Information Sheet

 

 

R         Independent Order of Odd Fellows.  Granby Lodge No. 113 (Granby, Mo.).

1242                Minute book, 1867-1873.

                                    One volume.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

This is a minute book for Granby Lodge No. 113 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Granby in Newton County, Missouri.  The minutes begin on 30 March 1867 and end on 12 Feb­ruary 1873.  Minutes between 12 October 1867 and 11 April 1868 are missing.

 

The Odd Fellows lodge at Granby was organized prior to the Civil War, but the first 48 pages of this volume have been previously removed.  The minutes begin on page 49 on 30 March 1867, with the lodge being reinstated with new bylaws by the Grand Lodge of Missouri.  Probably the lodge had failed during the Civil War, leaving a substantial debt on the lodge hall.  A report to the Grand Lodge on 13 April 1867 showed a membership of 42 at Granby.

 

For the most part, the minutes deal with ordinary activities such as elections of officers and new members, benevolent support for sick members and their widows and orphans, rental and maintenance of the lodge hall, trials of members accused of “conduct unbecoming an Odd Fel­low,” acquisition of a “burial ground,” and communications from sister lodges.  Pages 91-120, 301-302, and 317-318 have been previously removed from the volume, and there is an unex­plained gap in the minutes between 10 January 1872 and 15 March 1872.  During some periods the lodge met weekly, but at other times it met every other week.

 

Events of particular interest include caring for William J. Brewer, who was “very seriously injured by the explosion of a blast” in April 1867, and a notation in February 1869 that if “Sister Richardson” should leave her house, her claim to it will cease and the lodge “forthwith takes the control of it.”  Perhaps the most notorious occurrence was arranging the funeral and burial of Odd Fellow William Lake, proprietor of a traveling circus, who was shot and killed in Granby by a dis­gruntled patron on 22 August 1869.  In September 1870 the lodge contributed $25 toward the prosecution of Lake’s accused assassin, Jake Killion.  An interesting postscript to the story is that Lake’s widow, Agnes, later married James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok.

 

 

 

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