Peninsula In Passage

Nansemond Lodge - Ancient Free and Accepted Masons Although chartered in 1993, the Nansemond Lodge No. 77 of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons has roots back to 1797. The current lodge was formed by a merger of three local lodges – Harmony No 149, Hiram No. 340 and Chuckatuck No. 77. Chuckatuck was originally chartered in 1797 as Lodge #53 with a membership including farmers, teachers, ministers, merchants, military, lawyers and others. The lodge was suspended in1848 and then granted a new charter in 1852 as Lodge #77. Harmony Lodge was born in 1856, meeting at Yeates Lower Free School and later at Belleville Academy. When E. J. Driver was the Master of Harmony Lodge he encouraged its move to Driver. Truck farming rescued the crossroads community from the hard times following the Civil War. During the war, a Union officer entered the lodge and removed the charter, lodge records, Bible, jewels and tiler’s sword. He carried them north to a lodge in Connecticut for safekeeping until after the war when they were returned to Driver. In the 1890’s the Driver Masonic Temple was a community gathering place for parties, plays, lectures and speeches by politicians including William Jennings Bryant who visited there soon after he was appointed as Secretary of State in President Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet. When a fire destroyed the lodge in 1937 the same articles that had survived the war were burned but salvaged and preserved in the current lodge. The Masons built a new temple on King’s Highway in a building that is now Harmony House Antiques. The lodge met on Saturday mornings and enjoyed visitors from neighboring lodges who stayed for lunch. During the Depression Harmony Lodge changed its meetings to Tuesday nights, locals say to save the expense of feeding so many guests. In 1921, 14 members of Suffolk Lodge No. 30 decided to form a new Lodge. Two years later they received their charter as Hiram Lodge. In June of 1993, the three lodges merged into Nansemond Lodge No. 77 with a membership of 270, a strong group of officers and enough resources to build a new temple on Lee Farm Lane in Bennett’s Creek.

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