4 THE AGRARIAN CRUSADE 



Post Office, Treasury, and Agricultural Depart- 

 ments " are usually recognized as the founders of 

 the Patrons of Husbandry, or, as the order is more 

 commonly called, the Grange. These men, all of 

 whom but one had been born on farms, were O. H. 

 Kelley and W. M. Ireland of the Post Office De- 

 partment, William Saunders and the Reverend A. 

 B. Grosh of the Agricultural Bureau, the Reverend 

 John Trimble and J. R. Thompson of the Treasury 

 Department, and F. M. McDowell, a pomologist of 

 Wayne, New York. Kelley and Ireland planned a 

 ritual for the society; Saunders interested a few 

 farmers at a meeting of the United States Porno- 

 logical Society in St. Louis in August, and secured 

 the cooperation of McDowell ; the other men helped 

 these four in corresponding with interested farmers 

 and in perfecting the ritual. On December 4, 1867, 

 having framed a constitution and adopted the motto 

 Esto perpetua, they met and constituted themselves 

 the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry. 

 Saunders was to be Master; Thompson, Lecturer; 

 Ireland, Treasurer; and Kelley, Secretary. 



It is interesting to note, in view of the subse- 

 quent political activity in which the movement for 

 agricultural organization became inevitably in- 

 volved, that the founders of the Grange looked for 



