Raise a Glass to this Medal

Let me see if I can value this medal sent by ES without pouring a glass of wine. I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I collect medals. She sent me a huge dangling medal in sterling that foxed me.

Marked at the top clasp OGJOTASP, the medal reads in etching that William Hoyle Lodge presented it to PCN Bro James R Grant in 1894. Naturally I searched for a Grand Master Mason, a William Hoyle. Indeed I found that he served as Grand Master in Ontario Canada from 1894-1918, a Grand Master of the Orange Order, also, a speaker of Legislative Assembly 1912, and a Conservative MLA. DONE. The medal must be Masonic.

Upon Further Review of the Medal

But the iconography of a Phoenix Rising on the front of the medal didn’t tally with anything I appraised ‘Masonic’ before. So I looked further into the esteemed William Hoyle and found him also listed as an Oddfellow, a different fraternal order with little if any relationship to the Masons. Yes, the two organizations share similar symbols: The All-Seeing Eye, the Sun, Moon, Bible, and Beehive. IN fact my great grandfather Harry A Gould in St Louis belonged to the Oddfellow. My family inherited his pin, so I looked at that again, and noticed the triple link design standing for friendship, love, and truth. By the way, my great grandfather’s national organization became the first to included women in 1851. A nice story, but I couldn’t make ES’ s medal “fit” with either Masonic or Oddfellows iconography.

We see Bro James R Grant designated a “PNC,” whatever that means. When I searched the thousands of Masonic abbreviations, PNC didn’t fit.

What does “OGJOTASP” mean?

So, what do the abbreviations on the bar from which the medal hangs reading in engraving “OGJOTASP” mean? Well, I erred by searching for Masonic or Oddfellow medals. The last four letters stand for “The Total Abstinence of the Sons of Phoenix” and here we see the Phoenix rising from the ashes matched the moniker.

Now, it’s late as I write this, and I DO pour a glass of red.

Looking further into the history of this medal

The brotherhoods devoted, in the late 19th century, to abstinence, in both England and America, is a total head-rush. They awarded such medals to all levels of teetotal-ism, from imbibing healthy drink and food, to the formations of orphanages for children abused by drunken parents, for formation of asylums for drunken women and men. They gave lectures, Bible studies upon demon drink, wrote songs, churned out badges, printed journals, sewed sashes, and formed their children into young people’s brigades.

These organizations fall under the general category in the history of fraternal organizations in the late 19th century of “Friendly Societies.”

And friendly they were, because many of them acted on certain political platforms, and acted as insurance companies for their members as well. You paid certain dues for a guaranteed decent burial.

Temperance

The late 19th century Temperance Societies had a real problem. Many of the OTHER Friendly Societies met in English Pubs and American Ale Houses, because working men began and joined them. By the late 19th century some perceived drink as a social ill, and the women of the households had a lot to do with this perception, and they let their weight be felt. Many wealthy American women and English noble women began Women’s Movements against drink in the late 19th century. They established safe houses and temperance societies that ALSO espoused the VOTE for women.

The Sons of Temperance, from which the Sons of Phoenix literally arose, became established in the US and Canada in 1842. There’s a long history of calling out the evils of drink which culminated in the late 19th century in MANY US, Canadian, and English fraternal organizations. These died in the 1930’s as legislation passed in the US repealing the ban on the sale of alcohol. That’s how that story abided.

In this little medal we see all combined, because we find that “PNC” means Past Chief Noble, which means that he lived the temperate life for MANY years. A Noble life.

Now that I know the history of ES’s medal, I think I’ll pour another glass of red to celebrate that I cracked the code of OGJOTASP!