While 2013 marked the 200th anniversary of the formal recognition of the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, USA, the history of 32° Freemasonry goes back several decades before 1813. Most outsiders—and even many Freemasons—assume that the fraternity’s name, Scottish Rite, honors the roots of the group and that the fraternity originated in Scotland. Some sources have fostered this story by suggesting that the Scottish Rite degrees were invented by Scottish supporters of the Stuarts of England in order to advance their cause. However, a closer look shows that the dates just don’t support that story.
The Scottish Rite seems to have started in Paris, France, around 1758. It was at the Grand East in Paris that Etienne (Stephen) Morin received a patent on August 27, 1761, authorizing him to establish the Rite “in all the four parts of the world.” The Constitutions and Regulations were written in 1762, and Morin, who had originally been made a Mason in Bordeaux, left France to return to San Domingo (now the Dominican Republic). In the West Indies, sometime between 1763 and 1767, Morin authorized Henry Francken to perform the degrees, and it was Francken who brought the Scottish Rite to America. On October 7, 1767, the Ineffable Lodge of Perfection was chartered and constituted in Albany, New York, making it the first body of the Rite of Perfection on the American continent. The early bodies initially offered degrees 4-25; the timing of the change to include up to 33 degrees continues to receive scholarly debate.
The Albany body was active until late 1774, when it ceased meeting. A second Lodge of Perfection was started in Philadelphia in 1782 and remained active until 1789. In 1783, a third Lodge of Perfection began meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, remaining active until about 1796. While these groups share the distinction of being the earliest to confer higher degrees in America, they were localized, and all three actively existed for relatively short periods.
On May 31, 1801, the Scottish Rite formalized its existence in the United States when Colonel John Mitchell and Reverend Dr. Frederick Dalcho met in Charleston, South Carolina, and opened a meeting of the “Supreme Council 33° of Freemasonry.” Today, the Southern Jurisdiction recognizes this date as its beginning and held its own bicentennial celebration in 2001.
As Mitchell and Dalcho continued to meet in Charleston, and initiated additional members, three men gained notice in New York City by forming their own Scottish Rite bodies. Joseph Cerneau, who received the degrees in Cuba, was made a Deputy Inspector General for the northern part of Cuba by Antoine Matthieu Du Potet in July 1806, while in the West Indies. Although Cerneau’s patent allowed him to confer the degrees up to and including the 24°, and the 25° on one candidate per year in Cuba, this does not seem to have prevented him from conferring the degrees after he moved to New York later in 1806. At the same time, Antoine Bideaud, who also became an Active Member of the Supreme Council in the French West Indies, was already in New York and initiated J.J.J. Gourgas and four other men as Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret, 32°, in August 1806. A third group, with members initiated by Abraham Jacob, who received a patent in 1790 in Jamaica, was also active in New York during the early 1800s.
By 1813, the general organization of the higher degrees of Freemasonry in the United States was in disarray. Many prominent Masons, empowered with limited authority over dissimilar and random degrees, had established competing higher bodies in New York. These bodies can, for the most part, be recognized as belonging to three groups, each of which had very limited opinions as to whom they held allegiance or from whom they derived their authority. Something had to be done.
According to Samuel H. Baynard, “In the early summer of 1813, Emanuel De La Motta, Treasurer General of the Supreme Council at Charlestown, neither on business nor on pleasure bent, but in search of health, drifted into the vortex of this Masonic whirlpool.” Apparently, he was in New York and was able to observe the situation up close.
To ascertain what solutions may have existed, De La Motta approached each of these disparate bodies in hope of establishing its legitimacy. He first encountered the group led by Bideaud and composed of, among others, Simson, Tompkins, and Riker. Tompkins was the governor of New York at the time, and Riker was the district attorney of New York City. This group, naming itself a “Sublime Grand Consistory,” was made up of fierce personal and political rivals, headed by Cerneau, and called itself “The Grand Consistory for the United States of America.” This second group counted among its members DeWitt Clinton, the lieutenant governor and later governor of New York. Clinton was also the Grand Master of Masons in New York and, oddly enough, worked alongside Simson, who was Grand Treasurer, and Tomkins, who had served as Grand Secretary. The third group, led by Abraham Jacobs, had formed a “Sublime Grand Lodge of Perfection” and a “Council of Princes of Jerusalem,” both of which had already been condemned by Cerneau as irregular. De La Motta very quickly reasoned that these conditions were unacceptable. Writing to the Sovereign Grand Commander, Mitchell, and the Lieutenant Grand Commander, Dalcho, he was given the authority to rectify the situation according to his best judgment. Upon calling on each body to justify its actions, he was met with resistance by the Cerneau group, who refused to cooperate. Upon his own investigations, De La Motta ruled that not only was the Cerneau group irregular, but also that the Jacobs group was without the warrants to establish its organizations. Having fully complied with all requests, the Bideaud group was found to be the only body worthy of recognition. Thus, on August 5, 1813, De La Motta, under the authority of the Supreme Council, 33°, in Charleston, issued the proclamation and charter granting sovereignty to the Bideaud group as the “Grand and Supreme Council of the Most Puissant Sovereigns, Grand Inspectors General of the 33° for the Northern District and Jurisdiction of the United States of America.”
Tompkins, who was then the governor of New York, and later vice president of the United States, was named as the first Sovereign Grand Commander, and J.J.J. Gourgas was named the first Grand Secretary General. The prosperity of the new Supreme Council was short lived, however.
In the wake of the Morgan Affair in 1826, Freemasonry in America, and particularly the Northeast, came to an abrupt standstill. The Northern Masonic Jurisdiction was most fortunate, nevertheless, to have Gourgas as its Grand Secretary General, for his organizational abilities and attention to detail were to serve as the sole deciding factor in the preservation of the Scottish Rite. The records and rituals of the Supreme Council, 33°, Southern Jurisdiction were lost in a fire that destroyed their headquarters in 1819. Gourgas came to the rescue and restored all that was needed for continued operation. Although publicly, Masonry seemed to all but vanish, Gourgas maintained records and correspondence, and even effected a territorial agreement with the Southern Jurisdiction in 1827 regarding the sovereignty of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction over the then 14 states situated east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Wisconsin was not yet a state, but part of Michigan. During this time, Gourgas would guide the jurisdiction through the passing of its first two Grand Commanders, Tompkins and Simson, until becoming Sovereign Grand Commander himself in 1832. Urged by his ardent cohort, Giles F. Yates, Gourgas resumed the active business of the Supreme Council in 1843, and, over the next eight years, the Scottish Rite once again began to flourish. In 1846, the Supreme Council (NMJ) established the Ancient and Accepted Rite in England by chartering that country’s first Supreme Council under the leadership of founder Illustrious Robert Thomas Crucefix, 33°, as the first Sovereign Grand Commander.
In 1851, after almost 50 years at the helm of the Supreme Council, Grand Commander Gourgas resigned at the age of 74. He named Illustrious Giles F. Yates, 33°, as his successor, who, though only 53 years old, resigned in a matter of days. His inaugural address was also to be his farewell address, and in it, he stated clearly why he was not accepting office. Among the reasons he stated were his many years of service, that he did not wish to obstruct the advancement of others, that he wished to serve as an example of how to let go of power, and his inability to reside near the jurisdiction’s headquarters. During that very brief tenure, the Grand East was moved from New York to Boston, with records kept at the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts building. To succeed him as Grand Commander, Yates appointed Illustrious Edward Asa Raymond, 33°, a past Grand Master of Massachusetts and Grand Treasurer of the Supreme Council. Raymond was considered to be a most worthy successor, with a Masonic resumé that few Masons, if any, have ever equaled, and for the next 10 years, harmony reigned in the Supreme Council.
All of that changed at the meeting of the Supreme Council in August 1860, and to this day, much of what transpired is still cause for speculation. What is clear from reading the minutes of the meeting is that Grand Commander Raymond felt that he was being usurped and closed the meeting. Much the same action was taken at the meeting the following day, with Raymond closing the session sine die (without day). Following the meeting, the remaining members of the council appointed themselves a committee to visit Past Grand Commander Gourgas, who was visiting nearby, to seek his advice. On Saturday, August 25, 1860, those remaining members of the Supreme Council reconvened, occupied the chairs, opened the Supreme Council, elected themselves, installed themselves into office, and proceeded to make some 200 pages of changes to the laws, statutes, and regulations of the Scottish Rite. For the next year, Killian H. Van Rensselaer would govern the council as its Lieutenant Commander, until being elected as Sovereign Grand Commander in 1862.
An entire volume could be written about this period in the Supreme Council’s history, but most Masonic historians tend to postulate that the schism that occurred was the result of a generational conflict. Upon the exit of Gourgas and Yates, Raymond remained as the last of the elder members of the Supreme Council, an adherent to the old rules and exclusive sensibilities of the rite. Van Rensselaer, in stark contrast, was a younger and more energetic member who had personally founded over 30 new bodies since 1848. Due to the lack of solid evidence, it is difficult to speculate which party may have been at fault. Nevertheless, it may be safe to say that both were. Raymond, perhaps through age and temperament, allowed himself to lose control, and Van Rensselaer, eager to exert his will over the growing rite, stepped out of due bounds. Regardless, Raymond and Van Rensselaer would both maintain their own Supreme Councils—Van Rensselaer’s being the duly recognized—until they merged in 1867. During the intervening years leading to the merger, much occurred behind the scenes, with Raymond allying his council with the irregular Cerneau Council that he had long opposed and Van Rensselaer assuming control and expanding the Rite. In the end, Brotherly love prevailed, and after seven years, the two councils merged in 1867, since which time harmony has reigned in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction.
The history of Scottish Rite Masonry for Lowell begins with the Lodge of Perfection formed in Albany, New York in the year 1767. During this period, there were may different rites including a King Solomon’s Lodge of Perfection located at Holmes Hole, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts in the year 1791.
The Scottish Rite bodies, Valley of Lowell celebrated its centennial observance on November 1, 1957. A number of Masons including Ill. William Sewall Gardner, having been granted a dispensation by Ill. Edward A. Raymond M.P. Sovereign Grand Commander, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction formed a Lodge of Perfection and Council Princess of Jerusalem in the year 1857. Charters were issued the following year.