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Asheville: |
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Eight Grand Masters from one blue lodge
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What do these brethren have in common?
Robert Brank Vance
Hezekiah A. Gudger
Roy Francis Ebbs
Thomas Joshua Harkins
Maxwell Ellis Hoffman
John Catlett Vance
Charles Carpenter Ricker
Norburn Creighton Hyatt
All eight served as Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of North Carolina. All began their Masonic lives in Asheville at Mount Hermon 118.
Many more Mount Hermon 118 members have distinguished themselves in other ways. One was 23 and the Buncombe County solicitor when he was raised. He was elected to the NC legislature at 24. When he was 28 he was the youngest US Congressman in the United States. He was elected governor three times. He was both wartime governor and Confederate colonel during the civil war, cited for heroism at New Bern, Kinston and Malvern Hill. His portrait was said to be on the walls of every home in North Carolina.
He was a nationally acclaimed speaker, delivering his masterwork, The Scattered Nation, about the Jewish people. He won historic civil and criminal cases in courtrooms packed with admirers who closed their shops to be there. He was the most beloved, most popular man and Mason in North Carolina’s 400-year history.
He was Zebulon Baird Vance.
Just about every Tar Heel is reminded of his heroic name when they see people, schools, buildings, monuments and roads named for him. Many books have been written about him; few mention his Masonic life.
Most of the 120 Masons who walked the streets of Asheville with Brother Vance’s body were members of Mount Hermon 118. From among them came the fraternal team that was to conduct his burial rites.
North Carolina Masonry honors the mother lodge of the most Grand Masters and looks forward to more in the future.
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Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
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