Shelby  County,  Indiana
Biographies

Joseph  Adams

The  Daily  Republican
Saturday evening, July 11, 1885
Page 2,  column 2
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PIONEER  SKETCHES.
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Joseph Adams and  Percy Kitchel, Two
of the Founders of the Shelby-
ville Masonic Lodge.
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[BY  WILLIAM  HACKER]

Written for the Republican:
          Joseph Adams. -- This good brother came with  Brother Ferris  from the State of New York, purchased land and settled in the same neighborhood where he resided, opening up and cultivating his farm until some time in 1883 when he sold these premises and removed up into Laport county, Indiana, where he again purchased land and proceeded to open up another famr where he continued in agricultural pursuits for the remainder of his life.  From the best information that has been obtained he died perhaps in the fall of 1840, being the second one of the original number of our lodge that was called away by death.  Brother Adams, like Brother Ferris his neighbor and early associate, was an excellent man of pure morals and strict integrity, very quiet and unassuming in deportment.  He brought his Freemasonry with him to this county, took an active part in the formation of our lodge, was named in the warrant by the Grand Master as the first Junior Warden where he remained zealously performing the duties of that station until May, 1826, when he was advanced to the station of Senior Warden.  In 1827 he was W. Master of the Lodge, and for the year 1828 he was its Treasurer.  At the close of this term his official relations with his brethren seem to have ended.  On his removal to Laport county, in 1833, he doubtless took a demit from the lodge though the records do not show that fact nor does his name appear among the records of the lodge after that date.  All this, however, may have been an omission of the Secretary.
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming

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