Archive, Volume 4

According to their Rank: Masonry and the American Revolution, 1775--1792
Steven Bullock

The King of Sweden, the Rev. William Smith informed the Boston Ancients in October 1780, attended the recent installation of the new Grand Master of that country. According to the newspaper account Smith quoted in the letter, the monarch gave the new Grand Master "an ermin'd cloke." Then he "was placed upon a Throne, clothed with the marks of his new Dignity, and there received the Complements of all the members." The Masons came up "according to their rank ¼ to kiss the Hand, Sceptre, or Cloke of the new Grand Master." In turn, he gave each a Silver medal prepared for the ceremony. "This solemnity," stated the newspaper, "hath raised the Order of Freemasons from a kind of Oblivion into which they were sunk."

Smith, speaker at both Philadelphia's 1755 Modern and the 1779 Ancient processions, did not recount this story as a mere curiosity. As Grand Secretary of the Pennsylvania Ancients, he hoped to convince the Massachusetts Grand Lodge to support Pennsylvania's proposal of a Grand Master General---an officer to preside over all American lodges. The "magnificent" Swedish ceremony, he suggested, "may serve ¼ as a model for us."

Despite Smith's dreams of magnificence, fears of the oblivion that nearly engulfed the Swedish brothers could not have been far from his mind. The Revolution created a multifaceted crisis within the American fraternity. It disrupted meetings and split lodges as brothers took differing positions on the Revolution. The break from Britain also raised questions about the ultimate legitimacy of American Masonry---for the mother country had been the source of Masonic authority as well. Even in the Continental Army, the one bright spot in the wartime fraternity, the brothers were at times preoccupied with these difficulties. Making the original proposal for a national Grand Lodge at the beginning of 1780, they warned not only of "the relaxation of virtue amongst individuals," but also about "the present dissipated and almost abandoned condition of our lodges in general."

The military lodges that met within the Army's camps faced no such difficulties. Officers flocked into Masonry during the Revolution. But the success of Masonry within the Continental Army only highlights the crisis the officers themselves faced. The officers felt acutely their lack of the social standing deemed necessary for their positions and the diversities of local origins, religion, and rank created by their new circumstances. For these men, Masonry's ideals of honor and love offered a powerful means of addressing these difficulties, so powerful that Masonic bonds played an important role in building the camaraderie necessary for the survival of the army---and the American republic.

The fraternity that emerged from the war was stronger than ever before. This rather unexpected result came not because it took up the scepters and thrones prescribed by Smith but because the fraternity, despite the uncertainties created by the war, was able to align itself with both the Revolutionary cause and with the republican society it attempted to create. To understand this unanticipated result, the problems of the older civilian lodges deserve attention first, difficulties visible in another attempt to create magnificence in the midst of near-oblivion.

I. Great Trubles amonge Masons

When General Joseph Warren, Grand Master of the Ancient Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, died at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, the British threw his body into an unmarked grave. The British evacuation the following March allowed the recovery of the body and a funeral organized by Warren's Masonic brothers. Accompanied by their Modern counterparts (invited for the occasion), and two companies of Soldiers, Boston's Ancients marched from the Council Chambers to the Anglican King's Chapel. The Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper, a Revolutionary leader, led the prayer; Perez Morton, a Harvard-educated lawyer and a new member of St. Andrew's, gave the oration. Portraying Warren as the embodiment of virtue, Morton recalled that the former Grand Master believed "that nothing so much conduced to enlighten Mankind, and advance the great End of Society at large, as the frequent Interchange of Sentiments, in friendly Meetings." Morton noted that Warren often followed his own advice: "we find him constantly engaged in this eligible Labour; but on none did he place so high a Value as on the most honorable of all the detached Societies, THE FREE ACCEPTED MASONS."

The rich images of the celebration contrasted strongly with the actual condition of Boston Masonry. Even before the Declaration of Independence, St. Andrew's lodge had faced problems that plagued American brothers during the war and afterward. Simply continuing to meet proved difficult. Hindered by British occupation, the lodge stopped meeting in April 1775 just before Lexington and Concord. It revived only in the following year. The issue of Revolutionary loyalty furthermore split the lodge. While General Warren led American troops at Bunker Hill, his lodge brother Dr. John Jeffries aided the British. Jefferies and a number of other members left with the British in 1776---after he revealed the location of his Grand Master's body.

In facing difficulties raised by disruption and questions of loyalty, Boston Ancients were not unique. Fighting, mobilization, and occupation impeded Masonic activities throughout America, particularly in the interior. Indeed, Boston's Ancients were unusual in their quick recovery, made possible by the shifting of the fighting to other areas. Their strong Patriot contingent furthermore kept the Loyalists in their ranks from having much influence, preventing division and further disruptions that many other lodges, even in Boston, could not escape. While these problems of continuing meetings and deciding loyalties would sometimes be easily resolved, they also often created unforeseen consequences, hastening the demise of the Moderns in many areas and contributing to Masonry's later reputation as a strongly patriotic organization.

Boston lodges

Boston lodges, at the center of the earliest fighting of the Revolution, were only the first to face the problems of wartime meetings. The eight years of hostilities disrupted Masonic meetings in all parts of America. New York's Modern Lodge No. 3 held no meetings at all during the war. Charleston Masons seemingly did not assemble from 1778 to 1780. In Philadelphia, Lodge No. 8 stopped meeting during the British occupation, while No. 2, the city's oldest Ancient Lodge, had its jewels and paraphernalia stolen by British soldiers. Even as late as 1785, the Pennsylvanians excused the inaction of their Winchester, Virginia subordinate noting: "The late War has caused great trubles amonge Masons of which you have had more than Common Share."

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This excerpt is from Heredom, the transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society

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