Difference between revisions of "GMRevere"

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''Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
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''Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,''<br>
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
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''On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;''<br>
Hardly a man is now alive / Who remembers that famous day and year.''
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''Hardly a man is now alive / Who remembers that famous day and year.''
 
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Revision as of 20:41, 2 August 2010

Revere2.jpg

PAUL REVERE

We have few Grand Masters whose renown is great beyond the bounds of the Craft, but Paul Revere is a man whose name is known to every schoolchild. We have Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to thank for that -

Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
Hardly a man is now alive / Who remembers that famous day and year.

Revere's part in that famous event has been exaggerated, but he was a hero of the Revolution and a prominent public figure in Massachusetts before, during and after that momentous period. Born in 1734 in Boston to an emigrant Huguenot father and a native Bostonian, he was the second of twelve children, and was apprenticed as a silversmith, in which profession he became well-known. He was initiated in St. Andrew's Lodge in September 1760 at age 25, at which time he was already married and the primary support of his family; as a member of St. Andrew's and later Rising States Lodge, he was an active Blue Lodge Freemason, serving nine terms as Master.

The capstone of his Masonic career was his election as Grand Master in December 1794. His time in office was marked by a rapid expansion of the number of chartered lodges under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge. The following lodges received charters while he was Grand Master: Republican (Greenfield), Evening Star (Lenox), Middlesex (Framingham), Cincinnatus (New Marlborough), King Hiram (Truro), Kennebec (Hallowell, Maine), Fayette (Charlton), Washington (Roxbury), Columbian (Boston), Union (Dorchester), Harmony (Northfield), Thomas (Monson), St. Paul's (Groton), Jerusalem (South Hadley), Adams (Wellfleet), Tuscan (Columbia, Maine), Bristol (Norton), Fellowship (Bridgewater), Corinthian (Concord), Meridian Sun (Brookfield), Olive Branch (Oxford), Montgomery (Franklin), and Meridian (Watertown). Of these twenty-three lodges, nearly all are still in existence (and are justifiably proud of their "Revere Charters"). He also granted new charters to St. Peter's Lodge, Newburyport; Portland Lodge in Portland; and endorsed the charters of American Union Lodge (then meeting in Marietta in Ohio Territory), Philanthropic Lodge, Marblehead, and Union Lodge in Nantucket. He was also willing to dispense Masonic justice, and under his authority and the vote of the Grand Lodge, Harmonic Lodge of Boston had its charter vacated.

As in the term of Most Wor. Bro. Cutler, Grand Master Revere was responsible for a number of edicts and decisions regarding the functioning of Grand Lodge. Considerable correspondence with other Grand Lodges near and far took place, as well as other exchanges of letters, most notably with Brother (and former President) George Washington. He was also active in the public sphere, notably in the laying of corner stones for public buildings, including the Massachusetts State House in 1795. (When Most Wor. Winslow Lewis was invited to perform the same ceremony in September 1855, he was surprised to find the remains of that stone and the memorabilia placed therein.) Paul Revere was a remarkable man, and a memorable Mason.


Columbian Lodge's history page.

York Rite history page.