one for past officers. The matter was afterwards referred to the Committee on Legislation, which presented a majority report signed by two members of the committee against the proposition. But a minority report embodying a provision for a ladies degree for the wives of Scarlet Degree members was presented by Schuyler Colfax, the third and youngest member of the committee, an was adopted by the Grand Lodge. The Rebekah ritual was adopted in 1851 by a vote of 46 to 37, after a division on the point of order that a four- fifths vote was necessary to the adoption of the new degree, in which the vote of the Grand Lodge was a tie, and the casting vote of the Grand Sire alone saved the degree from being lost.
For several years the degree was merely complimentary, being conferred in the Subordinate Lodges, and Rebekah Lodges had so separate existence. But in 1868, authority was granted by the Grand Lodge of the United States, to organize separate Lodges for conferring this degree.
The name of the highest governing body of the Order was changed to the "Sovereign Grand Lodge" in 1879, and the revision of the ritual, thus separating American Odd Fellowship from the Order in England was made in 1881 and became effective July 1, 1882.
The Sovereign Grand Lodge is made up of Grand Representatives from the Grand Lodges and Grand Encampments of the United States and Canada. Grand Lodges possess jurisdiction over State and Provincial Rebekah Assemblies and Rebekah Lodges, as well as in the government of subordinate lodges. The Patriarch Militant, with the local unit, called Canton, is organized like the United States Army with Department Councils, all under immediate government of the Sovereign Grand Lodge.
I hope all of the Brothers and Sister of the order have enjoyed this bit of history. Also the new members that have joined can get a clear understanding how the 1.0.0.F was created.

                                         Fraternally yours,
                                         George E. Hill (PGM)
                                         2001 Membership Committee
                                         Sovereign Grand Lodge