Lassen Historical District Outing

October 1, 2023

Lassen Masonic Hall Downtown Benton City

Article By Dave Freeman

 

 

In 1848 Peter Lassen returned to Keytesville Missouri to acquire a Masonic Charter for what would become the first Masonic Hall in California.  He then returned the same year.  This Masonic Hall was most likely constructed by Lassen’s Ranch foreman, Daniel Sill for payment of one square league of land on the northside of Deer Creek.  This building was a typical Masonic Hall of the time, a structure 15 x 30 cubits in size (26 feet 3 inches by 52 feet 6 inches), of wood frame construction, 2 stories in height, and with a half basement, an identical Masonic Hall structure was built a few years later in the town of Tehama, but this time with brick construction provided by Daniel Sill.  Lumber for the Lassen Masonic Hall was milled by William B. Ide at his first California sawmill, which was located about 1 mile to the south of Lassen’s Masonic Hall.

 

Today, the Masonic Hall site is simply the basement’s depression surrounded by a robust debris field.

 

 On 1-2-2022 we did a basic site survey of the extent of this debris field surrounding this old building site.  We found an exceptional amount of cut nails, pottery fragments, and other expected artifacts of the Gold Rush times.

 

The decision to excavate 2 units in the basement was made to ascertain construction details of the basement and how the building met its final fate.  Permission was asked and was given to dig square holes in the large square hole on the landowner’s property.  This site is located at the junction of the Lassen Trail – Masonic Branch and the Marysville to Shasti Road.

 

The weather had been perfect up until about 16 hours prior to our outing when a line of thunderheads passed over the site.  This caused some concerns for passage of our vehicles on the road into the site and if the Masonic basement was possibly flooded.  Because of the wet weather we caravanned to the 1848 site by a longer route and entered the area by way of the Masonic Hall branch of the Lassen Trail.  It was found the roads were passable (a bit slippery in spots) and the basement was not flooded.  In attendance were Archaeologist Seth Owens, John Brewer, Nat Millinger, Dr. Phil Filbrandt, Meg and Frank Zbierski, Dave Maron, Steve Fleming, Alden Burilison, Virginia Freeman, Dave Freeman and Artifact Abbey.  Mouse Owens was not impressed with the area and did not attend.

 

At our September outing, we set our true north datums and found the building was not set with the front door to true east, as is the Masonic custom, but rather it was shifted about  +22 degrees suggesting the layout of the building was set with a compass which was not corrected for the magnetic declination of 1848. This setting the True North Datum was bisected and the archaeological units were laid out along this east / west line.

 

Unit One was near the eastern end of the basement and because of this, there was considerable exterior soil overburden which washed into the perimeter of the site depression.  The excavation was dug in 10 cm intervals and the removed material was screened through a 1/4 inch mesh.  It was quickly noted that the artifacts concentration was far less than the surrounding building grounds.

 

 

The screening yielded mainly small iron and glass frags.  Excavation continued until a sterile layer was encountered at approximately 45 cm.  This final prominent layer was composed of mostly round stones exclusively in the 1 cm to 4 cm range.

 

 

Unit Two was set four meters west on the east / west line of Unit One.  This second location was outside the exterior wall slump material.  It too was mainly small iron and glass frags, followed by a similar round stone layer.

 

 

Unit One and Unit Two did not show any evidence that the building had been subject to a fire.  No layer of charcoal or melted glass frags were encountered.  Also of note, the basement had significant surface artifacts such as period shovel blades, door locks, etc, while the actual excavated material was quite lacking in artifact material compared to the surrounding exterior of the structure site.

 

Conclusion- It appears that the Lassen Masonic Hall was intentionally demolished. The bulk of the nails were not reused but left surrounding the site. The lack of any significant cut nails and pottery concentrations in the two excavations suggests that the floor structure above the basement was one of the last features to be demolished at the Masonic Hall, thus leaving the basement relatively artifact free.

 

Oh and the lunchtime Bar-B-Q was a welcomed break.

 

I would like to thank everyone for their wonderful work on this outing.

 

Dave Freeman

 

Lead- Lassen Historical District Group

 

Trails West BOD