History of State College Lodge No. 770
To understand the history of how and why this lodge formed, a bit of background is requisite.
Colonel Leonidas (pronounced lay-AHN-ih-duhs) LaFayette Polk (1837-92) was an active influencer and brother mason in Kilwinning Lodge in Anson County.1 He was also the state’s first Commissioner of Agriculture and editor of the organ, Progressive Farmer. His platform for a school to teach a non-theoretical, agricultural education that could benefit from the land-grant fund set up by the Morrill Act, was in full swing by 1872. His absolute zeal for an agricultural college for the counties of NC came to a head when the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill released their class and college list for the upcoming 1885/86 year2
The University used this $7,500 per year from the land-grant fund to supplement its existing budget of only $20,000.3
In 1884, just two years prior, William J Peele, a prominent young Raleigh attorney, founded the Watauga Club to “encourage free discussion and to promote the educational, agricultural, and industrial interests of the State.” Its membership were 24 prolific men all under the age of thirty-six.4 The only place to find a partial list of members on campus is a bronze plaque affixed to a wall adjacent to Watauga Hall, the first dormitory on campus.
Alfred Haywood
Edward A Oldham
Charles D McIver• 167
Charles Latta
Thomas Dixon, Jr
Walter Hines Page
William Stuart Primrose• 40
Charles W Dabney
Edwin A Alderman
James Y Joyner
Philander P Claxton
William J Peele
Edward P Moses
Arthur Winslow
Josephus Daniels
John W Thompson• 277, 218
W E Ashley • 113
Alfred D Jones • Cary 198
Giles Edgar Leach
DR. Richard Henry Lewis, d 1917 • 4, 316
Sterling Price
Joseph Brown
They met in an upstairs space in the Holloman Building overlooking Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh to discuss their dream of getting an industrial school in the new south. The group petitioned the legislature, and got the act passed establishing a New Industrial School on 11 March 1885, on a 23-9 vote. Fruit of their advertisement met with petitions from Charlotte, Kinston, and Raleigh to become the place where the school would be built. After an additional meeting at Metropolitan Hall (the Raleigh city hall from 1870-1907, where the Withers Hall bell was from) the following Nov 4th, the group decided to place the new industrial school in the Capitol City.
While this was ongoing, and before the new college could break ground, LL Polk continued his march for an agricultural school. In 1887, the elders of the city recommended Polk’s agricultural school and the Wataugan’s Industrial School be combined. Polk truly wanted the new school to have all the rights and benefit of the land-grant fund. Using his massive influence, he called for an assembly of farmers in Metropolitan Hall on 26 Jan. Over three hundred showed up according to a summary by Walter Hines Page. They agreed on the stipulations presented by Raleigh, settled on terms with the Wataugans, and moved swiftly to their peers in the state legislature. At the last minute, an amendment was made to place the new college on the campus of UNC - it was quickly defeated. The final bill passed the NC House on 1 March, 1887 voting 67-37 and the NC Senate on 3 March, 1887 by a vote of 29-13. In fact, this group of farmers proved to be quite innovative - they formed the North Carolina Farmers’ Association at the landmark assembly in Metropolitan Hall.
A location was drawn out west downtown, and laid in two azimuth lines on the land that Richard Stanhope Pullen gave to the city for the establishment of a park and school. Pullen divided this land and established a boundary in its center. Attached to the land deed is a clause that stipulates: no college building may be erected on the park land and the boundary must not be violated. If so, both parcels of land revert back to the living heirs of the Pullen family. The northeast corner of the college plat was marked by a square granite meridian stone inlaid with a copper plug. Several stones then were laid in a line due south and due east. The college’s first buildings were placed inside this square with their entrances facing due east. Since the placement of this meridian stone was the college’s literal first moment of existence in its transformation from bill to building, it reminds us of the beginnings of the institution and serves as the first of many cross over events between the college and the fraternity.
The first building was called Main Building and was constructed from a part of the allotment of 1.5 million bricks made at the NC State Penitentiary for the new college. It was designed by Charles Carson and contained the entire college for a year. Its granite was from Rolesville Quarry in Wake County and its rose sandstone from Wadesboro in Anson county, where brother L. L. Polk was born and raised. At the masonic cornerstone ceremony in 1888, corn, wine, and oil were applied to the stone from three chalices to consecrate the new college - one gold and two silver. These chalices were given to the Grand Lodge by the NC Teacher’s Association and are in display in the Grand Lodge today.
The back of this building was renovated in the 1930s by Hobart Upjohn, and his State College Block “S” from Frank Thompson Gym was copied in relief to the upper part of the central exit. This new exit formed the backdrop for the first college quad which, much like UNC, may have masonic connections. The main building, now Holladay Hall, in the east, is where the chancellor’s office is located. Watauga Hall in the south, is where students are called from labor to refreshment, was the first dormitory constructed on campus. Originally the campus power plant in the west, now Leazar Hall stands. It was constructed in 1912 as a dining hall, but now is used for the College of Design. At the center of this grouping of buildings was the old well, but as LL Polk’s story of the stolen land scrip money is retold and fresh on people’s minds, a true and zealous rivalry lives on, though now only through athletics. The old well was quickly decommissioned as innovative engineering students plumbed campus and electricity arrived in the early 1900s. A fountain in the center of this quad now stands in its place as a subtle memorial for those who choose to dig deeper.
The architecture of campus was distinct from the beginning. It was to be accessible, scaled to the human experience, and not too lofty. A fact literally announced at the masonic ceremony of the laying of the cornerstone of Holladay Hall in 1888 by William J Peele:
"No white marble pillars support the building whose cornerstone we have laid here today. At its feet no sacred river flows. In its walls are nothing but North Carolina brick and her still more solid sandstone. It is a goodly and worthy structure, yet I will not compare it to the temple of the ancient Indian King; but in one respect they are alike: Both are monuments of a labor of love; for this too is a temple reared by North Carolinians in affection for North Carolina and by North Carolina in affection for her children. "
Speaking of extending the state penitentiary brick tradition - there is only one non-brick classroom building on campus in 2020. Poe Hall was constructed from stone and concrete aggregate and named for Clarence Poe. Poe took over the Progressive Farmer after LL Polk died in 1892. The other was Harrelson Hall, named for Colonel, College President, and brother mason, John William Harrelson. It was demolished in 2017. According to the Raleigh News and Observer, 95% of the building’s material was recycled. (Mar 3, 2017)
After WWI, a chapter of the Square and Compass fraternity was installed at State College in April, 1921. Its chapters were called ‘squares.’5 The Square and Compass was a fraternity founded on the campus of Washington and Lee in 1917 with the idea that it would function as a typical greek-letter collegiate fraternity for men, but instead of the usual pledging and bidding process, a masonic process was used. Men would be admitted if they were master masons in good standing and not maligned with unmasonic conduct.6 This also meant that every member had to be a dues card holding member in a regular lodge recognized by the Grand Lodge in the jurisdiction in which the chapter was situated. It was be non-secret (as far as the organization goes, not Freemasonry) and non-ritualistic. The fraternity sought to create an equitable brotherhood among men and masons who may not be at their home lodges at university and to intermingle with other organizations to ‘spread the doctrines of true brotherhood.’7
In Albert Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, he asserts, “A number of Grand Masters along with many Masons among college and university presidents have expressed the hope that the two Masonic college fraternities [Square and Compass and Acacia] might lead ultimately to the formation of a large number of campus Lodges, thereby opening a way for American Freemasonry into the circles of learning and scholarship…” This is a very important paradigm that the founders of State College Lodge agreed with and placed at the center of their search in understanding what exactly made university lodges different.
The Square and Compass existed as an organization until after WWII when all of its chapters had gone extinct after reaching a peak in about 1928. Dr. William Moseley Brown, the equivalent of the fraternity’s “Grand Secretary”, and editor of their organ, The College Mason, kept their charter and incorporation papers from the state of Virginia and on a swell of masonic sentiment from Square and Compass members that were long out of university, revived the organization in 1950 with four colleges in convention, including Elon College in Alamance County, NC. The revived organization took a new name - Sigma Alpha Chi - as the first letter of each greek character when spelled out in English was still S, A, C, or Square and Compass. In order to survive and not disappear again, certain changes had to be made. The organization also accepted non-masons for the first time as the age to become a mason was then 21 - an age over the majority of a pool of possible members in university.8
Sigma Alpha Chi existed just until 1952 when it merged with Sigma Mu Sigma (a third masonic fraternity), dropped the masonic requirements due to rising anti-establishment sentiment, and became a co-ed service organization. All the original Sigma Mu Sigma chapters have gone extinct, and only one post-merger chapter survives at the College of William and Mary, founded in 1990.8
The chapter at State College appeared last in the 1927-28 school year. After that, a Masonic Club appeared in 1948 and again in 1949, but vanished after the Memorial Tower was dedicated. Only two faculty members remained active in both organizations at State College from beginning to end: Col. John William Harrelson and Lillian Lee Vaughan, an instructor in Mechanical Engineering.
In addition to organizations, masonry played a large role in the built environment of campus. There were public cornerstone laying ceremonies for several buildings, viz.: the entire campus at Holladay Hall in 1888, Patterson Hall in 1905, the YMCA (later called King Hall) in 1912, the WWI Memorial Tower in 1921, and (the first) D. H. Hill Library (later Brooks Hall) in 1924. All of these masonic cornerstones are intact save the one in King Hall. It was demolished in 1977 to make way for the School of Design Addition, Kamphoefner Hall. The copper deposit box was removed from the stone by the class president and its contents set on display at the Library and then placed in the archives of the college. (NCSU Technician Link, Vol. 56 No 18, Oct 1975)
The following places on campus are named after North Carolina Masons.
Sullivan Hall
Lee Hall
Harris Hall
Bowen Hall
Owen Hall
Berry Hall
Becton Hall
Schaub Hall
Robertson Hall
Wood Hall
Grinnells Labs
Broughton Hall
Mann Hall
David Clark Labs
Ricks Hall
Williams Hall
Lampe Drive
Gold Hall
Harrelson Hall (demolished)
Nelson Hall
Withers Hall
Park Shops
Syme Hall
Price Music Center
The college architect, Roscoe Shumaker, was a member of William G Hill Lodge No, 218 and designed the theatre addition to Wakestone at the Raleigh Masonic Temple in the 1950s. Shumaker also designed in part with Hobart Upjohn, or in whole with the school of architecture and his chief draftsman, Jesse M. Page, many of the college buildings including: Morris Hall (demolished in 2005 to build SAS Hall), Alexander Hall, Turlington Hall, Becton Hall, Berry Hall (these two to complement Upjohn’s masterplan for campus and to correspond with Bagwell Hall), Mangum Hall (now David Clark Labs), Clark Hall, a Dairy Plant, Peele Hall, Broughton Hall, Diesel Hall remodel, Tompkins Hall remodel (after the fire and rebuild in 1924), the Riddick Stadium field house (demolished 2013), adjacent Laundry Building, Leazar Hall rear addition, a North Campus Esplanade plan that was never built, and remodeled Patterson Hall in 1930/40.9
Chappelow states that Shumaker was also involved with the general design of the exterior of the Reynolds Coliseum and even shows a watercolor rendering of the structure with attribution given to Shumaker as architect in the lower left hand corner and Jehu Dewitt Paulson (another professor of architecture at State College) in the lower right corner. 10
The Bell Tower on campus is of special importance to masons across the country. It’s formal name is the World War I Memorial Chime and Clocktower in West Raleigh, NC. It was designed in 1920 by architectural monumentalist from New York City, William Henry Deacy. Thirty-five State College men died in the war. That number has changed often over the years as research and technology has enabled us to get a better inventory of what happened at the college during that time. There are 35 names on the tablet, one is in error and one was left off. One of the names was a civilian and died before the US entered the war. The move to create a Memorial for those men was started when alum and mason Vance Sykes, BE 1907 (William G. Hill, 218) wrote a letter to the editor of the Alumni News, Edwin Bentley Owen (Hiram, 98) who in turn presented it to the president of the Alumni Association W.F. Pate (Radiance, 132) for consideration. Pate assembled a group called the “Memorial Tower Committee,” consisting of himself, Owen, Carol Lamb Mann (William G Hill, 218) as chairman, Repton Hall Merritt (William G Hill, 218), Charles Burgess Williams (Eureka, 282)*, Charles Vance York (William G Hill, 218) as the contractor and and builder for the tower (his family also built Cameron Village in Raleigh), and John Alsey Park (he was a member of the Rotary in Raleigh). When Owen died, George F Syme (William G Hill, 218), and subsequently Arthur Finn Bowen (William G Hill, 218) were appointed to the office of treasurer of the committee.
Mason R.J Reynolds had just passed away on 29 July 1918 in Winston-Salem, and Mann had been at his funeral and remembered the iconic memorial that was erected at his grave. Mann and his committee contracted that same architect, William Deacy, to design the Tower. They visited campuses all over the country and after stopping at State College in Ames, Iowa, agreed that their memorial should be reminiscent of the campanile on that campus. In March of 1920, Deacy came to the campus to plan where the tower would be, its sight-lines, foundation, and appearance. After consideration of the daily life of students, it was decided that the future tower be placed at the north/south axis of Holladay Hall’s porte-cochere and the east/west axis of the entrance of Pullen Hall, deducing that it would be hard to visit campus without interacting with either of these buildings. Holladay housed administration and admissions, and Pullen was the largest assembly hall on campus for gatherings of 300 people. However, after walking the grounds, Deacy discovered this critical intersection was at the bottom of a hill. He admitted that re-grading the hill may damage the older oak trees on campus and cost way too much money, and resolved to breaking the Holladay axis and shifting the tower’s foundation east 100 feet so that the tower would sit atop the hill. The committee agreed and the Tower’s foundation was started. The committee enlisted the help of an expanded alumni network of men in many of NC’s counties. After checking these against the Grand Lodge’s membership database, many of them were masons. The original foundation was to be thirty-three by thirty-three feet square. After soil fill and engineering studies were completed, it was reduced slightly.
In December, 1921, the cornerstone was laid in a public ceremony where alum and NC Governor Oliver Max Gardner, gave the keynote address. The masonic emblem on the north face of the stone was crafted from a rubbing of the cornerstone on the Masonic Temple in New York City. It was the closest one to Deacy’s office in Grand Central Station. The tower’s base had risen out the ground only a few feet and a temporary wooden platform had been constructed on the east side just for the occasion.
Lodges that attended the cornerstone ceremony were Hiram 40, William G Hill 219, Raleigh 500, all of Raleigh, Eagle 19 of Chapel Hill, Rockingham 495 of Richmond County, Kedron 387 of Henderson County, Henderson 229 of Vance County, and East Laporte 358 of Jackson County.
Per the Alumni News and the Grand Lodge Proceedings of 1921, the cornerstone contained a roster of the 2000 men who served in the war from State College, photos of those who died, copies of newspapers with pertinent dates, pictures of President Riddick, college publications, pictures of the college from the air, and other items which may include the blueprints of the tower and the program of the cornerstone laying. The News called the parade where State College students marched in formation, “flawless,” and that it was witnessed by several thousand people. The tower grew by ten foot sections until the project was siphoned of its finances during the Great Depression. The block courses that were laid in 1926 remained for a decade before a successful petition to the Works Progress Administration (WPA) by Mann bore fruit.
Deacy had originally planned for the rock quarry that supplied the granite for the NC State Capitol to supply for the tower. That quarry and others like it had been extinguished for years and filled in to create a national cemetery. Rock Quarry road in downtown Raleigh still emanates from that site. His second recommendation was that the granite come from the largest open-faced granite quarry in the world in Mount Airy, NC. They contracted John D Sergeant (Granite Lodge 322), head of the JD Sergeant Company to quarry and hewn the stones. The stone blocks would then be transported to the tower site, lifted in place, and set in mortar to unite the stones into one common mass. Because of the economic downfall, the memorial committee was levied a lawsuit on 2 January 1932 from the granite company for several courses of stone that were weeks in arrears of payment after they had been blasted, hewn, transported, and installed. The university’s financial situation was so bad during that time that even the architect wasn’t paid until the Second World War. Can you imagine not being paid for almost 25 years for the largest project in your career? The committee had the clock works drawn up by the Seth Thomas Clock Company and the bells, carillon, and playing cabin drawn up by the Meneely Company, Troy, New York. Due to the lack of funding, these contracts would never be executed. Deacy had planned for the Tower to have 54 bells in 1920. Had it been finished the following year, it would have been the largest bell carillon tower in the world until the construction of the carillon at Riverside Church in New York City in 1932 by Gillett and Johnston Foundry in London.11
The beleaguered tower would then be re-energized by the WPA in the mid-1930s. Mann was forced to suspend his grand vision for a carillon tower in order to get the superstructure constructed and move upward on a stalled project that had taken so long. Until the following letter between Mann and the architect was discovered, it could not be proven to anyone that the tower was unfinished and stop-gap measures were taken as placeholders until the structure could be completed:
“This year’s senior class will undoubtedly come to me within the next month asking if there is any project in connection with the Tower that the class can give to the College. They usually are only able to raise about $400 or $500. Is there any such thing as electronically amplified sound chimes? Of course, I realize that nothing of this kind would take the place of the bells, but it will be sometime[sic] before we can expect to get them in the Tower. In the meantime, if we could put the Tower to some use other than the clock, I think it would meet with the approval of the College and the Community.” 7 Sep 1940.
This comes in stark contrast to his address during the period of no work:
“The committee has never changed the plan. They have been content to wait rather that to change one iota of the plan which was drawn by Mr. Deacy. I hope the time will never come when we shall ever consider making any change. I do not think we aught[sic] ever consider it if it takes fifty years to build the Memorial.” Memorandum to the Committee, 1930s.
The cost of bronze, which is an alloy of copper and tin, had increased dramatically due to the mounting economic climate and was now more that $100,000 for enough bronze to get the original set of bells for the Tower. Mann knew after talking with Deacy and others that there were other ways bell sounds could be produced artificially. Various contracts for instruments were drawn up but the Schulmerich Company was asked to create an electronic system of ‘carillonic bells.” This system had been pioneered by George Schulmerich, the founder and namesake. A set of 25 semantra rods were installed in a case in the basement of Holladay Hall. This case was connected to a small keyboard that was piped to amplified speakers in the Tower’s empty bell chamber. When a key was pressed, it caused a solenoid to kick the bottom of a semantra metal rod to make it vibrate. This vibration was electronically amplified thousands of times and broadcast out of the four speakers in the tower.
The clock and lights were subsequently donated by the classes of 1938 and 39 respectively. Instead of the opalescent glass clock face and clockworks designed by Seth Thomas, a cheaper version with a granite clock face was installed by IBM for a cost of $1300 in 1938.
In 1947, the Student Body voted yes to a referendum relinquishing their privilege to attend the State-Davidson basketball game on Sat, February 22nd, to allow for the sell of their tickets to others knowing that the money raised will go to support the completion of the Memorial Tower.
The tower was dedicated in 1949 as the shrine room and Memorial plaque were complete. This legend in stone was dedicated as complete when Mann and the committee knew full well the tower was only halfway finished. It was after this ceremony that the Tower was nicknamed the ‘Bell Tower’ because it rang out bell sounds after being without its iconic chime for decades. No bells were installed. Since there were no bells, there was no need for a playing chamber or clavier. Since there was no playing cabin below the empty bell chamber, there was no need for the glass clock face to let light in during the day. Since there was no carillon to play, there was no need for a staircase to get to the empty antechamber. Before sealing the Tower above the shrine room, the builders knew one day real bells would be installed, so they left a 56-inch square hole in the ante chamber platform for bells to pass through. The platform also pulled away from the wall to receive a future stairway.
It would take almost a century for the Tower to finally be completed as designed with a generous gift from Bill and Fraces Henry, who are Alumni of the University. ( News Link - Gift to Complete the Tower )
Sources and references
1. NC Grand Lodge of AF and AM Membership Cards, Non Affiliated, accessed Jan 2020.
2. History of the North Carolina state college of agriculture and engineering of the University of North Carolina, 1889-1939, by David A. Lockmiller, with a foreword by Frank P. Graham. Lockmiller, David A., Raleigh [Printed by Edwards & Broughton] 1939. p. 24-25.
3. Resurgent Politics and Educational Progressivism in the New South, North Carolina, 1890-1913, H Leon Prather, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1979.
4. the WATAUGA club, Richard Walser. July 1980. Wolf’s Head Press, Raleigh.
5. Agromeck, NC State College, p277, 1922.
6. Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities: A Descriptive Analysis of the Fraternity System in the Colleges of the United States, with a Detailed Account of Each Fraternity. William Raimond Baird. 1923. James T Brown Publisher. Pp 349-351.
7. The College Mason. New Age Magazine, Volume 28., Supreme Council, 33; Ancient and Accepted Scottish rite of Freemasonry, Southern jurisdiction, U.S. A., 1920. Pp 189.
8. http://web.archive.org/web/20051230023434/http://www.sigmamusigma.com/ Website now offline. Accessed 2005 version of website via archive on 3/28/20.
9. Shumaker, Ross Edward, Biography. NC Architects and Builders, NC State University Library Online Resource. https://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/people/P000518 Accessed 28 March 2020
10. Raleigh’s Reynolds Coliseum. By Craig Chappelow. Arcadia Publishing 2002. p23.
11. Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, the Carillon. https://rockefeller.uchicago.edu/the-carillon Accessed 1 April 2020.
12. Preliminary Inventory to the North Carolina State University Committees Records, 1919-2007. Memorial Tower, 1919-1966. Minutes and reports, 1919-1959; Correspondence, 1920-1960; Financial records, 1919-1933; Speeches and articles, 1966 and no date; Programs, clippings, agreements, etc., 1925-1959; Tower clock and chimes, 1920-1957; Bronze door, 1937-19--; Floodlights, 193-1960; Granite companies, 1921-1935; Alumni Loyalty Fund, 1919-1957; William H. Deacy, Architect, New York, 1920-1935, 1936-195-?; J.D. Sargent Stone Co., Mt. Airy, 1921-1953; Works Projects Administration, 1934-1939; Sample bills and accounts, 1921-1939; Blueprints [UA 022 Box 94] Memorial Tower, 1921-1948 [UA 022 Box 95]. All historical data from the Memorial Tower Section is from this collection.
13. Ralph Daniel Autobioblog, 24 Sep 2009. http://ralphsautobioblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/nc-state-university.html Accessed 1 April 2020.