VOLUME LXV
February 2019
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VOLUME LXV FEBRUARY 2019 NUMBER 2 Published monthly as an official publication of the Grand Encampment of Knights Templar of the United States of America.
Jeffrey N. Nelson Grand Master
Contents Grand Master’s Message Grand Master Jeffrey N. Nelson ...................... 4 Knights Templar Have Supported Charities Throughout the Centuries Sir Knight James A. Marples............................. 7
Michael Burke Johnson Deputy Grand Master and Publisher Box 575 121 Bobs Creek Rd. Crowheart, WY 82512
Address changes or corrections and all membership activity Knight Templar Graveyard is Preserved including deaths should be reSir Knight James A. Marples........................... 10 ported to the recorder of the Meet Our Department Commanders local Commandery. Please do Sir Knight William F. “Bill” Reinhold not report them to the editor. Right Eminent Department Commander Mid-Atlantic Department.............................. 13 Two Perpendicular Parallel Lines Brother Matthew A. Leilich............................ 14 Freemasons and the Political Culture of the British Atlantic World, 1717-1798 Dr. Jessica L. Harland-Jacobs.......................... 21
Lawrence E. Tucker Grand Recorder Grand Encampment Office 5909 West Loop South, Suite 495 Bellaire, TX 77401-2402 Phone: (713) 349-8700 Fax: (713) 349-8710 E-mail: larry@gektusa.org
Magazine materials and correspondence to the editor should be sent in electronic form to the managing editor whose contact information is shown below. Materials and correspondence concernKnights Templar Holy Land Pilgrimage..................... 5 ing the Grand Commandery state supplements should be sent to the respective Prelate’s Chapel ...................................................... 6 supplement editor.
Features
Recipients of the Membership Jewel..................... 11 Beauceant News.................................................... 12 The Knights Templar Eye Foundation.................16,20 Grand Commandery Supplement........................... 18 Knights at the Bookshelf........................................ 34 In Memoriam........................................................ 35
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John L. Palmer Managing Editor
Post Office Box 566 Nolensville, TN 37135-0566 Phone: (615) 283-8477 Fax: (615) 283-8476 E-mail: ktmagazine@comcast.net
Cover photo of the Templar Chapel in Chwarszczany, Poland was taken by Sir Knight Tom Harmon.
Grand Encampment web site: www.knightstemplar.org www.knightstemplar.org/KnightTemplar/archive
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Grand Master’s Message
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his month we’d like to visit about the elephant in the room, membership. It’s no secret that the Grand Encampment, just like our sister fraternal, social, and civic organizations, is confronted by membership challenges. We can ignore the issue, hoping it will go away or resolve itself, or acknowledge it. I for one believe that a problem is best resolved by identifying it and then working on viable solutions to solve the problem. Unlike some fraternal organizations, we believe that to remain a viable and effective organization, the Grand Encampment must maintain its “critical mass.” We don’t know exactly what number constitutes a critical mass, but to paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart “we’ll know it when we see it.” Therefore, there will be a renewed emphasis on membership this triennium. We are emphasizing that every Grand, Subordinate, and Constituent Commandery must have a membership committee that is active and held accountable for results. What gets measured gets done. We have charged the Grand Encampment’s Membership Committee with the task of implementing this program. Over the next several months, the committee will be contacting each Grand Commandery to ensure that it and each of its constituent Commanderies has a working membership committee in place. The membership committee has already created a “tool box” and placed a link to it on the Grand Encampment’s website. The committee has begun to “fill” this tool box with “tools,” ideas that you and your membership committee can use to recruit, retain, and restore members. A new membership brochure has also been designed for your use. Just contact your department commander or the Grand Encampment office for copies. Membership is not easy. If it was, we would have found the solution to the problem by now. We believe that membership is everyone’s responsibility and is largely best accomplished through personal contact. It’s been said many times before, but it’s worth repeating, if each member merely replaced himself, our membership would stabilize, and if each member then recruited one additional member, our membership would double. Let’s get to work. Courteously, Jeffrey N. Nelson, GCT grand master
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Registration for the 2019 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF JESUS PILGRIMAGE is officially closed. We have reached our limit of fifty participants. We already have several people on a waiting list. Looking ahead, do consider these two upcoming options: KNIGHT TEMPLAR HOLY LAND PILGRIMAGE FOR SENIORS 2020 (and those with mild mobility issues) This pilgrimage is designed for those who may not be able to handle the aggressive itinerary of the "Footsteps" pilgrimage. The schedule is modified to involve not as much walking and climbing (although there is still some). The SENIORS pilgrimage is also open to Sir Knights, their ladies, friends, and guests. Each person is responsible for his own fees and expenses related to the pilgrimage. We are not able to accommodate significant mobility issues or wheelchairs. The KNIGHTS TEMPLAR HOLY LAND PILGRIMAGE FOR SENIORS is scheduled in midNovember on every fourth even numbered year or more often if interest warrants. The tentative dates for 2020 are November 9 – 19, 2020. Please access the Knights Templar Holy Land Pilgrimage website available through the Grand Encampment site (http://www.knightstemplar.org) for further information on deposits, itinerary, and registration forms. IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF JESUS HOLY LAND PILGRIMAGE 2021 for Sir Knights, their ladies, friends, and guests is open to anyone. Each person is responsible for his own fees and expenses related to the pilgrimage. This pilgrimage is an eleven day program that covers as much ground as possible in the touring days (we average 5 – 7 miles of walking many days, often uphill or up steps and on uneven surfaces). The IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF JESUS HOLY LAND PILGRIMAGE is scheduled in midNovember on each odd numbered year. Tentative dates for 2021 - November 8 - 18, 2021. Please access the Knights Templar Holy Land Pilgrimage website available through the Grand Encampment site (http://www.knightstemplar.org) for further information on deposits, itinerary, and registration forms.
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Prelate’s Apartment by
Reverend Arthur F. Hebbeler, III, right eminent grand prelate of the Grand Encampment
“Wine is wicked, the king is wicked, women are wicked, all the children of men are wicked, and such are all their wicked works; and there is no truth in them; in their unrighteousness also they shall perish. As for the truth, it endureth and is always strong; it liveth and conquereth for evermore. With her there is no accepting of persons or rewards; but she doeth the things that are just and refraineth from all unjust and wicked things; and all men do well like of her works. Neither in her judgment is any unrighteousness; and she is the strength, kingdom, power, and majesty, of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth. And with that he held his peace. And all the people then shouted and said, ‘Great is Truth, and mighty above all things.’” (1 Esdras 4:37-41, King James Version) Esdras (Greek for Ezra) is one of the non-canonical scriptures from which we gain an understanding of the history of the Hebrew people. It is also the source of several degrees and orders within Freemasonry. From this text, as well as the canonical Ezra and the historical reporting of Josephus, we have the basis for the allegory of the Illustrious Order of the Red Cross. More importantly, these texts and the lessons of this order teach a very important lesson—that truth bears the victory, and it is everlasting. While the text declares the blessedness of the God of truth, it really is equating God with Truth. Equating God and Truth is a common theme in the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament—at least twenty-five times, in fact, and it is not limited to the JudeoChristian tradition. Ghandi wrote frequently of the connection between God and truth. Ghandi went further, declaring not only “God is Truth,” but also “Truth is God.” I’m not in total agreement with the latter (although I understand his point in context, and commend it to the interested reader), but God is certainly Truth and so is the Son of God, who is not only Truth but the Way and the Life. We are indeed wicked. We are sinners of God’s own creation who are also saved by His own redemption. Because of God’s love and His being truthful with and faithful to His promises, He sent His Son into the world to live, teach, die, and rise from the dead so that we wicked creatures might be saved. This is the Truth. 6
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Knights Templar Have Supported Charities Throughout the Centuries by Sir Knight James A. Marples, K.T.
nights Templar, almost since the order’s inception, have been ardent supporters of charities. Although the ancient Knights Templar were Crusaders, engaged in defending Christianity from being attacked and potentially obliterated, Knights Templar have always remembered the sentiment to “love thy neighbor” as best as circumstances would allow. Our ancient Templars guided and protected pilgrims on their journey to the Holy Land. They tended the injured, they gave bread to the hungry, they gave water to the thirsty, they gave clothes to the naked, and they gave comfort to the widow and orphan. Little gestures are often big gestures to a person in dire or imminent need. In the year 1888, there was a disastrous outbreak of yellow fever in Jacksonville, Florida. Among the deceased was a notable city medical doctor, Sir Knight Abel S. Baldwin, M.D., who after heroic work, contracted the disease himself, and on September 3, 1888, he died, a martyr to his profession. He was recorder of Morocco Shriners at the time of his death. Another physician, Sir Knight and Dr. Joseph Y. Porter, who later became Florida’s first state health officer, also worked tirelessly to help the victims. Right Eminent Sam Briggs, past grand commander of Knights Templar of Ohio and also the international head of the Shriners stated,
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“The tokened pestilence, where death is sure, has made sad inroads on the community where was located the youngest of all the chartered Shrine Temples, Morocco at Jacksonville, Florida....The officers of The Shrine, aided by associate Knights Templar, organized themselves into a relief corps and with full knightly deeds with their armor on, displayed the beauties of fraternal love and affection to all the suffering, irrespective of race, creed, or affiliation.” Throughout the world wars, Knights Templar in America and elsewhere sold liberty bonds during the First World War, called war bonds thereafter; gave blood; gave money; and enlisted into the military to defend and protect the freedoms of all who champion liberty and democracy, regardless of race, color, creed, gender, or national identity. Countless victims of floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, mudslides, earthquakes, and other catastrophes have been assisted by Templars. The Knights Templar Eye Foundation has spent untold sums in both research and hands-on endeavors to help many people restore their precious eyesight. Various Knights Templar educational funds throughout the decades, both local and in the various states, have enabled worthy students to attend institutions of higher learning. One of my own professors, Dr. James C. Duram, told me many times that he was helped by a Knights Tem7
plar loan for his college work back in the 1960’s, probably about the time I was in swaddling clothes. Although he never became a Mason or Templar, Professor Duram served with distinction in the Department of History at Wichita State University. By the time I was his student, I was a Knight Templar. He often expressed his gratitude to me.
I was impressed that during the Roaring Twenties, the remembrance of war dead from the First World War was still strong. Many young people, especially girls, sold hand-made paper poppies as a token of remembrance and also as a fund-raising mechanism to help disabled veterans. One such illustration was widely circulated in Ohio.
“Elsie Fitzgerald, 15, 1928 Buddy Poppy Girl, sells the first poppy to Right Eminent Sir Boyd A. Musser, commander of the Pennsylvania Knights Templar. About 3,500 Knights in full regalia marched up Penn Street during the organization’s 75th annual conclave, headquartered at The Berkshire Hotel.” 8
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It is nice to know that such a touch- table giving standards of the highest reing gesture was covered adequately by pute. There are too many scammers and the news of the day. Our task as Knights frauds out there in our current society Templar is to maintain our fraternal or- who sadly prey on the reputations of der, keeping it alive and vital and dem- others. As we give our money to other onstrating that all our members must charities not encompassed by the fraterbe knightly daily as we genuinely dem- nity, let us all be vigilant and give to entionstrate that our Christian principles ties where we can see precisely where are alive and well in our various walks our charitable alms are going. of life. We must not hide our light under a bushel. It is not sufficient to simply Sir Knight James Marples is a life talk about a charity. We must link the member of Mt. Olivet Commandery charity’s aim to the aim of our frater12 in Wichita, Kansas, and currently nity’s purpose. Giving monies is great resides in Texas. He can be contacted and surely needed with a wide range of at rosehillks@yahoo.com or 1300 charities. However, in this day and age, Greenbriar Drive, Longview, TX 75604. we must stand tall. We must have chariSOURCES Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences by Dr. and Sir Knight Albert G. Mackey, M.D. and K.T. Subject Heading: Charity. History of Oneida County, New York from 1790 to the present time. Page 422 records death of Dr. A.S. Baldwin in Florida due to Yellow Fever. Parade to Glory by Fred Van Deventer. Published by Pyramid Books. 1965 Edition. Page 95 records the Florida Yellow Fever outbreak and charitable response. “First Buddy Poppy To Templar Head”. Reading Eagle. Reading, Pennsylvania. Original printed May 21, 1928. Reprinted February 1, 2018.
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Knight Templar Graveyard is Preserved By Sir Knight James A. Marples, K.T.
hen we think of the Knights plars clashed with the King of France Templar, we naturally think of circa 1307, and many of their possesliving, breathing human souls, sions went to the Knights Hospitallers. protecting and defending Christianity. Kilbarry was one of three preceptories However, it is a reality of any group that where Templar estates remained with humans die and are buried, usually in the Templars for the rest of their lives. cemeteries. Recently, a news article in The oldest gravestone dates to the Ireland profiled a man striving to pre- year 1598, and the newest bears the serve an ancient Templar graveyard in year 1856. For years, the cemetery was Ireland. it was noted in The Munster thought to be a famine graveyard, but Express which profiled Paddy Houlihan it was later discovered to be a Knight from Ballybeg, Ireland, who, along with Templar graveyard. I applaud Paddy and his granddaughhis granddaughter, are striving to preserve the Knight Templar Graveyard at ter for their fine efforts at preserving the Templar graveyard. Sir Knight and Dr. AlKilbarry, Ireland. The Knights Templar arrived in Ire- bert G. Mackey, M.D. and Knight Templar land in the late 1100’s with the Norman noted that “the desire to some suitable invasion of 1169-71 and witnessed an spot wherein to deposit the remains Irish Charter by Matthew the Templar of our departed kindred and friends in 1177. The article noted that the Tem- (and brethren) seems almost innate in
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Photo of Paddy Houlihan standing at the Knights Templar graveyard in Kilbarry, Ireland courtesy of The Muster Express newspaper, Waterford, Ireland.
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the human breast.” Mackey continued eteries or as Masonic sections within exby saying that although Masonic and isting cemeteries. Templar funeral honors exist, “Masonic Let us all make sure that if we en(and Templar) cemeteries should always counter a burial spot of Brother Masons be dedicated with impressive ceremo- we do our best to make sure the place is nies, and it was long regretted that our properly maintained rituals provided no sanctioned form (for so many years).” In the United States Sir Knight James Marples is a life of America, some Lodges of the Indemember of Mt. Olivet Commandery pendent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F. 12 in Wichita, Kansas, and currently Lodge) have their own cemeteries for resides in Texas. He can be contacted members and relatives, and some Maat rosehillks@yahoo.com or 1300 sonic Lodges have followed with similar Greenbriar Drive, Longview, TX 75604. burial grounds, either as Masonic CemSOURCES - The Munster Express. News article: “A Knight’s Tale.” 16 February 2018. webpage: http://www.munster-express.ie/opinion/a-knights-tale/ - Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences. Keyword: Cemeteries.
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Melrose Assembly 204, Houston, Texas, was well represented at Supreme Assembly 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada, with thirteen members in attendance. Top Row: Mrs. Cohen, Mrs. Wofford, Mrs. Werner, Mrs. Stone, Mrs. Ward, Mrs. Foreman, and Mrs. Leftwich. Seated: Mrs. Jordan; Mrs. Rose; Ms. Huey, worthy president; Mrs. Wunsche; Mrs. Burt; and Mrs. Kleinfelder. We had a great time renewing friendships with our sisters from across the country and look forward to seeing everyone next year in Tyler, Texas.
Elizabethtown 265 November 7, 2018, Mrs. Troy Mock, president; Mrs. Seth Anthony was initiated. 12
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Meet Our Department Commanders Sir Knight William F. “Bill” Reinhold Right Eminent Department Commander Mid-Atlantic Department
ir Knight William F. “Bill” Reinhold was born in New York City on Independence Day in 1951. He was baptized in St. John’s Episcopal Church which, prior to completion of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in 1964, was across from the parade field and officers’ quarters of Fort Hamilton. The church was known as “The Church of the Generals” prior to closing in 2014 due to a long history of flag rank officers attending Sunday worship services. Bill’s grandfathers were Master Masons but passed away before he was born. His father, a senior DeMolay, died about six months before Bill’s tenth birthday. His mother, a member of the Order of Eastern Star, prompted him to ask friends about something called DeMolay. He received his Initiatory Degree on 6 June 1966 in Theodore Roosevelt Chapter, Brooklyn, New York. For service to DeMolay, he was made a Chevalier in the mid-1990s when his three sons were members of the Order of DeMolay. In 2000 his mother assisted in the investiture ceremony making him a member of the DeMolay Legion of Honor. Sir Knight Reinhold married the former Dolores Helms Whittemore in 2005 at an open meeting of Charlottesville Commandery 3. Lady Dolores is a past worthy president of Fredericksburg Assembly 266, Social Order of the Beauceant. She was honored for distinguished services to Templary with the Companion of the Temple award in 2014. Lady Dolores served as supreme director of music for the Supreme Assembly, Social Order of the Beauceant, 2017-2018. Together they have five adult children from previous marriages and seven grandchildren. His three sons are Senior DeMolay and have life membership in Widow’s Sons’ Lodge 60. Two of his sons are members of Commanderies in Virginia. His two grandsons are fourth generation members of the Order of DeMolay.
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Two Perpendicular Parallel Lines by Brother Matthew A. Leilich
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he point within a circle embordered by two perpendicular parallel lines, with the Holy Bible resting on the circle, is one of the most recognizable symbols in Freemasonry. It is also one which always raises a question. How can two lines be both perpendicular and parallel? Anyone who has ever sat through a basic geometry class knows that perpendicular and parallel lines are opposite. They are each defined mathematically as follows: Perpendicular lines: “Perpendicular lines are lines that intersect and form right angles.”(1) Parallel lines: “Two lines are parallel if they are in the same plane but
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never intersect.”(2) If perpendicular and parallel lines are geometrically opposite why does our ritual refer to these two lines as both perpendicular and parallel? Clearly this is a contradiction! There are two possible explanations for this inconsistency. First, it is possible that the word perpendicular refers to the two tangents perpendicular to the diameter of the circle. A tangent is a line that touches the edge of a circle once. The diameter would pass through the point. In other words, both lines, or both tangents, form two 90-degree angles with the diameter of the circle. Second, a more antiquated definition of the word perpendicular meant
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“straight up and down,” “vertical,” or “nearly vertical.” For example, the perpendicular face of the mountain, or the perpendicular mast of a ship. The word derives from Latin. Per (through) + pendere (to hang) forms perpendiculum (plumb line). Our ritual makes much more sense if we apply this antiquated definition of the word, “two hanging parallel lines,” or “two vertical parallel lines.” Additionally, the word pendant derives from the French verb pendre “to hang,” which also derives from the Latin pendere. After all, a pendant hangs around a person’s neck. Many Masons do not understand that the use of the word perpendicular in our ritual is either referring to the two tangents perpendicular to the circle’s diameter or that the ritual is using an antiquated
definition of the word. The latter is more likely. This lack of understanding has even caused some grand jurisdictions to remove the word “perpendicular” from the ritual altogether! Our masonic teachings direct us to subdue our passions and improve ourselves through Masonry. What better way to improve ourselves than by studying our ritual? However, sometimes when we examine the ritual through a modern lens we unintentionally leave the lens cap on. Brother Matthew A. Leilich is past master of Amwell Lodge 12 in Lambertville, New Jersey, resides in Hamilton, New Jersey, and can be contacted at m.leilich@yahoo.com.
Sources 1. Geometry Common Core (Pearson Education, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts, 2012), page 942. 2. Downing, Douglas, Ph.D. Dictionary of Mathematics Terms (Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.; New York, 1987), page 140.
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A Message from the Chairman
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ood morning Sir Knights!
Grace, mercy, and peace be with you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We’ve already got a month behind us for the new year, and just the other day I was writing a presentation and thinking about how we all learn in different ways. Did you know that 80% of learning occurs through vision? With that knowledge, consider what the future holds for a child who can’t see, and consider further that 80% of pediatric blindness is totally preventable! That’s why what the Knights Templar Eye Foundation does is so very important. You can’t even imagine how many lives are impacted by what we do. Not only for the children directly involved but also for the parents and siblings of those children! That’s all well and good; in fact, it’s fantastic! However, it requires money to fund the research that makes everything possible. Your support is vital and much needed. There are a variety of ways to contribute, from a single donation of any amount, to a pledge of continuing support, to a bequest in your will or trust. If you want to learn more about what works best for you, please contact us with any questions you may have. We are very happy to help you. As I have pointed out many times, Jesus healed the blind Bartimaeus in Mark: 10. Today He continues that work through the Knights Templar Eye Foundation. As a Knight Templar, your contribution makes you a disciple in this ministry. God bless, Jeff 16
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NEW CONTRIBUTORS TO THE KTEF CLUBS Grand Master’s Club Daniel R. Jones................................... CA
Steve A. Kirk........................................GA
Bobby B. Simmons.............................. GA
Percy F. Kuhn................................. MA/RI
Eugene W. Thibeault..................... MA/RI
Thomas E. Black.................................. MI
Robert E. Cooper................................ MI
James G. Standing............................... MI
John S Geas........................................NH
Richard S. Butterfield........................ NM
Robert N. Rogers, III............................ NY
William H. Block.................................. PA
Charles L. LaBar...................................PA
Garland R. Harman............................. SC
Douglas C. McFarland......................... SD
Justin M. Huggins................................ TN
Douglas G. Odom, Jr........................... TN
Patrick D. Richardson.......................... TX
Pierre N. Letourneau...........................VT
Richard S. Collins................................ VA
Jason L. Taliaferro............................... VA
Joseph E. Reese.................................WA
Grand Commander’s Club John C. Elkinton................................ TX
Dean D. Rein..................................... UT
Fenton R. Mereness.......................... CA
Charles L. Thacker.............................GA
James L. Mahan.................................IN
David J. Dumonceaux.......................MN
Walter A. Stacy................................ NH
Robert C. Pittman..............................NJ
Craig A. Ramsdell............................. ND
Randall L. Hahn, Sr........................... OH
Boyd H. Butz..................................... PA
James L. Sturdevant......................... WY
James N. Barron................................ SC
Hoyt B. Palmer...................................SC
Robert J. Smith, Jr............................. SC
Justin M. Huggins.............................. TN
Bruce R. Howard............................... VT
Pierre N. Letourneau......................... VT
Mark R. Day...................................... VA
Joseph E. Reese................................ WA
Jonathan E. L. Chua.............. Philippines
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General Supplement
The space on these two pages is provided by the Knight Templar magazine to be used by the Grand Commanderies to communicate with the individual Sir Knights in their jurisdictions on a monthly basis. From time to time and for various reasons, we fail to receive any material from the editor of the state supplement for a given month. When this happens, we take the opportunity to offer you the information below. – The Ed. Jerusalem as viewed in the distance from atop Mount Nebo in Jordan.
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Pilgrims visiting Mount Nebo where Moses died in Jordan. Photo by the Editor.
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Knights Templar Eye Foundation, Inc. How to join the Grand Commander’s or the Grand Master’s Clubs Any individual may send a check in the amount of $100 or more specified for the purpose of beginning a Grand Commander’s Club membership and made payable to the Knights Templar Eye Foundation. This initial contribution will begin your Grand Commander’s Club membership. In addition, members of the Grand Commander’s Club pledge to make annual contributions of $100 or more. Once contributions total $1,000, the individual is enrolled in the Grand Master’s Club. Membership is open to individuals only, and Commandery Credit is given for participation.
Qualified Charitable Distributions Can Yield Big Tax Savings Congress has now made the qualified charitable distribution (QCD) option permanent for those who wish to make direct contributions from their IRA to charity. The tax law allows individuals age 70 ½ or older to transfer up to $100,000 a year from their IRA to a qualified charity. This distribution counts toward their required minimum distribution but isn’t added to their adjusted gross income the way a normal IRA distribution is. This can provide a tax savings of up to 40% depending upon an individual’s tax situation.
Planned Giving – Create a Charitable Legacy Your Foundation now has a full web site dedicated to Planned Giving which you can access from our web site, shown at the bottom of this page. So if you’re thinking of ways to make a lasting legacy for yourself please check out the tab on the home page that says “Planned Giving”. Leaving your mark on the future is so simple with a gift in your will. To leave a gift in your Will or Trust it is as easy as asking your attorney to include a sentence that says: I bequeath (lump sum) or ( % ) of my estate to: Knights Templar Eye Foundation, Inc. (address shown below)
Knights Templar Eye Foundation, Inc. 1033 Long Prairie Road, Suite 5 Flower Mound, TX 75022
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Telephone: 214-888-0220 Fax: 214-888-0230 Email: manager@ktef.us
www.knightstemplar.org/ktef/ february 2019
Freemasons and the Political Culture of the British Atlantic World, 1717-1798 Part one of two
By Dr. Jessica L. Harland-Jacobs
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ritish Freemasonry’s first Constitutions, compiled by James Anderson for the Grand Lodge of England in 1723, urged a Mason to “be a peaceable subject to the civil powers” and avoid plots and conspiracies against the state. It claimed that kings and princes encouraged the fraternity because of its members’ reputation for “peaceableness and loyalty.” If a brother did rebel against the state, he was to be discountenanced, but the regulations made clear that he could not be expelled from his Lodge on the basis of his being a rebel. His relationship to his Lodge “remain[ed] indefeasible.” The Constitutions even went so far as to ban the discussion of politics—the brethren were enjoined to leave their “Quarrels about religion, or nations, or state policy” outside their Lodges. For much of the eighteenth century, these words constituted the extent of the British Grand Lodges’ directives to individual Masons concerning politics. When the English Grand Lodge published a revised version of The Constitutions almost a century later in 1815, the clause protecting political rebels from expulsion was conspicuously absent. It took a Mason’s loyalty for granted: “A Mason is a peaceable subject to the civil powers wherever he resides or works and is never to be concerned in plots and conspiracies against the peace and welfare of the nation.” During the early nineteenth cenknight templar
tury, British Freemasonry did everything in its power to cultivate its reputation as a loyalist institution. It made a conscious effort to identify itself with the defining features of the British state: constitutional monarchy, protestantism, and empire. This effort marked a dramatic departure from the brotherhood’s relationship to politics during the eighteenth century— the focus of this article—when Freemasons could be found along the complex political spectrum of the period between the 1720s and the 1790s. The changes in the language of Freemasonry’s Constitutions are thus emblematic of a broader shift in the nature of the brotherhood’s role in the political culture of the British Atlantic world. Although historians have written more about Freemasonry between 1720 and 1800 than any other period and added significantly to our understanding of the relationship between Masonry and politics, they have seemed too eager to see Freemasonry as either fundamentally conservative or fundamentally radical. Examining English Freemasonry in the second half of the eighteenth century, John Money, for example, argues that the brotherhood was a “major agent” in the process by which “the varied potential elements of loyalism at the grass roots [were] drawn together in a single chorus of national devotion to the Crown.” H. T. Dickinson, on the other 21
hand, includes Freemasonry as part of the “many-headed hydra of heterodoxy.” Eric Hobsbawm, John Brewer, and Kevin Whelan emphasize the brotherhood’s associations with radicalism. Margaret Jacob presents an interesting twist: an institution that was “aggressively royalist” and never really posed a threat to established institutions in Britain became, in the European context, radical and subversive. Yet, as I argue here, during the eighteenth century, British Freemasonry was never associated with a particular political position, movement, or even leaning. Rather, it demonstrated tremendous elasticity and adaptability. As Irish Masonic historians John Lepper and Phillip Crossle put it, eighteenth-century Freemasonry “include[ed] men of the most diverse theories in regard to civil government.” To be fair, several historians have made this point. In Living the Enlightenment, Jacob admits: “Predictably in a British context, Lodges were, on the whole, remarkably supportive of established institutions, of church and state. Yet, they could also house divisive, or oppositional, political perspectives. They could be loyalist to the Hanoverian and Whig order, yet they could also at moments show affiliation with radical interests, whether republican or Jacobite, and, possibly at the end of the century, Jacobin.” Building on this idea, James Melton describes Freemasonry as “a protean form of association that could be appropriated for very different political ends. Its social and ideological elasticity enabled Masonry to accommodate a broad spectrum of political attitudes, ranging from royalist celebrations of absolute monarchy to Jacobin assaults on it.” While these observations squarely 22
hit the mark, no historian has explored the extent of British Freemasonry’s elasticity and explained why men of such wide-ranging political views found membership useful. One reason historians have not been able to take full account of Freemasonry’s elasticity vis à vis eighteenthcentury political culture has been their propensity to limit their area of analysis to a particular place (e.g., Wales), political movement (e.g.,Wilkite radicalism), or event (e.g., the American War of Independence). Because of this circumscribed approach, Philip Jenkins’ observation, made in 1979, that “the [British Masonic] movement urgently needs to be placed in its contemporary political context” remains valid today. For Masonry’s “contemporary political context” in the eighteenth century included not only Britain but also Ireland and the American colonies. To demonstrate the extent of Freemasonry’s appeal to men of wide-ranging political positions and the various uses to which they put the brotherhood, this article therefore examines the brotherhood’s concurrent connection to the Whig establishment and the various political challengers it faced across the late eighteenth-century British Atlantic world. . . [including, but not limited to,] the Wilkite agitation (1760s), the American War of Independence (1776-1783), and the United Irish Rebellion (1798). Britain: Oligarchy and Opposition The Grand Lodge of England emerged amid an atmosphere of political instability. The country was adjusting to its new German-speaking king, George I, who had occupied the throne for only february 2019
three years. The House of Stuart, in ex- were loyal to the Hanoverians resumed ile on the continent, was constantly on control over its operations. According to the lookout for opportunities to reclaim Margaret Jacob, “Grand Lodge leaders the throne. Meanwhile, a true party sys- actively supported Walpole, and “the tem was just beginning to take shape, mythological history and official conwith momentum shifting in favor of the stitutions of British Freemasonry selfWhigs who supported the Hanoverian consciously argued for ministerial and succession. The Tories had held the up- court-centered government based on per hand during the reign of Anne, but the constitutional settlement of 1689.” they found their influence waning under Walpole himself was a Freemason. At a George I. Though the Whigs suffered Lodge meeting held in Walpole’s Norfolk many internal divisions and weathered home, several prominent supporters, the profound financial crisis caused by including the Duke of Newcastle, were the bursting of the South Sea Bubble initiated into Freemasonry. In London, in 1720, Robert Walpole, as of 1721 the supporters campaigned for Walpole in leader of the Whigs and chief minister taverns, hosted party dinners, and isto George I, was firmly in command of sued pamphlets. Masons like Sir Robhis party when George II ascended the ert Rich (army commander), the Hon. throne in 1727. Under Walpole and his Charles Stanhope (Treasury Secretary), successors, the Whigs became the dom- the Duke of Chandos (Paymaster Geninant political force of the eighteenth eral), and Martin Bladen (Comptroller century, though it is important not to and later commissioner of the Board of underestimate the significant subcul- Trade and Plantations) benefited from ture of oppositional politics represented, the extensive Whig patronage networks in turn, by Jacobites, Tories, and radicals and used their positions to their own fi(and even within the Whig party itself). nancial advantage. Freemasons could be found not only Freemasonry’s identification with the among the oligarchy’s supporters but Whig regime is also evident in the basic also in the ranks of those who chal- ideas and practices of the brotherhood. lenged Whig ascendancy. Its official publications championed Early in the history of speculative strong constitutional monarchy and loyFreemasonry, the brotherhood—at the alty to the royal ministry. The lessons national level—became closely identi- conveyed through Masonic rituals elabfied with the Whig oligarchy and was as- orated upon natural liberties like justice sociated with powerful men (for this rea- and toleration that Whigs championed. son, it also attracted those seeking social Moreover, the governing practices of and political advancement). The men Lodges were largely Whiggish in inspiraactive in founding the first Grand Lodge tion. One of Jacob’s central arguments in 1717, the first nobleman to serve as in Living the Enlightenment is that Magrand master in 1721, and most of its sonry was a constitutionally governed subsequent leaders were all “resolutely society; from the national through the Whig.” They lost control of the Grand provincial and to the local level, Lodges Lodge for a year (to the Duke of Whar- were expected to abide by the published ton), but in 1723, prominent Whigs who Constitutions. “The goal of government knight templar
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by consent within the context of subordination to ‘legitimate’ authority was vigorously pursued by the Grand Lodge of London and was demanded of all Lodges affiliated with it.” In terms of governing practices, this meant majority rule, elections by ballot, the investing of the master with executive power, and deliberation through committees. It also required members to pay dues and demanded civil behavior and allegiance to the national government. Freemasonry’s appeal to a variety of political groups is suggested not only by the participation of Whigs. . . but also opposition Tories and the Prince of Wales, who too used the brotherhood to forward political agendas. Sir Walter Blackett, the Lord Mayor of Newcastle and a Tory Member of Parliament, dominated Northumberland Freemasonry during the 1720s and 1730s. Freemasons among the Tory supporters of Bolingbroke took part in the political activities of the Brothers Club and the Beef-Steak Society and dined in taverns affiliated with the Tory Party. Masons John Byram and Edwin Ward were among the Tory pamphleteers who critiqued Walpole’s government. Frederick, Prince of Wales joined the brotherhood in 1737. John Desaguliers, one of the royal chaplains, and other members of the English Grand Lodge initiated the prince in a ceremony at Kew. Historians have noted that the prince’s initiation marked a turning point for English Freemasonry: no longer would it be consistently subject to the public insults and parodies it had experienced in the 1720s and early 1730s, but like Wharton earlier, Frederick seems to have had political motives for joining. His initiation coincided with his entering into active opposition against 24
the royal ministry. Several politicians attended his initiation. According to Masonic historian Aubrey Newman, “At a time when he was already canvassing as many factions as he could find in Parliament, when it was important for him to build up as much support as possible in the House of Commons, Frederick chose to join an organization which contained a number of Members of Parliament in its ranks.” After his initiation, Frederick did not demonstrate much interest in Masonic affairs, and so the brotherhood failed to secure in the prince the kind of royal patron its leaders sought. Whatever the prince’s motives for joining the brotherhood, his participation, at the very least, provides further evidence of Freemasonry’s ability to accommodate a range of political positions during the mid-eighteenth century. Its protean nature and role in furthering individual political agendas became apparent again during the radical Wilkite agitation of the 1760s. John Wilkes, an Aylesbury squire who was elected to Parliament for the first time in 1757, took over the ownership of a middleclass London paper, the North Briton, in 1762. The paper became an outlet for Wilkes’ radical political views; in it he not only denounced the Peace of Paris, but also accused the king of being a liar. Arrested for seditious libel, he mounted a successful defense based on the argument that his detention represented an assault on English liberty itself. He was released but shortly thereafter fled to France (and as a result was expelled from Parliament). After being convicted of libel and sentenced to four years of exile, he returned to England in 1768, stood for election, and was returned by the shopkeepers of Middlesex. The govfebruary 2019
ernment immediately put him in prison, where street mobs rioted on his behalf and in opposition to oligarchic government. Two times, Wilkes was again elected and expelled by the house. Wilkes joined the Freemasons during the height of his troubles, in 1769, while serving his sentence for libel and blasphemy. On March 3, 1769, The Gentleman’s Magazine reported that “the officers and members of the Freemasons’ Lodge, held at the Jerusalem Tavern in Clerkenwell, by virtue of a deputation, signed by the deputy grand master, attended at the King’s Bench Prison, and made Mr. Wilkes a Mason. It was said in the papers that the dispensation was obtained from the grand master, but this was contradicted.” Newman points out that Wilkes’ initiation was a serious breach of Masonic regulations, which required an initiate to be a “free man.” He argues that Wilkes’ participation in Freemasonry was another instance of his joining as many societies and associations as possible in order to gain more publicity. While Wilkes was certainly a joiner, the connection between Masonry and the radical agitation of the early 1770s was not based on Wilkes’ political opportunism alone. John Brewer contends that “the political implications of Wilkes’s admission were obvious.” Masons were among those who supported the Wilkite cause. Some Masonic Lodges had taken part in the agitation drummed up by the Society of Supporters of the Bill of Rights, founded to champion Wilkes’ agenda. Even Newman admits, “It is clear that those Masons associated with Wilkes were undoubtedly acting politically, and that many of the individual Lodges involved in these waves of agitation had political overtones.” In knight templar
Wales, Jenkins argues, Freemasonry was instrumental in carrying on the tradition of country opposition during and after the 1760s. He demonstrates this by tracing the continuities between the political organization and social contacts of Jacobitism, Wilkite radicalism, and Freemasonry. Several close friends of Wilkes, for example John Pugh Pryse (of Gogerddan) and Robert Jones (of Fonmon in Glamorgan) were descendants of ardent Jacobite families and Freemasons. Further testifying to the elasticity of Freemasonry during the eighteenth century, the Wilkite agitation coincided with the strengthening of the relationship between the brotherhood and the royal family. Though Frederick was not an active Freemason, he set an example for his sons, three of whom joined the Craft in the 1760s. Edward, Duke of York, became interested in Freemasonry while on the continent and was initiated in 1765 in Berlin. His brothers, William Henry (Duke of Gloucester) and Henry Frederick (Duke of Cumberland), joined in 1766 and 1767 respectively. In a letter to the master of a Lodge in Calcutta in 1768, one Grand Lodge official noted: “Masonry flourishes with amazing success in the present era, their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland have joined the fraternity and the first noblemen in Britain vouchsafe to protect us. . . . In short, every thing tends to cultivate and promote our Royal Art here, and we earnestly hope that the zeal and ardour of our worthy brethren abroad will not fail in this respect but emulate them to vie with each other in establishing the virtues of our ancient and honourable society.” The Modern Grand Lodge, under the leadership of the Duke of Beaufort between 25
1767 and 1771, actively encouraged the participation of all three royal princes by conferring the high Masonic rank of “past grand master” on each. The evidence presented here enables us to rethink the role of Freemasonry in Hanoverian political culture. John Money argues that under Beaufort’s administration during the late 1760s, the brotherhood emerged as an agent of conservatism, loyalism, and nationalism. He identifies a formal association between Freemasonry and the established church in this period and also points out that local Lodges made contributions in support of crown forces. Other efforts— the Grand Lodges’ eagerness to avoid any implication in popular radicalism and the increased associations with the royal family—contributed to “consolidating the craft’s place in the panoply of royalty and nationality.” As we have seen, the evidence of Freemasonry’s serving as a buttress of the establishment during the mid-eighteenth century is certainly extensive, but Money dates the consolidation of Freemasonry as a loyalist institution too early (as we will see, it narrowly escaped being identified as an “unlawful society” in 1799). Likewise, Jacob’s argument that in Britain, the Masonic Lodge “offered no opposition to established institutions” oversimplifies a rather more complex situation. The English political world of the period between the 1720s and the 1770s provides much evidence for the argument that Freemasonry was compatible with a range of political positions. Widening the lens to include the British Atlantic world of the last third of the eighteenth century further solidifies this interpretation. For while the members of one Lodge in Kelso, Scotland were so loyal 26
that they marched at the head of a regimental recruiting party and offered a bounty of three guineas to every man who enlisted to serve in the American war, thousands of their Masonic brethren across the ocean had decided to throw in their lot with the patriots. Colonial British America: Patriots and Loyalists At the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, Joseph Warren, American volunteer and provincial grand master for America, sacrificed his life for the rebel cause. Across the battle lines, Lord Rawdon (future English grand master and governor general of India) distinguished himself to such an extent that General Burgoyne reported in a dispatch that “Lord Rawdon has this day stamped his fame for life.” As the war unfolded, patriot Masons paid tribute to heroic brethren by raising their glasses to “Warren, Montgomery, and Wooster.” Meanwhile, loyalist Masons expressed their attachment to their brother who was next in line for the British throne. Masonry, it seems, was more invested in than “resolv’d against” the bloody political struggle unfolding in North America during the late 1770s. Historians of the American War of Independence have paid more attention to Freemasonry than historians of other events and processes examined here. Granted, the historiography is uneven, ranging from hagiographic accounts detailing, for example, the Masonic membership of the Founding Fathers to the precisely argued work of Steven C. Bullock. Yet all, from the celebratory to the scholarly, focus on the patriots, and neglect the extent to which Masonry was evident on both sides of the conflict. It february 2019
is clear, however, that Freemasonry during the 1770s was not yet sufficiently identified with a particular political position to preclude men of both sides from seeking membership in the same brotherhood. Patriots and loyalists alike deemed Freemasonry an organization worthy of their energies and attention— even during the chaos and upheaval of war—because it helped them negotiate social position, adjust to dislocation, and even further their political causes. Thus, we see Freemasons in both the revolutionary and loyalist camps: Freemasons participated in the Boston Tea Party, presided over the Continental Congresses, signed the Declaration of Independence, and commanded the Continental Army. At the same time members of the fraternity enforced the Townshend duties, served in His Majesty’s regiments, and commanded the King’s armies. Patriot Masons called upon the fraternity in numerous ways, at times even using it to pursue their political agenda. Of course, such activities went against both the letter and spirit of the brotherhood, and Lodges did not formally endorse the colonists’ cause. Nevertheless, certain Lodges and prominent brethren were clearly implicated from the beginning in the effort to drive the British out of the thirteen colonies. Over half of the 134 members of St. George’s Lodge in Schenectady, New York, for example, fought for the patriots. The connection between Freemasonry and the Revolution was particularly evident in New England. On the night of December 16, 1773, the members of St. Andrew’s Lodge (Ancients) in Boston held a regularly scheduled meeting, but only five brothers—the officers—showed up. While they transacted their limited business knight templar
at the Green Dragon Tavern, the nearby waters of Boston Harbor were swallowing the tea cargoes of three large “Indiamen.” Bullock suggests that they had scheduled the meeting as an alibi for the members who participated in the Boston Tea Party. The tavern, which was the Masonic hall of the Boston Ancients, was also the meeting place of several proto-revolutionary groups including the North End Caucus. St. Andrew’s membership overlapped with these political societies. Its master, Joseph Warren, belonged to the North End Caucus; the Lodge’s senior warden, Paul Revere, joined three other St. Andrew’s brothers as members of the more militant Sons of Liberty. The connections between St. Andrew’s meeting place and membership and the revolutionary cause were not coincidental. St. Andrew’s would later assert that the Boston Tea Party had been plotted in their Lodge room. Though a few loyalist members of St. Andrews left with the British, the membership of the Lodge even grew during the war, adding almost a hundred new members between 1777 and 1780. Patriots also found Freemasonry useful as they negotiated personal advancement in the stormy political climate of the 1770s and 1780s, as we can see in the case of social climbers like John Paul Jones. Jones used Freemasonry in his rise from humble Scottish origins to a position of prominence in the American Navy. He joined the brotherhood in Scotland in 1770, at which point he had already served as a mate on at least four Atlantic merchant ships. His biographer notes: “John Paul would find Masonic Lodges wherever he went on his journeys. He used them both as refuges and stepladders.” Jones’ Masonic credentials 27
proved helpful as he sought entrance among officers who came from very diinto Fredericksburg, Virginia, society in verse geographical, social, and religious 1774. Though initially shunned by the backgrounds. Bullock also demonstrates local gentry because of his Scottish back- that the brotherhood “provided a counground and lack of connections, Jones terweight to the fragmentation that was admitted into the Fredericksburg threatened the officer corps, helping creLodge and befriended by its master (and ate the sense of common purpose necfellow Scotsman), Dr. John Read. Jones essary for the survival of the army—and joined the rebels, along with over thirty thus the success of the Revolution itself.” other members of the Fredericksburg Freemasonry was so popular that at least Lodge, in 1775. Thomas suggests that ten traveling Lodges were warranted durbecause of Jones’ Masonic connections, ing the war. Like their counterparts in the Naval Committee in charge of build- the British Army, American regimental ing a rebel navy commissioned him as a Lodges had ambulatory warrants that alfirst lieutenant and gave him command lowed their members to meet wherever of a converted merchant vessel. For the they happened to be stationed. The most next four years, he hounded British ships active was American Union Lodge, which on both sides of the Atlantic, capturing had been chartered by the Modern Proprizes and prisoners, steadily building vincial Grand Lodge in Boston in 1776 his reputation as a fearless naval raider. and over the course of the war met in Whenever Jones found himself on land Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and for extended periods of time (whether Massachusetts. In 1799, several brothnegotiating with American leaders about ers applied to the Grand Lodge of Mashis commissions or waiting for ships sachusetts for a warrant to establish anto be built or repaired), he sought out other military Lodge, which they named the company of fellow Masons. He did Washington Lodge. By the end of the so in Boston in 1777. Three years later, war the Lodge membership rolls boasted in Paris, he was initiated in the famous 250 brethren. Officers of the ContinenLodge of Nine Sisters, which Franklin had tal Army continued to find Freemasonry joined in 1778. A well-known naval hero, useful after the war. Membership helped he was admired by ladies and “feted by ease veterans’ transition into civilian socithe local Masons” wherever he went. ety and enabled them to maintain group Membership in Freemasonry facilitat- solidarity, as well as friendships and coned social climbing, promotion, and class tacts, forged in wartime. cohesion of officers in the Continental The supreme commander of the Army. Freemasonry flourished among American forces, General George Washthe officers: forty-two percent of the ington, embodied the connection bearmy’s generals joined the brotherhood tween Freemasonry and the rebel army. before or during the war. Bullock argues He found both practical and ideological that membership had such widespread uses for the brotherhood. Initiated by appeal because it offered lower status a Virginia Lodge in 1752, Washington officers an entrée to polite society and was so serious about Freemasonry that social endorsement and contributed to he took time out from coordinating the the development of an esprit de corps war to attend meetings and participate 28
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in processions. On December 27, 1778, political agenda. Loyalist Masons from he led a procession of three hundred North Carolina relied on Masonry’s Atbrethren dressed in full Masonic attire lantic network as they fled to other parts through the streets of Philadelphia to of the British Empire when expelled by Christ Church, where they attended a the patriots. Mason Alexander Telfair Masonic service to commemorate the and his biological brother organized pasrevolutionaries’ capture of Philadelphia sage for fellow loyalist families on board from the British. The following June at their ship, The Brothers. Initially given West Point, Washington participated in sixty days to leave in May of 1777, Telanother Masonic celebration. Over one fair was able to secure an extension for hundred Masons—each one an officer their departure from Governor Caswell, in the Continental Army—marched in a who was also a Freemason. It is likely procession and then, edified by a ser- that Telfair’s decision to name the ship mon and addresses, enjoyed a conviv- The Brothers contained a double meanial reception. As Bullock demonstrates, ing since several other loyalist Masons, Washington “stressed ‘Discipline and including Chief Justice Martin Howard Subordination’ as the key to a success- (master of New Bern Lodge), were on ful fighting force.” He therefore encour- board. Though harassed by privateers, aged Freemasonry as a way to maintain the loyalists made their way safely to distinctions between officers and men New York and then London. and used its ceremonial aspects to foster Masons in London were indeed rethe cohesion of the officer class. More sponsive to the needs of brethren caught broadly, Washington drew on the les- up in the commotion across the Atlantic. sons of Masonic fraternalism in his suc- In 1778 the Premier Grand Lodge sent cessful attempt to subordinate the egali- £100 to “alleviate the distresses of many tarian impulses of the revolutionary era worthy members of the Fraternity” in to the interests of the elite class he rep- Halifax. Members of a Halifax Lodge resented. In all its various eighteenth- reported back to the Grand Lodge that century guises, British Masonry never they applied the money to those “who threatened social hierarchy. It encour- in consequence of their loyalty to the aged its diverse members to see one an- best of Princes, in this time of general other as brethren, but it did not suggest confusion, have subjected themselves they should treat one another as equals. to various kinds of insults and abuses, At the same time, the fraternity was and also to a deprivation of the greatevident in patriot circles and flourished est part of their property.” Grateful for in the Continental Army, it had a signifi- the attention from their “Mother Grand cant presence among loyalists, a point Lodge,” the members of this Lodge exthat eighteenth-century historians have pressed their allegiance to the British insufficiently addressed. As it did for the Government. “We are determined to patriots, Freemasonry helped loyalists persevere in cultivating the principles handle war-time dislocation and provid- which we have imbibed, to all around ed a venue not only for conviviality but us,” they reported, “and heartily wish also (contrary to Masonic rules) for the that those concerned in supporting the expression and forwarding of the loyalist present rebellious commotion may be knight templar
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speedily sensible of their Error. . . and that intestine broils may cease in every part of the British Empire.” They further demonstrated their loyalty by enclosing donations of £5 for the General Fund of Charity and almost £24 for the building of the Grand Hall in London. Back in the rebellious colonies, highranking Masons also demonstrated their loyalty to the Crown. Four of the five Modern provincial grand masters serving at the time of the conflict were loyalists: William Allen of Pennsylvania, Egerton Leigh of South Carolina, John Rowe of Boston, and Sir John Johnson of New York. Their decisions to side with the British had a definite effect on the Lodges in their jurisdictions. Allen, a merchant who built a fortune large enough to rank him as Philadelphia’s richest man, served as provincial chief justice and at the outbreak of the war, joined the British army at Trenton, New Jersey. The patriots confiscated all his property. The Moderns, whom Allen had represented since 1750, had already lost most Lodges to the Ancients by the outbreak of the war, and his departure marked the end of Modern Masonry in Pennsylvania. Leigh, the attorney general for South Carolina, had been appointed grand master of the Provincial Grand Lodge by the Moderns in 1770, though he had already been serving in the position for a few years. He left Charleston in 1774 because of his loyalist sympathies, and many Lodges became dormant. Though the disruptions of the war in the early years made it difficult for Charleston Lodges to meet, the Provincial Grand Lodge was revived when the British occupied the city in 1780. Its membership was loyalist in composition. 30
In Boston, the obviously patriotic sympathies of certain Lodges, like St. Andrew’s, made the city an inhospitable place for loyalists, and many left during the early years of the conflict. John Rowe, a prominent merchant whom the Moderns had appointed provincial grand master for North America in 1768, was shunned by patriot Masons for remaining neutral; he also socialized with British officers. A crowd of rebels led by Paul Revere harassed another Modern brother, the customs commissioner Benjamin Hallowell. He and his brother (also a Mason) were among the many loyalist Masons who left with the British. These included St. John’s Lodge (the Provincial Grand Lodge) and twenty brethren of another Lodge. There were also loyalists among Boston’s Ancients, as evidenced by the departure of Lodge 169, whose warrant eventually found its way, via Canada, to New York. Its members were instrumental in establishing an Ancient Provincial Grand Lodge in New York in 1781. New York City, occupied by the British and serving as the headquarters of the British Army for the course of the war, was a center of Masonic loyalism. Gathering to celebrate their annual Masonic holiday, St John’s Day, in 1776, the Masons of New York drank to “loyal and Masonic” toasts. Masons who were patriots either left the city or kept a low profile. Because of his sympathies with the rebels, the master of St. John’s Lodge chose to depart and took the Lodge warrant with him. While some Lodges shut down during the war, others, including St. John’s, continued to meet with the help of the many regimental Lodges then stationed in the city. The Provincial Grand Lodge of New february 2019
York, under the leadership of Sir John Johnson, was overtly loyal to the British. We have already met Johnson as provincial grand master for Quebec in the late 1780s. Prior to the war, he was very active in New York, being appointed provincial grand master in 1767. Like his father, William Johnson, he was a dedicated Mason, and he established strong relations with Native Americans in the Mohawk Valley, many of whom he brought to the side of the Loyalists. Johnson and his deputy grand master, Dr. Peter Middleton, worked hard to keep the Moderns afloat during the war (their biggest challenge was from the loyalist Ancients in exile from Boston). When the British capitulated in New York, the staunchly loyalist Johnson settled in Montreal, where he became superintendent general of Indian affairs for Quebec in 1782 and provincial grand master in 1788. He was joined in British North America by other loyalist Masons from New York such as the master of Union Lodge in Albany, several officers of St. Patrick’s Lodge in Johnston, and the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant. In sum, when we look at Freemasonry in the British Atlantic world of the 1770s and 1780s, we see what had been evident in Britain and Europe since the 1720s—that the brotherhood was
elastic enough to include men of opposing political loyalties. Despite American Masons’ fondness for claiming that the their fraternity occupied a crucial and privileged place in the conflict that gave birth to the United States, it seems clear that for every patriot Mason there was a brother who maintained allegiance to the king. The brotherhood helped patriot and loyalist alike negotiate social advancement, pursue political objectives, and adjust to new circumstances in an extremely turbulent context. As the momentum of revolutionary activity swung back across the Atlantic in the 1780s and 1790s, we see, once again, Freemasonry’s being put in the service of both radical and conservative agendas.
To be continued in the March 2019 issue
Dr. Jessica L. Harland-Jacobs is an associate professor of history at the University of Florida and a well known speaker, historian, and scholar of Freemasonry. Her book entitled Builders of Empire: Freemasonry and British Imperialism, 1717-1927 can be found in several formats at Amazon.com.
Notes 1. James Anderson, Constitutions of the Free-Masons (London, 1723). 2. United Grand Lodge, Constitutions of the Ancient Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons (London, 1815). 3. John Money, “Freemasonry and the Fabric of Loyalism in Hanoverian England,” in The Transformation of Political Culture: England and Germany in the Late Eighteenth Century, ed. Eckhart Hellmuth (Oxford, 1990), 255. 4. H. T. Dickinson, The Politics of the People in Eighteenth-Century Britain (New York, 1995), 6; Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels (New York, 1965), 153, 163-64; John Brewer, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III
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(Cambridge, 1976), 195-97; Kevin Whelan, The Tree of Liberty (South Bend, Ind., 2000), 86; Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment (London, 1981), 121. 5. J. Lepper and P. Crossle, History of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Ireland (Dublin, 1925), 292; Jacob, Living the Enlightenment (New York, 1991), 50-51, 56. 6. James Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge, 2001), 270. Money, “Fabric of Loyalism,” 259, agrees with this point, but only for the 1750s and 1760s. 7. J. P. Jenkins, “Jacobites and Freemasons in Eighteenth-century Wales,” Welsh Historical Review 9 (1979): 406. 8. Jacob, Radical Enlightenment, 127; Aubrey Newman, “Politics and Freemasonry in the Eighteenth Century,” AQC 104 (1991): 36. 9. W. J. Williams, “Masonic Personalia, 1723-39” AQC 40 (1928): 231, 235; Jacob, Radical Enlightenment, 131-32; William Weisberger, Speculative Freemasonry and the Enlightenment (New York, 1993), 59-61. 10. Jacob, Living the Enlightenment, 46; Weisberger, Speculative Freemasonry, 37, 59. 11. Money, “The Masonic Moment,” The Journal of British Studies 32 (1993): 372; Weisberger, Speculative Freemasonry, 61-62; Newman, “Politics and Freemasonry,” 36; Jenkins, “Jacobites and Freemasons,” 401-02. 12. William Treloar, Wilkes and the City (London, 1917), 73; Newman, “Politics and Freemasonry,” 38. Wilkes belonged to several Masonic Lodges (both Ancient and Modern) as well as a number of quasi-masonic organizations. He frequented the Horn tavern, where the Joiners Company, a free and easy club, and three Masonic Lodges met. Brewer, Party Ideology, 149, 194-95. 13. Brewer, Party Ideology, 196, 181; Newman, “Politics and Freemasonry,” 38; Jenkins, “Jacobites and Freemasons,” 392. 14. John Hamill, The Craft (Leighton Buzzard, England, 1986), 45; Brother Fench to Brother Banks, 31 October 1768, Industry and Perseverance, No. 109, Calcutta Lodge File, Freemasons’ Hall, London (hereafter “FHL”). 15. Money, “Freemasonry and the Fabric of Loyalism,” 260; Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment, 120-21, 130-31 and Living the Enlightenment, 46, 54, 56. 16. The regiment was the 77th Foot or Atholl Highlanders, raised in 1778 (disbanded in 1783); it was named after the Duke of Atholl, grand master of England and later of Scotland. The practice was apparently widespread because the GLS felt it necessary to issue a circular “forbidding the practice of offering bounties to military recruits, together ‘with the freedom of Masonry.’” Robert Gould, History of Freemasonry 5 (London, 1886): 63. 17. Burgoyne quoted in Gould, Military Lodges (London, 1899), 172. 18. Steven C. Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood (Chapel Hill, 1996), 109, 112, 114; Sesquicentennial History: St. George’s Lodge (Schenectady, 1924), 15. Work on the Masonic affiliations of prominent revolutionaries is well developed. In addition to Bullock, see A. Cerza, “Colonial Freemasonry in the United States of America,” AQC 90 (1977); M. Baigent and R. Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge (New York, 1989); Ronald Heaton, Masonic Membership of the Founding Fathers (Silver Spring, MD: 1974). 32
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19. Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood, 113; Baigent and Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge, 224; Neil York, “Freemasons and the American Revolution,” The Historian 55 (1993): 322-25. 20. Evan Thomas, John Paul Jones (New York, 2003), 26, 37, 216-17, 221. 21. Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood, 109, 122-24, 129, 109; J. Hugo Tatsch, Freemasonry in the Thirteen Colonies (New York, 1929), 202-22. 22. Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood, 121; William Stemper, “Conflicts and Development in Eighteenth-Century Freemasonry,” AQC 104 (1991): 200-01. 23. Thomas Parramore, Launching the Craft (Raleigh, 1975), 54-60; Cerza, “The American War of Independence,” AQC 89 (1976): 172. 24. Master and officers of Lodge No. 1, Halifax to Grand Lodge of England (Modern), 17 August 1778 UGLHC 16/H/8, FHL. 25. Cerza, “American War of Independence,” 171; Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood, 61, 74, 79. 26. Cerza, “Colonial Freemasonry,” 229; Wilmot DeSaussure, “Address on the History of Freemasonry in South Carolina,” (Charleston, 1878). 27. Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood, 112-13. 28. Philip Davidson, Propaganda and the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1941), 331 quoting Moore, Diary of the Revolution, 2:443; Cerza, “Colonial Freemasonry,” 227. 29. Cerza, “American War of Independence,” 173; Wallace McLeod, ed., Whence Come We? Freemasonry in Ontario, 1764-1980 (Hamilton, 1980), 9-10.
Attention Royal Arch Masons! Volunteers interested in serving as regional editors for receiving and compiling sets of recipes for the Royal Arch Masons International Cookbook are requested to contact Most Excellent Companion Jim Hodge at jhhsnow@aol.com. knight templar
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Knights at the Bookshelf By Sir Knight George L. Marshall, Jr., PGC
Jaime Paul Lamb, Myth, Magick & Masonry: Occult Perspectives in Freemasonry, The Laudable Pursuit Press, 2018, 136 pages, ISBN 978-1-7326214-0-4.
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f I were to offer one piece of advice to readers before reading this book, it would be to bone up on Hermeticism, the Kabala, and Western esotericism in general. Pike’s Morals and Dogma, Waite’s The Book of Ceremonial Magic, and The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, all of which are available for free online. The book attempts to explain and illustrate the esoteric connections between Freemasonry and Ceremonial Magick and the similarities existing between the language and symbolism of Freemasonry and that of the ancient mystery cults of Isis-Osiris, Eleusis, and Mithra. Excerpts from noted esoteric thinkers and writers such as Albert Pike, Manly Hall, Albert Mackey, Eliphas Levi, and many others are interspersed throughout the book. The author also considers the influence of mythology and astrology on Masonic ritual and imagery. While not presenting an exact repetition of the ideas of previous authors, the present author does draw heavily upon them. The beauty of interpretation of symbols or metaphorical expressions is that such interpretation is fully within the purview of who is doing the interpreting. The author in many cases expands upon or elucidates what others have said concerning a particular symbol or action occurring in Masonic ritual, as well as presenting his own opinion. You may not (and probably should not) agree with everything that is presented in the book but read it with an open mind and consider doing a bit of research yourself. I particularly enjoyed Section IV: “Freemasonry and the Rites of Mithras” which presented some correspondences between Freemasonry and Mithraism, a mystery religion influenced by Persian Zoroastrianism and adopted and expanded upon by the Roman Legionaries. The book certainly presents some very interesting and novel methods of, and approaches to, understanding and interpreting our Craft by con34
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sidering what it has possibly inherited from early wisdom, religion, esotericism, and philosophy. Although not the easiest read, for the Mason willing to invest time and thought to reflect upon and study what is presented, the effort is well worth it and should significantly enhance his appreciation of our ritual and our symbols.
Donald Ray Salmon South Dakota Grand Commander 2001 Born: November 16, 1934 Died: October 26, 2018
James Noel Higdon Texas Grand Commander 2004 Born: October 20, 1944 Died: March 4, 2018
Phillip Clark Boley Kansas Grand Commander 1973 Born: November 3, 1929 Died: December 5, 2018
Attention Royal Arch Masons! The editor of the Royal Arch Mason magazine is seeking back issues prior to 1971 in order to digitize them and place them on the web site. Anyone who has such issues is requested to contact Most Excellent Companion Jim Hodge at jhhsnow@aol.com. We publish letters and articles from a variety of sources and points of view. The opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policy of the Grand Encampment, the Knight Templar magazine, or the Editorial Review Board. Archived issues of the Knight Templar magazine can be accessed on the web at http://www.knightstemplar.org/. Then click on the button “Knight Templar” at the bottom of the page and select “Archives.” The archives include an index. Subscriptions to the Knight Templar magazine are available from the Grand Encampment office at a rate of $15.00 per year. Individual issues in quantities of less than ten can be obtained for $1.50 each from the office of the managing editor if available. Inquire via e-mail to the managing editor for quantities in excess of ten.All past issues are archived on our web site. http://www.knightstemplar.org. knight templar
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