BEAUMONT HAD AN ACTIVE CHAPTER OF THE ORDER OF THE HOO-HOO
By Judith Linsley
"Beaumont Lumberman Will Preside Over National Meeting of Hoo-Hoo," read the headline in the Beaumont Enterprise of August 31, 1919. The name sounds like something a toddler came up with, but it was actually a lumberman's fraternity. William A. Priddie, vice-president of the Beaumont Lumber Company, was the national head-the Supreme Snark of the Universe-of the Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo.
The International Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo was organized in Gurdon, Arkansas, in 1892, at the peak of the lumber boom that revitalized the "New South" after the Civil War. Six men involved in the timber industry, while waiting for a train after a lumbermen's meeting, formed an umbrella organization to serve as a networking and updating tool for the industry. Its underlying purpose would be to "support the health, happiness, and long life of its members."
The group resembled those of many fraternal organizations of the time-Masons, Elks, Woodmen of the World. Regarding the name, concatenate means "to link together in a series or chain," and lumber men were popularly known as "hoo-hoos." (The founders nearly called it the Ancient Order of Camp Followers, something with an entirely different connotation.)
The chief executive officer of each group was the Snark of the Universe. (Priddie, as the national head, was the Supreme Snark.), indicating that at least one founder had read Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark. Members of the board, in addition to the familiar chairman, vice-president, and secretary-treasurer, included the Seer of the House of Ancients and the Supreme Nines. The Supreme Nines were the Supreme Hoo-Hoo, the Senior and Junior Hoo-Hoos, the Scrivenoter, Bojum, Jabberwock, Custocatian, Arcanoper and Gurdon.
The number nine is important to the Hoo-Hoo. An 1895 book of by-laws decrees that meetings are to be held on the ninth day of the ninth month. The 1919 Chicago meeting Chicago began September 9. The Hoo-Hoo emblem is a black cat with its tail artfully curled into a nine, no doubt representing its nine lives. I wonder if the cat emblem referred to a "con-CAT-en-a-tion." New members were called "kittens."
Priddie was serving his second year as Supreme Snark of the Universe. The normal term of office was only one year, but the Hoo-Hoos hadn't held a convention in 1918 because the Great War was still raging in Europe. Priddie planned to step down at the Chicago convention.
The Enterprise affirmed Beaumont lumbermen's pride in having a local man in the highest Hoo-Hoo office in the nation. Plus, under Priddie, the order had "prospered" with an increase in membership, both new and reinstated.
The International Concatenation of Hoo-Hoo still exists as a service organization and lumber fraternity. The website at www.hoo-hoo.org states that "the group seeks to instill a desire to make a sincere contribution to the industry and society through fraternal participation in its business, social and community programs." The six men in the railway station would be proud.
Beaumont Enterprise, August 31, 1919; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concatenated_Order_of_Hoo-Hoo
WPH Hoo-Hoo certificate