Page 320 - PGM Compendium

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Of
M⸫W⸫ Selucius Garfield

1860-1861

Most Worshipful Brother Selucius Garfielde (he
insisted on the “e” at the end of his name) was born at
Shoreham, Vermont on December 8, 1822, exactly
three years before his life-long friend, Thomas
Milburne Reed. It is stated that he was a first cousin of
the father of President Garfield.

At the age of 13 he started out, first to Gallipolis, Ohio,
and then to Paris, Kentucky, without money, to acquire
an education and make his way in the world; and from
that time he received no financial aid from parents or
friends. At 15, he began teaching; at 18, entered college
at Augusta where he was graduated in 1842. He then
taught school for two years in Mason and Fleming
Counties in Kentucky and in 1844 was admitted to the bar and married.

Brother Garfielde was brought to Masonic Light in Holloway Lodge, No. 153, Sherburne,
Kentucky, in the autumn of 1847. Brother Thomas M. Reed, as a member of that Lodge, assisted
in conferring the degrees upon him; and, in turn, Garfielde subsequently presided in Sherburne
Chapter, No. 47, when Brother Reed was therein exalted to the Holy Royal Arch. Brother Garfielde
also took the Cryptic and Scottish Rite degrees, the latter including the 32d degree, in Boston in
1853. He affiliated with Olympia Lodge (then a part of the Oregon Jurisdiction) on September 19,
1857. He would be elected as Grand Master of our jurisdiction in 1860. Upon leaving office, he
was granted a dimit from membership in Washington.

Garfielde’s political career began in 1849 when he was elected, as a Democrat, in a county having
a Whig majority of 600 or 800, to be a member of the State Constitutional Convention.

The following year he lost his wife, and the three children she had borne him all died in early
infancy. Bowed down with sorrow, he sailed for California, around the Horn. In September, 1851,
he was found by his boyhood friend, Thomas Milburne Reed, lying ill and destitute, alone, on a
bed of loose straw in a small tent in the outskirts of Sacramento. Tenderly nursed back to health
by that brother of the mystic tie, he resumed the practice of the law, at Georgetown, California,
and entered upon a public and political career. In 1852, Garfielde was elected to the California
State Assembly as a Democrat from El Dorado County. He served a single term, from January 3
to May 19, 1853. While in the Legislature, he was appointed on a commission to compile the first
California Code.

Active in Democratic politics, he was elected a delegate to the Democratic National Convention