Jeff Owens wrote . . . <I don't think they enjoy the widespread popularity of the past. In 1896 <they had nearly 170,000 <members. . . "the Improved Order of Red Men held the <American Indians in high regard......The men who organized the Order <were impressed by the ethical nature of the American Indian, and hoped <to emulate their lifestyle through a pattern of fraternity and charity." This fits with what we discovered about the group a couple of years ago when we wanted to find out about a picture we had of my husband's father (Loren Cole) in a baseball uniform with the "Redmen" team name on the front. This "fraternity" or "lodge" or group spread all over the United States. My husband's father was a member of a "tribe" in Livermore, California, in the late 1920's, early '30s, though we suspect he joined mostly to be a part of their "semi-pro" baseball team. We researched the local Livermore newspaper (The Livermore Herald) for the years Jim's father played ball and found the following . . . The Cotati Tribe of Red Men, the name of the Livermore lodge, was organized in 1925 when some fifty members were initiated. The Order of Red Men had its beginnings in New England in 1765 and began as a social organization. In the pre-Revolution fervor the Order took on a more patriotic tone and colonial leaders used the group to further plans to combat the British. According to the Herald, "Due largely to the fact that those men who 'dumped the tea into Boston harbor' painted their faces and otherwise disguised themselves as Indians, those several organizations gradually lost their identity and became more generally known as Red Men." After a split in their ranks was mended in 1835, they changed their name to the Improved Order of Red Men, and, as of 1925, claimed to have tribes and councils in every state with a membership of 500,000 including the Degree of Pocahontas, their related women's organization. Carole Osborne Cole -- Researching OSBORN(E), BAILEY, ALLEN, HENDRICKSON, FORMAN, SHIBLA, NEWMAN, FULKERSON, DOTY, HAVENS