The
Brethren of Winchester Hiram No.21 Masonic Lodge would
like to welcome you to our Cyber Blue Lodge. We were
established on October 1, 1768, by the Provincial Grand Lodge
of Pennsylvania which granted a charter to a number of Masons living
in or near
Winchester, Virginia in order to form a Blue Lodge, which was
known as Winchester Lodge No. 12. This was the first Masonic Lodge
established west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the first in
Virginia to be designated by a number. The charter named three
members, who were to be the Station Officers of the Lodge, but at
the first meeting there were four members present. By the outbreak
of the Revolutionary War, the Lodge had 21 members. The lodge
is full of history dating before the beginnings of the our country
(1768). We are located in the wonderful Shenandoah Valley
which is also rich with history to include the Revolutionary and
Civil
Wars.
To
the right of this website you can see our distinctive features of
the Lodge which are the
frescoes on the walls and ceiling of our Lodge room which was
painted in 1868. The work was done by a Mr. Ango from the Peabody
Institute of Baltimore. As far as we know, Mr. Ango was not a Mason.
The images could have been taken from a Masonic Monitor of that time
or from other sources. Even if the frescoes are not the result of an
original talent, the artist is due full credit for reproducing the
images in soft, natural colors and using unusually fine perspective.
The frescoes on the east and west walls give the illusion of
additional rooms, rather than the flat surfaces, which they really
are. The molding around the frescoes, which may not have been the
work of Mr. Ango, appears to be a solid molding attached to the
walls. The colors are as bright today as when they were first
applied, although they are over 137 years old and have never been
retouched.
George
Washington was well known to the Winchester area. He had come to
the Winchester area as a boy of 16 in 1748, and he was intimately
associated with the area for the next ten years, five of them as a
surveyor for Lord Fairfax, and five as a soldier, holding a
commission from the Colony of Virginia. In addition, he represented
Frederick County in Virginia's representative assembly, the House of
Burgesses, for seven years. He owned an "in-lot" and an "out-lot" in
Winchester. The in-lot was on the east side of Braddock Street just
north of the present Post Office. He undoubtedly knew many of the
early members of Winchester Lodge.
In
April 1863, the Lodge secured permission to open, and 23 members of
the army were made Master Masons and two were made Fellowcraft.
Between this date and June 24, 1865, the Lodge raised 231
Candidates, 207 of them from the occupying army. One of these,
Captain
William McKinley (1843-1901), later became President of the United States in
1897. As the army was using the Market House, these meetings were
held at 172 North Loudoun Street. The building was razed several
years ago and the land converted into a parking lot by the
Commercial and Savings Bank. On May 20, 1899, Brother
McKinley visited Winchester Hiram Lodge. He climbed the steps to the
Lodge Room, and, although Lodge was not opened, he greeted all who
came to meet him and signed the Lodge's guest book.
