← E Clampus Vitus: the complete record

E Clampus Vitus · The march west

How E Clampus Vitus went west, 1845–1931

Every one of the 89 places in our register of the order’s early lodges rises on the map in the year of its first record: from a legend in western Virginia and a joke in an Indiana newspaper in 1846, across the gold rush to the camps of California, Hawaii and British Columbia, then the boosters’ revival of 1915 and the lunch at the Clift Hotel in 1931 that brought the order back for good. Press Play, or drag the year.

Reading the map

• Each pin is a place, raised in the year of its earliest surviving record, coloured by how close that record is to the event: gold for a record written at the time, blue for one cited or seen only as a clipping, violet for one written down years later, grey for a legend. Press a colour above to hide it.
• Tell the story walks you through it in eleven stops, from the legend of 1845 to the lunch of 1931, and can read each one aloud. From 1849 a covered wagon takes the overland road and a ship the sea route by Panama.
• Press a pin for the place, the lodge, the first record and a link to the source where it can be read.
• The road west. From 1849 the map shows the California Trail, the overland road by Fort Hall and the Truckee that Dr. Evan J. Bonine and Laban Harter of the Cassopolis lodge took that year, and the sea route by Panama.
• Find the old lodge nearest you asks your browser where you are, measures the distance on your own device and flies to the nearest place on record. Your location is not sent anywhere or kept.
• Drag to turn the map, scroll or pinch to come closer; California and The East fly to either end.

Sources: the register of early lodges and the account of the boosters’ revival and of the revival of 1931 in E Clampus Vitus: the complete record, each place with its first source; the overland road from the records of 1849 in Part 1. Land, coasts, lakes, rivers, borders and the outlines of the mountain ranges and plateaus: Natural Earth (public domain). The heights are a sketch drawn from those outlines and much exaggerated, for the eye, not a survey; the places are set at their towns, or for a camp that is gone, at its site. Hawaii is shown in an inset. 3D drawing by three.js. Not affiliated with E Clampus Vitus.