And Thereby Hangs The Tale

© V.W.Bro. Ted Morris 
Author of The Traveller Column 
For The Grand Lodge of Canada 
in the Province of Ontario Web Site

The bright blue door facing Waterford's main street still marks the entry the
Masonic Lodge in Waterford. Wilson Lodge No. 113 (Brant District) has been
meeting in the temple (really an upper room) for more than a century and it's
worth a visit. Lodge wasn't meeting on the November day we passed through town
but the people in the store downstairs were helpful. "Go to the Legion," we were
told, And ask for Howard Misener. You can't miss him."

They were right. Howard was wearing a red smock and was receiving donors for the
Canadian Blood Services Clinic co-sponsored by the lodge. We chatted and ate
cookies while he finished his shift, then he took us back and showed us the
lodge.

The interior is old and impressive. The pot bellied-stoves in the anteroom and
in the lodge room have been replaced by natural gas heaters. Candidates are
prepared in the kitchen, because that's one of the warmer rooms in the winter.
The seating is of earlier generations and the decorations mark the age of the
institution.

But most impressive are the two tall pillars to the left and right of the entry
of the lodge. And atop each is a coil of rope.

Rope? There has to be a story there. And there is. Maybe two.

Waterford was a sleepy village between Brantford and Simcoe serving the farm
community. The Nanticoke River powered grist mills and sawmills for the outlying
farms. Milling was so important that settlement was renamed every time the mill
changed owners. Today nobody can imagine a war being fought in its streets. But
one was.

It was the War of 1812 and the American invaders under General MacArthur were
bent on destroying Upper Canada's ability to wage war. The place was called
"Sovereign's Mills" in those days because Morris Sovereign owned the mill. The
mill became a military target.

The invaders torched the building, but Morris Sovereign, intent on protecting
his investment, put the fire out.

So the raiders came back and started the flames again. Which Sovereign
extinguished a second time. The military men were disturbed at having their work
thwarted by a mere miller, so they set fire a third time, and they warned
Sovereign that further interference could prove fatal. But he didn't heed the
warning and again doused the flames.

True to their word, the raiders dragged the defender forth and prepared to hang
him. Local history recounts that he was hauled to an old oak tree and was strung
up. His neighbours pleaded and his wife wept while Sovereign kicked, but the
executioners paid no heed. Then fellow Masons amongst the raiders, recognized
his signs of distress (and he was indeed in distress) and he was cut down. His
life--but not his mill--was spared.

Sovereign was replaced by a miller called Loder, and the place took the name
Loderville. During the next 14 years the Americans must have been forgiven
because, in 1826, the town was given its present name, Waterford. And it was not
named for the place in Ireland that makes fine crystal. It was named for
Waterford on the Hudson River 15 miles north of Albany, home of the invaders.

Sovereigns "hanging rope" has a story of its own. When Wilson No. 113 was
constituted in 1859, the rope was halved and coiled to cap each of the great
pillars as a reminder of Brother Sovereign's miraculous deliverance. It's the
only lodge in Ontario so decorated. It survived 14 years in the barn where the
lodge met. The rope was salvaged when the barn burned in 1873. It was resettled
on the new pillars in the upper room where Wilson has been meeting ever since.

And the original rope would be there still, except for the unfortunate events of
1959.

That was the year a tornado lifted the roof off the lodge, doing extensive
damage to the interior. During the reconstruction, contractors noticed a couple
of coils of rain-damaged old rope and threw them out.

That's why today's coils look a lot newer than their 141 year history. They are
now symbolic ropes.

At least, that's the story they tell this traveller.