Today, my brother Richard sent me an email with a Cape Times online article stating that the Masonic Lodge, located at 107 Main St, is up for sale. Our dad was a Mason and the Grand Master of the Lodge in 1964, 1965. Growing up in a small town between 1940 and 1980 it was not uncommon for teen age boys to not only be involved in Scouting but also be involved in the Masonic auxiliary organization of DeMolay, The organization was for young men up to the age of 21 at which time you could matriculate into the Masonic Order. All my brothers and I where in the DeMolay along with quite a few of the guys I went to High School with. The Universal Lodge of Orleans was founded in 1917 by members of the Pilgrim Lodge from Harwich and meetings here held in the Odd Fellows Lodge until 1923. That year the Lodge purchased the Main St property and moved into what had been thet Southward Inn on the former old Snow Estate. The Southward Inn moved to the corner of Rt 28 and Cove Rd. There is an interesting slightly twisted tragic and sordid story behind the Southward Inn property on Rt 28. The building at that location had once been the residence of Alexander T. Newcomb and his wife Esther and adopted daughter Mary. (As an interesting aside, Mrs. Newcomb was the sister of Freeman A. Sherman who was killed in the Civil War and his name is on the monument at the corner of Main St and Monument Rd). Mr. Newcomb was a prominent citizen and local bank president, selectman and owner of Newcomb Hardware. Apparently Newcomb was also the first person to own an automobile in town but was killed in an auto accident in 1911 and his wife inherited the house. But, she died two years later and Mary inherited the house and turned it into a boarding house known as Newcomb Lodge. She married Rufus Small and they adopted a girl named Esther. A while later Rufus ran off with a young girl to Florida leaving the business in a shambles forcing Mary to sell the lodge and the hardware store. Mary and Esther moved into a small cottage at the end of Cove Rd. The hardware store became Smith Brothers Hardware, which later burned down, but, was rebuilt as True Value Hardware. George Southwood purchased the Newcomb Lodge and moved his inn from Main St to the new property and sold the old property to the Masons who moved from the Odd Fellows Lodge to the former Southwood Inn. As a young man and member of the DeMolay I remember meeting in the old Southwood Inn building in the Lodge Room on the second floor. The building was quite old and run down with a large wrap around porch with flaking white paint. The upstairs was reached by a creaky stair case and the Lodge Room had the seedy fading gentility of a Victorian bordello parlor. Most of the times we held perfuctory business meetings once a month in the lodge room then went down stairs and had refreshments, hang out for a while and head home. Sometimes we went to a sporting event in Boston, visited another chapter on the Cape or had a social event like a Monte Carlo Night recruiting drive. A few times a year we would have induction ceremonies in which we put on cheesy colored robes and perform long memorized rituals extolling the virtues of Jacques de Molay, Crusader and last Grand Master of the Knights Templars. As I recall it was a boring corny performance that we endured. We did everything under the watchful eyes of our mentor Dads who where my father and Mr. Jennings, a fellow Masons and local plumbing contractor, He was a jovial funny guy. When I was in DeMolay in the late 60s and early 1970s the organization was in decline and it was hard to recruit new members. I stopped going after I graduated from High School. Pictures: Upper Left and Right - the Newcomb Inn c. 1911 Middle Right - The old Snow property on Main St, Orleans c 1890s Lower Left - Universal Lodge. This is the building I remember as the old Masonic Lodge. note that there is no barn to the right of the building which you see in the old Snow property. This photo might be from the 1950s or 1960s. Lower Right - the marker in front of the present Lodge which was built in 1974.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 19:51:47 +0000