| (For a general history of the Odd Fellows, visit our entry on Wikipedia.) The first mention of Odd Fellows lodges comes from 1730 in London, England. In 1810, after the Revolutionary War, an English Odd Fellow named Thomas Wildey emigrated to America. Missing his Odd Fellows lodge back home, he put an ad in the newspaper, which was answered by four other Odd Fellows. They met in at the Seven Stars Inn in Baltimore, decided to form an American Lodge and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows was born in America! Odd Fellowship grew rapidly from there and it wasn’t long before the Odd Fellows were the largest Fraternal Order in the United States. Most towns had an Odd Fellows lodge and it was a favorite group for being part of the social community where one could be part of charitable work. To this day many older towns across the country have a historical “Odd Fellows building” of some sort. |
If the Odd Fellows were such a large group in the 19th and 20th Centuries in America, what happened? Odd Fellowship flourished rapidly until the Great Depression. Early on the order was a mutual-aid society in addition to being a charitable work, and in many lodges had funds where people invested money for their families in case of hardship or death. When the stock market crashed in 1929 and banks began to fail, many lodges lost money just like many people and other institutions did – and membership began to fall.
Later, once America began a public “social safety net” through Social Security, and commercial insurance became available to all, the Odd Fellows moved along to becoming simply a social, community and charity organization, which it remains today.
An interesting theory and connection:
(Courtesy our lodge Ancient Roman enthusiast Will Bradford)
So here is some history you won’t find elsewhere! There was once a time where it was popular for fraternal orders to claim ancient and exotic histories, to give themselves an impressive pedigree.
For instance, the Masons assert they preserve knowledge from the building of King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, and it has been thought they are the descendants of both the Templar Knights and the architects of Medieval Cathedrals.
Odd Fellowship in its beginnings had it’s own claim, that it was the direct descendent of the Burial Club of an ancient Roman Legion in Britannia from the 2nd Century AD – that had kept going continually long after the fall of the Roman Empire!
What was a Roman Burial Club? The life of a Roman Soldier was tough. One might get killed and end up buried a thousand miles away from home, or be injured and lose one’s career. It’s tough for a soldier to save money, so the legions allowed “burial clubs” where a small amount of a soldier’s pay would be put aside for them. (Well, so they couldn’t drink or gamble it away…) If they got injured, that fund would give them some money to start a new life. If they were killed while serving it would provide a proper burial. If they successfully retired, it would be a pension. Very handy in a world where retirement funds and insurance were unknown!
While it’s very unlikely any Roman Legion Burial Club was continued past the 4th century AD – it turns out this idea of saving money DID continue into society, in the form of Roman burial clubs known as Collegia or Sodalitas groups. These were the civilian version of the soldier clubs in the legion – people could put a fund aside that would help members in times of distress or at their death. These groups of Roman Citizens would meet socially and even held banquets for their members; and they are certainly a foundation of many types of social club today.
Besides our foundation of the principles of Friendship, Love and Truth, the Odd Fellows from our start have had the mission to “visit the sick, relieve the distressed, educate the orphan, and bury the dead.” Bury the dead? Seems like we’ve seen that somewhere…Again, while a direct association is unlikely, it’s very possible that the original Odd Fellows actually did look to antiquity for inspiration in solving the eternal problem of providing for society and helping those in need!