By Joe Donahue
On November 11, 2013, the national office received a notable piece of OA history: the oldest known lodge charter.
The charter is for Sanhican Lodge, which at the time was chartered to the Trenton Council. The charter was initially issued at the 1923 Grand Lodge Meeting held on October 12, 1923, at Camp Linstead, formerly located in Severna Park, Maryland. At that meeting, charters, which expired on July 1, 1924, were issued to the lodges in attendance. All of the charters had the date October 12, 1923, and had the signatures of the 1922-1923 Grand Lodge Officers, including future Chief Scout Executive Arthur A. Schuck.
"The charter would have been one of either seven, eleven, or twelve given out at the Grand Lodge meeting," said Dr. Terry Grove, author of The Kekeenowin of the Wimachtendienk 1915-1948 and other Scouting-related history books.
Written charters had never been issued prior to this Grand Lodge meeting. The charters that were issued, printed on what was referred to as a "shares certificate," became the first ever written charters for the OA.
This charter for Sanhican Lodge is the only charter from this meeting known to exist and the exact number of charters that were issued at the meeting is unknown. Dr. Grove stated that, at the time, twelve lodges were recognized by the Order, including Unami and Unalachtgo Lodges of Philadelphia Council, Minsi Lodge of Reading Council, and Nentico Lodge of Baltimore Council. However, this did not mean that all twelve received a charter.
"Only seven lodges were present at the 1923 meeting," Dr. Grove stated, "and Cowaw Lodge, which belonged to the Kanohwahke Scout Camps, was behind on its dues and not in good financial standing."
Grove said there are three different scenarios that could have come as a result of the meeting. The first scenario is that only the seven lodges present at the meeting received a charter. The second scenario is that all lodges in good financial standing received a charter, which would have excluded Cowaw Lodge and yielded eleven lodge charters. The third scenario is that every lodge received a charter, including Cowaw Lodge when it paid its dues.
This charter made its way to the national office from the collection of Norman Sapolnick, formerly a member of Mohican Lodge 178, which was chartered to the former Robert Treat Council.
Trenton Council would later go through a series of mergers to become George Washington Council, which was Sanhican Lodge's new home for over sixty years. In 1999, another series of mergers created Central New Jersey Council, and Sanhican Lodge merged into Sakuwit Lodge.
Regardless of how many charters were initially issued, this discovery provides us with yet another window into the early days of the Order of the Arrow.