Researched and Written By: Don Goss I don’t think anyone realizes they’re living through a defining decade while they’re in it. At the time, the 1970s just felt like life—busy, loud, full of responsibility, and moving faster than I could always keep up with. But looking back now, I can see how those years shaped …
Read more ““The 1970s, As I Lived Them” — A First‑Person Narrative from Paul A. Goss”
Researched and Written By: Don Goss Chapter I — The Croft at the Edge of the World The dawn mist clung to the hills of Axminster like a veil, softening the edges of the world. At the center of that quiet landscape stood Gosseton Croft, a modest freeholding of barley fields, grazing meadow, and a …
Researched and Written By: Don Goss Chapter I. The Edge of England (c. 1550) The wind came screaming off the Channel long before the storm clouds appeared. In the village of Charmouth, where the cliffs of Dorset rose like broken teeth above the sea, the Goss family had learned to read the weather the way …
Read more “The Wind before the Crossing – An Ancestral Saga of the Goss Family, 1550–1662”
Researched and Written By: Don Goss CHAPTER I — The Leaving of England I will never forget the sound the ropes made as they were cast off — a heavy, final thud against the wooden posts of the Weymouth dock. It was the sound of a door closing behind us, the last sound of England …
Read more “The Crossing — A First‑Person Saga of the Goss Family”
Researched and Written By: Don Goss Prologue — The Wind Before the Storm England in the mid‑1600s was a land of tension. The Civil War had left scars on every village, every hearth. Taxes rose, harvests failed, and the old fishing towns along the southern coast felt squeezed between poverty and the sea. Rumors drifted …
Read more “The Coming of the Goss Family to America — A 17th‑Century Story”
Written by: Don Goss 32° KCCH Brethren, when we speak of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in the United States, we are really speaking about two sister jurisdictions that share a common heritage but have grown into distinct expressions of the same Masonic tradition. These are the Southern Jurisdiction (SJ) and the Northern Masonic …
Read more “Southern vs. Northern Jurisdictions — and Why It Matters for the Valley of Tallahassee”
April 30th, 2026Written By: R∴ W∴ Don Goss Including the Masonic Legacy of Its Namesake, Past Master J. Edwin Larson When the Grand Lodge of Florida convened in the spring of 1967, one item on its agenda would quietly shape the Masonic landscape of the state capital for generations to come. On April 27, 1967, …
Read more “Historical Narrative of J. Edwin Larson Lodge No. 361”
Researched and Written By: Don Goss Long before the Goss family ever set foot on the rocky soil of Maine, their story unfolded along the salt‑stung coast north of Boston. Generations of them lived by the rhythm of the Atlantic—its tides, its storms, its hard‑won harvests. It was a world of fishing boats, narrow harbor …
Read more “The Goss Family of Danville, Maine — A Narrative History”
Researched and Written By: Don Goss By the mid‑1930s, Harry and Ruby Goss moved through each day with a quiet, steady purpose. They had said it often enough that the children could have recited it themselves: every one of them would finish high school. That was the family covenant. Harry and Ruby would work as …
Researched and Written By: Don Goss TRANSPORTATION — A WORLD HELD TOGETHER BY HORSEFLESH AND HOPE In the early years of the Harry Goss family, the world beyond the farm felt farther away than any map could show. Leaving home meant preparation—long, exhausting preparation. Chores first, always. Then baths drawn from water heated on the …