Celebrating 275 years of brotherhood: the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts.(Grand Lodge of Massachusetts collection at the National Heritage Museum)

On July 30, 1733, in Boston, Henry Price (1697-1780) established the first Masonic organizations in the Western Hemisphere, the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts and the First Lodge, now known as Saint John's Lodge. The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts is the third oldest grand lodge in the world, after those of England and Ireland, and its story mirrors the history of Massachusetts as it grew and developed. Indeed, the values of brotherly affection and fellowship espoused by Free-masonry resonate with the language that John Winthrop (1587/88-1649) used in his well-known speech onboard the Arbella one hundred years earlier in 1630, shortly before he settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony: "Wee must entertaine each other in brotherly Affection ... wee must delight in eache other ... rejoice together, mourne together, labour, and suffer together, all wayes having before our eyes our Commission and Community in the worke." (1)

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

This year the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts celebrates its 275th anniversary. Since its founding, its members have collected more than eleven thousand objects and documents related to the people, places, and events of its history. Now on extended loan to the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Massachusetts, the collection is at the center of a new exhibition that traces the history of Freemasonry in Massachusetts. This article explores the first 150 years of the grand lodge's history and examines the meaning behind some of the symbols used in Masonic rituals. As Massachusetts grew from being a British colony to one of the original thirteen states in the new nation, the grand lodge also evolved, shaping its members, activities, and aims to fit a new, American, way of life.

Freemasonry is a fraternal organization that teaches a system of ethics through the use of rituals and symbols. The fraternity endeavors to enhance and strengthen the character of individual members by providing opportunities for fellowship, charity, education, and leadership. The exact origins of Freemasonry remain unknown. At some point during the 1500s or 1600s in England and Scotland, groups of working, or operative, stonemasons created lodges into which they initiated members from both within and outside the trade. While older guilds of stonemasons focused primarily on regulating the trade and protecting its secrets, these newer groups pursued social and charitable activities. The lodges developed what became known as speculative Freemasonry, which uses metaphors based on the traditions and tools of operative masonry to convey a system of ideas and ethics unconnected to actual building practices. (2) In 1717 four independent speculative lodges in London joined together to establish a governing body, the Grand Lodge of England. By the 1720s some of these English Masons had traveled to America and started to meet together informally in Massachusetts and possibly elsewhere. (3)

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]