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Post by Diane Merkel on Jan 13, 2011 21:56:22 GMT -6
The hotel management would appreciate any information about the history of the hotel, including the period when it was a Masonic Lodge. Jim Moore wrote a great article about Walton County's Masonic heritage that was published in the October issue of "Walton Relations," the newsletter of the Walton County Genealogy Society: www.waltoncountyheritage.org/GenSoc/NL2010Oct.pdf. If you have information about the early history of the hotel, please let me know. Diane HD#25
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Post by Diane Merkel on Jan 13, 2011 22:28:58 GMT -6
Jim Moore provided this information: According to Masonic tradition, the building, now occupied as the Hotel DeFuniak, was furnished with a corner stone, installed in the north east corner of the building, indicating the date of the building. (The Masonic tradition of placing corner stones on buildings has been the subject of several recent History Channel series on missing Masonic markers on the US Capitol and the White House.) There is a Masonic dedication marker on the NE corner of the building now occupied by the Hotel. During the depression, the lodge was unable to maintain the mortgage on the building and the lodge was forced to move into the Chautauqua Building. I am checking with DeFuniak Lodge No. 172 to pin down the dates when the lodge moved from the Hotel. Masonic regulations requires a lodge to remove all Masonic emblems when it moves from one location to another. However, in the case of the Hotel, the removal of the Masonic emblems would have defaced the structure and, therefore, the emblems remain to this date. Thank you, Jim!
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