Washington monument cornerstone bible6/10/2023 During the revolutionary era, Masons of note included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Otis, and Paul Revere. 3Īlthough American elites initially joined the Freemasons to keep pace with genteel English behavior, the fraternity contributed to the spread of the ideas and ideals behind the American Revolution. The network of Scots, English, and Irish Lodge helped knit the British commercial empire together. Interwoven with the British Enlightenment, Masonic lodges formed throughout Europe and the Americas. John’s Lodge was duly constituted by the Grand Lodge of England and remains the oldest lodge in North America. The earliest records of American Masonic lodges are in Philadelphia. With aristocratic, and later royal patronage, Freemasonry evolved into the preeminent fraternal organization of the eighteenth century. 2įreemasonry grew popular within cities as political, commercial, and intellectual elites gathered within a lodge. By the 1750s a variety of Christian and non-Christians, European, and non-European men, and a few women, were members. Freemasonry was, and remains, open to all men of good reputation who profess a belief in Deity (referred to in lodge as The Supreme Architect of the Universe). Freemasonry’s three degree are modeled after a craftsman’s progress: Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason. 1įreemasonry is fundamentally a self-improvement, volunteer association that teaches moral, intellectual, and spiritual lessons through three initiation ceremonies. The creation of the Craft (as it is 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 the Free-Masons by Scots Presbyterian minister James Anderson.
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