Litchfield enquirer., 1866-12-06
FREEMASONRY.

FREEMASONRY.
 ITS INTRODUCTION INTO THE UNITED STATES
 AND ITS HISTORY.
 The address deiyed by John H. B. Lat robe, of Baltimore, at the laying of the cor ner-stone of the new Masonic temple in that city, on the Doth instant, gave con- densed history of Freemasonry. We quote a few passages: e39. .-s
 "At the commencement of the elghteenth century Freemasonry had ceas- ed to be healthful and vigorous society whose occupation consisted in building cd ltices. The ages were no longer dark. Learning, emerging, as the morning sun above the hill-tops, from the gloom in which it had been hidden, was gradually Illuminating Europe. The printing press was revolutionizing the world. America had been discovered. Enterprise was on foot everywhere, and marching with gi- ants strength. Labor, rattling impatient ly the chains with which guilds and corpor- ations bound it, was struggling into free dom. Research, careless about the myste- ries of rites, was busying itself about the mysteries of art, and, year by year unveil- ing them. Other men became competent as architects and builders, and the Masons. ceasing to be necessity as craftsmen, found themselves in exclusive possession Of their peculiar ceremonies only Year af- ter year their society became febler. Will liam III. had been its last royal patron; Sir Christopher Wren its last Grand Master in England; and, at length, somewhere about the year A. D. 1717, four lodges were all that remained of the once powerful organ ization, that had built York and Westmin- ster. and Ely and Canterbury, and Lincoln and Durham, and to which the monarch had been indebted for his palace, and the baron for his hold. This was the lowest ebb in the fortunes of Freemasonry. The tide then turned. The practical feature of the Order was abandoned altogether. It became speculative in its character; and in a little while we find the Grand Lodge of London permanently established and Free once more attracting to it's lodges rank and wealth and influence. But the Grand Lodge of London was not without its troubles. The Masons of York, rich in with 8 charter dating back nine hundred years, disputed the authority of the new creation; and it was not until the beginning of the present century that was obtained, and the authority of the Grand Lodge of England recognised by all parties.
 'sFreemasonry was introduced into the United States in 1730, and seems to have become popular at once Washington was was the master of lodge, and the greater part of the officers of the Army of the Rev olution were members of the fraternity. The corner stone of the hall we are about to leave was laid by the governor of the state, then Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Maryland, and the building was inaugerated by the late Gen. Winder who succeeded him in the office. There is now a Grand Lodge in every state in the Union and the noble edifces which are everywhere being built for the accommodation of the Order, while they do credit to the taste, manifest, at the same time the wealth and prosperity of those to whom now belongs the duty of transmitting, in all their puri- ty, to distant future, the principles of Freemasonry.
 ''You have, probably, seen in the papers of the day, that the cornerstone of the old Masonic Hall, which we are about aban- doning, has recently been unearthed. It was laid in 1914, more than half a century ago; and you must have been struck by the fact, that notwithstanding the care ta ken to transmit to posterity the history of the building and some brief chronicle of the times, two coins of gold, half-eagle of 1796 and an eagle of 1911, with the inscrip- tion on the marble, were alone found to be unimpaired. The silver was blackened and defaced; the figures on the copper had dis appeared; and some remnants of decayed binding were all that testified to the prin- ted volumes that had been placed within the stone. Damp and mould and time, that edar reruma, in the short space of fifty two years, defeated the purpos of the build morials of their transactions. But the ea- gle and half eagle were as bright as when the coins first issued from the mint. It would have been the same, had the gold come from the foundations of an Indian shrine or temple in the forum. It will be the same, when as many years shall have rolled over the new resting place, to which to-day it is consigned, as have accumulated l.