Royal Arch Chapter of the Tabernacle Meeting Notice

This meeting notice is among the new acquisitions currently on view in the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives. This notice was sent to all members of Tabernacle Chapter, inviting them to the December 20, 1915 meeting. Depicted on the front of the notice is an illustration of the Biblical Tabernacle, the chapter’s namesake. The illustration has further symbolic resonance as well, since the Royal Arch Chapter’s room is meant to be a representation of the Tabernacle, in the same way that the lodge room of Craft Masonry is patterned after Solomon’s Temple.

The inside of the notice includes information about what business would be conducted on the evening of December 20, 1915. The business of that evening included voting ("balloting") on new candidates, as well as the conferring of two Royal Arch degrees: Mark Master Mason and the Past Master Mason degrees. Near the end of the notice, on the right hand page, is a reminder to members about an upcoming social event. Under the heading "Don't Forget Ladies Night," the notice reminds members that tickets were available for that year's New Year's Eve party, to be held on the last night of 1915.

 

 

 

 

Above and at left:

Meeting Notice, 1915
Tabernacle Chapter
Malden, Massachusetts
Gift of the Royal Arch Chapter of the Tabernacle, Malden, Massachusetts, MA 300.

     

Charles Sewall Norris and the Royal Arch Chapter of the Tabernacle

New acquisitions are currently on view in the Van Gorden-Williams Library & Archives. All are a generous gift of the Royal Arch Chapter of the Tabernacle, Malden, Massachusetts. The contents of Charles Sewall Norris’s (1871-1919) membership file from Tabernacle Chapter are among the items on view. They include his petition to join the Chapter (pictured, left), his “Mark,” (below, right) as well as other material, including a thank you card from his family, in response to receiving a sympathy card from the Chapter after Norris’s death. Norris became a Mason in Converse Lodge in 1890, where he served as Master in 1905 and 1906. He joined Tabernacle Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, in 1906. In the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts he served as Grand Standard Bearer in 1914 and District Deputy Grand Master for District No. 7 in 1917-1918. On March 26, 1919, Norris died at noon, just six hours after his wife, Emma Frances (Brown) Norris  passed away.

Norris was born in Wenham, Massachusetts in 1871, but moved with his family to Malden when he was ten years old. According to Norris's obituary in the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts Proceedings, "After graduation from the High School in 1890 he was connected with the Malden Savings Bank as one of its incorporators and also its Teller until August 1, 1907. Resigning that position he was chosen Treasurer and Trustee of the Home Savings Bank, in Boston, positions which he held at the time of his decease. He was also a director of the new Second National Bank in Malden." For his Masonic mark, Norris chose the town seal of his birthplace.

You can read more about Norris in the obituary from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts Proceedings, as well as from  the Proceedings of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, of which he was a member.

Caption:

Membership File for Charles S. Norris, 1906-1919
Tabernacle Chapter
Malden, Massachusetts
Gift of the Royal Arch Chapter of the Tabernacle, Malden, Massachusetts, MA 300