Their Masonic Temple on Charles Street, then less than twenty five years old, had been completely destroyed by fire on Christmas Day in 1890. The year 1891 found the Grand Lodge of Maryland in Baltimore beset by many problems. Among them were: Ted Lewis, Tim McCoy, Ronald Coleman, James Barton, Fanny Brice, and Chico Marx. Several persons, who were destined to become well know in the entertainment field were born that year. These inventions included the submarine, the oil cracking process the color photo, and diphtheria antitoxin. A few notable inventions were made that year. It seems incredible to us now, that eighteen years were still to elapse before the discovery of the North Pole. Yet to be admitted were: Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and considerably later, Alaska and Hawaii. At that time there were only forty-four states in the Union, including Idaho and Wyoming, which had just become states the previous year. Our great country was under the leadership of its 23rd president, Benjamin Harrison, a Republican who was then serving the third year of his term. In fact, it is almost impossible to find anything to distinguish it from any of the other years in the last decade of the 19th Century. It seems unlikely that the year 1891 will rank as one of the outstanding years in the pages of history.
In these instances we can only try to piece together the facts and read between the lines. However, there are instances where certain details are lacking details which are needed to complete the over-all picture, but which at the time, they must have felt were unnecessary because of their complete familiarity with the situation. In reading these, one cannot help but be impressed by the thoroughness and the detail of these records. While they were permitted by the Grand Lodge to do a few things we cannot, conversely, we can do some things they could not.īirmingham Lodge is fortunate to have in its possession a complete set of minutes beginning with the organizational meeting held on Tuesday, June 9, 1891. Their lives were governed by the same precepts and they adhered to the same tenets of our Institution. To us it might seem that they indeed lived in an age of darkness, and yet our Brothers of that day practiced the same form of Masonry we do today. Central heating systems were not in general use and the “potbellied” wood stove was the accepted means of heating the lodge Hall. The homes and public buildings of that day relied upon oil burning, wick lamps, and in the Lodge Halls, the Lesser Lights were candles. Life without electricity would be almost impossible for us today, and yet in 1891, although the phenomenon of electricity was known, its great potential was undreamed. Therefore, it is extremely difficult for us to imagine what life was like in the small farming community of Beltsville, Maryland, just one hundred years ago, when Birmingham Lodge No. In this year of 1991, we accept as commonplace such things as the automobile and high speed throughways, electricity, solid-state circuitry, color television air conditioning, push button telephones, supersonic jet aircraft, electronic computers, space exploration and close-up photographs of the moon, just to name a few.
(From "A History of Birmingham Lodge, on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Lodge)