A Guide to a Mason's Actions Grand Lodge

 The roots of Freemasonry are vague. The creation of the Craft (since it's also called) occurred over time between the first recorded gentleman joining an Edinburgh stonemasons' lodge in 1599 and the 1721 publication in London of The Constitutions of this Free-Masons from Scots Presbyterian minister James Anderson Master mason apron.

Freemasonry is basically a self indulgent, volunteer association that teaches moral, intellectual, and spiritual lessons through three initiation ceremonies. Freemasonry's three degree are modeled following a craftsman's advancement: Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason. Freemasonry was, and remains, open to most men of good reputation who profess a belief in Deity (known in lodge as The Supreme Architect of the Universe). By the 1750s a selection of Christian and non-Christians, European, and non-European guys, and a couple of women, were members.2

Freemasonry grew popular in cities as commercial, political, and intellectual elites gathered inside a lodge. With aristocratic, and after royal patronage, Freemasonry evolved to the ancestral fraternal business of this eighteenth century. The first records of American Masonic lodges are in Philadelphia. In 1732, Boston's St. John's Lodge was constituted by the Grand Lodge of England and remains the oldest lodge in North America. Interwoven with the British Enlightenment, Masonic lodges formed through Europe and the Americas. The network of Scots, English, and Irish Lodge helped knit the British commercial empire together.3

Although American elites originally combined the Freemasons to keep pace with genteel English behaviour, the fraternity led to the spread of their ideas and ideals behind the American Revolution. During the revolutionary era, Masons of notice included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Otis, and Paul Revere. While individual Freemasons actively engaged in the American Revolution, Freemasonry, within an institution in addition to its local lodges, stayed politically neutral.4

Washington joined Freemasonry at the Lodge in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was 20 years old when he received the first degree of Entered Apprentice on November 4, 1752. He reduced the lodge two pounds and three shillings to combine. Ten days later turning 21, on March 3, 1753, he was passed into the second degree of Fellowcraft. On August 4, 1753, he was raised to the next level of Master Mason. The lodge's surviving minute book documents Washington attending only two meetings: September 1, 1753, and January 4, 1755.5

Following the war, in 1784, Washington accepted the invitation of his friends and acquaintances to attend a June feast in Alexandria Lodge No. 39, where he was elected an honorary member. Four years after he agreed to be commuting master of the lodge as it transferred its allegiance from the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania to the Grand Lodge of Virginia. Following Washington's death the lodge changed its name to Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22.8

As president, Washington exchanged letters with many Masonic regional lodges and state grand lodges. In addition, he met delegations of all Freemasons during his trip to Rhode Island in 1790 and his 1791 excursion of the southern states. His most significant Masonic action, however, happened on September 18, 1793. Acting as expansive master pro tem, he presided at the Masonic ceremonial placing of the United States Capitol cornerstone.9

At Washington's 1799 funeral, brothers of Alexandria Lodge performed Masonic rites Master mason apron. After Martha Washington's passing the lodge acquired many precious items from the estate, such as a Masonic apron sent from France from 1793. With these items and lots of curiosities, the lodge started a museum in 1812.10