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HENRY ENDICOTT

Senior Grand Warden, 1873
Grand Master, 1887-1889

TERM

1887 1888 1889

MEMORIAL

From Proceedings, Page 1913-281:

M.W. HENRY ENDICOTT, who for two years past had been the senior permanent member of the Grand Lodge and its senior surviving Past Grand Master, died at his home in Cambridge Nov. 8, 1913. He was born in Canton, Nov. 14, 1824, and thus in less than a week would have reached the age of eighty-nine years. He belonged to that branch of the Endicott family which originally settled in Wells, Me., but had been domiciled in Canton for more than a hundred and fifty years. One of his brothers, Charles Endicott, was State Treasurer of Massachusetts for the five years from 1876 to 1881, having previously been State Auditor from 1870 to 1876, and another brother, Augustus B. Endicott, was for thirteen years sheriff of Norfolk County.

Henry Endicott never aspired to political preferment. He was educated in the public schools of Canton, and was married at Fitchburg in 1851 to Abigail Hastings Browning of Petersham. Soon after his marriage he established himself as a manufacturer of engines and boilers in Boston, and removed his works to Cambridge in 1858, from which time, while refusing public office, he became a prominent factor in the business and financial life of that city, although he retired from manufacturing in 1874. He held office in the Harvard Trust Company and the Cambridge Gas Light Company and was president of the Cambridgeport Savings Bank. In all these and other financial associations he was known and revered for his sterling integrity and business capacity, while his genial temperament made him the friend of those with whom he had dealings and the kindness he showed to others reacted in respect and. affection for him. No truer word Was ever spoken than by the paper which chronicled his death when it named him the grand old man of Cambridge and everybody's friend. Especially appropriate is this description as it relates to his connection of more than fifty years with the Masonic institution. He received the Degrees of Masonry in Amicable Lodge in 1g60, and became a member of that Lodge in 1g61. In 1864, 1865, and 1866 he was its Worshipful Master. In 1867 he was Master of Mizpah Lodge under Dispensation, retaining the position for two years after the Lodge received its Charter. Our law did not then allow dual membership, but Amicable Lodge in 1868 made him an Honorary Member,

In 1872 he was elected Senior Grand Warden for 1878, after having been for two years District Deputy Grand Master of the Fourth Masonic District and a member of the Board of Directors from the beginning of 1871. The latter office he held until his election as Grand Master, and upon the close of his term of office he was immediately returned to the Board and continued upon it until the end of the year 1902, making his service upon the Board continuous for a period of thirty-three years.

In December, 1886, he was elected Grand Master by a unanimous vote. His three years' term as Grand Master was a period of Masonic activity. He constituted Converse Lodge of Malden, Winthrop Lodge of Winthrop, Golden Rule Lodge of Wakefield, and Thomas Talbot Lodge of Billerica. He laid the corner'stone of the Town Halls at Southbridge and Winchester, of the United States Post Office at Springfield, of the City Hall in his own City of Cambridge, and of the extension o{ the. State House on Beacon Hill. He dedicated Masonic halls at Malden, Georgetown, Yarmouth, and Somerville, and the monument in honor of our first Grand Master, Henry Price at Townsend, and the Pilgrim Monument at Plymouth. At the latter place the rain descended and a flood came; and his exposure to the elements was such that he was obliged to delegate the laying of the corner-stone of the Courthouse at Fall River, a week later, to M.W. Brother Nickerson. At each of the ceremonials in which he participated he delivered an address and these addresses, terse and vigorous, differing each from the other, are stamped with the originality of the man who prepared them and bear the impress as well of scholarly taste and elegance of diction. His administration was a successful one, not alone in its immediate results but in its effect upon the future of the Grand Lodge.

His Masonic record was in other tespects long and interesting. He was exalted in Saint Paul's Chapter April 1, 1861, was its Scribe in 1863, its King in 1864, and was at the head of the Chapter in 1865 and 1866. He was High Priest of Cambridge Chapter while it was under dispensation in 1864 and was elected Grand King of the Grand Chapter Sept. 11, 1866. He received the degrees in Boston Council of Royal and Select Masters in 1868, and became a Life Member but never accepted office. He was Knighted in Boston Commandery in 1861. After holding minor positions he was its Captain-General in 1869, its Generalissimo in 1870 and 1871, and Commander in 1872 and 1873, immediately preceding Samuel C. Lawrence in that office, and he was for many years the Senior past Commander. In the Scottish Rite he received the degrees in 1864, and was crowned as Sovereign Grand Inspector-General ten years later.

Brother Endieott was a sufferer from rheumatism during the last years of his life, which prevented his participation in our meetings. His last attendance upon the Grand Lodge was in June, 1906, but in the following year he accompanied the Grand Master at the funeral of Rev. Bro. Charles A. Skinner, our Grand Chaplain, and he was a spectator at the laying of the corner-stone of the Masonic Temple in Cambridge in 1910, but did not leave his carriage. He was at this time unable to attend Divine worship, but was deeply interested, in the First Parish Chureh of Cambridge. A member of his family writes: "As a young man, he was influenced by Theodore Parker, and I think his feeling for him never changed. I believe he could repeat by heart the whole of Parker's famous sermon on immortality, and the worn copy of it (preached in 1846), is on his desk still. He had no use for arbitrary dogma or creed, but he was essentially reverent by nature and conviction, and although he never had much to say on religious matters, "he believed greatly in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man."

His movements for several years being circumscribed by his inability to leave his chair, he was comforted and cheered by the companionship of the wife with whom he passed more than sixty-two years of wedded life, and the attendance of his daughter, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He delighted in the visits of those with whom he had been associated and all who came to pay their tribute of friendship or respect were welcome. All men delighted to do him honor.

At the wish of his family his funeral services were held at his own house and were simple in character, but no more representative body of friends, business associates, and Brethren of the mystic tie ever assembled than gathered around the casket of Henry Endicott. Upon his grave we have left the wreath of ivy, for his memory will ever be green, but that wreath has borne upon the one side the ear of wheat, the emblem of a life rounded out to completeness, and upon the other the spray of acacia, by which, our emblem of immortality, we can best express our hope and belief that beyond the gate of suffering and death we may be greeted by him again.

Respectfully submitted,
John Albert Blake,
John Hamilton,
George H. Payne,
Committee.

NOTES

CHARTERS GRANTED

• 12/14/1887 Converse, Malden
• 03/14/1888 Winthrop, Winthrop
• 12/12/1888 Golden Rule, Wakefield
• 12/11/1889 Thomas Talbot, Billerica.

RULINGS

None.

Grand Masters