For centuries, Freemasons around the world have adhered to the principles of fraternity, charity and truth laid out in the circa 1390 Regius manuscript. Cloaked in mystery for nearly as long, Freemasonry is the subject of new scrutiny and explication in the exhibit “The Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts: Celebrating 275 Years of Brotherhood.”
The exhibit, on view at the National Heritage Museum, traces the history of Freemasonry in the Western Hemisphere through related objects and artifacts gathered over the three centuries of its existence, highlighting its people, places and events.
Masonic symbology and rituals, viewed as arcane by many, are actually drawn from elements of daily life, based largely on the guild system of the Middle Ages, although documentation exists tracing the origins of Freemasonry to ancient Egypt and to the construction of King Solomon’s Temple. While much of its custom relates to the construction of the temple, Freemasonry’s discernible origins are generally assumed to have been in the English and Scottish guilds of stonemasons who built the grand cathedrals and other remarkable structures of the Middle Ages.
Now celebrating 275 years in the Western Hemisphere, Freemasonry explores its own American history through its artifacts and opens itself to clarification. Because so many early patriots were Masons, Freemasonry and early American history are intertwined.
Modern Freemasonry began with the 1717 establishment of the first Grand Lodge in London. Under the modern rules, membership was no longer restricted to working stonemasons and the former guild evolved into a fraternity based on moral edification, charity, leadership and truth. Members were known as “speculative” or “accepted” Masons. The influence of the Enlightenment was large: Freemasons espoused the brotherhood of man under God; they also looked toward the freedom of man.
Freemasonry arrived in the Western Hemisphere in 1733 when the Boston tailor Henry Price, a Freemason in his native England, was appointed “Provincial Grand Master of New England and Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging” by the Grand Master of Masons in England. With that, he established the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in Boston. All subsequent state Grand Lodges in the Western Hemisphere in the Eighteenth Century were established under the aegis of the Massachusetts organization. They were located in Canada (Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Quebec) and the Caribbean (Antigua, Surinam, Barbados and St Kitts). Whalers and merchant mariners spread Freemasonry even further, and lodges under the Massachusetts lodge opened in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1853, in Shanghai, China, in 1863 and in 1912 in Panama.
Although state lodges were chartered by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, they were not subject to the authority of the Massachusetts lodge. Each state or country has its own Grand Lodge under which lodges within the state are organized. Membership was open to men of good character who believed in a supreme being, although African Americans were not permitted to join the lodge until Prince Hall of Boston established the African Grand Lodge of North America in 1791.
After his death in 1807, the lodge became known as the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. By 2006, there were 44 Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodges, 44 lodges and some 300,000 Prince Hall Masons. Women were not allowed to become Freemasons, although they supported a man’s membership because they believed it improved his character. The Order of the Eastern Star was formed in the mid-Nineteenth Century to admit women.
The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, which was St John’s Lodge, convened originally at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston, moving later to the colonial hotspot, the 1643 Green Dragon Tavern, which the lodge purchased in 1764 and used until 1818. The Green Dragon was also the unofficial headquarters of the American Revolution. Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, Paul Revere, the Committee of Correspondence and the Sons of Liberty all met there. The participants in the Boston Tea Party set forth from the Green Dragon, and Revere set out on his midnight ride from there.
The lower floor was the tavern; an upper floor was for meetings and events for Freemasons and others; the top floor provided sleeping accommodations for travelers. While many of the leading lights of the Revolution were members of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, British soldiers occupying Boston were also among the brethren.
The tavern was marked by a large and ferocious-looking copper dragon, which had oxidized to green. When the building was torn down to make way for the widening of the street in 1828, the dragon disappeared mysteriously and the Lodge of St Andrew commissioned a sandstone replacement, which was installed in the new building in 1855. That dragon is on view in the exhibit.
“The Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts” tracks the history of American Freemasonry through the impressive collection of artifacts and documents gathered over the existence of the lodge. In 2004, the Grand Lodge and the National Heritage Museum entered into a partnership under the terms of which they would share objects and documents. As a result, some 12,000 objects came from the lodge to the museum. Another 70,000 historic pieces remain at the lodge and are yet to be cataloged. The exhibit is arranged chronologically, yet it allows each object to tell its own story.
The objects are decorated with Masonic symbols, which are based on the tools used by stonemasons, and refer to careful construction and the analogous development of good character and morality. Such images include, but are not limited to, the all-seeing eye, the beehive, the compass and square, the serpent of astral light, pillars and the temple and the checkerboard floor, the extended hand and the bible or other sacred text. The various stonemasons’ tools speak to the careful workmanship necessary to one’s labors and personal, fraternal and community life.
The all-seeing eye represents the supreme being and is drawn from the ancient Hebrews and Egyptians, for whom the eye signified divine watchfulness. The beehive refers to the lodge and its precise and intricate construction, as well as to the industry within. It is used less regularly today than in the Nineteenth Century. The compass and square allude to virtue and rectitude and revelation, righteousness and redemption. The pillars signifying King Solomon’s Temple indicate strength and stability and stand on three stone steps that represent the three ages: youth, manhood and old age and the corresponding degrees of masonry: Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft Mason and Master Mason.
The letter “G” is an integral part of Masonic symbology and is said to have been originally a reference to geometry, key to Masonic craft, but is thought to have gained wider meaning as a reference to God.
A gold urn on view in the exhibition was commissioned from colonial silversmith Paul Revere by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Created in the midst of the national mourning of the death of fellow Mason George Washington, it holds a lock of the president’s hair. The lodge continues to use the urn for events such as the installation of a Grand Master.
Masonic aprons have been traditionally embellished with fraternal symbols derived from the stonemason’s trade. A white lambskin apron, denoting innocence, is presented to each newly raised master Mason. It is not worn because of its fragility; members instead rely on cloth aprons, also decorated with symbols. The apron itself refers to the work aprons worn by stonemasons of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.
An Eighteenth Century Liverpool creamware pitcher on view is one of 100 commissioned in about 1790 by Captain Samuel Jenks, a veteran of the Revolutionary War and a Mason, and presented to the Boston Fusiliers. It is polychromed and decorated with transfer ware images of a fusilier and Masonic imagery. A border proclaims, “Success to the Independent Boston Fusiliers, Incorporated July 4th, 1787.”
The ritual and symbolism of Freemasonry gave rise to fervid anti-Freemasonry sentiment and conspiracy theorists in the Nineteenth Century. Several cartoons and other images on view are published examples. What had been trade secrets, passed from stonemason to stonemason, when adopted by Freemasons, assumed the proportions of sorcery, leaving nonmembers to imagine the worst. Regalia and ceremonial objects emblazoned with Masonic symbols confounded many and outraged the uninitiated.
Early colonial Freemasons included †in addition to Grand Master Price and Revere, who was the Deputy Grand Master †John Hancock, Samuel Adams and William Dawes. Others of note were Washington and Benjamin Franklin, who served as the Grand Master of Pennsylvania; 15 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were Freemasons; of the 40 signers of the Constitution, 28 were members or had Masonic affiliation.
George Washington was sworn in as president by Robert Livingston, Grand Master of the New York lodge; many of his generals were also Masons. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall was also a Mason. American presidents who were Freemasons along with Washington were James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, James Garfield, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Howard Taft, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Gerald Ford. Abraham Lincoln applied for membership but withdrew the application lest it be viewed as a means of gathering votes. Lyndon Johnson received his first degree; however, his political duties prevented him from pursuing additional degrees. Ronald Reagan was an Honorary Mason
“The Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts: Celebrating 275 Years of Brotherhood” remains on view at the National Heritage Museum through October 25.
The National Heritage Museum is at 33 Marrett Road. For additional information, www.nationalheritagemuseum.org or 781-861-6559.
