The History of Freemasonry

by Albert Gallatin Mackey

Chapter 46 - Introduction of Freemasonry into The North American Colonies

THE intercourse of the English colonies with the mother country was continuous, and, considering the condition of navigation, conducted entirely by sailing-vessels, was frequent. The colonists brought with them, in their immigration to the new country, the language, the laws, and the customs of their ancestors. The personal and political relations existing between the people on either side of the Atlantic were very intimate, and the wide ocean formed no sufficient barrier to the introduction among the Americans of new discoveries and inventions, of new styles of living or of new trains of thought which, springing up in England, were in a brief course of time brought over by visitors or by new settlers to the growing colonies.

It is not, therefore, to be doubted that very soon after the establishment of Speculative Freemasonry in London, by the organization of a Grand Lodge, in 1717, persons who had been initiated in the London lodges came over to America and brought with them the principles of the new system as it was just beginning to be taught at home.

At whatever precise date we may place the legal establishment of the first lodge in America, it is very certain, from the testimony of authentic public documents, that there was no lack of Freemasons in America not very long after the establishment of the system in England and anterior to the known legal organization of any lodge in the country.

Of course, it is understood that many of these Freemasons had been initiated in England, either while on a temporary visit to that country, if they were residents of the colonies, or, if they were recent immigrants, then before they left their old home for their new one.

This is very plain; nothing could be more natural than that a colonist going "home," as England was affectionately styled, should have availed himself of the opportunity afforded by his visit, to unite with a society enticing by its mystic character and its great popularity, and that among the emigrants who were daily crossing the ocean, to make their homes in the new country, there should have been many who were members of that society.

But the question has never yet been mooted whether some per sons had not been initiated in America before any deputation had been insured by a Grand Master of England for the organization of a regular lodge, under the constitutions adopted at London in 1723.

Yet this is a very interesting question, and the fact that it is a novel one never having before been entertained, makes it still more interesting.

I may premise the investigation into which I am about to enter, by saying that whether the fact be proved or not, its occurrence is by no means impossible.

We have seen that lodges were established in France as early as 1721, eleven years before the constitution of a regular lodge by the Grand Lodge at London. I have already said that these lodges were organized without a Warrant, by certain Freemasons from England, who had exercised the ancient privilege of the Operatives to open lodges and make Masons without a Warrant, whenever a competent number were present. This privilege had been surrendered its 1717 by the four London Lodges to the newly erected Grand Lodge, but it was for some time after asserted occasionally It was in France, may it not also have been in America ?

The first Deputation granted from England for the colonies was granted by the Duke of Norfolk to Daniel Coxe, Esq., of New Jersey. The date of this Deputation is June 5, 1730. It appoints him Provincial Grand Master of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and it empowers him to constitute lodges.

While there is the indisputable evidence of the original Deputation still preserved in the Archives of the Grand Lodge of England, as well as the printed List of Deputations published by Anderson in the Second edition of the Book of Constitutions, and many other irrefragable proofs that the Deputation was granted to Coxe in June, 1730, there is not the slightest testimony of any kind, even traditional, that any similar Deputation can have been previously granted to any person residing in the American Colonies.

In other words, the proof is very satisfactory that previous to the latter half of the year 1730 (1) there was no legal authority in the colonies to constitute lodges according to the English regulation adopted in 1717.

If, then, there were any lodges which met in the colonies previous to that date, they must have been lodges which derived their authority for meeting from the old Operative usage, which was that a sufficient number of Masons met together were empowered to make Masons and to practice the rites of Masonry without a Warrant of Constitution.

It has now been conceded that the first constitutional lodge of Freemasons acting under the authority of a Warrant was established in Philadelphia in the latter part of the year 1730. The evidence of this will be hereafter given in its proper place.

But there are also proofs that one or more lodges were in existence in Philadelphia before the time of the reception by Coxe of the Deputation which had been granted to him by the Duke of Norfolk.

The first of these proofs is furnished by the celebrated Dr. Benjamin Franklin, who was in 1730 the Printer and also the Editor of a paper published in Philadelphia with the title of the Pennsylvania Gazette.

In No. 108 of that paper, published on December 8, 1730, is the following article: "As there are several lodges of FREE MASONS erected in this Province, and people have lately been much amused with conjectures concerning them, we think the following account of Free Masonry, from London, will not be unacceptable to our readers."

Now Coxe's Deputation was only issued in June of that year, It could hardly have taken less than two or three months for it to pass from the Grand Secretary's office in London into the hands of Bro. Coxe in New Jersey. Between the time of his receiving it and the publication of the article just cited from Franklin's Gazette, the interval would be hardly long enough to enable Coxe to organize and constitute several lodges.

(1) The Deputation having been issued at London, June 5, 1730, allowing for necessary delays and the length of the passage across the ocean at that time, it could hardly have reached Philadelphia before the end of August or more probably September in the same year.

We know from the records that there was one lodge constituted in 1730, but we have no evidence of the constitution in that year of any others, either by Coxe as Provincial Grand Master or by any brother appointed by him as his Deputy.

And yet Franklin says (and he was neither a truthless nor a careless writer) that there were several lodges at that time in the Province of Pennsylvania.

But as several includes more than one, where did the additional lodges come from? They were not constituted by Coxe nor by his authority, at least we have no knowledge of any such constitution.

It is therefore not unlikely that these lodges were like the first lodges in France, formed by what the Freemasons had been taught was their prescriptive right, and who, without a Warrant, had before the coming of the Deputation assembled together in competent number and practiced the rites of Masonry.

But there is something more than probable conjecture to support this theory. A letter was written in 1754 by Henry Bell, at that time residing in the town of Lancaster (Pennsylvania), to Dr. Thomas Cadwallader of Philadelphia, in which he makes the positive statement from his own knowledge and participation in the circumstance that there actually was in 1730, perhaps before, at least one lodge formed by prescriptive right without a Warrant.

Bro. Bell's letter, containing this important historical statement, was exhibited in the office of the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in the year I172. A copy of it made at that time was published in the Early History and Constitutions of the Grand Lodge and is as follows:

"As you well know, I was one of the originators of the first Masonic lodge in Philadelphia. A party of us used to meet at the Tun Tavern, in Water street, and sometimes opened a lodge there. Once in the fall of 1730 we formed a design of obtaining a charter for a regular lodge, and made application to the Grand Lodge of England for one, but before receiving it, we heard that Daniel Coxe of New Jersey had been appointed by that Grand Lodge as Provincial Grand Master of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. We therefore made application to him, and our request was granted."

It thus appears from the testimony of one engaged in the transit action that for some time previous to any authority existing in America for granting Warrants, a lodge had been opened in Philadelphia, without the sanction of such Warrant and of course by the old prescriptive right, which had always prevailed as the law of Freemasonry, until the right was surrendered in 1717 by the four Lodges which united in forming the Grand Lodge at London.

Bro. Clifford P. MacCalla, who has been a most indefatigable and successful explorer of old documents connected with the early history of Freemasonry in Pennsylvania, published in his valuable paper, the Key Stone (December 22, 1877), an important and interesting letter which furnishes the evidence that there were Freemasons in Philadelphia one year at least before the severance of the Speculative from the Operative element, and the organization of the Grand Lodge at London.

This letter is dated "March 10, 1715," (1) and was written by John Moore, the King's collector at the port of Philadelphia, and addressed to James Sandilands, Esq., of Chester, Penn.

The letter is an official one, communicating the fact that he had received from England a bell and some altar furniture, intended for a church at Chester, and requesting to know how they were to be delivered. But this business matter having been dismissed, the letter concludes with the following remarkable passage:

"Ye winter has been very long and dull, and we have had no mirth or pleasure except a few evenings spent in festivity with my Masonic Brethren."

Since the authenticity of this letter is indisputable, (2) it is of great historical importance. It shows without a doubt that in America, as in England and in Scotland, there were Freemasons, who lived under the old partly Operative and partly Speculative regime anterior to what has been called the " Revival." which took place in

(1) Although the double reference, as 1715-16, was generally affixed to dates in the first three months of the year, to indicate the old and the new styles, it is very probable that by "March 10, 1715," the writer meant what we should now write as "March 10, 1716." (2) Bro. MacCalla states that at the time of publication the letter was in the possession of Bro. Horace W. Smith, the great-grandson of the Rev. Dr. William Smith, the Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania; the grandson of Bro. William Moore Smith, Grand Master of Pennsylvania, and the son of Richard Penn Smith of Lodge No. 72 in Philadelphia, and that the granddaughter of John Moore, the writer of the latter, intermarried with the Rev. Dr. Smith, the great-grandfather of its present custodian. The letter is thus traced through a reputable descent, which gives it all needful color of authenticity.

London in 1717, when the Speculative began to be wholly dissevered from the Operative system.

In England and Scotland we know that these Freemasons were united in lodges, which worked without the sanction of a Warrant of Constitution, which was a new regulation adopted for the first time at the time of the so-called Revival. They were organized, as has been already said, by a prescriptive right by which a competent number of Freemasons were always authorized to assemble and perform the rites of Masonry.

There is, it is true, no direct evidence that the Freemasons referred to in the letter of Bro. Moore pursued the same plan in 1715, and "spent their evenings in festivity" in an organized lodge. But it is very probable that such was the fact. There is no reason why, if there were a sufficient number of Freemasons then living in Philadelphia, and who were in the habit, as the letter indicates, of meeting for festive purposes, they should not have followed the custom which prevailed "at home," and for better regularity and discipline in their meetings have formed themselves into a lodge.

At all events, we have the positive proof that fifteen years later there was a lodge which met in Philadelphia in 1730 and for some time before, which acted without a Warrant, until the latter part of that year, when it asked for and received one from Coxe, the Provincial Grand Master.

We have no such direct proof of the existence in other parts of the continent of lodges held by "prescriptive right," but there are some circumstances that lead us to believe that such was sometimes the case.

In 1736 the brethren of Portsmouth in New Hampshire applied to Henry Price for a charter. The petition is at least singular in its phraseology. It is subscribed by "persons of the holy and exquisite Lodge of St. John," as if there were already a lodge existing under that title, and in asking for a "Deputation and power to hold a lodge according to order as is and has been granted to faithful Brothers in all parts of the World;" and in asking for the Deputation, they say, "we have our constitutions, both in print and manu script, as good and as ancient as any that England can afford." (1)

(1) See the petition in Bro. Gardiner's able report in the "Transactions of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts," anno 1871, D. 307.

Now, this may mean either that the Portsmouth brethren were in possession of rituals and other necessary books to use in forming a lodge; or it may mean that they were already working and had been working as a lodge by prescriptive right and now wanted to be duly regularized under the new system which Price had just received from England. It is an open question.

The colonies into which Freemasonry under the new system of the Revival was first introduced were Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Georgia.

There is no positive evidence that any lodges existed under the old Operative System, in either Massachusetts or South Carolina In the former Price opened his Provincial Grand Lodge in 1733, and in such of the records as have come to light there is no reference to any previous meeting of the Masons.

In South Carolina Hammerton opened a lodge at Charleston in October, 1736, under a Warrant granted by the Grand Master, Lord Weymouth. There is no traditional or other evidence that any lodge of Masons had ever met in the Province before that date.

In Georgia regular Freemasonry under the Grand Lodge of 1717 was introduced in 1736 when Solomon's Lodge at Savannah was opened under sanction of a Warrant from Lord Weymouth. But the late Bro. W. S. Rockwell, in his Ahiman Rezon of Georgia, published in 1859, says that "many still living in Savannah have heard from older Brethren who have passed to that Undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns,' that a Lodge was at work in that city before Solomon's Lodge No. I had an existence." (1)

If there were any such lodge, it must have been one which worked under the "prescriptive right" or "immemorial usage" of the olden time.

In Pennsylvania we have already seen that at least one such lodge was in existence in 1730 before Coxe had received his authority as Provincial Grand Master. And there is also evidence that Freemasons were in the habit of meeting in Philadelphia for convivial purposes at least two years before the organization of the Grand Lodge at London.

Now It is true that we have no evidence of the existence of these

(1) Rockwells "Ahiman Rezon of Georgia," 1859, 4th edition, p. 323.

independent lodges anywhere in the colonies outside of Pennsylvania, nor any intimation of their existence, except the traditional report, mentioned by Rockwell, that a lodge had been in operation in Savannah before the Constitution of Solomon's Lodge and the suspicious phraseology of the petition for a lodge at Portsmouth, N. H., which might have emanated from a number of Masons who either were desirous of forming a new lodge, or who already working as a lodge by the old prescriptive right, wished to be regularized under the new system.

But notwithstanding this deficiency of positive evidence, does not all this show that there were lodges of this character in various parts of the colonies long before the issuing of Warrants by the London Grand Lodge ? That is to say, we have a right to suppose that Freemasonry was first established in this country by the voluntary association of a certain number of Masons together without the sanction of a Warrant. This was the rule in England previous to the year 1717, when this right of meeting by what was termed " immemorial usage" was surrendered to the Grand Lodge by the four Lodges in London.

But the right and the practice was not at once abandoned everywhere. Some lodges in the rural districts of England continued to act without Warrants for a few years, and lodges under the old privileges were established in France, apparently by the Jacobites or adherents of the House of Stuart.

There is no reason therefore to doubt that the same custom prevailed to some extent in the American Colonies. During the constant intercourse which was maintained between the Mother- country and its colonies, many Freemasons would be constantly repairing to them, either as visitors, as emigrants, or as officers of the parent government.

The Freemasonry that they brought with them they would naturally desire to practice in the new country into which they had come. Hence it is probable that they voluntarily associated in lodges and practiced the rites of the Institution in other parts of the colonies, as we now know that they did in Philadelphia in 1715.

The negative evidence that there are no minutes or records extant of the meetings of such lodges is not of the least value. It is not certain that they kept any records, or if they did, it is natural that in the lapse of time and with the intervention of so many stirring events, these records may have been lost. There are very few lodges of any antiquity, now existing in this country, whose earliest records have been preserved.

So the absence of records is no proof that such unwarranted lodges did not exist at an early period in this country, and the indisputable fact attested by documentary proof that one or more did exist at that early period in Pennsylvania, gives strong presumption to the hypothesis that similar lodges existed in some of the other colonies.

I advance therefore the following theory in reference to the introduction of Freemasonry into the American Colonies. I do not deny that it is, with the exception of the colony of Pennsylvania, a mere hypothesis, but an hypothesis is not necessarily false nor untenable because the proofs of it are not as strong as the enquirer might desire.

It can not be doubted or denied that the Masonic spirit which was prevailing in England in the early part of the 18th century, and which led in 1717 to the establishment of a Speculative Grand Lodge in London was carried into the remotest part of the British empire by emigrants and settlers in the colonies who preserved in their new home the manners and customs, the habits and associations, which had distinguished them in their old one.

Now as lodges existed in London and other parts of England and had long existed, organized under the old law of the Craft which authorized the congregation of Masons for Masonic purposes, without the sanction of a Warrant, we may reasonably suppose that Freemasons coming from England into the colonies, some of whom had probably been members of such lodges at home, would continue the custom in the new country into which they had come and there institute similar lodges.

At first the brethren may have met together for the purpose of preserving their Masonic recollections and of renewing the pleasures of their Masonic re-unions at home. Such appears to have been the case with the brethren referred to by Bro. Moore, who met in Philadelphia in 1715. As the Speculative Grand Lodge was not organized in London until two years afterward, these Masons must have come out of the old Operative lodges.

At first, these Masons may have been content to meet together without proceeding to make initiations. But there was no law to prevent their doing so, and I see no reason why they should not have proceeded to secure the prosperity of the Institution by an increase of its numbers.

Hence, I think that lodges must have been in existence in the colonies long before the granting of a Deputation to Coxe. There are no records now extant of the meetings of any such lodges, but as I have already said, this was not to be expected, and the fact that no such records can now be found, is not the slightest evidence that they never existed.

Certainly we know from authentic testimony, which has already been cited, that such a lodge was in existence and in operation in Philadelphia in 1730, and we know not how many years before, which applied to Daniel Coxe, when his Deputation as Provincial Grand Master arrived, and received from him authority to continue their labors as a regular lodge.

If this occurred in Pennsylvania, why should not the like have occurred in other colonies ? Why should not there have been lodges thus voluntarily formed, in Massachusetts before the Deputation of Price, in South Carolina before that of Hammerton, or in Georgia before that of Lacy ?

To say that there are no records of any such lodges is no answer to the question. The early records of Freemasonry, everywhere, have been too poorly kept and too illy preserved to authorize us to found any argument on their absence. Horace wisely tells us that many heroes perished before Agamemnon, unwept and unsung, because there was no poet to record their deeds.

The conclusion to which I arrive by this course of reasoning is, then, that Freemasonry was introduced into the colonies of North America at a very early period in the 18th century, by means of officers of the parent government, or emigrants intending to be future permanent residents.

These Freemasons soon established lodges in various places, which they worked without the sanction of Warrants, and under the regulation which existed in England at the time when they left it. At this period Warrants were unknown and lodges met whenever and wherever a competent number of brethren thought proper to establish one.

It was in this way that the love of Freemasonrywas preserved in these distant regions, and when at length the new system of warranting lodges which had been inaugurated in 1717 by the foul old Lodges in London began to be understood and Deputations for Provincial Grand Lodges and Provincial Grand Masterships began to be sent over from the parent country, these primitive, unwarranted lodges ceased to exist and their members took out Warrants which regularized them.

They had performed their mission. They had introduced Freemasonry into America. They had fostered it, with the best of their feeble rneans. They had planted the seed, and the nursing of the plant and the gathering of the crop they were willing should be left to those who came after them.

The new system brought by the various Deputations from England resulted in the introduction of the regulations which had been adopted by the English Grand Lodge. Provincial Grand Lodges were organized and no lodge was instituted except under the sanction of a Warrant.

From this time Freemasonry in the colonies begins to be purely historical, and in that light its early history is now to be considered.

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