Mishawaka Lodge No. 130: the order of 26 May 1852

Organized 1852 · meeting still

The institution: Mishawaka's Masonic lodge was organized on 26 May 1852 — the town's second lodge body, a decade behind the Odd Fellows' first — and Howard prints its first officers whole: R. S. Alden, Worshipful Master; D. H. Smith, Senior Warden; J. Holdridge, Junior Warden; J. E. Hollister, treasurer; T. S. Cowles, secretary; A. C. Foot, Senior Deacon; W. M. Wood, Junior Deacon; A. L. Brimsmaid, Tyler. The lodge carries the number 130 in the Grand Lodge of Indiana's sequence, and it has worked under that number since. The organization date is what the county record gives; the Grand Lodge's charter itself, issued in the usual course at an annual communication, is the settling document for the charter line, and the Grand Lodge's charter roll at Indianapolis is named here as that source rather than a charter year being supplied without it. What the record does show is standing: a Mishawaka Mason, Charles W. Slick, stands in the Grand Lodge's own published history among the grand officers of 1898–99, as Junior Grand Deacon of Indiana — the town's lodge was no backwater in its order's state government. In Howard's roster of 1907 the chairs are filled by A. H. Henwood as master and John W. Hutchinson as recorder, and the lodge's temple stood in 1921 at 110½ North Main, in the upstairs geography the Private Clubs section maps.

The modern course: The lodge works in the modern record in its order's own forms. Its officers were installed in a public ceremony reported in the Tribune in December 2006, and the Tribune's record of 2007 names a Past Master of the lodge — its master in 2006 — installed as treasurer and trustee of the "Mishawaka Masonic Temple #130," the temple corporation that carries the lodge's number. The Grand Commandery of Indiana's newsletter of August 2015 records the lodge at its present seat, the Masonic Temple on Went Avenue — the street name garbled in that source's text, and confirmed as Went Avenue by the place record, which carries the Masonic Temple at 1810 Went Ave, Mishawaka, active — and notes the lodge keeping the 105th birthday of its oldest living Past Master, a man raised in the lodge on 7 January 1942 and its master in 1950. A lodge organized in 1852, holding a member raised in 1942 and a temple of its own in the present record: that is the order's whole claim, and it is documented at every point.

Sources:

1. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. I (1907), p. 344 — the organization of 26 May 1852 and the first officers; the 1907 officers from the roster, p. 345; read first-hand.
2. Daniel McDonald, A History of Freemasonry in Indiana from 1806 to 1898 (1898, by authority of the Grand Lodge) — Charles W. Slick of Mishawaka among the grand officers of 1898–99.
3. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory, 1921 — the Masonic Temple at 110½ N. Main, as carried in the Private Clubs section of this history.
4. South Bend Tribune, December 2006 and 2007 (ProQuest newspaper record) — the public installation of officers; the Mishawaka Masonic Temple #130's trustee installation.
5. Grand Commandery Knights Templar of Indiana newsletter, August 2015 — the lodge at its Went Avenue temple, the street name as printed there; place record for the Masonic Temple, 1810 Went Ave, Mishawaka — the address and active standing, consulted November 2026.