Blue Lodge Freemasonry in Winchester reaches back more than 185 years, to May 1822. That spring, brethren from Seneca Lodge No. 55 in Torrington petitioned the Grand Lodge for permission to shift Seneca's home to Winchester Center. Although records describing this petition do not cite the impetus behind the request, it is likely that a substantial proportion of Seneca's brothers simply resided in - or close to - Winchester. However, a number of other brethren from the Lodge vociferously opposed the move, and the Grand Lodge ultimately chose to not grant the request.

A year later, the Grand Lodge considered another petition from Seneca Masons - this time, a petition asking that a new lodge be established in the Winchester parish of Winsted. The Grand Lodge granted the brethren's request on May 14, 1823, and St. Andrew's No. 64 commenced its noble work and fraternity.

The following summer, delegates from the Grand Lodge installed Josiah Smith as the first St. Andrew's Worshipful Master. In its first year of active Masonry, a dozen Master Masons were accepted in the Lodge.

Barnice White, a St. Andrew's brother from the Lodge's earliest annals, was a tollgate keeper on the old Riverton Road. On the morning of March 30, 1850, a neighbor entered Brother White's home, finding him dead - murdered.

There was motive - the cash kept in the tollgate keeper's house - as well as targets of an investigation. The suspects were evidently the subject of a number of Brother White's complaints to the authorities for theft and breach of peace, suggesting that an additional motive could have been revenge, but no evidence could link the alleged murderers to the crime.

However, one of the suspects - Ben Balcomb - drank too heavily one night several weeks after the murder and boasted of the killing. An arrest warrant was immediately issued, and Balcomb ultimately flipped on his co-conspirators: Manassa, a Tunxis Indian; William H. Calhoun; and Lorenzo Cobb. Balcomb, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, died in prison in 1861. Manassa, Calhoun, and Cobb were all found guilty by a jury, and a Litchfield County judge sentenced all three to be hanged. However, records from the state prison in Wethersfield show that their sentences were, at some point, commuted to life in prison. In 1866, evidence suggesting the convicted men's innocence came forth, and the General Assembly released the prisoners. To date, uncertainty clouds the death of St. Andrew's Brother Barnice White.

Foul play claimed the life of another St. Andrew's brother, James Tuttle, in 1861. His brother-in-law, Lucius Woodford, shot and killed Tuttle - the culmination of a long-standing feud. Woodford was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. But similar to the case of Brother White, evidence came to bear years later that threw doubt against Woodford's guilt. He was pardoned in 1869.

Brother Caleb Newman was the first St. Andrew's Mason - the first man in Winchester, in fact - to enlist in the military to preserve the Union during the Civil War. Newman survived the conflict. Five St. Andrew's brothers did not: Benjamin Hosford was killed in action at Cedar Creek Virginia; John Welch died in Mississippi; Charles Palmer succumbed to exposure and exhaustion in South Carolina; William Watson died in Virginia; and Orson Howard was killed in Petersburg, Virginia.

Dozens of St. Andrew's Masons served the country with distinction in future conflicts. War brought extraordinary circumstances to the nation, as well as to St. Andrew's. For instance, Lieutenant Lloyd August Cross fervently desired to be made a Mason before being mobilized to France during World War I. On Dec. 5, 1917, the Lodge accommodated his request. St. Andrew's conferred the first two degrees upon Cross during a stated communication, and a break was called thereafter. At 12:30 a.m., the brethren reassembled, and Cross received the Master Mason degree. Lodge closed at nearly two in the morning.

St. Andrew's celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1923. That year, there were 30 stated communications, and total attendance exceeded 1,300. Building on that momentum over the following decades, St. Andrew's dedicated its present home, on Wheeler Street, in September 1962. Frederick Hudon - still an active St. Andrew's Mason in 2008 - presided over the ceremony as Worshipful Master.

- Michael D. Bates