Amicable Lodge History
Amicable lodge was formed on Feb. 6 1805 when eighteen members of the fraternity, all residents of Cambridge, formed an association called the “Aurora Society.” They decided to begin the work of forming a lodge so they called for a meting at Mr. Hovey’s house, (a local tavern which stood at the westerly corner of Mass. Ave. and Douglas St., Central square) At the meeting at Hovey’s Tavern a set of by-laws was elected that contained many interesting features, one being “that we elect officers every eight weeks.” Another limited the number of the lodge to twenty-five members. Perhaps these odd rules came about because they were meeting in a tavern.
After some re-working of the by-laws a charter was granted by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts on June 10, 1805. Being organized under the name Amicable Lodge, the original name Aurora went to another lodge, still in existence, who submitted their paperwork for a charter the day! They designated that they would continue meeting at Hovey’s which at the time sat on the new street that ran from Boston into Cambridge. It is interesting to think at that time Cambridge was an area of land that included Brighton and Arlington: its entire population numbered around 2500: the land east of Dana St. was a narrow strip of land between two huge tracts of marsh.
The lodge met at Hovey’s until 1807 when it bounced around various sites in Harvard square finally returning to the Central square area. Their home was for twenty years in what had been the vestry of the Baptist church (Western Ave.) Next moving to Friendship Hall, home of the Friendship Lodge of Odd Fellows where these two fraternities, Amicable and Friendship, lived in harmony until a fire in August of 1854 destroyed much of Central square moving both lodges to a new brick building on Pearl, between Green and Franklin.
The lodge had numerous experiences moving because of fire and storm (one building blew down three days after the lodge moved in) however, the severest test came during what was known as the anti-Masonic period in America. The late 1830’s saw the closing of many lodges across America, and Amicable was no different. The Lodge met in secret and in fact went into darkness for a number of years until the spector of oppression blew over.
MORE TO COME
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Email: revhank@tka.comWor. Rev. Hank Peirce
