Renfrew Lodge in Renfrew

Last Saturday, after first meeting WBro Frank Grant in the morning at his residence - a member of the Craft who is 102 years old, and who served in the Merchant Marines in WW2, and who received his 60 Year Service Pin - we travelled into the Ottawa Valley to visit Renfrew Lodge No 122. On this occasion the lodge was honouring three of its members with their Long Service Awards and 50 Year pins: RWBro Jack Ledger, WBro Donald Brydges and Bro Harold Daber were each properly presented and congratulated by the lodge and then greeted personally by the Grand Master, as well as the Grand Junior Warden, Grand Registrar and me.
The lodge opened and then closed upon greeting their visitors, and then admitted guests, including many family members and friends, who were not only quite happy to sit inside a lodge room, but also to offer such very appropriate and generous remarks. At the Festive Board, afterwards, I was able to provide the response to the traditional Toast to The Visitors.

It was a wonderful event to attend, and we each truly enjoyed the company of so many members of the Craft who contribute so much to their community, and have done so for many decades. Renfrew Lodge No 122 was the first Masonic lodge established in the Upper Ottawa Valley. In August 1859, ten Masons from the local area raised the money necessary to procure dispensation from Grand Lodge to do so. On December 19, 1859, the lodge held its first regular meeting. The first officers, however, were required to travel to Belleville in order to be installed and invested.

According to their official history, the lodge initially met for 11 years at Munro Hotel, before moving its meetings to the Sons of Temperance Hall (for 2 years) and then to Bro Muir's building for the next 20 years, called the Barnet Building, before finally purchasing a permanent home, as opposed to leasing annually - in cooperation with Sterling Chapter OES - O'Brien's Opera House in Renfrew in 1984, which also contained the O'Brien's Apartments, as well as 3 commercial ventures, and a cellular antenna on the rented rooftop.

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