Our History |  |
Phoenix Lodge No.144 was founded over 150 years ago when San Francisco was growing swiftly from a community of tents and shanties to an emerging city with the permanent aspects of brick and stone. Ships from every seafaring nation of the world anchored in the spacious harbor to discharge and pick up cargos and bring ashore more and more Argonauts and settlers. It was during our fine city’s early development that a difference of opinion arose among the Brethren of Occidental Lodge No. 22 over California’s future as either a member of the Union or the Confederacy. This disagreement led fourteen supporters of the Union to demit from Occidental Lodge and consequentially received a dispensation from the Grand Master to form a new lodge named Oriental Lodge No. 144 on May 10th, 1861. Over the next century and half, the men of Oriental Lodge played a vital role as California changed from a frontier land to a great state of varied economy and national importance.
To this proud tradition have been added the Brethren of Forest Hill Lodge No. 534 and Paul Revere Lodge No. 462. Forrest Hill Lodge was historically composed of the dentists of San Francisco and residents of the St. Francis Wood. While Paul Revere Lodge was formed in 1916 to be the first “Cosmopolitan Lodge” of San Francisco that banded together good men of true different beliefs and ethnic origins. To reflect the proud histories of our individual Lodges that had consolidated, in 2000 we changed our name to Phoenix Lodge No. 144, after that mythical bird of the Orient that flies on the flag of the City & County of San Francisco, California.
Charles Clayton was a United States Representative from California. He was born in Derbyshire, England. He was the Alcalde of Santa Clara, California from 1849-1850. He was a miller and founded the Santa Clara flour mills.
Clayton was one of San Francisco's 12 representatives in the California State Assembly from 1863 to 1867. He was also a member of the board of supervisors of San Francisco from 1864 to 1869. He was the United States surveyor of customs of the port and district of San Francisco in 1870. He was elected as a Republican to the Forty-third Congress (March 4, 1873 - March 3, 1875). He was not a candidate for renomination to the Forty-fourth Congress in 1874. He also served as the California state prison director from 1881 to 1882. He died in Oakland, California, one day before his 60th birthday. He was buried in Mountain View Cemetery.
Smith joined the White Star Line in March 1880 as the Fourth Officer of the Celtic. He served aboard the company's liners to Australia and to New York, where he quickly rose in stature. In 1887, Smith received his first White Star command, the SS Republic. In 1888, Smith earned his Extra Master's Certificate and joined the Royal Naval Reserve (thus enabling him to append his name with "RNR"), qualifying as a full Lieutenant. This meant that in a time of war, Smith and his ship could be called upon to serve by the Royal Navy. Because of his position as a Commander in the Royal Naval Reserve, Smith had the distinction of being able to fly the Blue Ensign of the R.N.R.; most ships flew the Red Duster of the merchant marine.
It is not known how Smith died on the night of the sinking. In Robert Ballard's book, The Discovery of the Titanic, he claims that Smith went into the bridge at 2:13AM, ten minutes before the final sinking. This idea is used by the 1997 Titanic film. Working near Collapsible B, Junior Marconi Officer Harold Bride reported seeing Smith dive into the sea from the open bridge minutes before the final plunge began. One story states he carried a child to the overturned collapsible B after the sinking and swam off to freeze in the water. The Titanic struck the iceberg at around 11:40PM, but did not sink until around 2:20AM the following day. This would make Captain Smith's date of death 15 April 1912.
On 12 July 1887, Smith married Sarah Eleanor Pennington. Their daughter, Helen Melville Smith, was born in Waterloo, Lancashire, in 1898. The family lived in an imposing red brick, twin-gabled house, named "Woodhead", on Winn Road, Portswood, Southampton. According to his daughter, Captain Smith loved cigars and the smoke from them. He wouldn't let anyone into his study while he was smoking because he didn't want the ring of smoke to be disturbed.
Henry Mayo Newhall was a California Gold Rush pioneer who was born in 1825 in Saugus, Massachusetts. Newhall was working as an auctioneer on the East Coast in 1849 when news of the discovery of gold in California reached him. He immediately packed his belongings, boarded a ship, and headed toward San Francisco through Panama.
As Newhall prospered, another up-and-coming enterprise captured his imagination — railroads. He began investing in fledgling new business ventures dedicated to building railroads to connect San Francisco with other cities in the West. By his fortieth birthday, Newhall had become president of the San Francisco-San Jose Railroad Company, and was completing California's first railroad track system, a line between San Francisco and San Jose to the south.
Real estate and ranching became Newhall's next great enterprise. He invested the profits of his auction and railroad businesses in San Francisco real estate and in the purchase of Spanish land-grant ranchos in central and southern California. Between 1872 and 1875, Newhall acquired 143,000 acres from Monterey County to Los Angeles County.
His most important acquisition was Rancho San Francisco, a parcel of more than 40,000 acres covering much of the Santa Clarita Valley in northern Los Angeles county. He granted a right-of-way to the Southern Pacific Company, and the first tracks connecting the San Francisco area with Los Angeles were laid across his ranch. He named the station Saugus, after his birthplace in Massachusetts. And the railroad named the town site he had granted, Newhall.
the son of German-American industrialist Claus Spreckels, founded a transportation and real estate empire in San Diego, California in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The entrepreneur's many business ventures included the Hotel del Coronado and the San Diego and Arizona Railway, both of which are credited with helping San Diego develop into a major commercial center. Upon his death he was eulogized as "One of America's few great Empire Builders who invested millions to turn a struggling, bankrupt village into the beautiful and cosmopolitan city San Diego is today."
John Hays Hammond was a famous mining engineer, diplomat, and philanthropist. Known as the man with the midas touch, he amassed a sizable fortune before the age of 40. An early advocate of deep-level mining, Hammond was given complete charge of Cecil Rhodes' mines in South Africa and made each undertaking a financial success. But after the dismal failure of the Jameson Raid, Hammond, along with the other leaders of the Johannesburg Reform Committee, was arrested and subsequently sentenced to death. The Reform Committee leaders were released after paying large fines, but like many of the leaders, Hammond left Africa for good. He returned to the United States, became a close friend of President William Howard Taft, and was appointed a special U.S. Ambassador. At the same time, he continued to develop mines in Mexico and California and, in 1923, he made another fortune while drilling for oil with the Burnham Exploration Company.
As state superintendent of public instruction John L Swett laid the groundwork for a statewide system of public schools in California and influenced educators in other states. He came from New Hampshire to California in 1853, bringing with him ideals of public education that were developing in New England in the first half of the nineteenth century. After working for a few unhappy months in the gold fields, he began teaching at Rincon School in San Francisco. His ideals about teaching led him to run for the state superintendency. He expanded the authority of the state board of education and required school administrators to collect and report information that would lead to the improvement of the schools.
After he returned to teaching in San Francisco he and his wife Mary Louise (Tracy) purchased a house into which they welcomed such visitors as John Muir. Later, at Muir’s suggestion, they purchased property in Alhambra. While living there, Mary Swett served as a trustee for the Alhmbra School District and was also active in the local chapter of the California State Woman Suffrage Educational Association. In 1910 he was appointed honorary lecturer in education at the University of California.
He received honorary degrees from Dartmouth College and the College of California, and in 1913 he and John Muir were together given honorary degrees by the University of California.
http://www.martinezhistory.org/html/john_swett.html
He was born Lawrence Brannigan to Irish emigrant parents in Paterson, New Jersey. He made his first stage appearance at Detroit as Murad in The French Spy in 1853. In December 1856 he made his first New York appearance at the Chambers Street theatre as "Sir Thomas Clifford" in The Hunchback.
In 1858 he was in the repertory company at the Boston Museum. He served in the American Civil War as captain in Company B of the 28th Massachusetts Infantry regiment. However, he did not see action in any major battles. From 1867 to 1870, with John McCullough, he managed the California theatre, San Francisco.
Among his many and varied parts may be mentioned Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Shylock, Richard III, Wolsey, Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, Richelieu, David Garrick, Hernani, Alfred Evelyn, Lanciotto in George Henry Bokers (1823-1890) Francesca da Rimini, and Janies Harebell in The Man o' Airlie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Barrett
Richard Coulter Drum was Adjutant General of the United States Army from 1880 to 1889. He was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Jefferson College before entering the printing business. At the outbreak of the Mexican-American War, he enlisted as a private in the 1st Pennsylvania Volunteers, but was quickly commissioned a second lieutenant in the regular infantry. He took part in many of the battles of the war, including Chapultepec and Mexico City.
Following the war, he was transferred to the Fourth Artillery and was promoted to first lieutenant. He served as an aide-de-camp for General William S. Harney during his expedition against the Sioux, and participated in the Battle of Ash Hollow. In 1861 he was appointed as an assistant adjutant general and promoted to captain. He was quickly promoted to major and lieutenant colonel, and by the end of the American Civil War he had been brevetted a brigadier general.
Drum was promoted to colonel in 1869, and in 1880 he became Adjutant General of the United States Army.
Brother Thomas Hill (September 11, 1829 - June 30, 1908) was a noted American artist of the 19th century noted for his many paintings of the California landscape, in particular of the Yosemite Valley, and of the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
When he moved to California 1861 he produced numerous paintings of monumental scope, including vistas of the Great Canon of the Sierra, Yosemite, Vernal Falls, and Yosemite Valley, which many consider to be his best works.
His 1865 View of the Yosemite Valley, commemorating Lincoln's 1864 signing of the Yosemite Grant, was chosen to be the backdrop of the head table at Barack Obama's inaugural luncheon.
Brother Hill's most famous and enduring work captures the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory, on May 10, 1869, joining the rails of the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad. The huge 8x12 foot painting, which features detailed portraits of 71 individuals associated with the First Transcontinental Railroad, now hangs at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, California. See http://cprr.org/Museum/Engravings/Last%20Spike+Key%20toPortraits.html for more information about this painting.
Thomas Starr King (December 17, 1824 – March 4, 1864) was an American Unitarian minister, influential in California politics during the American Civil War.
Thomas Starr King, “the orator who saved the nation”, was born December 17, 1824, in New York City. The sole support of his family at age 15, he was forced to leave school. Inspired by men like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Ward Beecher, King embarked on a program of self-study for the ministry. At the age of 20 he took over his father’s former pulpit at the First Unitarian Church of Charlestown, Massachusetts.
In 1848 he was appointed pastor of the Hollis Street Unitarian Church in Boston, where he became one of the most famous preachers in New England. He vacationed in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and in 1859 published a book about the area entitled The White Hills; their Legends, Landscapes, & Poetry. In 1860 he accepted a call from the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco, California. During the Civil War, he spoke zealously in favor of the Union and was credited by Abraham Lincoln with preventing California from becoming a separate republic. In addition, he organized the Pacific Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, which cared for wounded soldiers and was the predecessor to the American Red Cross.
A fiery orator, he raised over $1.5 million for the Sanitary Commission headquarters in New York, one-fifth of the total contributions from all the states in the Union. The relentless lecture circuit exhausted him, and he died in San Francisco on March 4, 1864, of diphtheria.
Mountain peaks in the White Mountains (Mount Starr King, elevation 1,191 m (3,907 ft)) and in Yosemite National Park (Mount Starr King) are named in his honor. In 1913 he was voted one of California’s two greatest heroes and funds were appropriated for a statue. In 1931 the state of California donated a bronze statue of King to the National Statuary Hall Collection. In 1941 the Starr King School for the Ministry (Unitarian Universalist), in Berkeley, California, was also renamed in his honor. King’s church and tomb in San Francisco are designated historical monuments, and two streets in the city (Starr King Way, on which the church is located, and King Street in the Mission Bay neighborhood) are named for him. There is also a statue of him in Golden Gate Park, facing JFK Drive, quite close to the De Young Museum. In Los Angeles there is also a middle school located in Silverlake/Hollywood that is named and dedicated to him.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Starr_King
See also http://www.sksm.edu/about/thomas_starr_king.php)
He was born Timothy Nolan in Maine in 1859. When his father died, he was raised by two aunts, and ultimately came to live with Mark Hopkins and his wife in San Francisco. After Hopkins died, his wife adopted Timothy Nolan.
Timothy became a protégé of Senator Leland Stanford, who have been business partners with Mark Hopkins. Hopkins became Treasurer of the Central Pacific Railroad and Director of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Wells Fargo Bank. He also was on the first Board of Directors of Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California, which received over thirty-five thousand remains from Laurel Hill Cemetery in San Francisco after the Board of Supervisors voted in 1900 to remove most of the existing cemeteries from that city.
Stanford urged that Hopkins take an option on 697 acres of land with the purpose of developing it for a town to serve Stanford University. He was on the verge of dropping the option when Senator Stanford personally endorsed a $60,000 note for him and the purchase went through in 1887. He founded the town originally known as University Park. In 1892, the town was renamed Palo Alto.
Timothy Hopkins served as a Stanford University trustee for fifty-one years, donated his private collection of books to the University Library, established the Hopkins Marine station in Pacific Grove (1872), later giving it to Stanford University. He and his wife organized and helped fund the Stanford Home for Convalescent Children
