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No. 7

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2014

April 2014

Trestle Board

St. John’s Lodge No. 1

Portsmouth, NH

The Master’s Message

Greetings Brethren!

Although the calendar says that we are in spring, we can all agree it’s a bit of

false advertisement. I hope the thoughts of warm temperatures and little to no

snow become a reality soon. If this weather keeps up, this might be the first year

we have a snow storm during our Out Of Hibernation 5K. But all joking aside,

the race will take place on April 12th and will benefit the Seacoast Family Food

Pantry. We are still looking for a few more volunteers to help with the smooth

operation of the race and to aid in seeking out donations. If you are interested,

please contact myself or another member of the road race committee expressing

your intent and anyone of us will point you in the right direction. We already

have over 150 registered runners and are a month away!

As a reminder, we are taking applications for our scholarships now through to

the end of April. Not through to the end of May as I previously mentioned in last

month’s message. I was wrong and apologize for any confusion that may have

occurred. The scholarships are open to any high school senior and they do not

need to be related to a Mason.

And on April 30th we will be having our 5,000 meeting. And on that evening,

we will be performing a Master Mason degree with the Most Worshipful Grand

Master performing the second section with a degree team. The dinner that night

will be served by the Rainbow Girls and they will be having their fundraising

auction after as well. This auction is their major fundraiser. Although the items

are not of a high monetary value, please remember Brethren to bring extra

money to help out a worthy cause.

Fraternally Yours,

Wor Floyd Caron

Note early opeing for testing of lessons

Happy Birthday Brothers!

Join us for the Stated Communication during your birthday month

and the dinner is on the Master and Wardens.

Worshipful Master…………………………..Wor. Floyd Caron

Senior Warden……..…………………….Roderick MacDonald

Junior Warden………………..……...Wor. Thomas W. Haslam

Secretary………………………...R.W. Robert L. Sutherland, Jr

Assistant Secretary…………………..Wor. Jonathan A. Neihart

Treasurer……………………………....Wor. Verne S. Anderson

Assistant Treasurer……………………….Wor. Glen R. Gordon

Senior Deacon…………………………..Wor. Gilbert H. Palmer

Junior Deacon…………………………..……...Nicholas Pesarik

Senior Steward…………………………..Richard M. Laskey, Jr.

Junior Steward…………………….…………….Eric M. Arnold

Alternate Steward …………………………...……….Greg Anis

Alternate Steward………………………………….Brian Orluck

Chaplain……………………….………..Wor. Nelson D. Hersey

Assistant Chaplain……………….....Wor. Daniel G. Stolworthy

Marshal……………………………………..Timothy H. Neihart

Tyler……………………………………..Wor. Jack D. Hartman

Electrician………………………...…...R.W. Ronald E. Metcalf

Musician………………………………….…….Nelson K. Ward

Historian…………………………..…...Wor. Alan M. Robinson

Grand Lodge Representative……………………Eric M. Arnold

Webmaster…………………………..…….Charles E. Gaudet II

2014 Officers

Historical Sketch

Continued next page…………….

………….Continued from page 5

On February 5, 1945, Larry passed away in Portsmouth at the young age of 63

years. His body is buried in Harmony Grove Cemetery on South Street in

Portsmouth. He was a good man, a good husband and father, and a good

citizen. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that he was also a

Freemason. Yes; Brother Lawrence Booth Bilbruck was greeted as an Entered

Apprentice in St. John’s Lodge in Portsmouth on April 4, Passed to the Degree

of Fellowcraft on May 2, and Raised a Master Mason in our Lodge on June 12,

1906.

Alan M. Robinson, PM

Historian

Floyd Caron

Worshipful Master

Floyd.stjohns@yahoo.com

(207) 577-3028

Robert L. Sutherland, Jr.

Secretary

robert7615@aol.com

(603) 828-5246

Contact

Information:

Saturday, April 12th

Volunteers Needed!

Volunteers are needed Friday

night for early registrations and

Saturday morning for registra-

tions and race duties.

Friday night: 5:00-8:00

Saturday: 7:00AM—11:00

We are expecting our biggest race

yet. Please come help.

Stated Communication—Open in FC

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Dinner—Hot dogs, hamburgers and sausage subs in honor of

Opening Day for the baseball season ($8.00)

(Dinner 6:00, Open 7:00)*

Officer dress— White Tie and Tails

FC Degree

Thomas Wilson Beaudoin, Isaac Elire Davenport,

Michael James Moriarty

Most Worshipful Stewart L. Aronson will be present

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

MM Rehearsal

6:00 PM

All officers are required to be there, including

craftsmen for the second session

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Special Communication—MM Degree

5,000th Meeting! Dinner—Pork loin with mashed potatoes

Served by the Rainbow Girls($8.00)

(Dinner 6:00, Open 7:00)*

Officer dress— White Tie and Tails

MM Degree

Thomas Wilson Beaudoin, Isaac Elire Davenport,

Michael James Moriarty

Grand Lodge officers will do second section and history.

*NOTE EARLY OPENING ON 2Nd and 30th at 5:30 for testing lessons

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30

April 2014

St. John’s Lodge Historical Sketch

Lawrence Booth Bilbruck

Before 1861 the fastest way to send a message from New York to California

was to use the Pony Express, which took about ten days. With the completion

of the first transcontinental telegraph lines, that distance could be spanned in

an instant. In those early years, there were many telegraph companies in the

United States, among them the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing

Telegraph Company, which began operations in 1851. That particular

company had some success, and within five years it had bought up some of its

competitors. In acknowledgement of this consolidation, the firm changed its

name in 1856 to The Western Union Telegraph Company. Western Union

grew rapidly, and in 1911 it had thousands of uniformed messenger boys and

was the premier American telegraph operator.

In the early decades of telegraphy, telegrams were transcribed by hand onto

blank forms directly by skilled telegraph operators who could understand

Morse code just by listening to the rapid clicking of dots and dashes on the

sounder. In 1914 the teletypewriter was invented, which meant that the

incoming electric signal could be automatically decoded and typed onto a strip

of ticker tape, which clerks then glued to a blank form for delivery.

Eventually, machines were made that could automatically receive, decode and

print 8 telegrams simultaneously. In 1936 that number increased to 72.

The first line of most telegrams was called the ‘check,’ which told in

abbreviated form where the telegram had come from, what class of service it

was and how many words it contained. Below the ‘check’ was the name and

address of the recipient. Completed incoming telegrams were carefully folded

and placed into a window envelope, with the name and address of the recipient

visible through the window. People sent telegrams by calling a telegraph

office and dictating a message over the phone to an operator. The cost of the

service was added to the customer’s phone bill. Customers could also appear

in person at a telegraph office and write their message on a blank form, which

would then be turned into Morse code.

Early telegraph lines ran alongside railroad tracks. In 1851 the telegraph was

first used for train routing. In the 1860s and 1870s, telegraphers would be

stationed in individual depots along the railroad line in order to receive train

orders from a centrally located dispatcher. The telegraph operator would

report back on train movements and telegraphed train orders would be written

out on paper and "handed up" to the crews of passing trains. This practice

greatly increased the efficiency of single-track railroads by enabling two trains

traveling in opposite directions to use the track at the same time. The

dispatcher would designate one of the trains as the "superior" train and give it

right of way over the "inferior" train, which would be required to pull into a

siding until the superior

train had passed. Local

depot telegraph operators

would keep track of train

arrival times at each

station and pass the

information on to other

operators and the

dispatcher. The local

depot operator would also

set the track switches to

enable the inferior train to

pull into the siding upon

the approach of the

superior train.

The ability of the local

depot operators to keep

track of the actual time of

train movements was

particularly important in

the era before the

establishment of time

zones, when local time

might be different at each

station; a miscalculation

of the "meet time" of two

trains running on a single track could result in disaster. Thus railroad

telegraphers played a role in the operation of the railroads that was not unlike

the role of air traffic controllers today; they enabled the trains to run safely

and on time.

Over in Kittery Point was a Freight House Depot at Kittery Junction on the

Boston and Maine Railway. Working for the B&M Railway was a telegraph

operator by the same of Larry Bilbruck.

Lawrence Booth Bilbrough was born on October 18, 1881 in the town of

Wakefield, located in an historic part of Yorkshire, England called West

Riding. He was the son of James Bilbrough and Harriet Beaumont. It seems

that when Larry came to America, he changed his last name and spelled it

phonetically as Bilbruck. In the early 1900’s, living in Kittery, he became a

lifelong telegraph operator with the B&M Railroad. On October 30, 1907 in

Portsmouth, he married Lucy Donna Dow, daughter of Samuel Alonzo Dow

and Emily Amanda Marsden on North Hampton, NH. They had three

children, Emily Harriet, James Donald, and Samuel Eugene.