No member of the Improved Order of Red Men has more strongly impressed his personality upon it than has Past Great Incohonee Thomas K. Donnalley, and no member has worked so actively for its interests for so many great suns. Perhaps it is an illustration of the hereditary instinct that he has given his life’s work for the advancement of an Order which is both patrio- tic and humantarian. His ancestors were with William Penn who was the first white man to deal honestly with the North Ameri- can Indians. They fought in the Revolution, in the War of 1812, and in the Mexican War ; and Brother Donnalley himself was in that of 1861. His grandfather was of the Order of Red Men of 1813, and his uncle an Improved Red Man.
Brother Donnalley was born in Philadelphia, Pa., October 2oth, 1838, received a public school education, graduated from the Philadelphia High School, learned the trade of cutting and for twenty-five years was engaged in the manufacture of para- phernalia for fraternal societies; He was adopted a member of Peqiiod Tribe, No. 18, Philadelphia, April I9th, 1860, and for forty-eight years has continued his membership in said Tribe, and the date of the anniversary of his admission is celebrated by many of the people of the New England States, as the anniver- sary of the Battle of Lexington.
He was a member of the first team ever organized to work the degrees of the fraternity, assuming the character of the Pro- phet, and the work accomplished by this team was of incal- culable good and of great service to the Great Chiefs in exem- plifying the work. He has wonderful dramatic abilities, and can alone exemplify the degrees from beginning to end, so that when a Great Chief or as National Exemplifier he has given many Tribes in many reservations both pleasure and instruction, and was the only brother that ever held the appointment of “National Exemplifier.”
He entered the Great Council of Pennsylvania in January, 1864, and the Great Council of United States in September, 1866, being one of the youngest Red Men that ever was admitted to said body.