PortlandM

From MasonicGenealogy
Revision as of 21:20, 22 July 2013 by Hotc1733 (Talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search

PORTLAND (FALMOUTH) LODGE (MAINE)

Location: Portland

Chartered By: John Rowe

Charter Date: 03/20/1762 I-165

Precedence Date: 03/20/1762

Current Status: Chartered as Falmouth Lodge (now Portland), by St. John's Grand Lodge. Endorsed by Grand Master Paul Revere in June 1796. Under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Maine as Triangle #1.

Note that William Tyng is listed as the first Master of this Lodge, which means that he may have served from as early as 1762 (when he was 23 years old).


PAST MASTERS

  • William Tyng, 1769-1772, 1775
  • Jeremiah Pote, 1773, 1774
  • Simeon Mayo, 1776-1780
  • Thomas Sanford, 1781-1785
  • Ebenezer Davis, 1786-1795
  • Edward Oxnard, 1796
  • Woodbury Storer, 1797-1802; SN
  • William Symmes, 1803, 1804
  • Matthew Cobb, 1804-1806
  • James D. Hopkins, 1807; SN
  • In recess 1808-1810
  • Charles Fox, 1811-1813
  • William Swan, 1814-1818; SN
  • Samuel Baker, 1819, 1820

YEARS

1762 1763 1764 1765 1766 1767 1768 1769 1770 1771 1772 1773 1774 1775 1776 1777 1778 1779 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789 1790 1791

1796 1804 1806 1807 1808 1811 1815

1962


HISTORY

EXCERPTS FROM CENTENNIAL HISTORY, 1862

From Moore's Freemason's Monthly, Vol. XXI, No. 10, July, 1862, Page 297:

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. (By W. Brother Moses Dodge, Master of the celebrating Lodge.]

Brother Masons —The time, the occasion and the circumstances connected with it, have conspired to bring me before you as one of the speakers on this memorable day. The principles, the teaching, the design and the mission of Freemasonry, you are not to learn from me. It is my province simply to give you in the few mo-meats allotted me room of the historical facts and chronological dates connected with the introduction of Masonry into what is now the State of Maine, and its progress and prosperity here. In doing so I must of necessity bring to your notice Old Portland Lodge, No. 1, formerly the "Lodge at Falmouth" or "Falmouth Lodge," as a representative of which I have the honor of appearing before this august assemblage.

Ancient Falmouth, the seat of the first chartered Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons in Maine (then a part of the old Commonwealth of Massachusetts) originally included the city of Portland and the towns of Cape Elisabeth, Falmouth and Westbrook. The population of Falmouth in 1762 I am not able to ascertain. A note written on part of the back of a letter by Parson Smith, Sept. 27, 1759, states that on the neck, now Portland proper, there were "136 bouses and 22 double families, in all 165 families." From this data, the historian of Portland, Hon. Mr. Willis, fixes the population of the Neck at that period at 900. In 1704 the population of Falmouth, by a census taken that year, was 3770, and that of the Province of Maine 54,020.

The year 1762 — between these dates — occupies a prominent position in our minds to-day, but I am not able to find any historical fact connected with our Order during that year.

The records of the Falmouth Lodge show that on the 20th day of March, 1762, and of Masonry 5762, the Right Worshipful Jeremiah Gridley, Esq., Grand Master of the Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons in North America, granted to several Brethren of the society residing in Falmouth, in the county of Cumberland, within the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in order that "Masonry might increase and flourish in those parts," a Warrant or Constitution, nominating, ordaining, constituting and appointing our R. W. and well beloved Br. Alexander Ross, Esq., to be the first Master of the Lodge at Falmouth, and empowering him to congregate the Brethren together, form them into a regular Lodge, choose their Wardens and other officers, and at the end of one year to choose their Master and other officers, and so annually, to receive members and exercise all the prerogatives of a chartered Lodge.

This Deputation, as it is termed in the language of that day, having been in "abeyance" by reason of the "business of Br. Alexander Ross, Esq., being great, and his infirmities greater," in December, 1768, petition was forwarded to the R. W. John Rowe, Esq., Grand Master of Masons for North America, for a renewal of the Deputation, and on March 30, 1769, and of Masonry, 5769, "R. W. John Rowe, Esq., Provincial Grand Master of the Ancient and Honorable Society of F. and A. Masons for all North America, where no other Grand Master is appointed," "by virtue of the great trust, power and authority reposed in him by his Grace the R. W. Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort and G. M. of Masons," did renew the Deputation to congregate the Brethren of Falmouth, form them into a regular Lodge, with Wm. Tyng, Esq., as their first Master, and empowered them to exercise all the powers and prerogatives of a chartered Lodge.

It is a matter of regret that the names of the first petitioners for a deputation or constitution are not on record. There were eleven names signed to the petition for the renewal of it in 1768; seven of these were present, together with four members of the Grand Lodge of New Hampshire, (of whom the only surviving one is Brother Andrew Peirce of Dover, N. H., and whom I am glad to say Is in our city to-day,) with R. W. Brother Wm. Tyng, Master, and one other Brother, not a petitioner, at a meeting held May 8, 1769, at which time the subordinate offices were filled, a committee on by-laws appointed, &c.

This, then, is the early history of the introduction of Masonry into Maine, and the present year completes one century since a deputation or charter was granted for a Lodge within its present jurisdiction.

I presume I shall be pardoned If in this connection, I add a few brief statistics of this Lodge, which changed its title to Portland Lodge when Falmouth Neck was named Portland. It kept up its organization from this early date, with the exception of an interregnum from December, 1807, to March, 1811, when its charter remained in the archives of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, through the early days of the Revolutionary war and the still darker days of the Morgan Anti-Masonic political crusade.

It has had 38 Masters, and has initiated more than 675 candidates into the mysteries of Freemasonry, and although it has contributed its quota of members for two other flourishing Lodges in our city, it returned to the Grand Lodge the present year 209 members.

Masonry in Maine, from its first introduction, has made a healthy progress, and notwithstanding that many of our Lodges were located in towns with a small population, and the bitter and unrelenting persecution they suffered a few years since, I believe 1 am correct in stating that all of the Lodges chartered previous to 1830 have resumed work and are in active operation, with four exceptions.

We have five Lodges in the State whose charters date in the 18th century — all in active operation — Portland, Warren, Lincoln, Hancock and Kennebec.

All Lodges chartered previous to 1820 were under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. On the first day of June, 1820, consent of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts having been obtained for organization of an independent Grand Lodge in the State of Maine, formerly a Province of Massachusetts, and for a just division of the charity and other funds of the Institution, Representatives from 34 Lodges met and proceeded to organize said Grand Lodge, and M. W. Hon. William King, Esq., first Governor of the State, was elected its first Grind Master. On the day following, June 3, M. W. William King was introduced into the hall, received and sainted in due form, and on taking the chair delivered an address, which I cannot forbear incorporating into these brief remarks, as being, in my opinion, a model address.

The address was as follows:

"R. W. and W. Officers and Members of this Grand Lodge: In the circumstances under which I hive appeared before you to enter upon the office to which you have been pleased to elevate me, I can do little more, at this time, than express my acceptance of the trust, and say to you that according to the best of my ability I will endeavor to discharge its duties. It would hive been much more agreeable to me, at least for the present, to have appeared in the Grand Lodge only as a private Brother; but as Masonry teaches us to regard the duties we owe to God and the community as paramount to all others, I will endeavor to perform them by attending to the wishes of my Brethren rather than gratify my own."

Such was the address of our first G. M. in this State. Since that date we have bad twenty Grand Masters, many of them well beloved — many of them gone to the Grand Lodge above — but among them all, none, perhaps, whose memory is more highly cherished than that of William King.

From Moore's Freemason's Monthly, Vol. XXI, No. 11, August, 1862, Page 330:

Dear Sir

I regret that my remarks, at published in your Magazine for August, should contain the same error in regard to Bro. Pierce, as to age, as was made in the Boston Journal. I stated that "seven of the petitioners for the renewal of Charter in 1798, with R. W. Wm. Tyng, and one other Brother, not a petitioner, were present at a mooting of the Lodge, March, 1769."

I learned on the day previous to the Anniversary, that Br. Pierce, the only survivor of the four acting Officers of the Grand Lodge of New Hampshire, who assisted in the Constitution of the Grand Lodge of Maine, in 1820, was in our city, and announced that fact in connection with that date (1820.) It was not included in the written notes, and hence, probably, the chronological error of the reporter.

The error was corrected in a note published in the Journal, June 28.

Fraternally yours, Moses Dodge.


GRAND LODGE OFFICERS

DISTRICTS

1803: District 9 (Southern Maine)

1820 and after: Grand Lodge of Maine.


LINKS

Triangle #1 web site

Triangle #1

Massachusetts Lodges