On April 26, 1819, Thomas Wildey, the English carriage-spring maker,
together with John Welch, John Duncan, John Cheatham and Richard
Rushworth, instituted the first lodge of Odd-Fellows at the Seven Stars
Tavern in Baltimore, and it was given the name of Washington Lodge No.
1. From this feeble beginning has grown the immense organization of
today. The Odd-Fellows claim a venerable antiquity for their order,
the most common account of its origin ascribing it to the Jewish legend
under Titus, who, it is said, received from that Emperor the first
chapter, written on a golden tablet. The earliest mention made of the
lodge is in 1745, when one was organized in England. There were at
that time several lodges independent of each other, but in a few years
they formed a union. Toward the end of the century many of them were
broken up by state prosecutions, on suspicion that their purposes were
seditious. The name was changed from the Patriotic Order to that of
the Union Order of Odd-Fellows. In Manchester, England, in 1813, some
of the lodges seceded from the order, and formed the Independent Order
of Odd-Fellows.
The order's first appearance in America was in 1819. The purposes of
the order were so changed by the founders here, that it is said to be
almost purely an American organization. It was based on the Manchester
Unity, which was really the parent institution. In 1842, this country
severed its connection with that of England.
Lodges connected with either those of England or America are
established in all parts of the world. The real estate held by the
organization exceeds in value $20,000,000, and there is scarcely a town
in the country that has not its Odd-Fellows Building. The total
revenue of the order is nearly $10,000,000 per annum. Yearly relief
amounts to nearly $4,000,000 a year.