MATempleNJ
TEMPLE LODGE, ELIZABETH TOWN
Location: Elizabeth Town, New Jersey
Chartered By: Jeremy Gridley
Charter Date: 07/28/1762 tbd
Precedence Date: 07/28/1762
Current Status: unknown; inactive by 1774.
NOTES
From the History of Freemasonry in Elizabeth, N.J., Page 5:
"There is no evidence that any Masonic Lodge was established in New Jersey prior to the granting of a Warrant by the Provincial Grand Master of New York to St. John's Lodge No. 1, of Newark, on May 13th, 1761; but there were, prior to that time, residing in Elizabethtown a number of Master Masons, doubtless made such, some before and others after their arrival here, either in European Lodges or in those working under the authority of the Provincial Grand Masters of Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania. In the year 1762 their number and their zeal for our ancient institution were such as to induce them to establish a Masonic Lodge in their midst; they accordingly applied for the requisite authority from the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and at the celebration of the anniversary of St. John the Baptist Jue 24th, 1762, a deputation was granted to Jonathan Hampton, Esq., to constitute a Lodge by the name of Temple Lodge No. 1 in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. (Whitehead's Origin of Masonry, page XV.) The fact that they passed by the Grand Lodge of the neighboring State of New York and applied to the then distant Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, gives some foundation for the belief that a majority of the petitioners had been made Masons in Lodges working under the latter jurisdiction."
