Creating BODIE MINERS’ UNION

International Order of the Odd Fellows Lodge #279- Meeting Hall- Bodie California.

BODIE MINERS’ UNION formed December 22, 1877 

December 22, 1877

The BODIE MINERS’ UNION was created on December 22, 1877, as part of the International Order of the Odd Fellows, Bodie Lodge #279.

The BODIE MINERS’ UNION By-Laws- were nearly identical to the “unions of Virginia City.” A handwritten early history of the then three year old Lodge, claims that its author, Frank P. Willard- whose occupation is listed as Real Estate- was 24 years old, “when he circulated a Petition among the the more than two hundred Odd Fellows present at Bodie, in order to create the Bodie Lodge. He obtained only five names; those five  already had withdrawal cards from their original Lodge with them.”

Weekly meetings were held at the Williamson and Roger’s Saloon, and the gathering grew to over sixty potential members.

….few Lodges have ever been established, that assumed at their very beginning such an arduous duties as fell upon the young shoulders of Bodie Lodge #279.

Our camp was overrun. Many men from every walk of life had rushed hither.

Poorly fed and clothed they fell easy prey to sickness of every kind, and it was no infrequent occurrence for us to have from five to twelve sick Brothers upon our hands….. but nobly, most nobly, did the members of Bodie Lodge come to their assistance….we levied a three dollar per member to bury the Dead, and relieve the distressed. Frank P. Willard. Odd Fellows Lodge #279

Bodie Odd Fellows Lodge #279 —-organized the mining district into “a union of spiritual brotherhood.” The Lodge membership’s commitment the to health and welfare of their “fraternal brotherhood,” extended beyond to the “safety rules and woeking conditions in the mining operations.” The men not only took care of one-another “in the mining shafts”- above ground they created the “township- with an Odd Fellows Cemetery.