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CHARLES H. TITUS 1819-1878
Recording Grand Secretary, 1871-1878.
From Proceedings, Page 1873-378:
REV. CHARLES HENRY TITUS, A.M., BOSTON. Methodist, 1869, 1870, 1871.
REV. CHARLES H. TITUS was born in the then Province of Maine, County of Kennebec, town of Monmouth, on the eleventh day of April, 1819. He was the only son of Samuel and Betsey (Kelley) Titus. He had two sisters, Sarah Kelley, older, and Eliza Jane, younger, than himself. Both the sisters and the father have been dead many years. The mother still survives in a hale old age, residing in Monmouth.
Mr. Titus, senior, was a farmer; and the son worked with his father upon the farm in summer, attending the district school during the winter season, until he was sixteen years of age, when he became a student at Monmouth Academy, and began his school-teaching experience the following winter. Until twenty-five years of age his time was wholly given to literary pursuits and teaching. His father was not wealthy, and after his death, which occurred when the son was about eighteen years of age, he declined to receive anything from the limited estate of some §2,000, and paid his own school expenses by devoting a portion of the time to teaching. After leaving Monmouth Academy he became connected with the Maine Wesleyan Seminary, at Kent's Hill, Readfield, where he enjoyed the friendship, counsel and instruction of those eminent teachers of youth, Rev. William C. Larrabee, LL.D. and Rev. Benjamin F. Tefft, D.D., LL.D., whose influence upon his formative mind has proved a continued blessing through all subsequent years. At this school he also enjoyed the instruction of Prof. Walsh, a wonderful linguist, of whom he took private lessons in Hebrew and Biblical Greek. In 1839 he entered the Bangor Theological Seminary, where he spent one year for the special purpose of continuing his studies in the original languages of the Holy Scriptures.
In April, 1840, being enfeebled by overwork, he sought to recruit his health by a change of climate, and removed to Greencastle, Indiana, in company with Prof. Larrabee, who had been elected to a professorship in the Asbury University, located at that place. Here he was immediately elected by the trustees as Tutor of Languages in the Preparatory Department of the college. While fulfilling the duties of this office he enjoyed all the privileges of the college. He completed the course of study, and graduated on the fourteenth day of September, 1842. Rev. Matthew Simpson, D.D., now bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, was then President of the university, and invested him with his first literary degree; and, on the evening of the same day, united him in marriage witli Miss Martha Dunn, daughter of Col. William Dunn, of East Poland, Maine, and sister to Mrs. Tefft and Mrs. Larrabee. Their married life has been peculiarly happy; and, during all the years they have journeyed on together, home has been a word of special significance and comfort to them. They have been blessed with two children, Laura Jane, the wife of Mr. Edgar Pratt, of Providence, and Charles Henry (H.C. 1872), now acting as clerk in the Grand Secretary's office.
During the winter of 1842-3 Mr. Titus and his wife conducted, with much success, a private academy at Madison, Indiana. His enfeebled health obliging him to desist from teaching, he spent the following summer in making an extensive tour through the North-west, in company with Rev. Edward R. Ames, D.D., now bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church. In this journey he traversed Lake Huron, Luke Superior, St. Louis River, and the Mississippi River from Sandy Lake to St. Louis, Missouri. Seven hundred miles of this voyaging were made in a birch-bark canoe, with Indian half-breeds as guides.
In the autumn of 1843 Mr. Titus and his wife returned to their native State of Maine; and in August, 1844, he was admitted to the Maine Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, at its session held in Bangor; was ordained to the office of Deacon by Bishop Hedding; and was appointed to the pastorate of the church in Frankfort. This church he served during the constitutional limit of two years, when, finding the climate too rigorous for his feeble health, he embraced the offer of a transfer to the Providence Conference; and in July, 1846, was appointed to the Pleasant-street Church, New Bedford, where he continued two years. At the session of the Conference held in Fall River, Mass., 1847, he was ordained to the office of Elder by Bishop Janes. In his ministerial work in this Conference he was appointed successively to Woonsocket, R. I., two years; Edgartown, Mass., two years; East Weymouth, Mass., two years; Taunton, Mass., one year, when he was appointed to the office of Presiding Elder of Providence District, embracing in its territory the State of Rhode Island, and Bristol County, Mass., and placing under his care and supervision between forty and fifty churches. During the four years he held this office he resided at Taunton.
When this office expired by limitation he was appointed again to the pastorate as follows: Warren, R. L, two years; Newport, R. I., two years; Phenix, R. I., three years, — the limit of the pastorate to the same church having been extended by the General Conference of 1864 to three years,— and remained at Phenix the fourth year without regular appointment, but still serving the chuich as pastor. At the close of his labors at Phenix he was appointed again to Taunton, two years; then to Warren again, two years, when, April 10th, 1871, he accepted the pro tempore appointment of Grand Master Gardner to the office of Recording Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. In June following he was duly elected to this office by vote of the Grand Lodge, and at each subsequent annual election has been continued in the office by unanimous vote.
His first knowledge of Masonry was gained when he was a lad about ten years of age. A remarkable funeral was held in the neighborhood of his residence, which he and all the region round about attended. Major White, the deceased, was an old neighbor and friend of bis father, and a prominent townsman. The major was buried with full Masonic honors, and the ceremonies made a strong and lasting impression upon the mind of the keenly observant lad. The rich Masonic regalia, the mournful music, the muffled drums, the solemn march around the grave, the sprig of acacia reverently deposited by each Brother, saying, as he dropped his emblem of immortality into the open grave, "The will of God is accomplished — Amen — so mote it be !" stirred to the very depths of the soul the excited boy; and he then resolved within himself, that when he became a man he would be a Mason. This was at a time when Masonry was much spoken against, but he was prepared in his heart at that early age to be made a Mason. During the latter part of his residence at Greencastle, Indiana, the Lodge in that place was resuscitated, and he arranged with a friend, who was a member, to present his application for the Degrees; but before they were in a condition to comply with his request, he removed to Madison. In his subsequent itinerant life, and earnest devotion to his profession, he found no convenient time or place to knock at the Masonic door, until his protracted residence in Taunton, while Presiding Elder of Providence District. Having for once gained legal residence and citizenship, he made application to King David Lodge for the Degrees. His petition was recommended by Brother Jacob Burt, and, accompanied by the usual fee, was received by the Lodge Sept. 22, 1858, and referred to Brothers S. N. Staples, William Cox and Charles Lawton. On the 20th of October following, the committee made a favorable report, and he was duly elected to receive the Degrees. On the same evening he was initiated an Entered Apprentice. William M. Parks was then W. Master, Edward Mott, Senior Warden; David A. Jackson, Junior Warden; and the venerable Alfred Baylies, Secretary. Before retiring from the Lodge that night, his name was written by Dr. Baylies, upon the lamb-skin or white leather apron, which he had received from the W. Master as the emblem of innocence, and the badge of a Mason, and which he still preserves as a precious relic. He was passed to the Second Degree Nov. 17, 1858, and on the 15th of December following, was raised to the sublime Degree of Master Mason. Here began his esoteric Masonic life, and to the Brethren of King David Lodge he is much indebted, not only for faithful Masonic instruction, but for unfailing brotherly kindness.
Having been so long prepared in his heart to become a Mason, he at once became zealous in cultivating the ritual and principles of Masonry. During the following year he received the Capitular Degrees in Adoniram Chapter, New Bedford, of which Col. Timothy Ingraham was then, as he had been for many years, High Priest, and from whom he received much valuable instruction. The Council Degrees were conferred upon him by the late venerable James Salisbury, in Providence Council of Royal and Select Masters. During the winter of 1859 and 1860 he received the Orders of Knighthood in St. John's Encampment of Knights Templars, at Providence, R. I. In May, 1860, while residing at Warren, R. I., he was invested with the Ineffable Degrees by Kilian H. Van Rensselaer, in King Solomon's Grand Lodge of Perfection, at Providence. Subsequently, while residing at Newport, he received the remaining Degrees of the A. A. Rite to the Thirty-Second inclusive. In 1867 he was created a Sov. Gr. Insp. Gen. Thirty-Third Degree, at Boston, and elected an Honorary Member of the Sup. Coun. of the Northern Mas. Juris, of the U. S. A.
Among the many offices he has held in Masonry the following may be enumerated: W. Master of King David Lodge, Taunton; T.I. Master of Webb Council of Royal and Select Masters, Warren, R. I.; Commander of St. John's Encampment, Providence, R. I.; Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Rhode Island; Grand Prelate, Grand Capt. Gen., Dep. Grand Master, and Grand Master of the Grand Encampment of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has also enjoyed the honor of acting as First Officer of the Lodge, Council, Chapter and Consistory of the A.A. Rite; but more for the purposes of the organization and establishment of those Bodies than for actual work in the ritual of that Rite. He is now, as he has been for several years, Grand Prior of the Supreme Council Thirty-Third Degree, and of the Massachusetts Council of Deliberation, A.A. Rite.
His Masonry has, doubtless, been of greater benefit to him, and more highly prized from the fact that he has uniformly paid the regular fees for the various Degrees lie has received, neither claiming nor receiving any remission on account of his clerical profession. He retains his membership in the Bodies which have conferred upon him this honor, and generally in those that conferred the Degrees. In 1872 he united with several of his old associates in King David Lodge, in the formation of a new Lodge at Taunton, which his associates subsequently, against his protest, called by his own name. This Lodge was chartered March 12, 1873, and constituted in AMPLE FORM on the 28th of the same month, under the title and designation of Charles H. Titus Lodge. The engraved steel plate, on which the portrait was printed which accompanies this sketch, was the generous gift of this Lodge.
Though his natural force is somewhat abated, his zeal for Masonry has not lessened, and he is now devoting what strength he has to the good of Masonry in general, and to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in particular.
