The Order of the Golden Chain is a fraternal social organization for Freemasons and their immediate female relatives. It was founded in 1929 in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Local units are called "Links", and exist in northeastern US coastal states. Each has six officers known as "jewels". The "Grand Link" is located in New Jersey. During the Great Depression the constituent links contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of necessities to hospitals, nursing homes, and orphanages. During World War II the Golden Chain contributed humanitarian supplies to the war effort. After the war the Order created Camp Golden Chain, with 145 acres (0.59 km2) of land and a 10-acre (40,000 m2) lake in Warren County, New Jersey, for underprivileged children of all races, and engaged in a number of other efforts for the benefit of sick or disabled young people. It sponsors the Girls of the Golden Court for teen-age girls.
A previous Order of the Golden Chain was founded in 1881 and pronounced bankrupt in 1899. "Order of the Golden Chain" is also the name of an honor conferred in Lions Clubs. In former ages, it was the name of an honor conferred by the kings of Munster in Ireland, and an honor conferred by the rulers of Saxony in Germany.
Famous quotes containing the words order, golden and/or chain:
“The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquillity of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
“All saints revile her, and all sober men
Ruled by the God Apollo’s golden mean—”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world—and never will.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)