River Bend Cemetery Carving

The Independent Order of the Odd Fellow (I.O.O.F.) trace their roots to a fraternal organization in England established prior to 1745. A secret society for the working man, they originally met in London taverns and combined these social gathering with benevolent acts, such as collecting money for providing lodging for an unemployed or destitute member.

In 1819 several English Odd Fellows established the American origins of the I.O.O.F. with the institution of Washington Lodge No. 1 in Baltimore, Maryland. The Odd Fellows created the Rebeka Lodge for female family members of living or deceased Odd Fellows in 1851 and became the first national fraternity to include both men and women. In the late 19th century membership rivaled the Mason, the largest fraternity in the US and by 1915 it reached its peak of 3,400,000 members.

Maintaining their benevolent beginnings, the I.O.O.F. serves their fellow man by following the tenets of Friendship, Love, and Truth, represented by the symbols of the three links of chain.

Their main duties are to "visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead and educate the orphan. Today many of the original duties of the Odd Fellows are now obsolete resulting from longer life spans and better occupational safety standards coupled with government assistance programs such as Social Security, unemployment benefits,public assistance, low-income housing and meals on wheels. Although membership has substantially declined Od Fellows now sponsor organizations such as Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and continue to visit the sick in hospitals and nursing homes and to provide scholarships and loans to college students.

Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million

Two of the principal symbolic tools always found in a Lodge are the square and compasses. Some Lodges and rituals explain these tools as lessons in conduct: for example, that Masons should "square their actions by the square of virtue" and to learn to "circumscribe their desires and keep their passions within due bounds toward all mankind." However, as Freemasonry is non-dogmatic, there is no general interpretation for these tools (or any Masonic emblem) that is used by Freemasonry as a whole

© 2012 Babcock-Smith House Museum