BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, FREEMASON
SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.XI
October, 1933 No.10
by: unknown
The genius of Franklin was so
overwhelming, and manifested in so many different
directions, that no short paper can even list his
achievements; the American Philosophical Society
requires twenty large book pages merely to catalog his
inventions, discoveries, accomplishments and the events
in which he was intimately concerned. Printer, author,
editor, inventor, scientist, diplomat; founder of
schools, postal systems, government; ambassador, wit,
speaker; philosopher, politician and Freemason, he was
not only the amazing intellect, the Voltaire of Colonial
America, but one of the most complex and gifted men of
all times. He was the Francis Bacon of his age, far
ahead of the years in which he lived, and as such, the
subject of criticism from those who did not understand
him. Certain facts of his Masonic career stand out;
particularly it is to be noted that Franklin was not
merely a lodge member content with that and nothing
more, but a Freemason intensely interested in his Craft,
willing to give his enormous powers for its welfare, and
leaving an indelible impress on its history in this
country. His activities were so great and his Masonry
so influential in his life, there seems little reason
for historians to quarrel about matters of dates and
“firsts” in connection with his revered name. We do
not know exactly when Franklin was initiated; it was in
1731 and probably at the February meeting of St. John’s
Lodge in Philadelphia. Nor do we know when St. Johns’s
Lodge was born. From an old and extraordinarily
interesting account book, the famous “Liber B,” we know
the Lodge was in existence as early as December 1730.
Whether it was a “duly constituted Lodge” or a lodge
meeting only under the authority of Ancient Custom,
cannot here be stated. Many lodges in the early days so
met; the Lodge at Fredricksburg, for instance, in which
Washington was initiated, had no charter until after he
became a member, although oral tradition says it met
under authority of Massachusetts.
Prior to his initiation, Franklin
had poked a little fun at the Freemasons in his
“Pennsylvania Gazette.” Some historians think this was
to “advertise” himself to St. John’s Lodge so that when
he applied he would not be regarded as a stranger.
Others see it merely as the witty writing of a man who
knew little of the Fraternity. Whatever the reason,
Franklin’s membership changed his style of writing in
the Gazette. He published story after story about
Freemasonry in America in general and Pennsylvania and
Philadelphia in particular; these have become
foundation stones on which is erected the early history
of Freemasonry in this nation. That Franklin should
immediately raise his head above the generality of the
members of St John’s Lodge was inevitable. His whole
life of public service, his boundless courage, which led
him to express himself roundly on the non-popular side
of many questions, his tremendous ability, would
naturally bring him to the fore. It is not surprising
then that he was very soon (1735) elected Secretary, an
office he held until 1738. What is surprising,
supposing our early brethren were as conservative as are
we, is to find him a member of a committee to draft
by-laws of his lodge in 1732; to this happening we are
indebted for certain pages in “Liber B” in the
handwriting of the great patriot.
Still more amazing in these days
of lengthy years of service before a brother receives
any recognition in Grand Lodge, is his appointment as
Junior Warden of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania on St.
John the Baptist’s Day, June 24, 1732. No attempt will
here be made to go into those matters of Masonic
historical controversy at issue between brethren in
Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. No opinion is here
expressed as to whether that Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania
was or was not a “duly constituted body.” Here the
title is used as it was by Franklin. Even those who
believe that this Grand Lodge was not “really” a Grand
Lodge but only St John’s Lodge working as a Grand Lodge,
are glad to know that Franklin became its Grand Master
in 1734.
The first or Mother Grand Lodge
was formed in London in 1717. Six years after
“Anderson’s Constitutions” was first published. The
second edition did not appear until 1738, and by 1734,
the edition of 1723 was long exhausted. This was an
opportunity - who better might print the “Constitutions”
for American Masons than the Grand Master? The
“Pennsylvania Gazette, from May 9 to 16, 1734, carried
the following advertisement:
“THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE
FREEMASON; Containing the History, Charges,
Regulations, etc., of that most ancient and Right
Worshipful Fraternity, London Printed, Reprinted, by B.
Franklin, in the year of Masonry 5734. Price Stitch’d
2s6, bound 4s.” The book was delayed; perhaps even
Franklin’s press was subject to the slowness which
modern authors sometimes find in printing houses! It
was not until August that the “Masons’ Book” was ready;
then seventy copies were sent to Boston, others to
Charleston, and still later, more to Boston. Some
fifteen copies of the Masonic rarity are still cherished
in Masonic Libraries.
On November 28, 1734, he wrote
twice to Massachusetts. One letter was to Henry Price,
“Right Worshipful Grand Master” and the Grand Lodge in
Massachusetts. The other was to “Dear Brother Price.”
With one other, these are the only known letters
Franklin wrote about Freemasonry. They are important
enough to quote:
“Right Worshipful Grand Master
and Most Worthy and Dear Brethren:
“We acknowledge your favor of the
23rd of October past, and rejoice that the
Grand Master (whom God Bless) hath so happily recovered
from his late indisposition; and we now, glass in hand,
drink to the establishment of his health, and the
prosperity of your whole Lodge. “We have seen in the
Boston prints an article of news from London, importing
that a Grand Lodge held there in August last, Mr.
Price’s deputation and power was extended over all
America, which advice we hope is true, and we heartily
congratulate him thereupon and though this has not been
as yet regularly signified to us by you, yet, giving
credit thereto, we think it our duty to lay before your
Lodge what we apprehend needful to be done for us in
order to promote and strengthen the interest of Masonry
in this Provence (which seems to want the sanction of
some authority derived from home to give the proceedings
and determinations of our Lodge their due weight) to
wit, a Deputation or Charter granted by the Right
Worshipful Mr. Price, by virtue of his commission from
Britain, confirming the Brethren of Pennsylvania in the
privileges they at present enjoy of holding annually
their Grand Lodge, choosing their Grand Master, Wardens
and other officers, who may manage all affairs relating
to the Brethren here with full power and authority,
according the customs and usages of Masons, the said
Grand Master of Pennsylvania only yielding his chair,
when the Grand Master of all America shall be in place.
This, if it seems good and reasonable to you to grant,
will not only be extremely agreeable to us, but will
also, we are confident, conduce much to the welfare,
establishment and reputation of Masonry in these parts.
We therefore submit it for your consideration, and, as
we hope our request will be complied with, we desire
that it may be done as soon as possible, and also
accompanied with a copy of the R.W. Grand Master’s
first Deputation, and of the instrument by which it
appears to be enlarged as above-mentioned, witnessed by
your Wardens, and signed by the secretary; for which
favours this Lodge doubts not of being able to behave as
not to be thought ungrateful. “We are, Right Worshipful
Grand Master and Most Worthy Brethren, Your affectionate
Brethren and obliged humble servants, Signed at the
request of the Lodge, B. Franklin, G.M. Philadelphia,
Nov. 28, 1734” “Dear Brother Price: - I am glad to hear
of your full recovery. I hoped to have seen you here
this Fall, agreeable to the expectation you were so good
as to give me; but since sickness has prevented your
coming while the weather was moderate, I have no room to
flatter myself with a visit from you before the Spring,
when a deputation of the Brethren here will have an
opportunity of showing how much they esteem you. I beg
leave to recommend their request to you, and inform you,
that some false and rebel foreigners, being about to
set up a distinct Lodge in opposition to the old and
true Brethren here, pretending to make Masons for a bowl
of punch, and the Craft is like to come into disesteem
among us unless the true Brethren are countenanced and
distinguished by some special authority as herein
desired. I entreat, therefore, that whatever you shall
think proper to do herein may be sent by the next post,
if possible, or the next following.
“I am, Your Affectionate Brother
and Humble Servt” B. Franklin, G.M. Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Nov. 28, 1734” “P.S. - If more of the
Constitutions are wanted among you, please hint me.”
The address upon the letters is:
To Mr. Henry Price
At the Brazen Head Boston.“N.E.”
These letters are variously
“explained” according to the point of view of the
apologists. M.W. Melvin M. Johnson, Past Grand Master of
Massachusetts, noted Masonic historian, says:
“Should all other evidence and
arguments be disregarded, these letters are definite and
final. They establish that Pennsylvania Masonry as
wanting in authority, i.e., was not duly constituted;
that Henry Price was the ‘Founder of Duly Constituted
Masonry in America.’”
Brother J.E. Burnett Buckenham,
M.D., writing as Librarian and Curator of the Grand
Lodge of Pennsylvania, in “The Amazing Benjamin
Franklin,” says:
“Whether these letters were
written as an excuse for bringing up the subject of the
sale of more Constitution Books, or from a real (rather
than fancied) danger to the Craft from not having a
warrant of constitution, the writer does not pretend to
say.”
In 1738 were heard the first
rumblings of that anti-Masonic excitement which was to
shake the Masonic world nearly a hundred years later. A
young man was killed as a result of a mock Masonic
initiation. This was seized upon by a rival of
Franklin, Willliam Bradford, publisher of the “American
Weekly Mercury,” as a pretext on which to launch attacks
on Franklin and his connection with Freemasonry. The
incident raised anxiety in the hearts of Franklin’s
father and mother over their son’s being a member of the
Order. To allay their fears, Franklin wrote his father,
April 13, 1738, as follows:
“As to the Freemasons, I know of
no way of giving my mother a better account of them than
she seems to have at present, since it is not allowed
that women should be admitted into that secret society.
She has, I must confess on that account some reason to
be displeased with it; but for anything else, I must
entreat her to suspend her judgment till she is better
informed, unless she will believe me, when I assure her
that they are in general a very harmless sort of people,
and have no principles or practices that are
inconsistent with religion and good manners.”
According to Old Masonic and
family traditions the cornerstone of the Statehouse in
Philadelphia (Independence Hall), built while Franklin
was Grand Master, was laid by him and the Brethren of
St. John’s Lodge.
Franklin was too busy to visit
much Masonically. In 1743 he held Fraternal communion
with his brethren in the First (St. John’s) Lodge of
Boston. Later (1749 ) Thomas Oxnard of Boston,
appointed him Provincal Grand Master. This appointment
only lasted a year; he was deposed from his high estate
in 1750, when William Allen received the appointment;
Allen immediately appointed Franklin Deputy Grand
Master..
In 1752 he visited Tun Tavern
Lodge; two years later he was present at the Quarterly
Communication of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and
in 1755 he was prominent in the anniversary and
dedication of the “Freemason’s Lodge in Philadelphia,”
the first Masonic building in this nation. Late in
1760, with his son, Franklin visited the Grand Lodge in
London.
Among his first actions in France
when he appeared as Ambassador, were affiliations with
Masonic Lodges. In 1777 he was elected a member of the
famous “Lodge des Neuf Soeurs” (Lodge of the Nine
Sisters, or Nine Muses) of Paris, and in 1778 he
assisted in Voltaire’s initiation into this Lodge. What
a meeting that must have been, and what events may of
had their beginnings in the meeting of these two
brilliant minds - the Frenchman caustic, tart,
rapier-like in wit, scathing in denunciation of wrong
and evil; Franklin smooth, suave, direct, sensible, keen
as his French contem-porary - both laying aside their
defensive arms of wit and diplomacy to meet upon the
level and part upon the square. Alas, it was not for
long - within the year Franklin helped bury the famous
Frenchman with Masonic honors. The following year
(1779) he was elected Master of the Lodge of the Nine
Sisters; and it was not definitely known how much he
actually served for he was but an honorary Master. In
1782 he became a member of Lodge de Saint Jean de
Jerusalem, and the following year was elected Venerable
d’Honneur of that body. The same year he was elected
honorary member of Lodge des bons Amis (Good Friends),
Rouen In the dedication of a sermon delivered at the
request of R.W. Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, by Rev.
Joseph Pilmore in St. Paul’s Church, Philadelphia, on
St. John;s Day in December, 1786, Franklin referred to
as “An Illustrious Brother whose Distinguished Merit
among Masons entitles him to their highest veneration.”
Four years later, April 17, 1790, Benjamin Franklin
passed to the Grand Lodge above.
No catalog of Franklin’s offices,
services, dates, names, and places adequately can convey
the essential facts regarding his Masonic Membership.
Properly to evaluate them it is necessary to form an
accurate mental picture of Franklin the man. But so
much talent for so many activities makes it difficult to
pick those facets of a many-sided jewel which best
reflect the influence Freemasonry had upon him.
Most of his biographers are agree
that Franklin’s genius showed the greatest advantage in
his philosophical concepts, and his abilities as an
ambassador. The one pictures the man as he was “in his
heart” which is not only good Masonic ritual but also
good scripture, since, “as he thinketh in his heart, so
he is;” the other paints him a master of tact, of
homely wit, and fair-mindedly keen in an age when wit
had a rapier edge; as skilled in the arts of diplomacy
in a time when intrigue and deceit were the very
backbone of bargaining between nation and nation.
His whole life of service
exemplifies the practice of toleration on the one hand,
and a non-dogmatic, non-credic religion on the other.
We cannot prove that he received the inspiration for
these from Freemasonry he loved and practiced, but
neither can anyone prove the contrary. It is difficult
to associate Masonic ideas with such thoughts as
Franklin so often expressed, and not see a connection
between.
In the Constitution Convention,
when Franklin saved it for the Union, and the Union for
posterity, he said;
“The longer I live, the more
convincing proofs I see of this truth, “That God Governs
in the Affairs of Men.” And if a sparrow cannot fall to
the ground without his notice, it is probable that an
empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured,
Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that ‘except the Lord build
the house, they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly
believe this; and I also believe, that, without His
concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political
building no better than the builder’s of Babel.” It
would be difficult to put much more Masonry in the same
number of words.
To his father he wrote:
“The Scriptures assure me that
the last day we shall not be examined for what we
thought, but what we did; and our recommendation will
not be that we said, ‘Lord, Lord!’ but that we did good
to our fellow creatures. See Matt. XXV.”
The famous epitaph he wrote for
himself so slightly conceals the Masonic theme of
immortality as told in our Legend that all may read who
run:
The body of
B. Franklin, Printer
(Like the cover of an old book
Its contents torn out
And stripped of its Lettering and
Guilding)
Lies here, Food for the Worms.
But the Work shall not be wholly
lost;
For it will, (as he believed) appear
once more,
In a new and more perfect Edition,
Corrected and Amended
By the Author.
Benjamin Franklin had everything
that a reformer should have, except the desire to reform
for the sake of the reformation. He improved everything
which interested him, but he never tried to force his
improvements into the lives of others. He could show a
world a new way of making glasses, and that lightning
comes down a kitestring, and that daylight saving time
adds to leisure, and that wit and humor win more causes
than arguments, but he did not try to “make laws about
it.” He improved the printing press, the army and navy,
the common stove, ideas of ventilation, paved
Philadelphia and made it a better lighted town, invented
a hundred gadgets for common living, such as a three
wheel clock, a combination library chair and step ladder
(they can be bought to this day) an artificial arm to
get books from a high shelf, “but he never tried to
improve or change or alter Freemasonry.”
Franklin is generally conceded to
have been a diplomat of the first rank, but only those
who read history carefully know what a load he carried
on his old shoulders when in 1776 he went to France to
represent the United States. He had to win the support
of a nation largely controlled by court, fashion,
beauty, gallantry - anything but the hard common sense
of a Franklin. Yet this same practical philosopher,
this inventor, scientist, printer, pamphleteer and
politician; took France by storm. He was a gallant
gentleman to the ladies, a man among men with French
gallants. He won sympathy without a display of
suffering, and made friends without seeming to try. He
convinced every one of his honor and probity by being
honest in an age when dishonesty was fashionable. On
his simple promise to pay he secured millions in ships,
men and goods, where a less able representative might
have failed with an order of Congress on the Treasury
for backing. He played international politics by using
the King’s hatred of the English. He selected and
forwarded military supplies. He fitted out and
commissioned privateers. He kept the accounts between
two nations. He helped plan the campaigns at sea. He
enthused the French ruler and the French people. And
through it all he kept his sanity, made new friends and
retained old ones, all by fair-mindedness, the innate
justice and the toleration which are part and parcel of
the teachings of Freemasonry. Franklin lived to be
eighty-five years old. Sixty of those years as a
Freemason; he lived and wrote and practiced the
principles of the Order.
It is not for us to say what he
would have been had there been no Freemasonry in his
life; it is for us only to revere the Franklin who was
among the very greatest of any other nation, in all
times; for us to congratulate ourselves and be thankful
for our country, that this wise philosopher, this leader
of men and of nations, had taken to his heart the
immutable and eternal principles of the Ancient Craft. |
