IOOF Brock Lodge 9 - Brockville, ON

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The building is on south side of King Street West, at Apple Street.

Brock #9 dates back to March 1846. Dating this building will be more difficult. There is no date stone on the building. The Odd-Fellows' Hall is listed at this location in the Brockville city directory material for 1895.

The telephone number for the lodge is 613-342-5634. Meetings take place on the evenings of the second and fourth Wednesdays.

The following text is taken from Dr. Glenn J. Lockwood's history of Brockville: The Story of Brockville: Men and Women Making a Canadian Community on the United States Frontier, 1749-2007, (Brockville, Ontario: Brockville Museum, 2006), pages 186-188.

Brock Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, was founded on 5 March 1846, the ninth of its kind in Canada. The Odd Fellows originated with English mechanics who pooled resources for convivial purposes and to support members in distress. It was the idea of mutual support - an "odd" one - that gave them their name. Lodges multiplied. A Grand Lodge opened in 1803 and a rival Manchester Unity in 1809. An American Order - on which Brock Lodge was based - declared itself independent of Manchester in 1843.

Odd Fellows avoided ties with religious or political bodies but promoted sympathy, brotherly love and mutual relief through financial aid and sympathy extended to members, widows and orphans. A visiting lecturer in 1868 claimed that they were trying to "cultivate in man the fraternal relations designed by his Maker" and to impress these lessons with "emblems, ceremonies and colours." At each meeting, inquiry was "made to know if any brother is sick or in need;...for benefits varying from $3 to $10 per week, are given in case of sickness." Charity was also given outside the Lodge. Passwords and signs showed "parties possessed of them to be entitled to relief."

Charter members of Brock Lodge were George Sherwood, John Reynolds, George Morton, Thomas Webster and James Goodive, who were all master mechanics with a skill or craft who felt the need for mutual aid to afford their families some benefit should the breadwinner fall ill or die. Brock Lodge at first met over Christopher Fletcher's store, then in Robert Fitzsimmons's stone block. Soon the membership climbed to levels of authority in the Board of Police. Such was the status of Brock Lodge that lodges across Canada West gathered in Brockville on 23 August 1855 for the purpose of instituting "The Grand Lodge of Canada West."

Dr Thomas Reynolds and William Fitzsimmons of Brockville were elected first master and treasurer of the new Grand Lodge. In 1875, MPP Wilmot H. Cole was elected Grand Patriarch of the Encampment. The early membership of Brock Lodge included many prominent men (George W. Arnold, John Bacon, John Chaffey, Samuel B. Clark, James and John Crawford, William Fitzsimmons, Ormond Jones, Wellington Landon, Edward Lawless, John G. Leavitt. John McElhinney, George McGibbon, Thomas Mair, William Matthie, Dr Thomas Reynolds, Allan Turner, and William H. Wilson). By 1879, of the original nine IOOF lodges in Canada, only Brock Lodge remained.

Both Odd Fellows and Freemasons claimed to be open to all but, before 1860, with rare exceptions, they were made up of Dissenting Protestants, mainly Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists. Episcopalians and Roman Catholics, mostly Irish in origin, were conspicuous by the absence from the Masonic and Odd Fellows fraternities.

103 King Street West Brockville, ON K6V 3R2

N 44° 35.315 W 075° 41.15