ORGANIZATION 57 



time, concentrated mainly in Iowa and Minnesota in the North- 

 west and South Carolina and Mississippi in the South, still 

 its spread was so general and its centers so far apart, that it 

 must be looked upon even thus early as distinctly national in 

 character. In the North Central group, every state had now 

 been entered, and the territory of Dakota alone remained un- 

 touched by the order; while of the southern states, all had 

 granges except Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Florida, 

 and Texas. In the eastern or North Atlantic states, little 

 progress had been made except in Vermont, while on the Pacific 

 coast, the order had been introduced into both California and 

 Oregon, though as yet these states had but one grange apiece. 



In the fall of 1872, Secretary Kelley sent letters to all the 

 masters of state granges, general deputies, the " founders," and 

 a few others who had taken an active part in the building of the 

 order, inviting them to attend the sixth annual session of the 

 National Grange, and on January 8, 1873, twenty- three men 

 and four women, including six of the " founders," six masters 

 of state granges, and a number of deputies, representing in all 

 eleven different states, assembled in Georgetown, D. C. It was 

 now a little over five years since the organization of a temporary 

 National Grange by a little band of government clerks in Wash- 

 ington, and the active workers had been looking forward eagerly 

 to the time when that body could be reorganized on a permanent 

 basis. This was now accomplished, and the control of the 

 great and rapidly growing agricultural order of the Patrons 

 of Husbandry passed into the hands of actual farmers. 1 



The principal business of this session was the revision of 

 the constitution and by-laws, the election of a new set of officers, 

 and the incorporation of the National Grange under an act 

 of Congress providing for the creation of corporations in the 

 District of Columbia. 2 Among the articles of the constitution 



1 National Grange, Proceedings, vi (1873); Kelley, Patrons of Husbandry, 414- 

 421; Darrow, Patrons of Husbandry, 38-40; Messer, The Grange, 5; Dunning, 

 Farmer's Alliance History, 235; Pierson, in Popular Science Monthly, xxxii. 199-208; 

 Aiken, The Grange, 7. 



2 The certificate of incorporation, dated January 10, 1873, is i n National Grange, 

 Proceedings, vi. 33-34 (1873). 



