For more than a century and a half lodges of the Grand United Order of Oddfellows (GUO of OF) were the main centres of influence, socially, culturally and otherwise for black people in the United States and other parts of the western world including little Bermuda.

And credit for that in the main belongs to a man named Peter Ogden. In Bermuda, however that focus shifted from the American based lodges or Friendly Societies to to the Independent Order of Oddfellows, Manchester Unity (IO of OF, MU), which was which was rooted in Manchester, England and brought to Bermuda by British Garrison forces stationed in Pembroke and St George’s.

Peter Ogden was a man who has a special place in the evolution of black people since their emancipation from slavery in 1834.

With his own slavery background and grit as a self educated man, Ogden did not take lightly the rebuff he got when he sought to join an Oddfellows lodge in New York, which proved to be a lodge for whites only.

His hope and expectation was to receive some of the benefits such lodges promised men of character seeking to protect themselves and families in times of sickness and adversity.

Ogden was a seaman aboard a ship trading between New York and England. He so impressed his fellow sailors they encouraged him to join their lodge, Victoria Lodge No. 448 in Liverpool.

He so mastered the society’s ritual that he was granted a warrant which enabled him on March 1, 1843 to establish the Grand United Order of Oddfellows in America (G.U.O. of O.F.) Bermudian scholar, the late Dr Kenneth E Robinson in his book Heritage p. 163., tells us: “When the Peter Ogden story reached Bermuda it fired the imagination of a group of black men who decided to go to the USA and seek to become members of the New York Lodge. Having done so, they returned home and made known their favoured impressions about Odd-Fellowship.”

Upon their urging Somers Pride of India of India Lodge, No 899 was formed in1848, under a pride of India tree in St George’s.

Four years later, in 1852 brother lodges formed. They were Alexandrina No. 1026 in Hamilton and Albert Lodge, No. 1027 in Somerset.

The lodges and church were pivotal in the progression of the former black slaves, who at Emancipation in 1834, owned nothing more than the clothes on their backs.

Their mantra was friendship, love and truth, caring for the sick; educating the orphans and to burying the dead.

The blacks did not qualify for financing from the banks or overage from the mainstream insurance companies.

To mark the 162nd anniversary of Alexandrina Lodge, members gathered on Sunday for their annual thanksgiving service.

In previous years members paraded to and from nearby churches for the observance, but this year it was in-house. And traditionally, on the third Sunday in May it was in tandem with Odd Fellows everywhere, for the Ogden Day celebration.

The Rev Terry Hassel, pastor of Heard Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, North Shore, Pembroke was the guest preacher.

Barrister Leo Mills, a Lay Reader in his own Wesley Methodist Church, Hamilton, and also the Noble Grand, or senior officer of Alexandrina Lodge later delivered the Peter Ogden address.

It should be noted that these events were taking place during the observance of May as Heritage Month in Bermuda.

The Oddfellows have deep and extensive connections with Bermuda’s heritage, having been at times, the developers of the country’s most prominent social and cultural centres, like the old Colonial Opera House by the Manchester Unity Oddfellows in Victoria Street, opposite St Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church.

And of course Alexandrina lodge situated directly south of the HSBC Drive-in Bank of Bermuda, Court Street, and Hamilton.