DGMLewisSr

WINSLOW LEWIS, SR.

1770-1850

A memorial appears starting on Page V-287, presented at the Quarterly Communication on June 12, 1850, by George M. Randall.

Winslow Lewis, Sr. was the son and father of Freemasons, and an active member of the Grand Lodge. He was a ship's captain by profession, who made a name for himself as a superintendent of lighthouse lighting for the United States Government; he developed an evolution of the Argand Lamp that was in general use early in the 19th century.

He was made a Mason in Liverpool, England in 1791, where he also became a Royal Arch Mason and a member of the Knights Templar; at the time of his death he was certainly the most senior member of either order in the state, and might have been the most senior Mason in Massachusetts. He was most closely attached to Washington Lodge in Roxbury, where he lived the latter part of his life; "and it was in a great measure, owing to his patronage, and kind efforts that [it] emerged from the deprression that had long born it down - and it became one of the most flourishing and active Lodges in the state."

The family name, and surname, are better remembered for his son Winslow Lewis Jr., who served a two-year and an one-year term as Grand Master not long after the father's death.