Archive, Volume 4

Questions About Albany
Alain Bernheim

The Ineffable was born toward the end of 1767 in Albany, then capital of the Province of New York. It was the first Lodge of Perfection in one of the thirteen English colonies of the continent of North America and worked eleven degrees, from the 4th, Secret Master, to the 14th, the Perfection. It was founded by Henry Andrew Francken, a Deputy Inspector General by authority from Estienne Morin.

Francken did more than found the Ineffable during the two years he remained in North America. He also constituted and appointed at least one Deputy Inspector, Moses Michael Hays. Since Hays appointed, directly or not, several Inspectors in 1781 at Philadelphia, among which Barend Moses Spitzer who was later to appoint John Mitchell, the future first Grand Commander in the United States of America, there is a tie between the story told in this paper and the present Southern Jurisdiction of the United States. However this is another story which space forbids to do more than mention.

SCENERY AND ACTORS

Estienne Morin's age, religion and birth-place gave rise to many speculations which can now be discarded. Needing a passport before sailing from Bordeaux to Saint-Domingue, Morin attested on 27 March 1762 that he was catholic, native from Cahors (a small city of the south-west of France) and forty-five years old (accordingly, he was born about 1717). His ship was captured and Morin was taken first to England, then to Jamaica - he may have met Francken then - and arrived at Saint-Marc on 20 January 1763. Morin's death was entered in the Register of Burials at Kingston (Jamaica) on 17 November 1771.

Henry Andrew Francken, born in Holland in 1720, was naturalized an English subject in March 1758 at Kingston where he arrived a year earlier. He came to North America in August 1767 where he stayed two years before sailing back to Jamaica. He died at Kingston, 20 May 1795.

George Harison was appointed Provincial Grand Master of the Province of New York by John Proby, 1st baron Carysfort, Grand Master of the premier Grand Lodge of England, 9 June 1753. He stayed in office until the end of 1771 and warranted or regularized about a dozen lodges in New York city. At least one city lodge was not under his authority: N° 399, warranted 7 July 1763 by the GL of Ireland, with Jeremiah van Rensselaer as Master.

Albany was a "{little city [which] seemed to have been imported entire from urban Holland". Its first lodge was founded by an ambulant Irish lodge within the Second Battalion of the 1st Regiment Royal Foot (later Royal Scots) which stayed there a few months. At the time the battalion was about to leave, the lodge

was petitioned by the resident members for authority to hold a Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons in said city, whereupon the Lodge prepared a fac-simile of their warrant endorsed as follows: We, the Master, Wardens and Brethren of a Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, N° 74, Registry of Ireland ¼ attest, that whereas, our body is very numerous by the addition of many new members, merchants and inhabitants of the City of Albany, they having earnestly requested and besought us to enable them to hold a Lodge during our absence from them, ¼ We have ¼ properly installed Mr. Richard Cartwright, Mr. Henry Bostwick and Mr. Wm. Furguson, as Assistant Master and Wardens of our body, allowing them to sit and act during our absence ¼ Given ¼ in the City of Albany, the eleventh day of April, in the year of Masonry 5759, and in the year of our Lord God 1759. Signed.

The document was confirmed by Provincial Grand Master Harison, 21 February 1765, designating the lodge as Union Lodge N° 1, having then the same Master, Richard Cartwright, an inn-keeper at Albany.

Sir William Johnson, an extraordinary Irish-American character, his two sons-in-law, "colonel Butler and eleven other companions", were entered, passed and raised in Union Lodge at the beginning of 1766. Sir William's biographer says he was "a major founding father of the United States" and asks: "How can it be that Johnson's name and achievements are well known only to experts ?" Sir William founded St. Patrick's Lodge at Johnstown, his residence some forty miles from Albany. His lodge was warranted by Harison, 3 May 1766. Sir William was Master of St. Patrick from the start and remained in office until 6 December 1770. In 1765, he had sent his natural son aged twenty-three, John Johnson, to England. John was made a Mason in Royal Lodge No. 313, London. Lord Blayney, "the then Grand Master of England", appointed him Provincial Grand Master of New York, 14 September 1767. John came back to North America by the end of the year, but was installed only in 1771. Sir William died at Johnson Hall, 11 July 1774. Sir John fled to Canada at the beginning of the Revolution.

Dr. Samuel Stringer purchased a lot of land in Albany on 17 October 1766. Its size was seventy-four feet on the present Lodge Street and seventy-nine feet on Maiden Lane. A lodge-house was to be erected on it, and the building ready on 24 June 1768. Dr. Samuel Stringer died, 11 July 1817, at Albany.

Moses Michael Hays' father, Judah Hays, came from Holland to America at the beginning of the 18th C. He "is of record December 2, 1735, as a Freeman in New York City, which gave him the right, as a naturalized Jew, to engage in business as a merchant". He married Rebecca Michels. Their first child, Reyna, married Abraham de Isaac Touro of Newport (R. I.). Moses Michael, born in New York City, 9 May 1739, their eldest son and second child, was a watchmaker. The first we know of his masonic life is the patent he received from Francken appointing him Deputy Inspector, 6 December 1768, and the Warrant he received from Harison appointing him Master of King David's Lodge in New York City, 23 February 1769. He was elected Grand Master of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge of Ancient Masons, 6 June 1788, and remained in office until March 1792. He died at Boston, 9 May 1805.

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

Scottish Rite Research Society
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