Berlin Lodge, No. 461, I.O.O.F., was organized January 9, 1852. The following were charter members:
Samuel S. Platt
John Paten
L. J. Case
Daniel Heffley
Aaron Miller
George B. Armstrong
Charles Stoner
William H. Platt
John S. Heffley
Washington Megahan
James C. Leabheart
Henry Shomber
William P. Carroll
Henry F. Swope
Thomas Stewart
Henry Brubaker
William P. Foust
Josiah Zimmerman
Walter Chalfant
John Roberts
Jonathan Statler
The first officers were:
S. S. Platt, N.G.
John Paten, V.G.
Lemuel J. Case, Sec’y
Aaron Miller, Ass’t Sec’y
Daniel Heffley, Treas.
The present membership is forty-seven. The funds of the lodge are invested in a two-story brick lodge-building on Main street, erected in 1883; also in an Odd-Fellows’ cemetery. Of the cemetery, one acre was purchased of S. S. Platt in 1855 for one hundred dollars, and an additional lot of four acres purchased of Josiah Donner in 1872 for seventeen hundred dollars. The Odd-Fellows’ Cemetery Association was organized January 17, 1873, the lotowners to be the stockholders; the funds of the association to be derived from the sale of lots, and four dollars to be paid by the lodge to the society on the sale of each square, this amount to be put on interest, and the interest applied to keeping the grounds in order. The original officers were:
A. Heffley, president
John J. Knepper, secretary
D. A. Brubaker, Jacob J. Zorn and Augustus Kerl, trustees
At present the funds of the association amount to three hundred dollars. The cemetery is a beautiful spot and is kept in fine order.
(Source: History of Bedford, Somerset & Fulton Counties, PA; 1884)
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