History
First, and according to popular request, a short history of the term “Loj”. Apparently people didn’t start using the abbreviation until sometime between 1985 and 1987. I imagine the change took place because the exec board from that time was a particularly jocular and silly bunch. In any case, before that it was a “lodge” just like all the other lodges. But for the purpose of this history, I have retroactively applied the abbreviated version.
The 1958 Edition
I never saw the very first Loj (that was looong before my time), but this is a picture of it from 1958. It was a nine-room farmhouse, about a hundred years old. The site of the first Loj was a few miles south of the current site, on Eastern Corner Road in Plymouth, New Hampshire. The club acquired it in 1942 at a cost of about 15,000 dollars, and it lasted us 20 years. On a snowy New Year’s Morning in 1962, the building caught fire and burned to the ground. Luckily, everyone made it out ok. Since then the TMC has held a Thanksgiving celebration in mid-January in thanks that no-one was hurt.
The 1971 Edition
The second Loj was built on a new site in 1963, thanks to a $25,000 grant from the university. There are no photographs of it, but we do have a concept drawing of it from a Tufts (Daily) Weekly article about the groundbreaking from fall of 1963. Apparently it was an A-Frame style building, basically a big triangle with shingles. I imagine it was quite an ugly Loj. Perhaps we ought to be glad it was demolished by the state to make way for Route 93, the new interstate, also known as the Daniel Webster Highway.
The most recent Loj was a big two-story farmhouse with lots of gables and a screened-in porch, which we bought with the money the government gave us after reposessing the previous Loj. There was a wood stove, a huge kitchen, and a big cozy room full of long tables where everyone sat for Thanksgiving. Nestled in the woods nearby was a sweat lodge which now has fallen apart. This picture is from 1973, and the one below is from ’71. The legends say it was used as a farm petting zoo before the TMC got a hold of it, and in fact there’s plenty of proof of this inside the new Loj in the form of wierd old wooden signs, and in the barn, which hasn’t been torn down yet. If you look closely enough, you’ll find hand-painted signs advertising pony rides and rabbits that are now part of the walls. Inside the loj, there were huge murals painted on all the walls by long-graduated TMC alumni. We’ll all miss that loj. It was condemned in 1994, and was torn down in the winter of 1998, to make way for the new Loj, which was finished in 1999.
