Aug 03, 2022


In May of this year, Frontenac Masonic Lodge was one hundred years old. In that hundred years, the membership has included men from all walks of life who served the community in many ways. The membership role contains almost all the great family names of this region.

The Lodge was formally constituted on May 23, 1922. The first meeting was held in a room over the store of Mr. E. B. Buell who was the first candidate initiated into the Lodge. Members purchased the Presbyterian Church for use as a lodge room but fire destroyed this building in April 1929. The current structure was built on the same site later that year. The building has seen many changes over the years but it has endured and continues to serve us well.

Freemasonry is the oldest and largest organization of its type in the world. There are 3.2 million Masons worldwide, two hundred thousand in Canada, forty thousand in Ontario. Frontenac Lodge membership has gone down in the last twenty years. This trend has also been seen by church congregations, service clubs and Legion branches but these cycles have been seen before as demographics and community needs change so we hold to our purpose and, like these others, continue to serve.

The roots of Freemasonry are believed to lie in the medieval trade guilds of Europe. When the great cathedrals were being built, stone masons were highly skilled and in wide demand. Lodge organizations were formed to provide training in the craft and support for the families of this highly mobile group of craftsmen. A central element of this appears to have been a code of conduct similar to what we see in professional societies today – a code which deals not only with craftsmanship but also with citizenship and ethics of employment. In seventeenth century England, there developed a practice of admitting members who were not operative masons but who valued aspects of this code. What is now called “speculative”, rather than “operative” masonry evolved from this. In speculative Masonry, we use tales of ancient history as allegories and draw moral lessons from the use of traditional working tools. This has crept into our common language when we refer to a “square” deal or describe someone as being “on the level”.

Most Masonic Lodges do not admit women as members though this is changing. There are women only lodges in Ontario and co-ed lodges in Europe are fairly common. One of the things most commonly associated with Freeemasonry is the secrets. While Freemasonry as an institution tends to be reticent, there really are very few secrets. For instance, membership lists are not published but neither are they secret. If you ask someone if he is a Mason, he will probably tell you though he may pull your leg a little in the process. Masons consider it in bad taste to advertise their charity or good works but the Masons of North America raise 2.6 million dollars a day for charity. Most of this goes to Shriners hospitals which specialize in pediatric orthopedics and burn treatment but every district has an annual project which tends to support a local need. The only real secrets are the things Masons use to identify each other. This goes back to the days of operating Masons when a man was asked to prove he had the knowledge and skill required to hold a position of responsibility on a dangerous project.

A core purpose of Freemasonry is to “make good men better”. It does not attempt to make good men from bad. Nor does it claim to be the only way to get better. But it is one way and good Mason work at it.

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