The Lodge created a Company to manage the affairs of the new building. The target date to pay off the mortgage of approximately $50,000 is 2011. The major part of the loan is with the Credit Union with lesser loans from the Grand Lodge Benevolent Fund and a private citizen. In 1998 the old Hall at Cape Traverse was sold to Mr. Dale Boyko of Calgary for $5,000 less any taxes due. The contents were auctioned for $1235. Mrs. Boyko had been renting the Hall prior to 1998 to operate an antique business. In November 1997 she provided the Lodge with a framed picture of the old Hall.

The Official Opening of the Lodge in Central Bedeque was held on October 7, 1996 and was attended by a large number of members and visitors including the Worshipful Grand Master, M.W.Bro. Bruce Small, M.W.Bro. S. Forrest Dumville, PGM; M.W.Bro. Eldon C. Wright, PGM; M.W. Bro. Douglas MacKinnon, PGM; V.W.Bro. Terence R. Verma, Junior Grand Deacon and V.W.Bro. Charles Wagner, Grand Chaplain. The Worshipful Master for that occasion was W.Bro. Layton Profitt. Sixty guests attended the Open House on October 27, 1996.

Photo by W.Bro. Frank Graham
Mount Moriah Lodge No. 15
Central Bedeque

The opening of the new Lodge Room injected a renewed spirit among the Brethren at Mount Moriah. The Lodge not only continued many of its valued traditions but also began many new initiatives. The result was that Mount Moriah Lodge earned the Annual Grand Master’s Achievement Award for 1998 and 1999. The particular activities that have merited “Lodge of the Year” in those years include the very significant financial donations to The Prince County Hospital Foundation and Equipment Fund, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Foundation, East Prince Hospice, I.W.K. Telethon and a Fund for a West Prince child requiring long-term medical rehabilitation. The Lodge participated in three festival parades in local East Prince communities in the summer of 1998 and expanded to five in 1999. The weekly Wednesday morning coffee socials and monthly breakfasts for the Brethren and their ladies have proven to be popular and well-attended activities. The Annual Open House is a rewarding event for the Brethren and their families and has helped to give appropriate profile for the Lodge in the Community. Gifts to the widows at Christmas and cards for those who have moved from the Jurisdiction were approved as an annual practice in 1996. The Lodge established a Bible Fund in 1997 in order that a Bible may be presented to all new Freemasons. The first recipient was W.Bro. James D. Murphy, the first member raised in the new Lodge Room in Central Bedeque.

In addition to the collective honours that have been earned by Mount Moriah Lodge it is significant that since 1991 three members of the Lodge have been named ‘Mason of the Year’ by Grand Lodge viz W.Bro. Clifford Dawson PM (1991-92), W.Bro. Walter Bernard PM (1994-95) and W.Bro. Layton Profitt PM (1997-98).