GMPrince

From MasonicGenealogy
Revision as of 12:31, 7 June 2013 by Hotc1733 (Talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search

ARTHUR DOW PRINCE 1867-1950

ArthurPrince1920.jpg

Deputy Grand Master, 1919
Grand Master, 1920-22


TERM

1920 1921 1922

NOTES

MEMORIAL

From Proceedings, Page 1950-233:

Brother Prince was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on July 5, 1867, the son of George C. and Emma A. (Dow) Prince and died at his home in Lowell on Friday, October 13, 1950. He received his education in the public schools of Lowell. He then entered the mercantile field in Lowell and was Treasurer of the following companies: G, C. Prince & Son, Inc., stationers and office outfitters; Prince-Cotter Co., jewelers; and Prince-Walter Co., musical instruments. He was for many years a Trustee of the Rogers Hall School and of the Central Savings Bank of Lowell; and was a member of St. Anne's Episcopal Church of that City. He held memberships in the Yorick, Vesper Country and Temple Clubs of Lowell, as well as the Engineers Club of Boston. Ill. Brother Prince was twice married: to Mabel Winslow in October, 1887, who died in 1890; and to Bertha Bass on October 17,1894, who predeceased him.

His Masonic record was long, varied and useful.

Raised a member of William North Lodge of Lowell on April 15, 1891, he was its Worshipful Master during 1904 and 1905. He later affiliated with St. Paul's Lodge No. 30 of Alstead, New Hampshire, and was a Charter Member of William Sewall Gardner Lodge of Lowell. In Grand Lodge, he served as Grand Steward in 1907, District Deputy Grand Master of the 1lth District in 1908 and 1909, Deputy Grand Master in 1919, Most Worshipful Grand Master from 1920-1922, and was Relief Commissioner from 1932-1948, all inclusive. He served as a Trustee of the Masonic Education and Charity Trust from January 1, 1927, until his death, and was President of the Trust during his term as Grand Master. He was the Representative of the United Grand Lodge of England and the Grand Lodge of New York near the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts near the Grand Lodge of New Hampshire. The high esteem in which he was held by the Fraternity is shown by the fact that Honorary Memberships had been conferred upon him by approximately thirty Symbolic Lodges; and he had also been decorated with the Henry Price Medal. Most Worshipful Brother Prince was the first Grand Master to visit our Lodges in China, which he did in 1922. While Relief Commissioner, he made frequent visits to the Masonic Home and was assiduous in becoming personally acquainted with all its residents.

He was a Past High Priest of Mount Horeb Chapter, R.A.M., of Lowell; Past Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter of Massachusetts and was the Grand Representative of the Grand Chapter of Scotland near that of Massachusetts.

Brother Prince was Past Illustrious Master of Ahasuerus Council, R. & S.M. of Lowell and Past Most Illustrious Grand Master of the Grand Council of Massachusetts.

He was Past Eminent Commander of Pilgrim Commandery No. 9, K.T., of Lowell and was the only Honorary Member of St. Bernard Commandery of Boston.

Brother Prince received the Scottish Rite degrees from the Fourth to Eighteenth, inclusive, in the Lowell Bodies in April and May of 1905, and the Nineteenth to the Thirty-second, inclusive, in Massachusetts Consistory of Boston on April 27, 1906. He was Most Wise Master of Mount Calvary Chapter of Rose Croix in Lowell during 1916 and 1917. He was coronetted an Honorary Member of the Supreme Councilr 33°, September 18, 1917, crowned an Active Member on September 18, 1930, and elected an Emeritus Member on September 29, 1948. In Supreme Council, he held the offices of Grand Standard Bearer, Grand Keeper of the Archives, and served as lll. Deputy for the District of Massachusetts from May 24, 1940, to April 23, 1948. He also served on many important Supreme Council committees.

A Memorial service was held at St. Anne's Episcopal Church, Lowell, at three o'clock on Sunday, October 15, 1950. The Grand Lodge was represented by the attendance of its Past Grand Masters, Directors, and Trustees of the Masonic Education and Charity Trust, who acted as Honorary Pallbearers. There were also present many other past and present officers of Grand Lodge, as well as Brethren from other Masonic Bodies of which he was a member. The Office for the Burial of the Dead was read.by the Rector, Rev. Laurence Henry Blackburn, D.D., followed by a beautiful tribute to our departed Brother by Right Worshipful and Rev. Thomas S. Roy, D.D. He said in part:

"Those of us who were associated with Most Worshipful Brother Prince in the Masonic Fraternity think of him as a great Mason - one of the stalwarts of the Craft. For fifty-nine years he gave himself in thought and work for Freemasonry. He brought a devotion to his tasks, a natural bent for leadership, and a skill in the discharge of his duties that strengthened the Craft, and in each case made his administration a model for those who succeeded him, He lives on in the quality and strength of the texture of the life of the Fraternity to which he gave himself so richly and so generously.

"We remember gratefully the peculiar flavor of his words. His speech was not that of the studied orator, but rather a native gift compounded of an inborn appreciation of words and their meanings, and an insight into great truth. His eloquence was not the forced effort of one trying to make an impression, but the warm expression of truths deeply felt and a desire to lead others into an appreciation of that which meant so much to himself.

"He had a natural gift of friendship. He had a real interest in, and sympathy for all that concerned those about him. He had a warm and kindling quality in his nature that drew others to him as to one whom they had known always. And so he left no wounds to be healed, no scars in the lives of others. His life had many facets, and he expressed himself in many abilities, but these are all lost in our thought of him as a friend.

He faced life with a rare spirit. "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," was more than a literary phrase to him. He felt them. But he took life as it came to him, accepting its rewards modestly and facing its misfortunes courageously. When the light faded from his eyes, then we knew how bright was the light of his spirit that burned within.

He would not have us come to this hour of farewell with bowed head and faltering steps, as those who faced defeat, but rather as those in whose faces shines the light of the morning upon which he has entered. To link the thought of death with such a one as Arthur would be a monstrous incongruity. It would be a violation of all that he was, so virile and vital, to think of him as dead.

With Robert Browning we can say that he was:

"One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffied to fight better,
Sleep to wake."

Cremation was at Mount Auburn in Cambridge and interment in Bellevue Cemetery, Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Fraternally submitted
Melvin M. Johnson
Frank L. Simpson
Claude L. Allen
Joseph Earl Perry
Arthur W. Coolidge
Samuel H. Wragg
Committee

ADDRESSES

CORNERSTONE LAYING, FALL RIVER, MAY 1922

From Proceedings, Page 1922-117:

Brethren and Friends: It needs no words of commendation of mine to congratulate you on this splendid undertaking which you have carried through to this present accomplishment.

I wish to bring to your attention something of the antiquity of the ceremony of corner-stone laying. It is a necessary part of our building and it should be of exceptional interest to the younger Brethren present who are to carry on the work in years to come.

As I looked at the procession of members this afternoon and saw, as I estimated, that seventy-five per cent of them were under thirty years of age, I said to myself: "There is the heart of the Fraternity of the future. There is the strength of the Fraternity of the future. It is for them to learn the principles of the Fraternity so thoroughly that they will abide with them deeply and forever."

Our ceremony of corner-stone laying dates back into the dim ages of the past, beyond the beginning, even, of written history. The earliest evidenee discovered of anything showing a corner-stone laying is dated nine hundred years before the Christian era, in Assyria, the first Temple.

Down through the ages, this custom has been followed whenever a building of any importance was to be erected - these ceremonies attended the laying of the first stone. Throughout Europe are magnificent edifices built as temples and brought down to us for our admiration. Unfortunate it is that so many have been destroyed during the last six or seven years.

Many, however, still stand, a tribute to the skill of the workmen who builclecl them. But frorn those craftsmen, operative Masons, we have come to be speculative Masons. Modern Masonic Temples are the hearts of men, whereas the ancient were made of stone. And I believe we are succeeding in our building; we must succeed. We must extend our success farther and bring to bear an influence for good beyond the ranks of our own members.

I am proud of the history of Freemasonry. The ceremonies you have seen today, even to the language used in most instances, were first used. as far as it is recorded, in 1753 in Edinburgh. Scotland. We are the custodians of their craft and descendants of the old operative workmen. We have taken their tools and macle them symbols to build into men's lives lvhat they built into stone. We are building Temples of men's hearts.

I like to look back over the past two hundred years or so in the United States, over the history of corner-stone laying here, as conducted by the various Grand Lodges. There are more instances I might call to mind than I could possibly mention here. The one, for example, in which a Masonic president laid the corner-stone of the Capitol in Washington, when George Washington acted as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Maryland in laying that stone. The gavel, Bible, sash, and jewel used then are still treasured in the archives of Lodges in the District of Columbia and in Virginia.

Another was the corner-stone laying of the Masonic Temple in Washington, D. C., when Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, drove up in his presidential carriage, descended, produced a plain white leather apron, put it on, and requested the privilege of marching with the Brethren. When offered a place of distinction he declined, declaring : No! My place is with the Brethren."

Another is recorded of Theodore Roosevelt, of blessed memory, when he accepted an invitation to lay the cornerstone of the monument at Provincetown.

These are occurrences of which we may well be more than proud. We all certainly hope and believe that there will be many more such.

Our principles are the principles of fraternity. They are not secret principles, but are those that have guided civilization and humanity through all the ages, and are necessary for their continued progress.

The greatest tragedy of the ages, as the poet says, is "not that men are poor; who has not tasted the elements of poverty? Not that men are wicked; who can claim to be good? Not that men are ignorant; who can boast that he is wise? But that men are strangers."

One great teaching of Freemasonry is that men should be friends. The sole and only dogma we require is that a man believe in the Supreme Being. That's all a Mason is asked to subscribe to. Form or method are indifferent; we care not at what altar a man may kneel if he kneel there in sincerity and believe in one great God.

The brotherhood of man, in which we believe, necessitates that we believe also in the fatherhood of God. It means friendship and fellowship and fraternity. What man does not feel differently toward the Brother in his Lodge than he does toward a man who does not belong? It means friendship, eompanionship, fellowship. Without these, the old world will never see peace.

The criticism of any conference of the leaders of the world is that such conferences can never accomplish their great object, the stoppage of war and of the devastation of war until men are bound together in bonds of friendship - in other words, until there is a brotherhood of men around the globe.

Do you realize that our Fraternity is a chain of men that reaches wherever the sun shines on a civilized country? Do you realize the opportunity in that faet to make all men everywhere touch hands in a chain of Masonry around the world? As Burns said, "the day is coming yet for a' that and a' that." The day of brotherhood of men, when all men are friends, is coming yet, Brethren, for a' that. It must come and Freemasons can arrd must be a great force in hastening the day.

What else does Masonry stand for? Good citizenship, justice, liberty, light, the equality of every man, civil and religious liberty, the dignity of labor. You who are familiar with our degree work know how much that all means to us.

Freemasons, to do their full measure, must go out into the world and show what their principles are. They must practice what they learn in the Lodge-room. To the world,- not only among the Brethren, but in the shop, the office, the mill. Show what it means to you. Show them that they may learn what it is to have and to be a true friend.

I wduld like to give you the prophecy made by a famous Frenchman some fifty years ago. "The day will come when all the great European nations will blend into one higher fraternity and furnish one great European union. The clay will come when war will seem as impossible between Petersburg and Berlin as between Boston and Philadetphia. The day will come when bullets and bombs will be replaced by ballots and universal suffrage. The day will come when men will exhibit a cannon to be gazed upon much as we today gaze upon instruments of torture, and men will marvel that such things eould be. The day is coming when the United States of Europe and the United States of America wiII face each other across the ocean and freely exchange art, genius, and products."

Yes, my Brothers, all this must some day come true. What shall we do to make it come true? The answer is in the doctrine we preach and should practice - love one another. No more hate! No more war! No more divisions! All men friends! Let's work for that great achievement.

CHARTERS GRANTED

RULINGS


Grand Masters