GMDunn

From MasonicGenealogy
Jump to: navigation, search

SAMUEL DUNN 1747-1815

SamuelDunn.jpg

Deputy Grand Master, 1797-1799
Grand Master, 1800-1802


TERM

1800 1801 1802

BIOGRAPHY

MOORE'S FREEMASON'S MONTHLY, 1859

From Moore's Freemason's Monthly, Vol. XVIII, No. 6, April 1859, Page 169:

SAMUEL DUNN, Esq., Was the fourth Grand Master of Massachusetts, after the Union in 1792. He was born in Providence, R. I., in the year 1753 (sic), and died in Boston Nov. 28th, 1815. In early life he followed the sea, and was a successful ship-master until 1785. During that year he married Sarah Cutler, daughter of John Cutler, Grand Master in 1792, 3 and 4. His father, Samuel Dunn, also a ship-master, was born in Providence; and his grandfather, Samuel Dunn, was also born in Providence. The latter commanded a company of infantry in an expedition against the island of Carthagene, in 1740, where he lost his life. The remains of the subject of this notice were buried in the Stone-Chapel Burying-ground, Boston.

PROCEEDINGS, 1916

From Proceedings, Page 1916-200

Captain Samuel Dunn, a leading citizen of Boston, was installed in the office of Grand Master on the 17th of December, 1799, the fourth man to hold that high office since the union of the two constituent Grand Lodges. Like his father-in-law, Grand Master Cutler, Most Wor. Brother Dunn had been an active and prominent Mason; he was Master of St. John's Lodge before he was forty years old, had served on the seven-man committee on the union, and held the office of Junior Grand Warden, resigning his position on the momentous day in March l'192 when the union was finally achieved.

Bro. Dunn was bom in 1743 and was a shipwright by profession, as his father and namesake had been before him. He was a native Bostonian; his fine house, located on Wiltshire Street (on what is now the Cambridge Street side of Beacon Hill), overlooked the ropewalks and the Mill Pond, which separated Boston's North End from its growing West End. He retired from the sea around 1785, becoming more and more active in the affairs of the Craft. In 1787, when Grand Master John Rowe died, the funeral procession by the Grand Lodge assembled at his house; at the time of the union he was once again in the Oriental chair of St. John's Lodge, where he would serve untll 1794.

Only a few months before his election as Grand Master, Bro. Dunn married Sarah Cutler, daughter of John Cutler, a long time friend and fellow past master of St. John's. In the half-dozen years between the end of his father-in-law's term as Grand Master and the start of his own, Captain Dunn's world exhibited remarkable change. The early 1790s in Boston was a time of recovery. The ratification of the Constitution was a momentous event that brought the Revolutionary era to a close, placing the control of the city in the hands of (in the words of Harold and James Kirker, authors of Bulfinch's Boston) "the new Federalist merchants," the heirs of those who had wrested America from British rule. One of those men, John Adams, who would be the new country's second President, called this ruling group the "Essex Junto." One of the most prominent members of the group, Perez Morton, was extremely active and prominent in the affairs of the new united Grand Lodge.

We know little of Grand Master Dunn's politics, or whether he was a Federalist or a Republican: we do know that he was an ardent admirer of George Washington. who died within a week of his installation. At his direction, the Grand Lodge conducted "funeral obsequies" independent from the memorial procession organized by the town of Boston, featuring a golden urn containing a lock of the late President's hair - which he had personally requested from Mrs. Washington on behalf of the Grand Lodge. The acquisition of this artifact, still one of the most treasured possessions of the Grand Lodge, is one of the most notable achievements of Grand Master Dunn's term; he arranged for Past Grand Master Revere to fashion the urn to hold it.

Just as the outside world was being transformed, the Masonic world was evolving. Grand Master Revere had chartered nearly two dozen lodges, a number large enough that a resolution was adopted during the term of his successor, Josiah Bartlett, effectively establishing a moratorium on new charters.

During Grand Master Dunn's first year in office, he granted only one petition - to Mount Zion Lodge in Hardwick; but in his second year he signed fourteen charters, including two in the District of Maine and one in the West Indies (St. John's, Starbrock), many of which derived from petitions that had been made years earlier. He signed four more charters during his third year in office, two in Maine and two in Massachusetts proper, bringing the count of lodges in the jurisdiction to more than seventy.

His other significant accomplishment was the creation of the District Deputy Grand Master system, in which men were empowered as personal representatives of the Grand Master to inspect lodges, receive moneys, and adjudicate disputes. Other jurisdictions questioned the propriety of such an arrangement, but the ever-increasing number of lodges and the attendant burdens of collecting quarterages and determining conformity with established landmarks made this innovation a necessity, and the idea spread so that it is almost universally employed today. As originally conceived, Massachusetts was divided into twelve districts, including three in Maine (Districts 9, 10, and 11). Individuals appointed to these posts had numerous duties, and in years to come would be burdened with yet more as the Craft spread further afield.

After his term, Bro. Dunn continued in the active affairs of his town and the Grand Lodge. He was frequently chosen to serve on committees by his successors, playing a prominent part in the private and public activities of Grand Lodge. He was a town assessor for several years, and represented Boston in the General Court from 1811-1813; he was also a prominent member of the Trinity Church congregation. He died in November 1815, and the Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge, the always eloquent Thaddeus Mason Harris, composed a memorial that was delivered to his widow.

Unlike many of his predecessors, there was no extensive procession nor public mourning: Masons' Hall was decorated with crepe for a month, as was the custom, and the Grand Lodge went on with its business.

The ongoing history of our great fraternity was built step by step by men such as Bros. Cutler and Dunn. As with many other Masons who have laid down their working tools after productive work, their voices and their deeds reach across two centuries to remind us from whence we have come.

TROWEL, 1996

From TROWEL, Fall 1996, Page 28:

'The Achievements of Samuel Dunn
by R. W. James T. Watson, Jr.

Born in Providence RI on July 19, 1747, Samuel Dunn early followed in his father's footsteps and became a successful shipmaster. Later, he was an assessor of Boston and represented it in the General Court. In 1799. he married Sarah Cutler, the daughter of another Grand Master, and was active in the affairs of Trinity Church.

Dunn was involved in the merger of First Lodge, Boston, his own lodge, with Second Lodge, and was Master of the resultant St. John's Lodge in 1783, 1784, 1787 and 1791-1794. He also served the committee of St. John's Grand Lodge that worked with a similar entity of Massachusetts Grand Lodge which resulted in the union of 1792. As a part of that union he resigned as Junior Grand Warden of St. John's Lodge, having served less than two years. He was Deputy Grand Master from 1797-1799 and Grand Master from 1799-1802.

During Dunn's administration George Washington died. At a special meeting. Grand Lodge determined not to join the public procession in Boston designed for his remembrance but to form its own public funeral procession on February 11, 1800, to which it would invite all the Lodges under its jurisdiction and St. Andrew's Lodge. At the same time it voted to have three Past Grand Masters, John Warren (brother of Joseph). Paul Revere and Josiah Bartlett send a letter of condolence to Martha Washington. They also requested a lock of Washington's hair which they proposed to place in a golden urn.

The urn which Paul Revere fashioned allows the viewer to see the hair through a circular crystal glass in the top. The side bears this inscription: "This urn incloses a lock of hair of the immortal Washington. Presented January 27, 1800, to the Massachusetts Grand Lodge by his amiable widow. Born Feb. 11, 1732. D'd. Dec. 14. 1799." Revere also made a mahogany "casket." lined with velvet, to store the urn. When on exhibit or in procession, the urn is fastened to the "casket" that all may see the full three and three-quarters inch height of the urn.

The ceremonies of February 11. 1800. started with the tolling of bells at eight a.m. At 11 o'clock a grand procession composed of more than 1600 Brethren formed at the Old State House. Two Pursuivants, mounted on white horses, and bearing an elliptical arch (14 feet in the clear), were followed by the procession. The golden urn, representing the body of the deceased, was followed by M. W. Samuel Dunn. Grand Master, as Chief Mourner. The procession moved through several of the principal streets to the Old South Meeting House, where solemnities began. A eulogy ended the service there, after which the procession moved to Stone Chapel for an appropriate funeral service. The Brethren then returned to the Old State House and dispersed.

Dunn's administration is noteworthy also for the development of the District Deputy Grand Master system, which evolved from the burden of visiting the many lodges being chartered at a distance from Boston. The first two articles presented at the extension of the December quarterly meeting in 1801 dealt with the District Deputy Grand Masters. The first divided the jurisdiction into districts named for their numerical order, no Lodge being more than 40 miles from any other Lodge in the district, except in Maine. Twelve districts resulted. When the Grand Lodge of Maine began with the arrival of statehood in 1820. the Charity Fund sent it $1000 as its share from the Massachusetts Grand Lodge.

The second article provided for the annual appointment of a District Deputy Grand Master for each district by the Grand Master. The duties of the deputies was to visit each Lodge in the district at least once a year, to receive all money required by Grand Lodge and to submit to the Grand Treasurer a duplicate report of everything paid to the Grand Secretary and all money he was holding for Grand Lodge. Many Grand Jurisdictions have adopted this system started by the Massachusetts Grand Lodge, a system which has changed little in 195 years.

During his administration M. W. Samuel Dunn chartered 15 Lodges due to the great interest in Masonry exhibited by soldiers returning from the Revolutionary War. They had viewed the activity of the military Lodges and found no Lodge in their towns on returning home.

The fire which destroyed all the records of Grand Lodge housed in the Masonic rooms over Winthrop House on April 5, 1864, also destroyed the original portrait of Dunn. Another portrait was painted, however, from a colored photograph of a Gilbert Stuart portrait of Dunn owned by Alexander M. Burgess of Providence.

Samuel Dunn last attended Grand Lodge on December 10, 1810. As reported in the Columbian Centinel, he died on November 28. 1815, and was buried the next day from his home in South Allen Street, with relatives, friends and societies of which he was a member invited to attend. The funeral proceeded to King's Chapel Burying-ground, Boston, where Dunn was buried in tomb #15.

TROWEL, 2010

From TROWEL, Fall 2010, Page 9:
by R. W. Walter H. Hunt.

Captain Samuel Dunn, a leading citizen of Boston, was installed in the office of Grand Master on the 17th of December, 1799, the fourth man to hold that high office since the union of the two constituent Grand Lodges. Like his father-in-law, Grand Master Cutler, Most Wor. Brother Dunn had been an active and prominent Mason; he was Master of St. John's Lodge before he was forty years old, and had served on the seven-man committee on the union, and held the office of junior grand warden, resigning his position on the momentous day in March 1792 when the union was finally achieved.

Bro. Dunn was born in 1743 and was a shipwright by profession, as his father and namesake had been before him. He was a native Bostonian; his fine house, located on Wiltshire Street (on what is now the Cambridge Street side of Beacon Hill), overlooked the ropewalks and the Mill Pond, which separated Boston's North End from its growing West End. He retired from the sea around 1785, becoming more and more active in the affairs of the Craft. In 1787, when Grand Master John Rowe died, the funeral procession by the Grand Lodge assembled at his house; at the time of the union he was once again in the Oriental chair of St. John's Lodge, where he would serve until 1794. Only a few months before his election as Grand Master, Bro. Dunn married Sarah Cutler, daughter of John Cutler, a long time friend and fellow past master of St. John's.

In the half-dozen years between the end of his father-in-law's term as Grand Master and the start of his own, Captain Dunn's world exhibited remarkable change. The early 1790s in Boston was a time of recovery. The ratification of the Constitution was a momentous event that brought the Revolutionary era to a close, placing the control of the city in the hands of (in the words of Harold and James Kirker, authors of Bulfinch's Boston) "the new Federalist merchants," the heirs of those who had wrested America from British rule. One of those men, John Adams, who would be the new country's second President, called this ruling group the "Essex Junto." One of the most prominent members of the group, Perez Morton, was extremely active and prominent in the affairs of the new united Grand Lodge.

We know little of Grand Master Dunn's politics, or whether he was a Federalist or a Republican: we do know that he was an ardent admirer of George Washington, who died within a week of his installation. At his direction, the Grand Lodge conducted "funeral obsequies" independent from the memorial procession organized by the town of Boston, featuring a golden urn containing a lock of the late President's hair—which he had personally requested from Mrs. Washington on behalf of the Grand Lodge. The acquisition of this artifact, still one of the most treasured possessions of the Grand Lodge, is one of the most notable achievements of Grand Master Dunn's term; he arranged for Past Grand Master Revere to fashion the urn to hold it.

Just as the outside world was being transformed, the Masonic world was evolving. Grand Master Revere had chartered nearly two dozen lodges, a number large enough that a resolution was adopted during the term of his successor, Josiah Bartlett, effectively establishing a moratorium on new charters.

During Grand Master Dunn's first year in office, he granted only one petition — to Mount Zion Lodge in Hardwick; but in his second year he signed fourteen charters, including two in the District of Maine and one in the West Indies (St. John's, Starbrock), many of which derived from petitions that had been made years earlier. He signed four more charters during his third year in office, two in Maine and two in Massachusetts proper, bringing the count of lodges in the jurisdiction to more than seventy.

His other significant accomplishment was the creation of the District Deputy Grand Master system, in which men were empowered as personal representatives of the Grand Master to inspect lodges, receive moneys, and adjudicate disputes. Other jurisdictions questioned the propriety of such an arrangement, but the ever-increasing number of lodges and the attendant burdens of collecting quarterages and determining conformity with established landmarks made this innovation a necessity, and the idea spread so that it is almost universally employed today. As originally conceived, Massachusetts was divided into twelve districts, including three in Maine (Districts 9, 10, and 11). Individuals appointed to these posts had numerous duties, and in years to come would be burdened with yet more as the Craft spread further afield.

After his term, Bro. Dunn continued in the active affairs of his town and the Grand Lodge. He was frequently chosen to serve on committees by his successors, playing a prominent part in the private and public activities of Grand Lodge. He was a town assessor for several years, and represented Boston in the General Court from 1811 — 1813; he was also a prominent member of the Trinity Church congregation. He died in November 1815, and the grand chaplain of the Grand Lodge, the always eloquent Thaddeus Mason Harris, composed a memorial that was delivered to his widow. Unlike many of his predecessors, there was no extensive procession nor public mourning: Masons' Hall was decorated with crepe for a month, as was the custom, and the Grand Lodge went on with its business. The ongoing history of our great fraternity was built step by step by men such as Bros. Cutler and Dunn. As with many other Masons who have laid down their working tools after productive work, their voices — and their deeds — reach across two centuries to remind us from whence we have come.

CHARTERS GRANTED



Grand Masters