Page 311 - PGM Compendium

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Of
M⸫W⸫ Selucius Garfielde: 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 in 1856,
where he became a supporter of Senator Stephen A. Douglas. Though Douglas lost the Democratic

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