Stony Creek Masonic Lodge No. 5 / Mount Moriah

Around 1825 William A. Burt led members of the Stony Creek Masonic Lodge in petitioning the Grand Lodge of Michigan for a charter. The grand master, Governor Lewis Cass, approved the charter in June 1827. In response to the anti-Masonic fervor sweeping the nation, however, the Grand Lodge suspended operations from 1829 to 1841, delaying the granting of Stony Creek’s charter. Due to the efforts of tavern keeper Daniel B. Taylor, Stony Creek Lodge continued to meet during that time. It was the only Michigan lodge to do so. The group had originally held meetings in a log schoolhouse, and later in people’s homes. In 1844 the lodge was reconstituted, and in 1849 members dedicated the first Masonic temple in the state. In 1853 the lodge relocated in Rochester. Mount Moriah This site, once the summit of Stony Creek Village, was named Mount Moriah by Stony Creek Masons. In 1849 they dedicated a temple here—the first in Michigan built solely for Masonic purposes. In 1844 the Grand Lodge of Michigan had recognized the Stony Creek Lodge, organized around 1825, as the oldest continuously operating lodge in Michigan. The fraternity built the temple in honor of this distinction, laying the cornerstone in 1847. The building, a red octagonal wooden structure set on a high stone foundation, had a discrete entrance into the cellar; members took a ladder up to the meeting room. In 1853 the lodge was transferred to Rochester. Eventually, the temple was dismantled, and the materials were used to build a barn. In 1929 the cornerstone was incorporated into a Masonic monument erected at Stony Creek Cemetery.