MassachusettsHamiltonHistoryCh1
CHAPTER 1: THE BEGINNINGS
Our story begins in Boston in the year 1733. This was one hundred and three years after the first settlement of Boston. It was six years after the accession of George ll, the second King of England of the Hanoverian dynasty. It was sixteen years after the organization of the Grand Lodge of England, and ten years after that Grand Lodge had ordained that no Lodges were to be regarded as regular unless warranted by a Grand Master or Grand Lodge and no Mason was to be regarded as regular unless made in such a Lodge.
The Boston of 1733 was a busy and prosperous town. Definite statistics of population were not kept and only estimates are available. These vary greatly from time to time, but it is probable that the population was about 18,000, and that it was the largest town in British North America. A very intelligent geographer, writing in 1717, says that it had an abundance of fine buildings, both public and private, mentioning especially the Court House and the house of that astonishing adventurer, Sir William Phips.
Phips was born in the little settlement of Pemaquid in 1631, one of a family of twenty-six children by one father and mother. He was reared in dire poverty. When he was forty-two years old he went to Boston to work at his trade of ship carpenter, and not until then did he learn to read and write. In 1685 he led an expedition to salvage treasure from a wreck near the Bahamas and brought back nearly a million and a half dollars. His share was about $75,000. King William III made him a knight and High Sheriff of Mew England. In 1690 he commanded a New England expedition which captured Port Royal (Acadia). In 1692 he was made Governor of Massachusetts, dying in 1695. No wonder his house was one of the sights of the town.
Travelers generally speak of the fine buildings of the town, both public and private and of the evidence of prosperity and culture.
This prosperity was founded on commerce. About four hundred vessels cleared from the port of Boston every year, carrying out the products of New England, food stuffs and raw materials, and bringing back manufactured articles of use and luxury. In time of war commerce was more or less interrupted by hostile commerce destroyers, and in time of peace some depredations were committed by pirates. These matters were annoying, but not really dangerous.
The military defense of the colony was in local hands. All the citizens were enrolled in the militia and held liable for military service in case of attack. Until after 1733, however, there was no occasion to call out troops except for war with the Indians. Boston was fortified after a fashion. Fort William commanded the entrance to the harbor and there were fortifications on the land side on the narrow neck of land which connected Boston with Roxbury. At one time there was an ambitious project to build encircling works which would have made Boston a walled town. The project was never completed and the part actually constructed soon disappeared. Indeed the fortifications appear to have been in a chronic state of disrepair. No garrisons were maintained by the Colony and there were no royal troops in Boston until the eve of the Revolution. In 1696 there were fears of an attack by the French who were preparing a great naval movement against William III, and feverish attempts were made to put the fortifications in order and prepare for defense, but the French designs were not carried out.
In 1638 a permanent military organization was formed, known first as the "Military Company of Massachusetts" and later as the "Ancient and honorable Artillery Company," under which name it is still in very vigorous existence. Since the first century of its existence it has numbered many Masons in its membership.
This company was organized on the model of the "Honorable Artillery Company," of London, of which its first Commander, Capt. Keayne, had been a member. The "Honorable Artillery Company" which is still in very vigorous existence, was chartered by Henry VIII, though probably actually considerably antedating its charter. The purpose of the Boston company was to serve as a training school for the officers of the town train bands. Of the original twenty-four members all but three were officers in the train bands of the neighboring towns, and several of them had seen service in the wars in the Netherlands. The influence of this company was undoubtedly very great in promoting the comparatively high grade of efficiency which characterized the Massachusetts troops in the Indian and later wars. It is interesting to note here that in the later wars with France the Canadians generally called the Americans les Bostonnais, the Bostonians. In 1733 the Governor's guard was a corps d'elite whose officers carried higher titles than those of corresponding rank in the ordinary companies.
The spiritual welfare of the Bostonians of 1733 was looked after by ten or twelve churches, These were mainly Congregational and Church of England congregations. There was a Baptist, a Presbyterian, and a French Huguenot church. The few Roman Catholics had not yet a church of their own.
Education had a ways been valued and cherished in Boston. As early as 1635 provision was made for a school and a teacher. This modest beginning developed into the "Latin School" which taught the rudiments of the higher education and fitted boys for Harvard College. This school still exists and holds rank as one of the leading secondary schools in the country. The next year, 1636, the general court of the Colony voted four hundred pounds toward "a school or college" and voted the next year that it should be at "Newtowne." In 1638 the name of the college town was changed to Cambridge in honor of the English University where some seventy of the leading men of the colony had been educated. John Harvard's bequest of 1639 gave the college his name, and the first Commencement was held in 1642. With so strong an intellectual influence in the leadership of the colony it is not to be wondered at that education immediately became a special care of the authorities. By 1733 Boston was well provided with schools serving every section of the town.
Boston had suffered from several severe conflagrations in the past, and had now a good sized fire department with excellent equipment for that period.
The Bostonians, as was natural in the people of a comparatively isolated provincial town, had plenty of political activity, but for the most part it was of a local nature. As might have been expected they were strong Parliamentarians in Charles I's reign and some of them went over to take service in the Parliamentarian armies. They accepted the Restoration quietly, but they were restive under the Catholic James II, the more so as his appointee as Governor, Sir Edmund Andros, was personally very unpopular. When the news came of the landing of William of Orange in England they rose and deposed Andros, subjecting him for a time to a mild imprisonment. This appears to have been their last adventure in Imperial politics until the agitation arose which led to the Revolution. W©e get no echoes from Boston of the Jacobite intrigues and agitations which more or less disturbed England from 1689 to 1745.
In its century of growth the town o; Boston had developed a social life of marked distinction. The early Puritan austerity had softened considerably, although Boston society could hardly be called frivolous. The prosperous merchants lived well in handsome houses adorned with furniture, silver, and carpets purchased in the richest markets in the world. The incoming ships brought the latest books for the studious, the latest fashions in cut and material for the ladies, and the finest of wines for the cellar and the sideboard. The younger men followed the London fashion in dress and speech only a couple of months or so behind the originals. The Royal Governor and his staff and the Colonial officials lent an air of dignity to the social life of the towny and a certain luster to its social life.
The Boston of 1733 was no rude outpost of civilization. It was a prosperous, cultured town, of which no man need be ashamed to be a citizen, and in which no man need be unhappy to live.
To this prosperous and stirring community came in 1723 an active, energetic, and very capable young Londoner of twenty-six years of age named Henry Price. He came, as so many have done before and since, to make a fortune, and he made it. He comes into our story because he became the founder of duly organized Freemasonry in North America. Before we take up the Masonic phase of his work it is worth while to tell briefly what we know about the man and his history. His life story, both personal and Masonic, was told by William Sewall Gardner in 1871. Gardner, then Grand Master, says:
"For the purpose of preparing this paper, most careful search in every accessible department has been made to obtain information, however slight, in relation to the life of Henry Price. The archives of the State Department at the State House of the town of Boston at the City Hall, the records of courts and registries of deeds in Suffolk and Middlesex, have each been most carefully scrutinized. Newspapers of the years in which he lived, a.d public documents in possession of the Historical Society and the Athenaeum in Boston, and the Antiquarian Society at Worcester, as well as church and town records have been thoroughly examined. Ho department, place of ancient deposit, or accessible means of information have been neglected."
Nothing of the slightest importance has since been discovered.
The first record we have of him in Boston is in December, 1723, when he appears as plaintiff in a suit to recover money owed to him. From the manner in which his business was afterwards conducted Gardner considers it doubtful if he was in business for himself before 1729. From the papers in the 1723 case it appears that he must have been in business for himself in 1730 or 1731. At that time it was necessary in all suits at law that the occupation of both plaintiff and defendant should be exactly set forth. Gardner instances in illustration a suit brought by Price in 1739 in which the defendant is described as a "housewright." The defendant's Attorney pleaded in abatement that the defendant was not a "housewright" but a "joyner" and the court allowed the plea, so Price had to begin his suit all over again. This time he got a judgment.
In the 1723 suit Price is described as a "taylor." From this it would appear that Price had learned the tailoring trade in London, had come to Boston, perhaps with some savings in hand, had procured occupation, and in the next half dozen years had accumulated enough capital to start a modest business of his own. In 1736 he took as a partner Francis Beteihle, of whom we shall hear later. This partnership continued until 1740. Beteihle is described as a "shopkeeper." The business prospered. In 1739 and thereafter Price is described as a "shopkeeper." That means that he ceased to work personally at his trade and carried on the business of a "merchant tailor," making clothes for his customers and selling cloth, silks, ribbons and the like. From 1741, when he took sole charge of the business, until he retired in 1750, he carried it on alone. Further evidence of prosperity is shown by his purchase in 1740 of a lot of land with buildings on King (now State) Street for which he paid a thousand pounds, a very considerable sum in those days. This was the first of many real estate purchases.
There was no bank in Massachusetts until 1784. It appears to have been Price's habit to use his money in real estate dealings (he is recorded as owner of several pieces of real estate in Boston and of properties in Hull, Cambridge, Woburn, Concord, Sherburne, and Townsend and of others.in Hew Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
In 1737 he married Mary Townsend, a young woman with some property inherited from her family. Very possibly it was some of the money which financed the real estate purchase. The Townsend family were people of some social pretensions and Mary's uncle, who was her guardian, objected to the marriage, but did not succeed in preventing it. He did, however, cut her out of his will. Uncle Townsend's objection may have been on social grounds, or on religious grounds, or both. Townsend was an intense Puritan while Price was a Church of England man. Neither party had forgotten Cromwell and the Commonwealth and there was no love lost between them. Price's tolerance is shown by the fact that in later life he owned pews in several churches, not all Episcopalian. It was, however, probably due to hi© influence that the St. John's Day sermon before Grand Lodge was frequently prepared by Episcopalian Rectors. The first sermon preached to a Grand Lodge in America, and one of the first preached before a Masonic group anywhere, was given by Rev. Charles Brookwell, King's Chaplain, in Christ Church, Boston, on December 27, 1749.
Mrs. Price died in 1751, and the next year Price married Mary Tilden. In 1755 he took up what he hoped would be a permanent residence in Cambridge. He had a house there which he had used for several years as a summer residence and this he now enlarged and improved. But much sorrow came to him there. In 1759 and 1760 his wife and his daughter and only child, Mary, both died. He returned at once to Boston and sold the Cambridge estate. After a stay of two or three years he retired to his place in Townsend where he spent the remaining years of his life in retirement.
Here, in 1771, he married a young widow, Mrs. Lydia Randall. She had a son by her former husband and bore Price two daughters, a second Mary and Rebecca, both of whom later married as did Mrs. Price after her husband's death.
About May 14, 1780, Mr. Price was at work splitting rails when his axe slipped and inflicted a severe wound on his abdomen. It was more than the surgery of that day could deal with, and on May 20 he died, and was buried in the little village cemetery. In 1883 the Grand Lodge, finding his grave neglected, obtained possession of the lot and erected a simple monument which was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies. The original grave stone was restored to the early freshness of condition and removed to the Masonic Temple in Boston where it now is. The old inscription reads as follows:
(Human Face with Wings)
In Memory of Henry Price, Esqr.
Was Born in London about the Year of our Lord
1697 he Remov'd to Bofton about the Year 1723 Rec'd a
Deputation Appointing him Grand Mafter of Mafons
in New England & in the Year 1733 was Appointed
a Cornet In the Governors Troop of Guards
With the Rank of Major by his Diligence & induftry
in Bufinefs he Acquired the means of a Comfor-
table Living with which he remov'd to Townfend
in the latter Part of his Life. He quitted Mortality
the 20th of May AD 1780 Leaving a Widow & two Young
Daughters With a Numerous Company of Friends
and Acquaintance to Mourn his Departure Who
have that Ground of Hope Concerning his Prefent
Lot Which Refults from his undifserabled Regard
to his Maker & extenfive Benevolence to his
Fellow Creatures Manifefted in Life by
a behavior Confiftent With his Character
as a Mafon and his Nature as a Man
An honeft Man the Nobleft Work of God.
Mr. Price left what was nominally a large estate, but it was much reduced by law suits, the insecurity of some of the real estate titles, and the general depression and disturbances of value which followed the Revolutionary Wa.
He died at a bad time. The issue of the war was as yet uncertain. Cornwallis did not surrender until October of the next year. The war had borne very hardly on the states and the end was yet doubtful. Congress, with its very limited powers under the Article of Confederation , was utterly unable to help the financial situation and the states could do no better. Two years of uncertainty followed the surrender of Yorktown before peace was finally achieved. Then came the four years of chaos while the country was trying to carry on under the old Articles of Confederation and it took some time to pet back to a measure of prosperity after the adoption of the Constitution. It is no wonder that under these circumstances the estate shrunk very greatly in the process of settlement. His executors were at work on the estate as late as 1792.
Henry Price appears to have been made a Mason in the Lodge at the Rainbow Coffee House in York Buildings in London in 1730. This Lodge was Warranted July 17, 1730. It is now Britannlc No. 33. A.t that time Lodges did not have names, but were known by the names of the inns in which they met Consequently a change of location meant a change of name. They did, however, have numbers and the first number of this Lodge was 75. Annual returns were made to Grand Lodge. Nearly all of the London Lodges gave their membership rolls. Taken as a whole, however, the returns are very incomplete. In 1913 the Quatuor Coronati Lodge published a reprint of the records of the Grand Lodge of England as contained in Minute Books No. 1 and No. 2 from June 24, 1723, to December 12, 1739. These contain the returns for 1725 and 1730. The return of No. 75 contains the name of Henry Price. There is a possible question of identity. Middle names were practically unknown except among the nobility in the eighteenth century and consequently identities are difficult to establish in the absence of corroborating testimony. Price was not an uncommon name in London. There are nine other Prices on the lists. We know nothing about what Price was doing from his arrival in Boston in 1723 until the 1738 law suit above mentioned. Gardner says that the family tradition among Price's descendants in 1871 was that he never returned to London after he came to Boston. This tradition must be disregarded. Price was oertainly in London in 1733 and may well have been there in 1730. One wonders whether his presence there has anything to do with that of Jonathan Belcher. Belcher was there in 1729 and 1730 and came home with his Governor's commission in his pocket. As we shall presently see, there was a close connection, the precise nature of which we do not know, between Belcher and Price. We may provisionally accept the conclusion that the Henry Price of the Rainbow Coffee House Lodge is our Henry Price.
Price was again in London when he received from Thomas Batson, Deputy Grand Master a commission granted by Anthony Brown, Viscount Montague, Grand Master, appointing him Provincial Grand Master for New England. That he was there in person to receive it is unquestionable. In 1769 Price wrote to the Grand Lodge:
"Rt. Worshipful Brothers, I had the honor to be appointed Provincial Grand Master of New England, by the Rt. Hon'ble and Rt. Worshipful Lord, Anthony Brown, Viscount Montacute in the year 1733, and in the year 1735 said Commission to me was extended over all North America, by the Rt. Hon'ble and Ht. Worshipful John Lindsay, Earl of Crauford, then Grand Master of Masons; but upon inquiry I find that said Deputations were never Registered, though I myself paid three Guineas therefor, to Thomas Batson, Esqr then Deputy Grand Master, who with the Grand Wardens then in being, signed my said Deputations."
August 6, 1755, in a letter written to the Grand Secretary Of the Grand Lodge desiring a Deputation for Jeremy Gridley, Price writes:
"I shall be glad of a few lines from you even though you should have made out and forwarded our Deputation before this reaches you; as I shall have sundry things to Communicate to you from Time to time and can not do it but by letter to you, most of my old acquaintance of Masons being either Dead or Removed from London. I have some thoughts of once more i seeing London after Twenty Two Years absence."
Returning to Boston Price met a group of his Masonic friends on July 30 at the Bunch of Grapes tavern. The.Bunch of Grapes stood on King Street, not far from Henry Price's home and place of business, on a site now covered by the office building at 53 State Street. It was a favorite resort of the Royal Governors as well as of the Captains of ships in port. It was already an old tavern. It is known to have been there under the same name certainly in 1680 and probably since 1640 ,as it is known that there was a tavern on that site at that date.
The Brethren being met, Price read his Commission, which ran as follows:
Montague (seal) G:M.
To all and every Our Rt. Worshipful and Loving Brethren
now Residing or who may hereafter Reside in New England,
The Rt. Honble and Rt. Worsh'l Anthony Lord Visoount Montague Grand Master of the Free and Accepted Masons of England,
Sendeth Greeting
Whereas Application has been made unto us by our Rt Worsh. and well Beloved Bror Mr Henry Price In behalf of himself and several other Brethren now Residing in New England aforesaid Free and Accepted Masons, that We would be pleas'd to Nominate and Appoint a Provincial Grand Master of Free and Accepted Masons in N:England aforesaid.
Now Know Ye That we have nominated, Ordain'd, Constituted and appointed and do by these Presents Nominate, Ordain, Constitute and appoint Our said Worshl. and well Beloved Bror. Mr Henry Price Provincial Grand Master of New England aforesaid and Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging with full power and Authority to Nominate and appoint his Deputy Grand Master and Grand Wardens, and We do also hereby Impower the said Mr Henry Price, for us and in Our place and Stead, to Constitute the Brethren (Free and Accepted Masons) now
Residing or who shall hereafter reside in those parts, into One or more Regular Lodge or Lodges, as he shall think fit, and as often as Occasion shall require, He the said Mr Henry Price taking special care that all and every Member of any Lodge or Lodges so to be Constituted have been or shall be made Regular Masons, and that they do cause all and every the Regulations Contain'd in the printed Book of Constitutions (except so far as they have been Alter*d by the Grand Lodge at their Quarterly meetings) to be kept and Observ'd and also all such other Rules and Instructions as shall from time to time be Transmitted to him by us or by Thomas Batson Esqr Our Deputy Grand Master or the Grand Master or his Deputy for the time being, and that He the said Mr Henry Price or his Deputy do send to us or Our Deputy Grand Master and to the Grand Master of England or his Deputy for the time being annually,
an accot. in Writing of the number of Lodges so Constituted with the Names of the several Members of each Particular Lodge, together with such other Matters & things as he or they shall think fit to Communicate for the Prosperity of the Craft.
And Lastly we Will and Require that our said Provincial Grand Master of New England do Annually cause the Brethren to keep the Feast of St John the Evangelist, and Dine together on that Day, or (in case any Accident should happen to prevent their Dining together on that Day) on any other Day near that time as he shell Judge most fit as its done here and that at all Quarterly Communications, he do recommend general Charity to be Establish'd for the Relief of poor Brethren in those parts.
Given under Our Hand and Seal of office at London the Thirtieth Day of April 1733 & of Masonry 5733.
By the Grand Master's Command,
- Thos Batson D .G. M.
- G. Rooke S. G. W.
- J. Smythe J. G. W.
He then organized his Provincial Grand Lodge by appointing Andrew Belcher Deputy Grand Master and Thomas Kennedy and John Quann Grand Wardens pro tempore. Note that he had definitely determined upon his Deputy, but not upon the Wardens.
He then received the following petition:
"The Humble Petition of the following subscribers in behalf of themselves and Worshl. and Ancient Brotherhood belonging to the Society of Free and Accepted Masons now Residing in New England.
Sheweth That your Petitioners are very sensible of Honour done to us here by your said Deputation, and forasmuch as We are a sufficient number of brethren Popularly made and are now desirous of Enjoying each other, for Our Harmony together and Union as well as Our Brethren that may at any time arrive here or such as may be made Brothers hereafter that is to say in due Manner and Form Therefore We Request, as well in Our own Name and Names as in the Name and Names of all other Brethren it may Concern, That you will please to give the necessary Orders to all our Brethren within your Limits to give their due Attendance and Assistance in their several and Respective Capacitys towards Constituting a Regular Lodge this Evening at the sign of the Bunch of Grapes in King Street known by the name of the House of Mr Edward Lutwych or at any other place or places as Our said Rt. Worsh'l Grand Master shall think proper to be then and there held and Constituted according to Ancient Custom of Masons, and such Lodges to be held on every second and Fourth Wednesday in each Month for the Common Good of us and Brethren; Your Complyance herein We doubt not will Redound to the Honour of the Craft, and Encourage many worthy Gentlemen to become Brethren and Fellows of this Rt. Worsh'l and Ancient Society, and your Brethren and Petitioners shall ever Pray.
Dated at Boston in New England July 30th 1733. 5733.
Sign'd
- James Gordon. Andrew Belcher.
- John Waddell. Henry Hope.
- Edmd. Ellis. Thos Kennelly.
- Wm Gordon. John Quann.
- John Baker. Fred: Hamilton.
- Thos Moloney. John McNeil.
- Andw. Halliburton. Peter Hall.
- Robt Peasley. Matw Young.
- Saml. Pemberton. John Gordon."
The original petition is in the archives of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.
The new Grand Master granted the petition and "did then and there in the most solemn manner according to Ancient Rt. and Custom and the form prescrib'd in Our Printed Book of Constitutions; Constitute us into a Regular Lodge in Manner and Form, upon which we immediately proceeded (By Our said Rt. Worsh'l Grand Master's Order) to Chuse a Master, & Unanimously Chose Our Worsh'l Bro. Henry. Hope Esqr. Master of this Our New Constituted Lodge, who then Nominated and appointed Our Worsh'l Brethren Mr. Fred'k Hamilton, Mr. Jas. Gordon his Wardens, to which all the Brethren Unanimously concurr'd, paying the usual Respects to Our said Wrsh'l new Chosen Master and Wardens, and Presenting them to Our Right Worshipful Grand Master who Caus'd them to be duly examin'd and being found well Qualified approv'd and Confirm'd them in their several stations by Investing them with the Implements of their Office, giving each his particular Charge and Admonishing the Brethren of the Lodge to due Obedience and submission according to Our Printed Book of Constitutions, Charges and Regulations &c."
(Thus was Masonry Founded in New England); (Pelham MS.)
