FARRELL — For more than 90 years, the brothers of Calumet Lodge 25 of the Free and Accepted Masons have shared a communal bond.
The Farrell-based branch of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania Masons has been through ups and downs and was in financial trouble a couple years ago.
Saturday, members celebrated the lodge’s resurgence during a banquet at the Radisson Hotel, Shenango Township.
“Calumet Lodge is on its way back,” Worshipful Master Isaac L. Fields told the packed room.
They came to celebrate men like Paul G. Flint, who is celebrating his 60th year of Masonic brotherhood.
They came to share food and fellowship, and heard inspirational songs. They toasted each other, prayed together and learned a few lessons about their legacy from the curator of The Underground Railroad Museum in Flushing, Ohio, who was the keynote speaker.
John S. Mattox gave more than a speech during the dinner. Part history lesson, part quiz, Mattox challenged his listeners to think about their heritage.
George Washington may have been one of the first champions of the American brand of freedom, but he also owned slaves.
These men and women “lost everything except for their minds and intellectual property,” Mattox said.
But they gained Washington’s name.
Two hundred thirty-one years later, Mattox challenged the crowd to name a white family named “Washington.”
He was greeted with silence.
But among African-Americans, Washington is a common surname.
“(Most) of you sitting in this room came from slavery,” Mattox said. “It is important for us to understand from whence we came.”
Learning about black heritage is important because history tends to repeat itself.
“All history is recycled,” he said. “Is there anything new?
“We must be able to tell young people to help them with where they are going now,” he said.
His museum, which celebrates the Underground Railroad that was a network of people and places that helped slaves slip from bondage to freedom, is “about sharing history,” Mattox said.
Americans lionize people named Washington, Jefferson and Madison but tend to forget “Harriet and Fred,” he said, talking about influential African-Americans Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, who were among the leaders of this country’s first civil rights movement.
“We’re here to recognize the achievements of our ancestors who did something,” Mattox said.
Men like G.F. Grant are forgotten today, but without Grant, who invented the golf tee, the country club sport wouldn’t be the pastime it is today.
Mattox’s museum has 4,500 items and is a one-hour drive from the Shenango Valley.
On the net: www.ugrrf.org
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