Above is a postcard showing an Odd Fellows’ Lodge in Beaufort, NC. It turns out we’ve got a lot of materials relating to various secret societies and fraternal orders in North Carolina, including the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Interestingly, the card mentions that the lodge is over a hundred years old, which places the construction of the lodge to ca. 1805-1815.
Below is an excerpt from the inside of the front cover of the “Ritual of a Subordinate Lodge under the Jurisdiction of the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,” published by the I.O.O.F. in 1908 (VC097 O22r). While it was used in the Centennial Lodge of Elm City, it dates to roughly the same time the postcard was created.
In New Bern shortly after the Civil War, black citizens founded an early black chapter of the I.O.O. F. Also what was probably the first black chapter of the Grand TEmplars (big on temperance). Do you have any memorabilia from these or, for that matter, from King Solomon Masonic Lodge in New Bern, the first black Masonic lodge in NC, founded in 1865 or 1866?
For a study on African American artisans in New Bern, I’d love to find anything on such topics.
Catherine Bishir
Catherine, I can’t speak for the NCC as a whole, but I’ve never seen anything from those three — in fact, the only North Carolina black fraternal badge I’ve found was from an Elks (IBPOEW: Improved Benevolent Protective Order of the Elks of the World) temple in Charlotte.
Black memorabilia of all kinds was scarce until the civil rights movement inspired an outpouring of pinback buttons, posters, handbills, etc.