This is the time of the year when two significant events tug at my heritage strings for recognition. The first leading up to Heritage Month which the country is currently observing, is the annual Installation of Officers of the Hamilton District of the Independent Order of Manchester Unit (IO of OMU). The other in the middle of the month, is Peter Odgen Day, the celebration of which is set for Sunday after next, May 13.The name Odgen belongs to a man who has a special place in the evolution of black people, most especially Oddfellows, since their emancipation from slavery in 1834. He established the Grand United Order of Oddfellows in America (GUO of OF) in 1843, in New York.With his own slavery background and grit as a self-educated man, Odgen did not take lightly the rebuff he got when he sought to join an Oddfellows lodge in New York, which proved to be a “white only” lodge. His hope and expectation in seeking to join 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.The late Bermudian scholar, Dr Kenneth Robinson in his book HERITAGE noted that when the Peter Odgen story reached Bermuda, it so fired the imagination of a group of black men they decided to go to the USA and became members of the New York lodge there. Upon their return home they made known their highly favoured impressions about Oddfellowship which resulted in the first of that Order, Somers Pride of India Lodge, being formed under a Pride of India tree in St. George’s in 1848.Four years later two more lodges were formed in Bermuda. They were Alexandrina No. 1026, in Court Street, Hamilton, in 1852 and shortly after Albert Lodge, No 1027 in Somerset. Alexandrina is that impressive blue building south of the HSBC Drive-in Bank.While the American-based Grand United Oddfellowship flourished here, it was not until 1879 that the Manchester, England-based Independent Order of Oddfellows took root in Bermuda. It stemmed from the fraternisation of British military personnel based in the Island with black Bermudians, leading to formation of the Loyal Flower of Day Lodge, and subsequently the Hamilton District of MU (see related story on the Installation of the District’s Provincial Grand Master).While Odd Fellowship came to Bermuda in the mid-to-late 1800s, followed in short order by other lodges (Shepherds, Good Samaritans, Gardeners, etc.) brought by blacks migrating here from the West Indies, making up what became known as the powerful Friendly Society Movement. Free Masonry, on the other hand, had been rooted here since the late 1700s. But it was white only English, Scottish and Irish brotherhoods comprised for the most part of the Island’s elite landowners, businessmen and slave owners. Eventually the racial proscriptions were removed and the country’s most influential blacks became dominant Free Masons.Each proudly practised their own rituals, with friendship and the intent to make good men (and eventually women) better being the common denominator. The Friendly Societies were primarily concerned with caring for the sick, educating orphans and burying the dead. They were had their own banking and social insurance systems, foreshadowing the modern society were know today.In any case, when Bro. Laurel Simmons was installed as Provincial Grand Master of the Hamilton District over a fortnight ago, he invited as a guest at his installation banquet the Rt Wor StClair B (Brinky) Tucker, who is Provincial Grand Master of all Irish Lodges in Bermuda.Their coming together as “Provincial Brothers” was an event worthy of note, being unprecedented for the two societies. The two Provincials are seen above with Prov. Tucker on the left.