Independent Order of Good Templars
History of the order
The Good Templars was founded in 1851 in Utica, New York, It has since spread worldwide and publishes the National Good Templar 10 times a year. In 1994, there were 5,000 members in the United States alone.The Good Templars promotes total abstinence from alcohol. The founder, Daniel Cady, had been a member of the Sons of Temperance (founded 1842), which had assumed a number of fraternal and benevolent characteristics while trying to reform drunks and keep them reformed. His Knights of Jericho (1850) soon metamorphosed into the Good Templars in 1851, survived schism and reunification the following year (the short-lived Independent Order of Good Templars) and went on to prosper. It always admitted women on the same basis as men, and has, according to its own literature, always been racially mixed. In 1868 the organization spread to England.
Degrees of the order
Degree of Heart (1st Degree)
Degree of Charity (2nd Degree)
Degree of Royal Virtue (3rd Degree)
Degree of Charity (2nd Degree)
Degree of Royal Virtue (3rd Degree)