The first lodge under the Independent Order of Odd Fellows was established on December 1, 1870, in Württemberg, Germany, by Dr. John F. Morse, a Past Grand Master in California and a member of California Odd Fellows Lodge #1 of San Francisco, California, U.S.A. After the institution of Württemberg Lodge, other lodges were instituted including Germania Lodge No. 1 in Berlin on March 30, 1871; Helvetia Lodge No. 1 in Zurich, Switzerland on April 2, 1871; Saxonia Lodge No. 1 in Dresden on June 6, 1871; and Schiller Lodge No. 3 in Stuttgart on May 25, 1872. During the first decades, many lodges were instituted including 56 lodges in the 1870s, 20 lodges in the 1880s, 41 lodges in the 1890s, and the membership totaled almost 4,000 brothers. The formal establishment of the IOOF Grand Lodge of the German Empire was on December 28, 1872.