During the spring of 1929, the Improved Order of Red Men was making its way into South Carolina through a statewide campaign. York County, especially the western division, was vigorously polled for new “tribes” at Fort Mill, Sharon, York, Bullocks Creek, Hickory Grove, Old Point, Tirzah, McConnellsville and Smyrna. The Order of the Red Men is a patriotic fraternity in nature, endeavoring to inspire national pride and the principles of liberty. It traces it roots to the 1773 Boston Tea Party and the notable Sons of Liberty. Following the Revolution a number of patriotic groups united in 1813 forming the Society of Red Men. In the mid-1800s it went through a reorganizational process and became known as the Improved Order of Red Men. After reorganization, the Maryland Legislature chartered the first tribe organized under its new and improved name in Baltimore. The Order presently conducts its business under a non-profit charter granted by Congress and signed 17 April 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt. The I.O.R.M. has odd sounding titles for its offices, seemingly to come from Native American legend. The highest officer is known as the Great Incohonee. Other officers work under the titles: the Great Sachem, Great Senior Sagamore, the Great Junior Sagamore, Great Sannap, Great Mishinewa, Great Prophet, and the secretary is aptly called the Great Chief of Records while the Treasurer is known as the Great Keeper of Wampum. Today the national headquarters is located in Waco, Texas and since 1991 the organization’s national charity project supports research for Alzheimer’s disease. But let us return to 75 years ago. When the Order began its thrust into Western York County in 1929, it had approximately 500,000 members, and was the fourth largest fraternity in the country. Its’ women auxiliary, the Degree of Pocahontas, had more than a 40 year history, having been founded in 1885, three years before the towns of Sharon and Hickory Grove had been charted by the South Carolina legislature. The Order of Red Men may not have been well known locally, but there is reason to believe that there may have been a few local “tribes” present in western York County at the turn of the twentieth century. Fraternal and patriotic organizations became popular and spread across the nation after the turn of the century; the Improved Order of Red Men was no exception. Of the 105 patriotic orders founded between 1783 and 1900, 34 were formed before 1870 and 71 between 1870 and 1900. No doubt the I.O.R.M was spreading on the momentum. Too, we must remember that western York County, at the turn of the century was a young, rapidly developing economic society newly created from the arrival of a rail line in 1888. Membership in fraternal organizations was a natural part of an agricultural society’s evolution as it plowed into an industrial culture. The flow of money gave people time to join with organizations that expanded their view beyond cotton fields. At this time we are unsure what inroads the Order of the Red Man made in 1929. It may have been that the stock market crash the following October tomahawked their movement. But we do know that one man in western York County was a member long before the 1929 membership campaign. Within the peaceful confines of the Bullocks Creek Presbyterian Cemetery the grave of a local man is marked with the society’s emblem. Having died in 1907, the 59 years old man may have been a “Red Man” prior to reorganization and granting of its 1906 charter. Bearing testimony of its presence in western York county, the emblem bears the initials T.O.T.E. above a shield overlaid on the breast of an outstretched eagle and above the eagle’s head is: IMP. O. R. M. Pam, I plan to get a photograph of the emblem on the grave.
J.L. West – Author
This article and many others found on the pages of Roots and Recall, were written by author J.L. West, for the YC Magazine and have been reprinted on R&R, with full permission – not for distribution or reprint!
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