Grand Lodge of New York - Onondaga and Oswego Masonic District ...

OFFICERS NAMED IN WARRANT.
Charles G. Cummings, Master.
Samuel Richardson, Senior Warden.
Charles C. Lathrop, Junior Warden.
CHARTER MEMBERS.
William A. Langworthy.
Nicholas E. Paine.
Lyman B. Langworthy.
Nathaniel Clark.
Schuyler Moses.
Charles C. Lathrop.
Phineas B. Cook.
Henry A. Brewster.
Samuel Richardson.
Sylvester H. Packard.
Asahel A. Beers.
Ebenezer Watts.
Cyrus Knapp.
Marcus Moses.
William E. Lathrop.
Two of the charter members were members of Wells Lodge, No. 282, of Rochester, which was warranted June 5, 1816, and went
down in the anti-Masonic persecution about the year 1828. The last returns made by this old Lodge was in 1827; at that time
CHARLES C. LATHROP was Junior Warden, and ERENEZER WATTS, Treasurer.
MEETING PLACES.
When organized, the Lodge met in Brewster Hall, 67 Exchange Street; in August, 1846, it moved to the John Burns Building, corner
of Main and State Streets, where it remained until the fall of 1858, when it moved to the Wilder Building, corner of Alain and
Exchange Streets, where it remained until September, 1872, when it again moved, this time to Masonic Hall in Smith and Perkins
Building, Exchange Street. This Hall was dedicated by M.'.W.'. CHRISTOPHER G. Fox, Grand Master, November 14, 1872. In 1898
it moved to the Masonic Temple, Clinton Avenue, North, where it still remains.
On April 24, 1889, Jubilee services were held in Washington Rink, Rochester, under the auspices of Valley Lodge, No. 109.
Yonnondio Lodge, No. 163; Genesee Falls Lodge, No. 507; Rochester Lodge, No. 660; Germania Lodge, No. 722, and Frank R.
Lawrence Lodge, U. D.
A press report said concerning this event: "They celebrated the freedom of the Craft of the State from debt, and they did it in a very
enthusiastic manner. Washington Rink echoed Masonic eloquence, Masonic applause and Masonic music for several hours."
The principal address was delivered by M.'.W.'. WILLIAM A.SUTHERLAND, who, at the time, was Master of Frank R. Lawrence
Lodge, U. D. In part, he said:
"The youngest child of the Fraternity, the newest of the nearly eight hundred Lodges of the State, acknowledges the compliment it
receives in an invitation to speak, through its Master, on this day of rejoicing. Bearing the honored name of our Most Worshipful
Grand Master, Frank R. Lawrence Lodge is especially gratified to join in the general rejoicings upon the completion of the Herculean
task so heroically undertaken and so magnificently concluded by him whose name is on the lips of so many thousands to-night.
"For years the task of extinguishing a debt of $500,000 seemed like attempting to scale an inaccessible cliff, the noble charity, for
the support of which the revenues of the Masonic building were to he devoted, was buried beneath the mountain of debt with which
that building was encumbered. But upon the election of FRANK R. LAWRENCE to the Grand Mastership? the sound of the gavel
was heard in the East, and the Craft were called from refreshment to labor.
"He it was who enkindled hope in the breasts of the doubting. The faint-hearted men enthused with his own dauntless courage.
Thus did our truly Grand Master set the Craft at work, giving them proper instructions for their labor. Thus, by a three years' journey,
has he led us out of the land of bondage. Now we are free! Now are we equipped for a charity magnificent and perpetual! To-day
our desires have culminated in assurance, and hope hath ended in fruition. With glad acclaim we salute the dauntless, the
matchless and peerless leader, and give cheers to the magnificence of his success. It has been deemed fitting that the youngest
Lodge in the State should he designated on this occasion, to clasp hands with the eldest. ... No Masonic assemblage can be justly
censured for a proud allusion to our past. So many great and good men have been prominently identified with our Order; on so
many public occasions have those high in public station officiated in our ceremonies, and so many times have prominent Masons
guided and managed the Ship of State, that the Masonic Fraternity may almost he said to be interwoven with the fabric of our
Government.
But brethren we do not live in the past. Our assemblage to-night is because of the achievements of the present. Our rejoicings,
while relating to that which now goes into history, also swell the bugle call to advance. The pathway of duty lies before us, we must
not be slothful idlers in the Masonic vineyard. Although our work is underneath the surface and may not often be heralded by the
trumpet of Fame, yet none the less are we important factors in the advancement of the human race to a higher civilization.
"When all meet upon a level, then all class distinctions disappear; bigotry and narrow-mindedness vanish from the midst of those
who insist only upon a firm belief in the Supreme Architect of the Universe and a just record after death for the deeds done in the
body. We are taught as Free Masons that all truth lies not in one depository, but that scattered fragments, like portions of a broken
image, may be found in all quarters of the globe and in diverse forms of belief. Unconsciously, perhaps, but nevertheless steadily,
the seekers after truth are gathering these fragments together and on some millennial day these sometimes hidden and often
obscure gems of truth, sometimes contributed from the teachings of Brahma, sometimes from the writings of Confucius, sometimes
from the Hebrew prophets and many from the followers of Him who was born in Bethlehem of Judea, shall be fitted together into one
harmonious whole. Truth herself shall then be known and recognized of all men. Till that day comes it is the province of Masonry to
teach toleration, to enforce the precept that no one man holds sure possession of the truth as of a chattel. To live in the fear of God,
to walk uprightly before God and man, to deal justly with all mankind, to perform unostentatious deeds of charity, remembering all
men, but especially the brethren, and to inculcate that broadminded charity which accords to another's beliefs the same respect
which each demands for his own—these be the principles of our Order, and these should our lives exemplify. . . . We do build a
Temple whose foundations are broad as the confines of humanity, whose walls are made up of deeds of charity, of puremindedness,
of uprightness and of steadfast performance of duty in every station of life, and whose vaulted dome reaches through
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