O’Leary, Prince Edward Island
Established 1951

2020 membership 31

Meets 3rd Thursday in each month at the Lodge Room at 8:00pm above the Home Hardware store, O’Leary
(South side of Main St. in mid-town, near Bank of Nova Scotia.)

A History of Corinthian Lodge No. 19 – Est. 1951

This article is reprinted from The Pattern Set For Us: A History of the Concordant and Related Bodies of Freemasonry Past and Present on Prince Edward Island with the kind permission of the author, RW Bro. George Doughart, Grand Historian.

The origins of a Masonic Lodge in O’Leary may be traced back twenty-five years before Corinthian Lodge became a reality in 1950. In 1925 the newly established Verdun Lodge of Oddfellows in O’Leary was appointed as a committee “to plan, and design a suite of rooms on the second floor of the O’Leary Public Hall.” All four members of the committee were Brethren in Zetland Lodge No. 7 A.F. & A.M. in Alberton. Twenty-five years later when the Verdun Lodge had surrendered its Charter, the same suite of rooms became the Lodge Room for Corinthian Lodge No. 19 A.F. & A.M.. Only one member of the original committee, W.Bro. A.J. Matheson, was alive to realize the dream. (Threads of the Past, p. 138-142)

Circumstances were quite different in 1950 and the prospects for a successful Masonic Lodge in O’Leary inspired the local Brethren. The number of Freemasons in O’Leary and vicinity had grown from six to twenty in that same twenty-five year period. That fact and the desire to purchase an available block of shares in the Public Hall and thereby keep the Hall for community use prompted a number of the Masons in the area to take the necessary steps to organize a new Lodge. The first organizational meeting was held in the Main Street Offices of W.Bro. E.W. Turner. At a second and much larger meeting held in what is presently the Corinthian Lodge Room, a decision was made to apply to the Grand Lodge of Prince Edward Island for a Dispensation to establish a Masonic Lodge in O’Leary.