1848 Washington Lodge No. 5 IOOF Dresden TN

Cover page
Washington Lodge No. 5, IOOF
Dresden Weakley County Tennessee
Opened The 1st Jany AD 1848 by
Eaton J. White

I love books. Particularly old books.   I love the way they feel in my hands, the smell of the paper, dust jackets, and illustrations.  I love the way they look on shelves.  And yes, I spent about 17 years of my professional life working in libraries which fed into my affinity for the printed word.

Since our focus was to preserve the history of Moran Place and the Moran family it was only natural to save as  many books as possible. We have everything from school books to books on parlor games which probably came in handy since Moran Place had a beautiful front parlor.  Some of the books were ledgers, after all the Moran's owned the Dresden Bank so ledgers were their bread and butter.  But not everything we saved was about the Moran family.

Cover of the Ledger

One book that we have is from 1848, it's the ledger book for The Washington Lodge No. 5, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Dresden, Weakley County, Tennessee beginning with the First of January 1848.  The Bookkeeper on that date was Eaton J. White.  According to The Official History and Literature of Felloship: The Three Link Fraternity the Washington Lodge No. 5 began on September 9 1842 in Dresden.

Unlike many of the books we have, The Ledger is not a book about the Moran family at all, although you will find Moran relatives in the book as well as many well known Weakley County Tennessee family names.  The Ledger had been in the possession of James H. Moran IV.  Back in the 1970's James Moran had the book binding professionally restored and it was because of him that the Ledger survives today.  

Emerson Etherage (Etheridge)

One very prominent Dresdenite who was a member of the Odd Fellows was Emerson Etheridge, although in the ledger his name is misspelled as Etherage.  Etheridge was born in North Carolina and moved with his parents to Tennessee in 1931.  He was a practicing attorney with his office located in Dresden TN.  He was elected to the TN House of Representatives.  He was later elected to the United States House of Representatives and in 1861 gave a speech opposing secession. In 1867 he had an unsuccessful bid for governor of Tennessee but went on to have successful election to the Tennessee Senate.

You can see where Etheridge paid his "quarterage" fees and also gave money to the Orphans Fund.

William H. Jenkins

The Odd Fellows were serious about not breaking rules and were not above expelling members who were caught committing offenses.  One such person was William H. JENKINS.  At the bottom of his ledger page it says he was "Expelled for Intoxication".  It doesn't indicate he was readmitted but it was possible for a member to redeem themselves and be an active member once again.

I think this will probably be the first of many posts regarding this Ledger book. This book is full of names and even some death dates so the information might be of some use to others who are researching their Weakley County ancestors.