By STEVEN JUPITER
BRANDON—The Union Lodge No. 2 of Middlebury honored one of its most esteemed members—former governor Jim Douglas—at a ceremony at the Masonic Lodge in Brandon last Thursday evening. Officers and members of Union Lodge No. 2 and St. Paul’s Lodge of Brandon, along with friends and family, filled the Masonic Hall on Park Street Extension. Also in attendance were officers of the Grand Lodge of Vermont, which oversees the local lodges across the state.
Mr. Douglas, who had already been given several awards by the Grand Lodge of Vermont, including the Grand Lodge Medal of Honor in 2003, received a pin from the Grand Master of Vermont, Jim Stevens, to mark his 50th year in Masonry. Local artist Doug Lazarus unveiled the oil portrait of Mr. Douglas that he was commissioned to paint for the occasion.
Mr. Douglas’s fellow Masons recounted with fondness his many years of service to Masonry, a relationship that began in 1973 and has entailed many important offices within the organization.
One colleague related with admiration that Mr. Douglas’s interest in others was such that he was able to recall the colleague’s wife’s name at a campaign event even though Mr. Douglas had met her only once, four years earlier.
Other Masons also received milestone pins at the event.
Union Lodge’s Jim Selleck received a pin for 55 years of service to Masonry. Seth Hopkins of St. Paul’s Lodge of Brandon expressed great respect for Mr. Selleck’s dedication to the fraternity, especially for Mr. Selleck’s efforts to realize the move of Union Lodge from its previous location in Salisbury to its current location with St. Paul’s Lodge in Brandon.
Howard Grant of Union Lodge received his 60-year pin. He was Citizen of the Year in 2006. His colleagues recalled him affectionately as “head waffle and pancake maker” for the Lodge.
In an apparent departure from the usual process, Seth Hopkins of St. Paul’s Lodge asked that the gathering adopt a tradition from other lodges: after receipt of their pins, the honorees were escorted once around the room to sustained applause from attendees.
Freemasonry has a long history in the United States, with Lodges dating back to the early 1700s in the British colonies. Union Lodge No. 2 was founded in Middlebury in 1794 and St. Paul’s Lodge was founded in Brandon in 1852. Union Lodge moved from its 1830s brick building near the Middlebury Green to Salisbury several years ago and recently moved to the building used St. Paul’s Lodge in Brandon. Union Lodge had its first meeting in Brandon in November. Each Lodge maintains its own members, officers, and meetings.
In the Lodge on Park Street Extension, the altar in the center of the room is still the same one that was used by the Lodge in the 1860s. The placement of the officers’ seats around the room is also highly symbolic: The Master’s seat, which resembles a throne, is on the east and three steps up from the floor. The Senior Warden sits in a similar seat two steps up on the west side. The Junior Warden is on the south wall, one step up. No officer in a Lodge is ever seated on the north side, explained Cedric Tashro, the Master of Union Lodge, because sunlight never illuminated the north wall of King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.
Freemasonry has been the subject of much myth and lore—it’s long been said that the mysterious symbols on the back of U.S. dollar bills are Masonic in origin—but at its core it’s a fraternal organization. According to the website of the Grand Lodge of Vermont, Masons must act with honor in everything they do, believe in a Supreme Being (in any faith), and strive to make the world a better place.
Brandon Town Manager Seth Hopkins has been a full-member Mason since 1998, when he was a young man living in his hometown in Massachusetts.
“There were older men in my town that I greatly respected,” he said. “When I found out that they were Masons, I wanted to spend time with them as role models and joined.”
Anyone interested in learning more about Masonry should visit vtfreemasons.org.
