Digital Collections Highlight: WWI Masonic Roll of Honor
November 10, 2020
This Veterans Day, the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library is highlighting how one local Masonic lodge honored its members who served during World War I. We recently digitized the item seen here and added it to our Digital Collections website.
Both during and after World War I, a number of Masonic and fraternal organizations assembled rolls of honor to recognize the service of their members. Constellation Lodge, which was located in Dedham, Massachusetts, issued this Roll of Honor, which listed the names of twenty-nine of its members who served during World War I.
The location of each man's wartime service varied widely. Those who served stateside included Masons like Edward J. Ziegler, who served as a Yeoman at the Portsmouth Navy Yard in New Hampshire, and Edward S. Colburn, who served in the Gas Mask Department in Philadelphia. Many on the list served overseas, including a number of men whose location is simply listed as "Somewhere in France."
Constellation Lodge mailed this particular copy of the Roll of Honor to one of the Masons honored. William Crawford, Jr. (1896-1987) received the Roll of Honor while he was still serving at the Aerial Station in Chatham, Massachusetts, a town located on the elbow of Cape Cod. The Chatham Naval Air Station was only in existence from 1917 until 1922 and served an important role during the war, by patrolling for German U-boats off the coast of the United States. The air station was also involved in defending against the only attack on U.S. soil during WWI. The Chatham Historical Society has a number of images related to the Chatham Naval Air Station digitized and available on their website.
The Roll of Honor pictured here is one of nearly 900 digitized items that can be found at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library's Van Gorden-Williams Digital Collections website. Also, be sure to check out our previous blog posts related to WWI.
Caption:
Constellation Lodge Roll of Honor, 1918. Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Lexington, Massachusetts, Gift of William Douglas Crawford, A2013/010/1.