234 HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL. 



Department, and Mr. F. M. McDowell, a vineyardist of Wayne, 

 New York, were induced to labor with the five, and these seven 

 constituted the founders of the Order of the Patrons of Hus- 

 bandry, though several mutual friends, now unknown to the 

 order, were at sundry times consulted. For nearly two years 

 these seven men wrought, until they completed a well-devised 

 scheme of organization, based upon a ritual of four degrees for 

 men, and four for women. Having framed a constitution, 

 adapted to this ritual, to govern them, these men met on the 

 4th day of December, 1867, in the little brown building now 

 standing embowered in the trees of Four and a Half Street 

 and Missouri Avenue, in the city of Washington, and then and 

 there constituted themselves the National Grange of the Patrons 

 of Husbandry, with Saunders as Master, Thompson as Lecturer, 

 Ireland as Treasurer, and Kelley as Secretary. The remaining 

 offices were left vacant. 



The constitution of the order .required that every subordinate 

 grange should be composed of at least nine men and four women, 

 and that fifteen such granges might apply for the organization 

 of a State Grange. In accordance with these provisions, a State 

 Grange was organized in Minnesota, on the 23d day of Febru- 

 ary, 1869, and another in Iowa, on the I2th day of January, 1871. 

 On the 3d day of January, 1872, the National Grange met in its 

 fifth annual session, and, as an accession to its members, hailed 

 with a welcome the presence of Dudley W. Adams, the master 

 of the State Grange of Iowa, and the first member of the order 

 who had ever met with the original seven. 



Anterior to the fifth session of the National Grange, there 

 had been organized, in the several States, about two hundred 

 granges, whose charter fees had partially reimbursed the 

 founders for the money advanced in the cause ; but annual sala- 

 ries had been promised to the master, the secretary, and the 

 treasurer, not a dollar of which could now be paid, for there 

 was, as yet, not a surplus penny in the treasury. During the 

 year 1872, new life was infused into the order, and before its 

 close 1074 granges had been organized, scattered over more than 

 half the States of the Union. The founders continued to work 

 most assiduously, and framed a degree peculiarly suited to the 

 State Grange, and another higher one for the National Grange, 



