Meet the Lodge
Hiram № 25 has deep roots in California Gold Rush history. The lodge even sits a stone’s throw from a stop along the Pony Express trail. So eight years ago, when a member who is also a history reenactor—Grant Coffin— proposed remaking the lodge attire, he took it to heart to find period-accurate clothes that Masons would have worn.
Lodge officers can be seen in cravat ties, waistcoats, square-toed boots, and canvas pants in a style that predates Levi’s. Some even accessorize with special pins and pocket watches. “We went back to how bluecollar working Masons dressed at the time,” says Nickalous Battaini. “Diving back in our records, Hiram has always been a blue collar lodge. We didn’t have judges. Members worked at the lumber mill. They were carpenters, merchandise guys, miners. So we wanted to go back to the roots.”
Hiram members show their style outside lodge too, marching in the town Christmas parade and even staging an annual “tent lodge” in Coloma, at the site of the gold discovery, to show the public what a traveling miners’ lodge looked like.
“Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.”
Bro. Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
“History is more or less bunk. It´s tradition. We don´t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker´s damn is the history we made today.”
Bro. Henry Ford
“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”
Bro. Benjamin Franklin