FREEMASONRY COMES TO THE NEW WORLD

Space here forbids telling even in outline of the spread of Freemasonry into other lands. The interested student may read the fascinating story for himself in many excellent histories of Freemasonry. Here we must confine ourselves to a very short sketch of the coming of Freemasonry to America - a subject the beginnings of which are clouded in legend, veiled in tradition and misty in lack of records.

The first native born American Mason is generally conceded to have been Jonathan Belcher, who was made a Mason in England in 1704. In June, 1730, the Duke of Norfolk, Grand Master of the Mother Grand Lodge, appointed Daniel Coxe, of New Jersey, the first Provincial Grand Master in America.

Johnson (1) says "There has appeared no evidence, however, that he exercised this deputation."

McGregor (2) says: "I was fortunately able to find a letter written by Daniel Coxe to James Alexander, dated from Trenton, N.J., July 31, 1730, thus definitely determining his (Coxe's) presence here."

On April 13, 1733, a deputation was issued to Henry Price as "Provincial Grand Master of New England and Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging."

If Coxe never exercised his authority under his deputation, then Henry Price was, as most historians claim, the father of Freemasonry in America.

If Coxe did exercise his authority under his deputation, then he deserves that honour.

(1) Melvin M. Johnson, Past Grand Master of Massachusetts. His learned and comprehensive The Beginnings of Freemasonry in America is exhaustive and complete.

(2) The late David McGregor, Historian of the Grand Lodge of New Jersey was a student of tireless energy and resource, with a profound knowledge not only of early Freemasonry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania but of early Colonial history in general.

Both McGregor and Johnson are historians and research workers of scholarly ability. Brethren in New Jersey and Pennsylvania almost universally agree with McGregor; brethren in New England in general and Massachusetts in particular agree with Johnson. Into the merits of this friendly controversy and the claims of two great Grand Jurisdictions this sketch cannot go. Perhaps we shall do well to await the "further light" of future historical research.

After all, to most of us it matters little! Freemasonry came to the Colonies in the early third of the Eighteenth Century and spread and grew, made its own place in the hearts of the Colonists and played a mighty if quiet part in the stirring events which were to sever the Thirteen Colonies from the motherland and to form the United States.

"Occasional lodges" without charters or warrants met in the Colonies at undetermined dates prior to the first known regular and duly constituted lodge which was the "First Lodge in Boston," July 30, 1733. Johnson states (Beginnings of Freemasonry in America):

Regular authority was granted for the establishment of duly constituted Freemasonry in New England in 1733; in all North America in 1734; in South America in 1735; in South Carolina, Georgia, and New Hampshire in 1735 or 1736; in the West Indies and New York in 1737; in Antigua and Nova Scotia in 1737-38; in Jamaica and St. Christopher in 1739; in the Barbados in 1739-40; in Bermuda, 1742; in Newfoundland, 1746; in San Domingo, 1748; and in Rhode Island, 1749.

By the close of the first half of the century not less than forty lodges had sprung from the Provincial Grand Lodge in Boston. Others had been warranted direct from London.

Newton states (Modern Masonry) :

In point of priority, then, the following lodges have precedence in the history of regularly constituted lodges in America: the Lodge of Boston in 1733; the Lodge at Montserrat second, in 1734; the Lodge of Philadelphia in 1734-35; the Lodge in Savannah, Georgia, and the Lodge in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1735; the Lodge in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1736; and so on as the list lengthened. The earliest American by-laws or regulations of a lodge were adopted in 1733, but no mention is made of any degrees. Masons were either "made" or "admitted" and nothing more until 1736, when for the first time the degree of Fellowcraft is named. Not until three years later, however, do we find such an entry as the following, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire: "Capt. Andrew Tombes was made a Mason and raised to a Fellowcraft." The records of Tun Tavern Lodge, of Philadelphia, in 1749, use the words "entered," "passed," and "raised" as we use them now.