Seeley’s Bay Masons
The Select Knights, a fraternal insurance organization, built a two-storey hall on the northeast corner of Adelaide and Hellen Streets in Seeley’s Bay around 1890. By the turn of the century they were renting it to the Orange Lodge and to the Sons of Temperance because the local Select Knights Lodge had become dormant.
The first attempt to institute a Masonic Lodge at Seeley’s Bay was made by a few local Masons who petitioned the District of Frontenac for a dispensation to organize a lodge in the village. R.C. George was installed as Master of Rideau Lodge no. 460 on April 26, 1903. When he found it necessary to move away from Seeley’s Bay, there was no other Master or Past Master left in the lodge so this first dispensation was withdrawn.
However, on November 26 of the same year Robert J. Gardiner was installed as Master of Rideau Masonic Lodge. In Oct. of 1904 the lodge received its charter and by June of 1905 it reported 49 members. The lodge quickly moved to purchase the Select Knights Hall and furniture. By the early 1950s the membership peaked at 120.
In 1924 a continuation school offering grades nine and ten was opened in the downstairs portion of the Masonic Hall. This meant that area students would not have to go to Gananoque or Athens if they wanted an education beyond grade eight. The first teacher was Florence Barrington. Two years later a partition was made to create two classrooms and Ada Dempsey and Agnes Irwin were hired to teach grades nine through twelve. This continued until a new school was built at the east end of the village in 1930. After the school had moved out, the downstairs portion of this building was used as a community hall, that is, it was used for such things as entertainment nights with visiting music groups, concerts, film nights or any community event that required a stage or a room to gather in. In 1946 Rideau chapter no. 234, Order of the Eastern Star, a woman’s Masonic charitable sorority, was organized with 41 members. Even though the Mason's still has a presence in Seeley's Bay, the Order of the Eastern ,due to declining membership amalgomated with Leeds Chapter in Newboro in 2012.
