Grand Lodge of New York - Onondaga and Oswego Masonic District ...

STEUBEN LODGE, NO. 112, BATH. N. Y.
WARRANT: The original warrant, dated June 11, 1846, is in possession of the Lodge.
The name or number has not been changed.
MINUTES: Intact. The Lodge is in possession of a portion of the records and the warrant of Enos Lodge, No. 323, now extinct.
CHARTER MEMBERS.
Lewis Biles.
Paul C. Cook.
John D. Higgins.
John R. Gansevoort.
James Read.
William Hamilton.
Reuben Robie.
Daniel G. Skinner.
Jesse Van Derhoven.
Whitttngton Sayre.
The officers named in the warrant are:
Lewis Biles, Master.
William Hamilton, Senior Warden.
Daniel G. Skinner, Junior Warden.
The first recorded meeting of the Lodge was held May 5, 1846.
The first meeting, after the warrant had been granted, was held August 18, 1846, when the officers were installed and the Lodge
constituted by R.'.W.'. B. B. PAYNE. On this occasion PETER SWART and EDWIN R. BIDWELL were initiated.
The officers installed were:
Lewis Biles, Master.
William Hamilton, Senior Warden.
Paul C. Cook, Junior Warden.
E. Hempstead, Treasurer.
Daniel G. Skinner, Secretary.
Jesse Van Derhoven, Senior Deacon.
John R. Gansevoort, Junior Deacon.
A. D. Read, Tiler.
At a session of the Grand Lodge, held June 5, 1846, the Committee on Warrants made a report which contains the following,
relating to Steuben Lodge.
"Your committee have had under consideration the petition of Steuben Lodge held in the village of Bath, now acting under
dispensation. From the peculiar embarrassments under which the brethren in this vicinity are now laboring, as represented by the
delegates, your committee would recommend that a charter be granted to them and that all back dues owing from them or such
other brethren as may unite with them, who were former members of Enos Lodge, now defunct, may be remitted, and that the
officers now acting under the dispensation be recognized as the officers in the charter."
Enos Lodge, to which reference is made in the report, was warranted June 28, 1823. For a few years it prospered, but about the
year 1826 the hostile attitude entertained against Masonry began to assume such shape in the community that these brethren were
compelled to hold meetings in private houses or in the open fields at night to secure freedom from molestation. These conditions
existed for several years, until finally they ceased to meet, and in 1840 the charter was declared
forfeited.
When first organized this Lodge met in the second story of the first school-house erected in Bath. It stood on the present site of
Beekman's planing mill.
Enos Lodge was not the first located at Bath, a warrant was granted to Bath Lodge, No. 59, March 22, 1797. Upon the Grand
Lodge register opposite the name of this Lodge is written "Warrant lost 1816." But little is known concerning this old Lodge, the only
authentic record in existence is a mouse-eaten copy of the by-laws and part of a minute-book in possession of the Grand Historian.
The following are excerpts from the by-laws:
"Art. 8. An entered apprentice shall not be passed to the degree of Fellow craft until he shall have served at least two regular
meetings as an entered apprentice; nor shall a fellow craft be raised to the degree of Master Mason until he shall have served at
least two stated meetings as a fellow craft, nor shall any be passed or raised if not acquainted with the mysteries appertaining to the
said degrees.
"Art. 9. The nightly dues shall be twenty-five cents for every meeting to be paid quarterly. Visitors after the first meeting to pay the
same as members, officers of the Grand Lodge only excepted."
"Art. 11. In case of an extra meeting being called the expense of the same to be paid by the brother or brethren requiring the same."
The by-laws are signed by
John Coudry, Master P.T.;
William Dunn, Senior Warden P.T.;
G. D. Cooper, Junior Warden, P.T.;
Daniel Schultz, Senior Deacon P.T.;
T. K. Love, Junior Deacon P.T.;
Daniel Cruger, Treasurer P.T.;
David Jones, Secretary. P.T.;
Joseph Purdy, Tyler, P.T.;
and twenty other names.
The mouse-eaten condition of the minute-book makes it possible to decipher but little of the transactions of the Lodge; the first
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