History (cont'd)
Unfortunately, many of the military charters were rarely registered in any grand lodge books and many of them were destroyed during the revolutionary war, or by time, or fire, as pointed out earlier; since such documentation has long been lost, one can only reference the writings and stories from the early founders about the exact origins of Union Lodge.
At end of the Revolutionary War in 1783, the established regular lodges
reorganized; since, as was noted earlier, most of the records and lodge buildings had been destroyed. Also during that year, the towns of Campbelltown and Cross Creek merged to become Fayetteville in honor of the Revolutionary War hero General Lafayette. He later visited Fayetteville and Phoenix Lodge in 1825 to express his appreciation of the gesture. Also, after the war, some commonality of work was needed in the lodges so all provincial grand lodges were dissolved and
Ancient York lodges in North Carolina were consolidated and created for recognition and visitation purposes until a grand lodge could be established.
Upon suggestion from Union Lodge Past Master, Colonel James Emmett, a letter was drafted on January 1, 1787 from Union Lodge in Fayetteville to the other lodges to meet there on Saints John Day, June 24th, for the purpose of organizing the Grand Lodge of North Carolina; but, owing to the great distances to be traveled along with late mailing of the letters only four delegates arrived; which was hardly
sufficient to conduct business. The delegates from the town of New Bern were asked to draft a subsequent letter and the next meeting was held in December of that year in the town of Tarboro.
At the June meeting conducted at Fayetteville, a number of distinguished visitors along with Union Lodge officers, John Winslow and James Porterfield (Phoenix Lodge's first Master), presented a petition to expunge the name Union Lodge and replace it with Phoenix Lodge; which is the name our lodge now
bears. An overwhelming majority voted to grant the change. The membership of the lodge at this time totaled about 60 members.
In 1788, Phoenix lodge participated at the convention in Hillsboro to
deliberate whether North Carolina would accept, or reject, the new United States Constitution. At this meeting, the newly elected Grand Master of Masons of North Carolina, Samuel Johnston, was elected as President of the upcoming Constitutional Conventions, the last of which was held in Fayetteville. At this period in time, Phoenix Lodge and other lodges were still working
under dispensations and colonial charters. It was nearly five years until charters
from the Grand Lodge were granted; due to the burden of proof of establishing charter dates for the purposes of assigning numbers. Due to lack of documentation
at the time, the Phoenix Lodge charter was not granted until 1793; and even then number 8 was as low as the Grand Lodge could commission.
Later, in 1799, Phoenix Lodge applied to the newly organized North Carolina General Assembly for a formal charter which was granted and received in 1801. Thus, Phoenix Lodge has two legal charters, the last of which is currently used as the official charter.
