About Charters and Lodge Names: Talidandaganu’ 293
Posted in Patch Collecting,Scouting Blogs and Websites by John E. Pannell on December 6th, 2008 at 6:05 am 
Tali-Danda-Ganu 293 Charter, 1957
John Thomas recently wrote me. He was fascinated by the recent blog post about Quil-Shan Lodge. It seems there was confusion in the early years of his own lodge, Talidandaganu’ and he has the charters to prove this.
According to Mr. Thomas Ron Stulce, a charter member of this lodge, was asked to help clean out the local Council office one day and to throw out a bunch of old files. While doing that he found, and was able to salvage some old charters that would otherwise have been discarded.
Councils routinely discard archival type information, especially older records and charters that in their minds only occupy space. This appears to have been endemic within the BSA as a massive purge of records and memorabilia occurred when the BSA moved its headquarters from New Jersey to Texas. There is no telling how much information was permanently lost to future Scouting historians! Thanks to Mr. Stulce for saving these old lodge charters.
The lodge’s 1957 charter, the first after this lodge’s reactivation, pictured at the head of this post, spelled the name “Tali-Danda-Ganu”.
Below are pictured the 1958 (Tali-Danda-Ganu), 1959 (Talidandiganu) and 1962 (Talidandaganu) charters from this lodge. The last spelling, except for the absence of the terminal apostrophe, is the same as the current spelling.
 Tali-Danda-Ganu 293 Charter, 1958 |
 Talidandiganu 293 Charter, 1959 |
 Talidandaganu 293 Charter, 1962 |
Mr. Thomas notes other old charters through at least 1965 also excluded the apostrophe.
Should these be treated by historians as lodge name changes? Should these be considered only typographical errors or misspellings of the lodge name? The lodge charter is the one official document that grants a local Order of the Arrow lodge its name and authorization to function. As such I believe they need to be accepted as historically accurate records of the lodge’s name, except for possible rare cases where an error can otherwise be documented as such.
If we accept these charters as accurate, it can be argued that lodge 293 had at least three other names than its current one (Talidandaganu’) and what Blue Book reports as its original name (Chickamauga). To my knowledge no patches were issued using the alternate spellings during those years.
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John,
Thanks for posting. Just to clarify: I don’t have the charters. Mr. Stulce does.
And for a shameless plug: anybody with historical documents from Chattanooga, please contact me.
John
John -
Fantastic information!
Do you plan to post the Quil-Shan, Tali-Danda-Ganu, Talidandiganu and Talidandaganu names to the OA Images list of lodges?
Frank
I’ve already expressed my sentiments to John, but I highly discourage adding the Talidandaganu’ variations to anything resembling an official list of lodge names. The reasons are numerous.
1) While I recognize that the National charter is important, that National is what allows the lodge to function and recognizes the official name, that is not what is important in our Order. It is the youth leadership, the local fellowships, the Ordeals at camps, and the cheerful service provided at home that is what makes the lodge what it is. As such, I see a significant interest in looking towards local custom. If the Charter has one name, but the lodge always called itself something different (for example, “Talidandiganu” has NEVER been used outside of the Charter – I think that is a typo), we should give great deference to the term used by the brothers in that lodge.
2) There is enough confusion as it is with Lodge names. When the lodge name changed on the charter, is that the disbanding of one lodge and the new charter of a new lodge? Were there minutes from a meeting creating the change? Or does the Charter simply reflect the name as it was printed by the Lodge Advisor or Scout Executive (or his secretary) at the time on the recharter form? There is only one Talidandaganu’, and always has been. (Yes, there was a Chicakamauga Lodge previously that held, to the best of my knowledge, one ceremony – that is different.)
3) In the interest of those who collect patches, Talidandaganu’ is different from many other lodges whose names have changed over the years. None of the official memorabilia has misspelled the lodge name (with the exception of omitting the terminal apostrophe from time to time – which I think was just an oversight). We’ve misspelled our camp name, we’ve misspelled the name of brothers in whose memory we dedicate an Ordeal, we’ve misidentified Conclave themes and other lodges’ numbers on section items, we’ve misidentified the real “anniversary” on some anniversary pieces – but we’ve always spelled the lodge name the same way since it’s inception 51 years ago. We don’t need a Lodge 293a, 293b, 293c, 293d, and 293e.
4) What is gained by recognizing these names which are reflected on the Charter? Some would say that it is in the interest of reflecting the “whole picture” and accurately reporting history. Instead, I submit that it is more appropriate to include this neat information in a footnote of the history maintained by the lodge.
In sum, I disagree, and strongly discourage, the addition of new names for the lodge on oaimages.com or any future Blue Book. Other lodges that had a more significant historical change (e.g., there are some lodges who realized their lodge name was “spelled wrong” years after they had been using it) might have a different interest. The benefits of adding the names to the list are substantially outweighed by the burdens of doing so.
Of course, I can’t speak for Quil-Shan – that might be a completely different story!