Images that didn't fit the feature, but belong to the story
Still crated from their journey, the bells reach Indianapolis by rail — weeks before they were raised into the Cathedral's tower.
Workers hoist the great bell into the Cathedral's 212-foot tower, the same bell whose inscription appears in the feature above.
This photograph, found years ago by chance, set in motion the research that led to this issue — and to the discovery that Arthur R. Baxter's great-grandson sits in this Lodge today.
Material gathered in research, not part of the features above
Adaline (Addie) C. Strong Engle was born in South Manchester, Connecticut, in 1845, and sent her first published work to Zion's Herald in Boston at age sixteen. She went on to write for children's papers, the Voice of Masonry, and the Churchman, and served three years in the highest elected office of the Eastern Star in Connecticut before relocating to Indiana, where she married Willis D. Engle in 1882. Together they commenced in 1889 the publication of the Compass, Star and Vidette. She wrote the odes used in the Eastern Star's secret work and memorial service, among other literary contributions to the Craft. She also wrote "Bon Voyage," marking the publication of Willis's History of the Eastern Star, which closes:
by Adaline C. Strong Engle
Now, in these days of proud progress,
Forget not those of storm and stress,
Encourage the same zeal and truth
Which marked our order in its youth,
And let the future years reveal
The same desire for its best weal;
Then shall its record grow and blaze
With the refulgence of its rays,
Till earth, illumined, near and far,
Reflects the light of Bethlehem's star!
— Adaline C. Strong Engle
Writing from the Mountain Lake Singing Tower in Florida sixteen days before the Indianapolis dedication, bellmaster Anton Brees laid out his plan for the inaugural concert in a letter to Baxter — trumpets ahead of the recital, the band to follow, and the program itself kept short, since the crowd would be standing throughout. He confessed, in his own hand, that he was "getting all excited over the coming events."
The Washington feature draws entirely from the address as delivered by W. Bro. John Caven and published by the Press of Wm. B. Burford, Indianapolis, 1900. A digitized copy is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, California (lib-79006).
The Engle, Holliday, and Baxter feature draws on: A History of Masonry in Indianapolis (William E. English, 1901, Bowen-Merrill); Century of Dedication, 1868–1968 (James B. Gale, Mystic Tie Lodge No. 398); Some Hidden Treasures of Masonry (Willis D. Engle, 1917, Mystic Tie Lodge No. 398 imprint; WorldCat record); Stillson & Hughan, History of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons (1895); The Indiana Freemason (1917, Holliday address); the Indianapolis News (July 9, 1927, Herschell, carillon/Frances Baxter quote); the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame biography of Holliday; the Holliday Park official history (hollidaypark.org); and records of the Indiana Historical Society. Bell photographs and carillon documentation courtesy of the Indiana Historical Society, used with required attribution. Portrait photographs from Century of Dedication and period Masonic publications.
The 1913 Grand Lodge degree team, on which both W. Bro. Engle and W. Bro. Baxter served before sixteen visiting Grand Masters, remains a subject of interest for a future issue.
A note on ages: Baxter's December 1914 address gives Engle's age as twenty-eight in 1869. Other records place Engle's birth in October 1846, which would make him twenty-two that year. At a remove of more than a century, a few years' variance in a spoken tribute is unremarkable, and isn't treated here as anything more than that.