The Odd Fellows: Lodge No. 29 and the Rebekah degree's author

1846 — the twentieth century

Four years behind the Masons, and the city's own man wrote the women's degree: South Bend Lodge No. 29 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows was chartered in 1846, the first lodge of its order here, meeting every Wednesday evening; Chapman prints its 1880 officers, George Ford as Noble Grand. The German city built its own lodge in the same order — Robert Blum Lodge No. 278, instituted in 1867, named for the German revolutionary of 1848 — and the order's uniformed and degree structure filled in around them: South Bend Encampment No. 9, instituted 1867, and in time Canton South Bend No. 9 of the Patriarchs Militant and the Carl Schurz Encampment No. 362, with the Patriarchs Militant's Second Indiana Brigade headquartered in the city in 1921, its chief officers South Bend men.

The women's branch of Odd Fellowship carries a South Bend authorship that no other American city can claim in the same way: the Rebekah degree was written by Schuyler Colfax — the same Colfax raised a Master Mason in St. Joseph Lodge in 1856 — who authored the degree in 1851 and saw it adopted by the order; Howard records that Schuyler Rebekah Lodge of this city "owes its origin to Schuyler Colfax, who was almost as distinguished as an Odd Fellow as he was as a statesman." The lodge's number is printed in the record two ways — Howard gives Schuyler Rebekah Lodge No. 29, the 1921 directory Schuyler Rebekah Lodge No. 39 — and both stand here as printed, dated to their books. Around them by 1921 stood Helena Rebekah Lodge No. 72 at the Robert Blum hall on Lincoln Way East, Lincoln Rebekah Lodge No. 795, and Abraham Lincoln Lodge No. 890, meeting in the Red Men's Hall; and Howard's roster adds the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, the Black Odd Fellows' grand order, completing the same doubled structure the Masons kept. The order's first temple, at Main and Washington, was the oldest fraternal building in the city in 1907; by 1921 the lodge met in the Odd Fellows Temple at 132–134 West Washington Avenue.

Sources:

1. Chapman (1880), "Odd Fellows" — South Bend Lodge No. 29 (charter 1846), Robert Blum Lodge No. 278 (1867), Encampment No. 9 (1867), officers.
2. Howard (1907), societies chapter — the Rebekah lodge and Colfax; Schuyler Rebekah Lodge No. 29; the Grand United Order.
3. Polk (1921), "Odd Fellows" — Schuyler Rebekah Lodge No. 39; Canton No. 9; Carl Schurz Encampment No. 362; Second Brigade headquarters; Abraham Lincoln Lodge No. 890; the Odd Fellows Temple address.