The Mother Grand Lodge of the world was planned in one tavern and organized in another, and for many years continued to meet in first one tavern and then another. So also did the new Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland do the same thing. As for the subordinate lodges, it was so universally the custom for them to meet in taverns that in the early engraved lists of them published by the Grand Lodge of England they are represented not by numbers, as they are now, but by small pictures representing the signs of the tavern in which they met.This was true to an equal extent here in America. Henry Price and his Masonic friends met in one or the other of two taverns in Boston to lay plans for the establishment of their Grand Lodge in 1733, and that Grand Lodge often assembled in one or another of "the public houses." Lodges had similar meeting places in other large centers, such as New York, Philadelphia, etc.
Modern Freemasons, who do not often consort in taverns, are sometimes shocked by these facts. It is easy to understand why. They think of a tavern as a bar, a saloon, a beer parlor, and therefore cannot even imagine a Grand Lodge or a lodge meeting in such places. Why did the Mother Grand Lodge meet in one? Why did it not find a room in some house more respectable?
The answer is that in those early days of the Craft the taverns, inns, and ale-houses in the towns and cities were not "such places" but were among the most respected places in the community; and also often enough occupied the most splendid building which was furnished magnificently, and where the most exquisite ladies could go without embarrassment.
If a reader continues to be dubious, let him go into the Metropolitan Art Museum when next in New York City, and study there the large picture of the ballroom in Gadsby's Tavern at Alexandria, Virginia, Washington's own town. Both Washington and his wife often danced in that ballroom—and so, on more than one occasion, did the correct and scrupulous Lafayette.
History has a way now and then of coming full circle. In a recent letter a friend in Exeter, England, writes: "Several lodges in England who own their own temple are facing financial trouble; this is due to fierce taxation and rising costs of maintenance. Fees are constantly rising. I think that eventually some lodges will have to go back to the taverns whence they started, and hire a room as and when required." He then goes on to report how the White Hart Lodge -- ousted from their own property by the military --"got a dispensation to meet at the White Hart where they started 200 years ago."
[from the Grand Master’s Bulletin, California, February 1970, Chester McPhee, Grand Master]
Norm Leeper, PM, HA
Southern California Research Lodge
