Beacon Lodge No. 38 was the Wickford, RI encampment of the international fraternal organization The Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In 1884, a coalition of fraternal organizations including the Beacon Lodge built a hall at 90 Phillips Street in Wickford which was known as Odd Fellows Hall. The fraternal groups held meetings and events in this hall until the early 1900s when the hall became the home of solely the Beacon Lodge. Other groups in town also used the hall for other purposes, such as the High School's graduation ceremonies. By the early 1950s, membership of the Beacon Lodge had dwindled to the point where the group disbanded and the remaining members joined the East Greenwich chapter of the I.O.O.F., the Harmony Lodge. When the Harmony Lodge moved out of its East Greenwich headquarters in 2010, the records the Beacon Lodge records they were holding were donated to the library.
This collection is open under the rules and regulations of the North Kingstown Free Library.
Copyright has not been assigned to North Kingstown Free Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be obtained by the researcher from the copyright holder.
[item title], Beacon Lodge records, 2010.13, North Kingstown Free Library. North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
This collection is comprised of the organizational records of the Beacon Lodge, including meeting minutes, lists of members, treasurer reports, statistical reports, visitor logs, newsletters, correspondence and a poster with the lodge's emblem and signatures of its officers.
Most of this collection consists of unboxed administrative books, which have been arranged by type and then date. Loose materials have been boxed and arranged by date, with the exception of the 1874 poster which is rolled and housed on the same shelf as the rest of the collection.
Gift of the Harmony Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, 2010.
Rachel Peirce transferred these materials to the library on behalf of the Harmony Lodge, the I.O.O.F. encampment of East Greenwich, Rhode Island.
The collection was initially processed by Linda Caisse in 2010, with further processing done by Tom Frawley in April, 2018.
No accruals are expected.