textfiles/magazines/STB/stb-1933-10.txt

SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.XI   October, 1933   No.10

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, FREEMASON

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.