For decades hundreds of letters addressed to the Creswick Masonic Lodge sat idle under the floor in a dusty back room of the heritage Albert Street building.
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The first thing I picked up was an invitation to the laying of the foundation stone of the old hospital dated January 1863.
- Val Lawrence - Creswick and District Historical Society secretary
It was not until the lodge sought out the assistance of the Creswick and District Historical Society earlier this year that the value of the correspondence was revealed.
“The lodge approached the historical society and said there is all this old correspondence, do you reckon there might be anything of use to you in it?” Creswick and District Historical Society secretary Val Lawrence recalled.
“The first thing I picked up was invitation to the laying of the foundation stone of the old hospital dated January 1863, and then I flipped at that.
“The next thing I thing I picked up was an invoice from T.W Anthony who owned the American Hotel in 1859, and I thought we’re on a winner here.”
The two organisations will put the letters on public exhibition at the lodge over three weeks. The pop-up museum will be opened by former Freemasons Victoria Grand Master Bruce Bartop at 2.30pm on Sunday.
All up 640 letters dating as far back as the mid-1800s will be on display, with many written and addressed to some of the town’s most high-profile figures including former premier Sir Alexander Peacock and the founder of the Amalgamated Miners' Association of Victoria, William Guthrie Spence.
Indeed, the correspondence revealed that it was the miners’ union which lent the Freemasons the money to build the lodge in 1890. The Freemasons had met at the American Hotel for the 31 years prior to the construction of the current space.
“There's a letter down there with (Guthrie Spence's) signature on it, and that would be worth a fortune to a collector,” Mrs Lawrence said.
Just as interesting as the letters from Creswick’s luminaries are the hundreds of requests for welfare from the Goldfields region as well as from abroad.
Letters from as far as Ireland, Russia and India during times of famine have been uncovered.
“A lot of the letters were from people seeking money," Mrs Lawrence said. "People who had not made it on the Goldfields, and the man had a wife and kids to look after but no work so he would ask if the lodge could help him.”
On top of the letters on display, Creswick Masonic Lodge member Michael Clark estimated thousands of letters remained unread.
While the letters may have been resurrected from under the floorboards, Mrs Lawrence and Mr Clark both insisted the correspondence would take pride of place in the lodge in the future.
