Cobbs

John W. Oliver Lodge No. 374 F. & A. M.

DISPENSATION 1874

CHARTERED 1875

Defunct January 3, 1910

Located at Friendship Church

HISTORY

John W. Oliver Lodge was originally located at Cobbs, Mississippi. When revived in 1902 it relocated to Friendship Church at Vaughan, Mississippi. Both locations are in Lincoln, County.

December 8, 1902 I directed District Deputy Grand Master Mitchell to proceed to John W. Oliver Lodge, No. 374 and revive it. (Report in 1903 Grand Lodge proceedings)

John W. Oliver Lodge No. 374, surrendered its charter and its members were issued certificates January 5th. It is greatly to be regretted that this fine old Lodge, which had maintained a continuous existence for thirty-five years, was finally compelled to yield to the inevitable and surrender its charter. For a long time a faithful few had kept the Lodge in existence, but the fact that a large town had sprung up sufficiently near it to attract its membership, and thereby depriving it of the new material essential to the preservation of Lodge life, made it useless to longer maintain the struggle for an existence and the brethren were wise in yielding to the inevitable. Most of them will affiliate with neighboring Lodges, so that although we have one less Lodge on our register, we really will not lose any of our membership. It is but a repetition of what is so abundantly demonstrated by our historical register, of the existence of too many Lodges in a given territory. – (Report in 1910 Grand Lodge proceedings).