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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 8

Deaths

Deaths.

The mortality in this Grand Body has been unusually large during the current year. Among the names on the roll will be recognized some of our most zealous and useful, as well as life-long laborers and devoted members. All have been eminent in the service of the Order, and have endeared their memories for marked interest in the cause.

We have been advised of the demise of the following Representatives, P.G. Representatives, and P. G. Officers since last we met, viz.:

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Royal G. Millard, P. G. Rep. of the Grand Encampment of New York, November 15, 1877, aged 60 years.

Joseph D. Trapp, P. G. Rep. of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, November 22, 1877.

Joseph S. Jones, P. G. Rep. of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, December 29, 1877.

Wm. Stedman, P. G. Rep. of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, January 9, 1878, aged 70 years.

Peter Fritz, R. G. Rep. of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, August 9, 1878, aged 77 years.

Albert Case, P. D. G. Sire and P. G. Rep. of the Grand Lodge of South Carolina, aged 69 years.

St. John Goodrich, G. Rep. of the Grand Encampment of Nebraska, January 16, 1878, aged 68 years.

Wm. L. G. Smith, P. G. Rep of the Grand Lodge of Northern New York, February 12, 1878.

John H. Phillips, P. G. Rep. of the Grand Encampment of New Jersey, March 1, 1878, aged 64 years.

Samuel W. Bond, P. G. Rep. of the Grand Encampment of New Jersey, August 1, 1878, aged 69 years.

Wiley Williams, P. G. Rep. of the Grand Lodge of Georgia, April, 1878.

Rudolph Aschmann, G. Rep. of the Grand Lodge of Switzerland, March 18, 1878.

Besides these we have had notice of the death, previous to the last session, of Charles Perkins, P. G. Rep. of the Grand Encampment of Illinois, August 26, 1877, aged 67 years; and Stevens S. Jones, P. G. Rep. of the Grand Lodge of Illinois, March 15, 1877.

All were illustrious senators of the Order in their day and generation, and of each, their surviving Representatives will take occasion to make honorable mention at the appropriate time and place.

There remains however to be added to the honorable death-roll the names of two distinguished members, whose services to the Order claim at our hands special notice, as eminent co-laborers in our great cause.

Bro. Nathan Porter, Representative of the Grand Encampment of California, and Bro. Frederick D. Stuart, P. G. Sire, have each deceased since last we met in this Grand Body. The comparatively sudden taking off of these two brethren, the one at his post of official duty as an honored senator of California, at the city of Sacramento, January 6, 1878; the other at his home in the city of Washington, D. C., January 25, 1878, honored and beloved by his brethren and fellow-citizens, was flashed across the continent almost contemporaneously by the telegraph, diffusing sincere sorrow at the severity of the calamity inflicted by the removal of two illustrious actors from our general field of benefaction.

Never since the death of the Great Founder has the Order received a more severe and all pervading shock!

Death is at all times the terrific enemy of life. A mighty power, he rules with inexorable law, sparing from his desolating sweep none of the children of men.

Generations of the race have appeared and disappeared on this beautiful earth, and will continue to disappear from its face under his fiat God has so ordained it! It belongs to existence! Death is, and ever will be, inseparable from life. It is the antagonist of life. Without death there can be no life, hence philosophically, logically, and spiritually, they are inseparable. The terms are correlative Death is always present, although mankind shuns its appearance, and seldom dwells upon the event until it, as in the instance before us, arrests attention, commands a check abruptly to the business of life, and the cherished plans and relations of men. How sad the contemplation, yet how admirable in this connection the just law of compensation, that God has implanted immortality in the soul of man, which shall live always, and that death is not more certain, than is that future life page 94 which beyond controversy, consoles, comforts, and uplifts the stricken and bereaved, and reconciles to the sting of death

Our brothers who have departed, although dead, are alive; let us rejoice that the same law which exacts the death of the body, assures endless life in another and better world. Yet in the death of illustrious men, humanity mourns, whilst experience registers the sacred monition upon the dial of time, that "in the midst of life we are in death."

Our dearly beloved brethren, as Odd Fellows, had thoroughly grasped and approved its system. They had each drank deeply at its crystal fountain, were profoundly imbued with its philosophy, and were each Odd Fellows in spirit and in truth, not alone in name.

In this connection several incidents intimately connected with the death and memory of our illustrious departed brethren worthy of commemoration are annexed.

One is a presentation to the G. L. of U. S. by Samuel Yorke AtLee, P. G. Rep., of a beautiful cabinet-size photograph of Bro. Nathan Porter, G. Rep. of the Grand Encampment of California, with accompanying remarks; another is a communication from Bro. A O. H. P. Sehorn, P.G. Rep. of Tennessee, to the G. Cor. and Rec. Secretary, of the proceedings of Strangers' Refuge Lodge, No. 14, of Tennessee, in testimony of its high appreciation and admiration of the life and character of our deceased brother, Frederick D. Stuart, P. G. Sire; another is a floral memorial from the coffin of our beloved deceased brother Stuart, preserved in enduring form and presented by Bro. J. T. Given, G. Rep. of the District of Columbia, which now mournfully graces the Grand Secretary's office.

Washington City,

Dear Brother Ridgely:

The Order has reason to deplore the death of Bro. Nathan Porter.

Diligent in his vocation, zealous in Odd Fellowship, without reproach in his domestic relations, unblemished in his morals, and absolutely free from any vicious or degrading habit, he was, as an upright and useful citizen, excelled by none of his contemporaries.

As a legislator and administrator he was sagacious and skilful, and the parliamentary annals of Rhode Island and of California and the Journals of the Grand Lodge of the United States prove the industry, punctuality, and fidelity with which he discharged his duties.

The Journals of the Grand Lodge of the United States, of which body he was for eight years a continuous member, display innumerable evidences of the force of his abilities and of the influence of his character; and exhibit in his honor, an official and personal biography which hardly any one has equaled and which no one has surpassed

While his colleagues and his associates survive, no monument is required to keep his virtues in remembrance; but when all who have known our deceased brother shall have followed him to the grave, posterity will seek some bodily portraiture of one who had done the Order so much service; and to gratify that desire, I offer, through you, to the Grand Lodge of the United States, this likeness of Bro. Porter.

It was a gift from him to me, and while he lived, I should never have parted with it; but his death, although enhancing its value, admonishes me that my custody of it is uncertain; and that, before it be too late, I should find for it a permanent and more appropriate place of deposit. With that view I offer it to the Grand Lodge of the United States, in whose gallery of distinguished Odd Fellows it will, I trust, be an ornament from generation to generation.

Respectfully, and in F., L. & T.,

Samuel Yorke Atlee.

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Murfreesborough, Tenn.,

James L. Ridgey,

Gr. Cor. and Rec. Secretary:

Dear Sir and Brother,—Strangers' Refuge Lodge. No. 14, I. O. O. F., appointed me as a committee of one to correspond with you in relation to the action of said Lodge, on learning of the death of Past Grand Sire Stuart; you will therefore accept this as a sufficient apology for this communication

Under the head of "The Good of the Order," P. G. Rep. Sehorn spoke as follows:

"Although we know that death is the inevitable lot of us all, yet it is sad to contemplate the death of the great and noble hearted, and ever faithful workers for the advancement of American Odd Fellowship. There is not an Odd Fellow old or young, high or low, in our beloved Order, that has not heard of the untiring zeal and great work done for Odd Fellowship by Frederick D. Stuart, P G. Sire; but alas! his noble spirit has taken wings, and his earthly form lies still and pulseless in the grave.

"He died in Washington, D. C., January 25th. Although he is dead, yet his noble works are left as monuments, more enduring than any granite shaft erected by man. His efforts in behalf of American Odd Fellowship will be felt by the yet unborn millions of our race, and therefore, as a slight token of the high esteem in which P. G. Sire Stuart was held by the members of this Lodge, be it

"Resolved, That we extend our heartfelt sympathy to the family of our distinguished and deceased brother.

"Resolved. That P.G. Rep. Sehorn be appointed a committee of one to convey the foregoing to Grand Secretary Ridgely, and request him to communicate the same to the children of Bro Stuart."

May God bless you and yours, my dear brother, is the wish of yours

A. O. H. P Sehorn, Committee.

A beautifully engrossed tribute to the memory of P G. Sire Stuart has been presented to the G. L. of U. S. by Potomac Lodge, No. 38, Alexandria Virginia, and will be appropriately framed and carefully preserved.