Video: 2011-01-20 - Odd Fellows and Aaron Sargent with Allan Rogers (45 minutes)

Full Transcript of the Video:

On Spring Street and you'll probably talk about that a little bit but it is amazing. It's so beautiful. Most of you haven't been able to see the gorgeous room specter so you'll get a special tour. I know if you go you'll love it. It's noon and two days on Saturday and then next month February it's our speakers night is always the third Thursday. It's going to be very night and he'll be speaking of the history of the Sierra Nevada and then March 17th, St Patrick's Day. We'll have our very own Wally who I don't see here tonight and he'll be talking about Chinese medicine. He's awesome. So my father Alan Rogers will be speaking tonight. He has been in that building, an odd fella's lodge building for about 30 years. He's been an odd fellow for about 30 years. He's held every post and does everything probably more than anybody else about the lodge. So he'll be talking about the lodge. He'll be talking about the history of the building. He'll be talking about their first noble grand which is Aaron Sargent. So Alan Rogers. Well thank you very much Carolyn. It's nice to be here this evening. I'm dressed in my tuxedo because all the meetings that we have in the grand lodge and all the meetings for the installation officers we all dress in tuxedos and the ladies are usually in formal dresses. So the tradition goes back to the Europeans and the old days. We want to continue to evaluate or keep the tradition going. Carolyn asked me and I said gee I don't know what to say about the odd fellows but I will talk about the individual who came here in 1853 and then from there I'm going to talk about our lodge. Aaron Sargent was 13 years old when he left his home. His father said it was fine. Go on. And so he did. He took on an apprenticeship training as a printer. He took on apprenticeship training as a carpenter or a cabinet maker. And as he got working in the newspaper business he went to Washington D. C. and he was working in a in the newspaper business there but he spent a lot of time in the congressional library all the time that he could. Now remember this he had no formal education. None at all. 13 years old he left home. When he heard about the gold rush he borrowed 125 dollars to get on a boat to come to California and they went the long way around and it took him almost 10 months to get here to California. And when he and he arrived on February well he sailed on February the 3rd 1849 and he went to he took 10 months to get to San Francisco. He worked as a printer in the city by the bay before coming to Nevada City in 1851. And he worked for the next two years in some local diggings up here in mine. This became the foundation for his future on behalf of hydraulic mining. Now settled, Sergeant returned to Massachusetts to marry Ellen Clark to whom he had been engaged for five years. She waited for him five years. Returning to Nevada City the couple set up a house on Broad Street and it's not that mansion or that house up there on Broad Street the Sergeant's because they never lived there. That place didn't get completed until 1911 and so they lived in a little cottage on the same or near that same property. He got into the business of the Nevada Journal with a partner and then a turning point in his life occurred when he was cutting the law. He met Judge Searles and Judge Searles took him on as a student and before long he applied for his degree or to take the test to become an attorney. He passed it within a year. This is how brilliant this man was. He was so brilliant. Then he started, he then he was admitted to the bar and then he went into this political career running for a district attorney. He won that and then he went on to other things. But now here's where I I stop his life at this point of his history at this point. In 1849 actually, the Houston Mile Lodge number 16 was chartered in California and he was the first noble grand in in this area. Aaron Sargent was. In 1853 they opened a lodge just where the off ramp is from the National Hotel. That's where it was. There was a few fires in the area and they moved. They lived in some temporary places. They met even on the corner of Pine and Broad Street with the Masonic Lodge. They had a lodge there and some of the members were dual members. They were Masons and Oddfellows. And the Oddfellows finally, after that build in 1873, the lodge where it is now is built on Broad Street. Now I'm on the back end of that lodge. Moen, Moen, Solinski Gallery is on the ground floor. But in that building there, there was the post office, there was a bookstore, there was a drug store. There are many other businesses over the years in that particular building. In 18 um, I'm sorry in 1853 he was the first noble grand. In 1873 that's when they they built that building and finished it in 1873. Charles Marsh was the noble grand at that time in Nevada City. Charles Marsh. Now Charles Marsh was the gentleman who had the electrical company, the Yuba Canal building right next to the chamber. That was his building. That was his business. He had a home up on Nevada Street just before you get to the Episcopal Church. Just there's a little street that goes on High Street there. There's a house there and that's Charles Marsh's house. And you'll see the plaque in front of that explaining who, what, who he was or is. He was a noble grand at that time and he was just building that house in 1873. So he went to San Francisco and he bought the furnishings that are in the lodge hall today. The furnishings are still there. That lodge hall today is as if you go back in time. You open the door in 1873. There it is. All the furnishings and everything. I happen to be the curator right now of the uh of the uh museum there. There's a lot of artifacts there. There are so many different organizations who've met over the years at the lodge hall there. Uh we have um even we have some members here today. Uh we have Helen or Madeline Helen is a member of the Oddfels and Rita Rosinski is. And if it wasn't for Rita's husband, Roman, I wouldn't be standing here today because he was the one who brought me into the Oddfels. And so it's just kind of interesting how we're all connected. Even from Sergeant, somebody had to bring somebody in who knew somebody. So it's just right on down the line that we are connected with Sergeant. Which is kind of amazing really. Because this man did so much. I went up to his gravesite the other day just out of curiosity because I had never been up there. And they had uh he was he was buried in San Francisco. He died in 1887. Uh but when they were doing some uh work in San Francisco redevelopment developing the area. The gravesites were there. So they took him and cremated him. Took his ashes spread him up here in the area. And took his his cemetery rocks or monuments and everything and placed him up there at the Einder Cemetery. So if anybody wants to walk up there's a beautiful walk. Go up and see Aaron Sergeant's uh gravesite. That's where it is. So the Oddfels started at medieval times in Europe. And that's when the plague was going on. Where people were dying and hurting so bad at that time. And a group of people got together and they started burying the dead. Taking care of the widows and the orphans. And they did this as a voluntary thing. Well over the years as they became an organization they were called Oddfels and the name stuck. So we became Oddfels. I O. O. F. Independent Ordered Oddfels. And um see I have that written down. I have I can't remember dates and I can't remember names and I don't know if you all are with me or not or not. That's just how it is. I wrote some notes here about this. The first lodge was instituted in the in this country April the 26th 1819 in Baltimore from five men from England. And they got together and they said um we're Oddfels we're from England let's start an organization here. Well this was never a insurance program but it was always a program where we always take care of our own. Even here during the mining time when miners needed help or people needed help the Oddfels would loan them money. They needed they brought in the first medical crews here to help for injuries and so forth. The Oddfels did. And we still are burying the dead and taking care of the widows and orphans today. We have an orphanage in California and I think I don't know for sure how many are throughout the United States but they are there. We have rest homes for our people. We have Saratoga one of the finest rest homes in California right now. And then we have some new ones that have just been built in the Napa area for our members. It is now a organization that is men and women not just men. I think they found out that they couldn't live with or without and so uh when um and it's kind of interesting because after the Civil War there was a real move on trying to unite this country and the Oddfels was one of the tools that they used for uniting this country. There's lodges throughout the nation and you can go from one to another and you're well accepted by all at that time. There's rest homes throughout the nation. In fact I was given a book here not too long ago from a local uh album of Oddfels homes and and it's amazing. They're all over the country. I'll pass this on and if you want to just kind of thumb through it while we're here you may uh thumb through it. Now I'm trying to get my thought here but uh now I'll go back to uh Aaron. After he became a district attorney here he ran for office again and became a in the House of Representatives. And on his way to Washington he traveled with a friend on the Central Pacific and this friend the pair discussed building a transcontinental railroad. Not a new idea but sergeant pledged his support. Well it turned out he was assigned to the special committee in the railroad. He wrote a new bill giving the stirring speech in the House and rekindled interest in the project. His efforts were finally rewarded when a bill to build a transcontinental railroad passed the House and Senate in June of 1862. Sergeant was again elected to the House in 1864 then to the Senate in 1873. During that time he introduced a woman suffrage miss and a measure generally referring to as the Anthony Amendment. It was it was used word for word when finally passed by Congress 40 years later. Many of the years after sergeant's death he and his wife were close personal friends of Susan B. Anthony. So he he was right there with with the history of everything. It was so interesting and that's why I said well I'll talk about Odd Fellows but sergeant was the beginning of Odd Fellows here in Nevada City which is to me very important. The other thing that is interesting about the Odd Fellows here when the Carnegie libraries were being established throughout the United States the Odd Fellows stepped up and said look we have a library that we've been loaning to our friends and our members and let's donate that to the library that's here the Carnegie Library. So they went out and they purchased books and they took the books that we had at the lodge and gave them to the library and if you go to the library today and you look on the south wall there's a big plaque up there telling it all about it about the library and take the time and take a walk and and just see that it's right in front of us all this history is just phenomenal really is phenomenal. We have associated ourselves with many other lodges within our community and I have a list here of a number of them and I'll see if I can find all their names because it it's it's very. Ustama Lodge number 16 contains several extinct Odd Fell lodges. Brooklyn Lodge number 46 charted in the town of Red Dog Nevada County on October 13, 1855. Moved the lodge and its building in 1870 to the village of Yuba Nevada County and consolidated with Ustama on July 3rd, 1904. Now let me Ustama do you know what that word means? Well it's a my doo Indian word it means village or this place so they had the foresight to to take that name the Indian name and you'll see it engraved on the sidewalk right in front of mowans gallery there today Ustama Lodge 16 right there. Union Lodge number 48 charted in October 31st, 1855 in the village of Eureka South. Does anyone know where Eureka South is? Later named Graniteville. Graniteville up here. Union Lodge moved in 1863 to the village of Moore's Flat Nevada County and still later moved again to the village of Humbug later named North Bloomfield then in September of 1918 consolidated with Ustama. Meanwhile Orleans Lodge number 60 which had been charted in the village of Orleans Flat on July 10th, 1856 moved to Moore's Flat consolidated with Union number 48 on July 1863 and then Samaritan Lodge number 126 charted in the town of Washington Nevada County on September 22nd, 1866 consolidated with Ustama in 1920. So we have a lot of lodges here and we have cemeteries like up in Graniteville there was this big cemetery up there and I got to tell you a story about that and there's a cemetery in Red Dogg there's a cemetery up on Broad not Broad but Red Dogg I guess it is Boulder Street. Two cemeteries up there the old one and then the newer one that was started in the 20s I believe on the left going up. But I got to tell you the story about Graniteville. A bit granite and the reason I'm telling you this story is because not before just before my son died he and the cemetery district worked together very hard to take all the cemeteries that were of odd fellows and give them to the cemetery district Nevada Cemetery District. Well in the process of doing that the cemetery district they go in and they just really marvelously fix things well well up in Graniteville they had these odd fellow cemetery there but they had all these little graves outside the border of the of the cemetery and but there was never never a designated border but they were just out there and so I talked to Gary Plungett who is the manager of the cemetery district he said those were the ladies of the night that were buried outside the all the cemeteries and so they incorporated them now it's all one cemetery and it's up at Graniteville you can see that yeah so that's that's a pretty neat story about incorporating them in. The cemetery up on Boulder Street right now or Red Dog on the left is now called Deer Creek Cemetery and they've just gone in there and renewed the property took a lot of trees out landscaped it and now they have some crematory things up there for people who want to just put their remains in there. David Raiz who is a fireman here in the area his mother is up there now in that grave site so I just wanted to mention that because that's what we do we take care of these necessaries they did not have social programs like they have today in the United States we took care of ourselves and that's where we should be today taking care of ourselves so I won't get into that. So is there any questions from the floor? Yes, Caroline. Can you talk about the history of just the lodge itself a little bit of you know when it was built and and the fires and some? Well yes Ustama Lodge of course was built in 1873 which we have use of now and the building that I'm located in the business that I have is on Spring Street that's a wooden structure well where I'm located used to be the kitchen and the dining hall down below there was never used as a business until I came on the scene and then turned that into a retail space upstairs now uh from me now is the recreation hall in the kitchen and the dining hall and that has usage daily there's something going on there all the time Sierra College has their dance classes and another dance group play that works there we have concerts going on recitals meetings it's used the calendar is pretty full upstairs there and then our formal temple lodge is on the Broad Street side and that's where all the artifacts are because what we we didn't have all these artifacts in 1873 in 1853 we lost everything on the fires so all these other lodgers who came and incorporated with us brought their goodies and we have all types of costumes swords and oh you'll see it if you come Saturday you'll see all that good stuff many other organizations have used our halls have used our hall night templars for one the Sherwood Forest Templars or well not templars but what do you want to call them nights the Grand Army of the Republic now we have swords and and things up there and that's before the Civil War before the Civil War and then odd fellows swords these are all I don't know ceremonial stuff you know that's what the old story was you know they had their their costumes and their swords and they're we're losing a lot of that and that's what's sad and we're losing our members it's just like the veterans of foreign wars the American Legion Masonic Lodge odd fellows they're all going by the wayside because we don't have new members and I'm always trying to recruit men and women if they're interested in joining our organization yes ma'am um you know from something you said earlier it sounded like uh maybe it's not just welcome to the public to join but they would have to actually know somebody that um well you're you're you can be invited by a member that's usually what's going on what we're trying to do is replace ourselves each member should bring in a new member but that doesn't happen always and that's not happened all these years what happens and I have experiences myself I brought in people they've come to our meetings they're bored well there's a certain ritual that you go through you have to memorize or you read and you go through the different chairs different steps you have your noble well we'll start with the noble grand then you have the vice grand and then you have a chaplain you have a pass grand you have the different uh aids on them on them the flag bearer so these are all chairs that you go through become a noble grand and then when you become a noble grand then you are a pass grand that's the highest honor that you can get in the lodge is a pass grant and so people come to the meetings I know these two ladies come and they get oh hum all we have to do is read some letters and pay the bills and do all this and that but historically it's very important that we hopefully we can get more membership to keep this lodge going you'll see when you come up there and take the tour it would be a shame to have that torn down and turn into apartments they did that across the street at the Knox kid building they used to be a lodge hall up there and they made it into apartments and I'm saying what a shame and that's where we used to meet years ago native sons met up there for a long time and then now they're meeting over at the foundry the native sons so I even have a native sons costume up there at the odd fellow soul in one of the cases if you come by you'll see it but you're you're sure welcome to take a membership and apply for it that would be nice yes there's no no secrecy to the ritual uh and everything that goes on with the odd pillows as there is blue the masons even though it sounds as though it sounds like to close that we do have passwords and and that's to keep the individuals who are not members out of the meetings because there was a lot of times when uh you would have a meeting and then these guys well let's go to the meeting well you're not going to get in that door if you know unless you know the password and isn't there a hand what oh yeah there's always there's that sort of stuff but that's old time things even today uh the women are not necessarily wearing their um formals to their meetings you know we become pretty uh blacked about that yeah if we want to elevate the character of man hey put a sport coat on and a tie and come to a meeting or a business something for the ladies and come to a meeting please are you elected to the first chair and then you just succeed through the chairs is that happening you are elected and and uh that's voted on once a year yes oh every time you move you're elected yes okay you're nominated and then you're elected and then you you serve your term and then you go on whatever office is open but there are some offices what happens you become for life you know it's like any other organization you know like if you're the treasure well nobody else wants to be the treasure so you got the job for life or if you're the secretary well you got the job for life you know it's just one of those things now i've been a noble brand for many many years off and on right now i'm not serving as noble grand but i am noble grand elect so you don't um what i'm thinking of remembering how things were in the masonic life you're elected to the first position and then each year you go to the next it's not a set rule where if you if there's an opening as the right conductor or the conductor and somebody wants to take it you got it okay or if you're the warden you got it yeah and you might have in a few years yes over here were women always in office no they were not it was only men and when president grant uh was in office shylar coalfax was the vice president and he wrote the rebecca degrees and because they knew they had to have women within the organization to be able to survive the rebecca degree is a beautiful degree we have lost our rebecca's here in nevada city because there were no and well not enough women who were interested we were having uh night meetings and they were getting older and they said well we can't we can't go out at night uh we have had day meetings early oh i don't feel up to it so that that happened i am a rebecca myself and i belong to the dutch flat lodge i'm a rebecca in long in long and i i'm a past noble grand of the rebecca's here i've served as the noble grand but i want to read you a couple of things and then i'm going to call this close to an end here uh the rebecca degree and this is the rebecca creed and it's beautiful just beautiful by the way shylar coalfax uh the town of coalfax was named after him there's a plaque over there about him and he also did the uh liturgy for all the uh granges in california the granges wherever they are he was the one who wrote all that for the granges but here he didn't write this and i do not know who the author of this is but this is said in every meeting and for the rebecca's i am a rebecca i believe in the fatherhood of god the brotherhood of man and the sisterhood of women i believe in the watchwords of our order friendship love and truth friendship is like a golden chain that ties our hearts together love is one of the most precious gifts the more you give the more you receive truth is a standard by which we value people it is the foundation of our society i believe that my main concern should be my god my family and my friends then i should read out to my community and the world for in god's eyes we are all brothers and sisters i am a rebecca now isn't that's a that's a beautiful thing and also want to point out we also have an open bible in our lodge every time there's a meeting and there's always a prayer said and one of the qualifications of being a rebecca or an odd fellow is that you believe in a supreme being not the chair of a certain religion the three links friendship love and truth when i said earlier when they had the plague these people were not one religion they were all religions working together to help mankind and that's where it is today friendship love and truth the three links the validation for the odd fellows and this is set in every meeting closing i am an odd fellow i believe in the fatherhood of god the brotherhood of man i believe in the friendship and love and truth as basic guides to the ultimate destiny of all mankind i believe my home my church or temple my lodge and my community deserve my best work my modest pride my earnest faith and my deepest loyalty as i perform my duty to visit the sick relieve the distress bury the dead and educate the orphan and as i work with others to build a better world in spirit and in truth i am must always be grateful to my curator faithful to my country and fraternal to my fellow man i am an odd fellow thank you folks for having me this evening yes i just want to say that if you haven't been up there to their their buildings it's just wonderful you should really try to go on saturday it's just a beautiful beautiful place and it's so well thank you it's a hidden jewel you you won't believe it until you see it yes absolutely yes sir i'm just curious about the origins of the name i mean somebody to say well these are a bunch of odd well i i explained that earlier they were helping people they were not an organization they were just helping people and that was an odd thing to do so they said they were odd fellows for doing that and that's and when they organized it's now odd fellows is all through Europe and they still maintain their lodges and we're all welcome to attend their meetings yes any other questions again thank you yes but it's 12 o'clock who said two o'clock we said 11 o'clock this morning yeah what would you like to do well i don't care i'd be there at 11 or two or 12 or whatever we announced 11 o'clock in the radio this morning i think tours will start at 11 how's that tours just started 11 you want to be there from 11 to 2 i'll stay from 11 to 2 i'll knock that and where do we meet in the location of the i think if you come over to uh spring street where rogers picture framing which i'll give myself a plug that's my business right upstairs there's a doorway i'll have the door opening just come on out yeah you will not regret it coming even the kids the grandkids have gone but what time are you going to be here i'll see you so allen kind of went our appetite for more information about erin sergeant perhaps because he just really touched on a little bit of erin sergeant and if perhaps you've heard in past meetings the serials historical library has been a recipient of many of the manuscripts and writings from erin and breida has been one of our key volunteers it's been helping us process that i mentioned and she did write a fabulous article in this most recent bulletin now if you're a member of the society you're already getting this the mail so you know i'm talking about if you'd like to know more about erin sergeant please avail yourself of a copy of the back of the room and perhaps consider being a member as well you get this uh the bulletin every quarterly and then this is the mail which is a nice thing now breida this is the volume number one on erin there's another the volume coming can you share this a little bit about what you're working on right now but erin's information well so much information to put together dave comstock is editor of the bulletin and he said well we'll have to make more than one because there's too much here so volume one is out and volume two i don't think you'll go as far as volume three although there's plenty of information i just stuck with erin's life i did not go into his wife and his association with susan b anthony but we do have a lot of correspondence from susan b she always wrote with a pencil that was one it wasn't a very good speller for people who are interested in old documents we do have uh as i think i put in the bulletin uh a letter from the king of hawaii we have uh condonments cards when he died from u. s grant from uh anybody that was anybody anybody in those days and one of one of the recommendations for his being appointed as either secretary of the interior or as minister to germany was made by general freeman john c freeman he was the commander of the american people living in arizona in the territory of arizona and we have a couple of letters from him letters from president garfield and it's been very interesting to go through all these things we have over 1400 documents we have cataloged uh and put in what we call the sergeant collection anybody have any questions i'll i was very fortunate to go into the library and read it showed me all these letters in fact she let me have some of the letters to take home and study speeches no pieces of the speeches and so forth i could not i was in a tritis uh run one of the speeches by to you tonight but i could not do it because my language is not the same as his it's still english but the way it's it's worded it's different so it was a real pleasure to see those letters and to work with you thank you we have the very first thing that i was shown was a speech by erin sergeant that he made in april uh in 1878 i think on the 25th anniversary of ustama lodge and it was about 22 or three pages long handwritten and i got so well first of all i couldn't read the handwriting at all but i got so that i could read it because he made funny e's and funny r's and things and i got so i could read his handwriting pretty well and then in going through all this correspondence i found a speech that he made which was very short following a banquet which was given for him by the citizens of san francisco before he left to accept his senator first senator job and his comments after that speech were uh in these things and another speech that was there was one that he gave in french which he taught himself to the people in france on i believe it was the 200th anniversary of their bombing something or other fast words it words escape me because i have seen your moments operer and operer and another one that he made which is very amusing is at the graduation of his daughter when she graduated from medical school and how he said that normally you would not ask a politician to speak for medical students you'd ask another doctor or something and he compared that his speeches were long but very interesting to read my question is if if the house has his name on it he never lived there i don't get his name how did the sergeant house yeah he left Nevada city about 1861 or two but he had it built before he left or no his house is up there now he had nothing to do with oh yeah nothing to do as near as we can figure his house and the picture of his house is on this bulletin it faced Bennett street and he built a second house on the lower part of that lot which he designated as he would rent to the minister of the mess methodist church as a parsonage so the bib and breakfast that's the parsonage was not the parsonage so that lot was a big lot and it had two houses we know how to get the name sorry really pardon me on that property one point time the property was all one parcel at one time so erin sergeant owned the land not his land man with it might be interesting who all is left from the sergeants who will all deal with the sergeant descendants of the heirs they might be kind of interesting you know they're around three great grandchildren of erin sergeants gave us the collection that we have now the 1451 documents and 52 photographs they are bill sergeant he's retired air force lives in galveston he was concerned about possibility his share of the documents being destroyed by a hurricane similar to Katrina and he was looking for a safe place for him came here once somewhere in his rv with the family and decided this was the place he convinced his sister jam and her husband david last year to provide the share of the collection they had and then they both attacked the brother john and john finally got him out of the storage shed he had a man in orinda and got them to us so they're there they're available for the public to handle and to look at research and we'll be glad to show them anytime that we recently reacquired is that a good tour and did traditional manuscripts and and ria's working on that presently can you tell us anything about that these are um serials family serials i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry different historically