The Unknown Lodges
Posted in Patch Collecting by John E. Pannell on August 30th, 2009 at 10:53 am The Unknown Lodges (Originally printed in Blue Book – reprinted with permission of the American Scouting Historical Society)
by Jeff Morley and Bill Topkis
It is hard to imagine the Order of the Arrow of the early 1920’s. The scouting program itself was less than 15 years old and the Boy Scouts of America was only one of several scouting organizations competing for national dominance. In those days, the program was not even called Order of the Arrow. What we now know as the OA began in 1915 as Wimactendienk W. W. and was one of several honor camper societies to form during the first decade of Scouting.
Based upon the few first-hand accounts by members who were active in the 1920’s, minutes of early meetings of the Grand Lodge and the official “History of the Order of the Arrow†by Kenneth Davis, an amazing picture of the order’s early years begins to emerge.
Scout councils began procuring their own camps in the early to mid 1920’s. Before then, it was commonplace for councils to share large camp areas. Three such areas were Treasure Island on the Deleware River near Philadelphia, Lake Kawonanke, and Crystal Lake in New York. Scout encampments from many councils co-existed along the shores of the latter two locations and in the case of Kawonanke Lake, we know that well over thirty different scout councils had campgrounds there at the same time. In circumstances such as these, it is easy to see that if one council utilized a popular honor camper society, it would not be long before the idea would spread to neighboring council camps and such was the case in the early days.
Many WWW societies developed similar to the Unami group from Philadelphia, each with their own particular rules, initiations and requirements but all loosely conforming to what we know as the OA program. It is estimated by first-hand accounts that by 1923, well over 50 different councils were using some form of Wimachtendeink W. W. And amazingly, no one really knew who, what and where these groups were operating. The Boy Scouts of America did not keep track of this information because WWW was not a part of the BSA program (The OA was first adopted as an “official†Senior Scout program in 1934). And as late as the spring of 1921, there was no organizational body of the WWW to keep track of anything. During the summer of 1921, an invitation was sent by Unami and Unalactigo Lodges, both from Philadelphia Council, to the known WWW groups to meet and form a GRAND LODGE. Such was the creation of the very first National WWW meeting (later to become the National Order of the Arrow Conference). At this first meeting attended by 8 out of the 12 known lodges, a national constitution was created and the delegates discussed a wide variety of topics. There were discussions regarding locations or reported locations of WWW societies and there were preliminary discussions about creating a national chartering system.
By today’s standards, the question of whether or not to charter is not debatable. If a council wants the Order of the Arrow, they must renew their charter with the National Office. However, prior to 1921, no lodge had to charter to be legitimate because there was no governing body, national office, or person to apply to for such a charter. After this date, a WWW society would have to send paperwork and a fee of $5 to the Grand Lodge in order to get a charter. In fact, throughout the 1920’s and early 1930’s, a local council could operate its WWW society whether they were chartered by the Grand Lodge or not. It was not until 1934 that the Grand Lodge even had the authority to enforce its own rules and regulations on any WWW society operating outside of its jurisdiction.
During annual meetings of the Grand Lodge over the next few years, the chartering process was refined and the Grand Lodge was beginning to get a better picture of just how many WWW societies there were. There were certain lodges known to the Grand Lodge and then many lodges that were unknown or not accepted by the Grand Lodge. Unknown and unaccepted lodges fell into 3 basic groups:
Lodges that did not apply for a charter—Many small and remote WWW societies may have been unaware of the Grand Lodge and might have chartered if they knew about it, but they did not know. Some lodges never officially chartered because they could not afford the chartering fee. Presumably, other lodges had some political reason for not chartering or did not want to be under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge.
Lodges that were not allowed to charter—This group included WWW societies operating in second class councils. In the early 1920’s, there were what was known as first and second class councils. A first class council was defined as a council that had a full time professional while a second class council did not. At the Grand Lodge meeting in 1925, the delegates agreed that only first class councils would be allowed to have chartered lodges. That meant that the lodges that had been operating in second class councils (and there were several) were barred from the chartering process.
Lodges that may have chartered but then failed to renew—The historical record indicates that there were some WWW societies that chartered in 1921 and 1922 but then never chartered again.
By the time of the Grand Lodge meeting in 1926, it is believed that in an effort to further organize and legitimize the chartering process, the chartered lodges were numbered. This numbering process was retroactive and there was a fair bit of politicking involved to determine which lodge would get which number. However, once the numbering system began, the WWW societies that were “recognized†by the Grand Lodge became set in stone and that record represents our knowledge of the history of the Order of the Arrow. For the WWW societies that were not part of the Grand Lodge chartering system, they have faded out of memory. Virtually nothing is known of these un-numbered lodges of the 1920’s. Neither their members, camps, programs, insignia nor accomplishments have been included in the historical record. One might say, these are truly the unknown lodges.
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