A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 102

Author: Ross, Peter. cn
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1188

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% * the Grand Lecturer exhibited his version of the ritual to the Grand Master and the Grand Secretary and it was rejected." The reasons for this very drastic conclusion were many, but the main one was the brother's imperfect pronunciation of the English language and a certain amount of extraneous matter, which

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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

was not suited to the taste of American Ma-

sons. Further on, McClenachan 'says :

"On June 7, 1856, the Grand Lodge abol- ished the Lodge of Instruction ; voted Brother A. Colo Veloni, for his services as Grand Lec- turer, five hundred' dollars; elected Brother William H. Drew the Grand Lecturer without a fixed compenstation. An appro- priation of five hundred dollars to Brother Drew was made on the following June, and the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars to Brother Veloni as his assistant. The services of the Grand Lecturer were then settled at three dollars per day and necessary expenses, to be paid by the lodges employing hiin. The lengthy reports presented by the Grand Lec- turer, William H. Drew, to the Grand Lodge and printed in full in the proceedings of 1857 and 1858 are remarkable 'documents and worthy of frequent reference. It was in this latter year the compensation to tlie Lecturer was made one thousand dollars. It was or- dered that the State be divided into Grand Lecture Districts, designated by Senatorial districts, and that conventions be held in each."

It was this legislation that placed the "standard work" right · before every Lodge in the State and gave the New York brethren a reputation äs ritualists which has never been surpassed by those of other jurisdictions.'

It was under Grand Master Evans, too, that the present Grand Lodge library really had its beginning, although for such purpose donations of books had already been received on various occasions. He brought the need of such an annex so clearly before the brethren in his address in 1855 that the first five officers were appointed a Library Committee, with power to commence the formation of a library and to draw on the Grand Treasurer for five hundred dollars during the year to purchase books. Subordinate Lodges were asked to aid in the work, and a really good beginning was made, although the work afterward, for vari- ous reasons, was permitted to languish. It was Evans' idea that the Grand Lodge library

should be a sort of central lending organiza- tion, giving the brethren all over the country the advantages of studying whatever treasures it possessed, but this was soon : afterward abandoned as unfeasible. It was not; in fact, until the Grand Lodge got settled in its own home that much practical headway was made in the collection of a library worthy of the in- stitution.

Grand Master Evans governed the craft wisely and well, and, while discussion pre- vailed in the craft, the Grand Lodge steadily advanced in popularity and power. When he retired at the close of his second term there were three hundred and nineteen lodges under its jurisdiction and, besides, thirty-two lodges were working under dispensations, while the New York fraternity was recognized all over the world for its power and well directed en- ergies.

A more modern Mason, yet one who in his earlier days was often associated with Evans and who died in November, 1901, was John G. Barker, Masonic bookseller, who was prob- ably known, by name at least, to every read- ing member of the fraternity in the United States and Canada. His home was for years in Brooklyn and some of the Masonic organi- zation's of which he was a member had their headquarters there, but his place of business was in New York City: For some thirty years he published Masonic books, but the great fea- ture of his business was its half-yearly auction sales of Masonic books, gatherings from all sorts of places of volumes of interest to meni- bers of the order and' to no one else. : Some- times not over half a dozen buyers would at- tend these sales, but as a rule nothing was exactly sacrificed- Barker attended to' that. He was very proud of these auction sales and claimed, with justice, that they were not only helpful to the members of the craft, but that he was of real benefit to the widow or heirs of a book-loving Mason by securing for his literary treasures better prices than could be obtained were they sold in open market. But, as he sadly used to admit with a grim smile,

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"book-buying brethren" seemed to get smaller i: number year after year; as to the brethren in New York and Brooklyn who read books- Masonic books-he was wont to aver that they "might be counted on the fingers of both hands and still leave us two or three fingers for additions." For the "bright Masons" of the present day he had nothing but the most contemptuous words and was ready on all oc- casions to demonstrate that such burning and shining lights are not Masons at all.

But still, it must be admitted that Barker himself was behind the age. His place of busi- ness was in a street that was once a Ma- sonic center, but had long ago lost its pre- eminence in that and in every other respect, except for manufacturing industries. He had a large stock, but it was never displayed prop- erly. When you wanted anything you had to ask for it, and Barker generally had it, no matter how rare a bibliographical treasure it might be. Yet it may be questioned if even he had a complete knowledge of all that his stock contained, for human memory has its limitations.

The establishment in Bleecker street, New York, was not an inviting one. It was not at all tidy .; the furnishings were "the remains of former grandeur," and the presence of half a dozen cats did not add to the neatness of things. Three or four chairs were disposed around an old stove, chairs so well seasoned that they could not be destroyed by rough usage, and therein lay their supreme comfort, for you could sit in them as you liked, elevate them to your notion of the fitness of things, and if you so desired tilt your feet on the stove at any angle. It was not a handsome spot, the surroundings were venerable and de- crepid, yet around that stove more Masonry has been talked and discussed during the past quarter of a century than probably in any other spot in the State of New York. Mr. Barker himself was a living encyclopedia of local Ma- sonic history, and if his educational training had only been commensurate with the oppor- tunities that came to him and with the facil-

ities his business opened up, he would have been a power in the fraternity. But his early education appears to have been limited. For several years he edited and published a Ma- sonic magazine, which had more errors on the page-errors in grammar and in spelling, in- volved and dense sentences, misquotations and the like, than any publication the writer of this ever knew, yet he was never aware of them. His sale catalogues were useless for bibliographical purposes because of their mis- takes in names and dates, yet such errors hẹ never seemed to think amounted to much. But if some one had pointed out to him a mis- spelled name in one of Albert Pike's publica -· tions he would have gloated over it for a month and denounced the ignorance of Pike in the bitterest terms to all and sundry.

In fact, denunciation was his great forte. At times he was wont to denounce everything. The name of Albert Pike used to arouse his ire much as a red flag is said to arouse the dan- der of a bull, and the name of the late Enoch Terry Carson uncorked all the vials of his wrath. Even some of the Grand Masters of his own jurisdiction did not escape his ire and of some of them the language he used was such as if here repeated might lay the publisher open to legal proceedings. Of the Grand Mas- ters of recent years he knew nothing, except John Stewart and Wright D. Pownall, for both of whom he entertained the highest regard, but all the others since the days of Frank R. Lawrence were to him little more than names. He admired Grand Master Lawrence's work, or rather the magnificent outcome of it, al- though lie did not admire Lawrence's methods ; but then Barker was one of those whoin Law- rence himself used to denounce as the Past Masters who led the New York fraternity into the mire of debt from which only heroic meas- ures and masterly leadership enabled them to get out of.

But. in spite of his gift of denunciation, which, as usual, grew more virulent as years crept on, John G. Barker had a kind heart. Many a time have we seen a beggar enter his

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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

store, and experience a share of his wrath, winding up with the stern admonition that "this is a place of business and not a bureau of charity ;" and we always noticed that when the speech was near the close his hand was in his pocket and the supplicant went away satis- fied. Once a fellow walked in and solicited a dime, saying he was a brother of a lodge in Boston and had tramped the streets in search of work until he was played out. Barker, after the customary discourse, gave him tlie ten cents. "That fellow wants a drink," the writer said after the scene was over. "Well, ' said Barker, "what if he does? He asked me for a dime for food and I had the dime to spare. If he has lied about it, I have at least done my part." But his kindliness of heart showed itself in many other ways. No young brother ever applied to him for a bit of in- formation as to work, or law, or procedure, or history without having the point at issue fully explained, no matter how much of his time it took up, and he would not only give liis own views but would back them up with authorities, ransacking his whole store, search- ing in safes, desks, pigeon-holes and all sorts of corners for the necessary books or data. "Proceedings" of Grand Lodges were his fa- vorite study, and probably he knew as much of the contents of these as any man living. Now and again he used to talk of editing a volume or two of selections from the valuable contri- butions to Masonic history which lie buried in these "books which are not books," but he seemed unwilling to undertake the task owing to his advanced years.

Barker was a genuine example of the old school of Masons, of the type that prevailed in New York forty years ago. At that time Simons, Holmes, Phillips, Macoy, Sickels, Henry C. Banks, Somers, and Evans were in the height of their usefulness. Grand men, they were, all of them. Although one or two gave way to the cup which inebriates, they were not drunkards ; they were "convivialists," as they used to call themselves, but there is no doubt that their fondness for looking on

"the wine when it is red" lowered their stand- ing in the social scale and more or less wrecked their lives. But whether bon vivants like Holmes, or prim, devout, hard-working merchants like Evans, they were all men of brains. When Barker was raised in Silentia Lodge in November, 1862, he had known Simons, Holmes, Sickels and most of the rest of these leaders for some years, and he had quite an intimate acquaintance with that apostle of unrest-that most wonderful of rit- ualists-Henry C. Atwood, who passed away from the storms and distresses and conflicts of this life to, let us hope, a haven of rest above, two months before Barker signed the by-laws and was acknowledged a Master Ma- son. Still, although he thus dated legitimately in a Masonic sense from 1862, it is difficult to tell when Barker's acquaintance with the craft began. They were not so particular then as now about many matters and Barker laugh- ingly once told a group of listeners that his in- itiating, passing and raising showed him noth- ing new as he had "many times seen the whole business before." In fact he had often tyled a lodge when he was in that state of darkness which the elder brethren stigmatized so elo- quently as being that of a "cowan," although not one of them could tell the exact meaning of the word. Neither can any of the brethren of the present twentieth century, for that matter. Of course it was wrong to let a boy act as ty- ler, but if the fact of a non-Mason being tyler had been called in question Simons would have found ample precedent for it in the Scotch sys- tem which did not demand in those days-and possibly does not make it obligatory even yet- that the tyler of a lodge must be a member of the fraternity.

For many years Barker was a prominent figure in Grand Lodge circles although the only official appointment he ever held was that of grand librarian for some four years. But the library was a small affair in his day, containing little beyond loose numbers of proceedings, and during his tenure of the office he attempted little beyond arranging and completing these.

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FREEMASONRY ON LONG ISLAND.

The fact is that he became active in Grand Lodge circles at a time when a library was hardly likely to be a theme of immediate inter- est. The first year he attended the Grand Lodge as a representative the purchase of the present site of Masonic Hall was announced and then followed the excitement of corner-stone laying, of seeing the building in process of erection, of its dedication, and the long years of doubt, money-raising, and even despondency, until Lawrence lifted the load. It was in these years of financial darkness that Barker was promi- nent. For the past decade he seemed to take more of a direct interest in Scottish Rite mat- ters than in anything else. He was the secre- tary and real leader of what the brethren in Brooklyn and New York generally speak of as the Gorman Cerneau council, and he supported its claims to being the genuine article with all the force and vehemence of the old controver- sial school in which Hyneman and Folger al- most to our day carried on the argumentative methods of Lawrence Dermott himself. Into this feature of his career, however, this is not the place or time to enter.

Since the days of the leadership of Joseph D. Evans, Brooklyn has given two Grand Mas- ters to the craft in New York, Joseph J. Couch and William Sherer, and in all proba- bility will in 1902 furnish yet another in the advancement to the highest honor in the gift of the fraternity of Elbert Crandall, now Dep- uty Grand Master. A lawyer engaged in active practice on Manhattan Island, Mr. Crandall's home was long in Brooklyn and his entire Masonic affiliations are centered here. He is a member of Ridgewood Lodge, No. 710; of Ridgewood Chapter, No. 263; of De Witt Clinton Commandery, No. 27; Aurora Grata Consistory, Scottish Rite, and of Kismet Tem- 1

ple, Mystic Shrine. In the Grand Lodge, be- fore being elected to his present office, he was chief commissioner of appeals, and his elo- quent voice has often been heard in that ca- pacity as well as in urging measures and mat- ters of importance to the general welfare of the fraternity. He has proven a wise and con- servative counselor, has rendered loyal service to a succession of Grand Masters, and is thor- oughly equipped by long years of practical training and by the dictates of his own heart to assume the leadership of the big army of New York Masons-an army now numbering over one hundred thousand.

Possibly the course of time will place yet another Long Island Mason in the highest office. At present Townsend Scudder is chief commissioner of appeals in Grand Lodge, and somehow that office has come to be regarded as a stepping-stone to greater honors. Town- send Scudder was born at Northport July 26, 1865, and has represented Suffolk county in Congress. As a lawyer he ranks high, having been counsel for Queens county at the time when its affairs were being adjusted prior to annexation. In Masonic circles he is popular everywhere, and the same high regard follows him into every walk in life, for there is no doubt that but for his own determination to quit active political life he would have been returned to Congress from his district as often as he cared. He proved a most useful and reliable representative of his constituents, and while he was in Congress he never permitted his associates to forget that there was a place called Long Island, a place that had many and just claims upon their consideration, and he managed somehow to get quite a large propor- tion of these claims satisfactorily and liberally adjudicated.

CHAPTER LV.

THE SOCIAL WORLD OF LONG ISLAND.

A GRAND ARRAY OF ASSOCIATIONS OF ALL SORTS-ASSESSMENT INSURANCE-FASIIION- ABLE CLUBS-SPORTING AND HUNTING ORGANIZATIONS.

B ESIDES the Masonic body, Brooklyn has quite a variety of secret organ- izations; but with few exceptions these are all of what may be called the beneficial order of associations; that is, their main purpose is to help, aid and as- sist their members in time of sickness and trouble, to provide a burial payment, and in some cases to pay over to the heirs of a deceased member a sum of money generally regulated by the assessment plan, that is to say, according to the result of a fixed amount col- lected from each surviving member and paid over to the family or estate of a member "who. has passed from the cares and troubles of this transitory scene," as the ritual of one of these associations graphically expresses it. In other words, many of these organizations, in spite of their claims to secrecy and their choice col- lection of grips and passwords and more or less elaborate rituals, are simply insurance or- ganizations, with friendship as their basis in- stead of business. Their system is based on fellowship, while that of a regular insurance company is founded on experience, statistics and the computations of their actuaries. There is no doubt that the assessment plan of life insurance is wrong-wrong in theory and in- different in practice-that the prosperous ca- reers of societies founded on such a basis is short, generally a couple of decades, and that even with the best and most careful manage-

ment those who are so insured for any length of time generally find their assessments in- crease until, in the end, they become as costly as the most costly of the regularly established insurance companies, the old-line companies, as the assessment plan managers used con- temptuously to call them when the assessment plan was in the first flush of success-and that was shortly after it entered upon its ca- reer as a popular fad. To win in an assess- ment society one had to die when it was in the first flush of success. Its principle was so simple that on the surface it appeared feasible and plausible. Get together a thousand men between the ages of twenty-one and fifty, men who seemed strong and healthy, and, in some cases, men able to pass a quite superficial medi- cal examination. Let each paý in one dollar and thus raise a fund of one thousand dollars. When one died the fund thus created was to be handed over to his heirs and a fresh assess- ment levied, the vacancies caused by death to be filled up by new members. Nothing could be more simple, and yet in practice it proved most defective, and there are thousands of the policies of such organizations kept as sad me- mentoes in homes all over the continent-me- mentoes that are not worth the cost of the paper on which they are printed.

And still this form of insurance has not been without its good qualities. It has been the means of paying over to thousands of

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THE SOCIAL WORLD OF LONG ISLAND.

widows many millions of dollars which other- wise they would never have received, and as these women were generally widows of me- chanics and laboring men, men working for a daily wage, the result of the assessinent call was generally all that stood between them and actual want when the days of trouble and deso- lation came upon them. The working classes were not given much to the provident and thoughtful scheme of saving involved in life insurance schemes until this system directed their attention practically to it, and one benefit which these assessment associations was, in the long run, to add to the old and established companies a class of moderate "risks" which had hitherto been overlooked by them even in their keen and incessant hunt for business.

According to one eminent authority, Mayor Merrill, of Massachusetts, long at the head of the department of insurance in the old Bay State, the assessment system of life insurance can only be run successfully when it has other features to recommend it other than those which might be described as purely business, when it brings to the front the social qualities and aspirations of its members, when it is sup- plemented by a scheme of sick or out-of-work benefits, when it is confined to a trade or brings together people of one nationality, and so keeps alive by its reunions the memories and the story and the customs of the old home across the sea.

Among these a prime place must be given to the Royal Arcanum, even although that strong national organization has had to revise and adjust and increase its scale of assessments since it was first organized, in 1877. It has its regular lodges and social gatherings, and while the national organization takes direct cogni- zance of no part of the work excepting that of administering what is called the mortuary fund, the local lodges do all that can be con- ceived in the way of catering to the cultivation of the social aspirations of the members and rendering them fraternal aid. The strength of the whole system lies in the work of the local lodges, and they in turn rely on the solidity of

the general organization to meet all claims which become due on the death of one of their members, claims which vary according to a stipulated scheme from one thousand to five thousand dollars. On Long Island it has a membership of over twenty thousand, distrib- uted in ninety-three lodges, as follows :

BROOKLYN .- Acme, No. 594, 7th avenue and gth street ; Adirondack, No. 1742. 54th street and 3d avenue ; Alert, No. 1567, Brook- lyn avenue and Fulton street ; Algonquin, No. 1610, Johnston Building; Amaranth, No. 461. 153 Pierrepont street ; Atlantic, No. 1417, Ja- maica and Bushwick avenues ; Bay Ridge, No. 1383. 13th avenue and 67th street ; Bedford, No. 655. Nostrand and Gates avenues ; Blythe- bourne, No. 1324, New Utrecht avenue and 56th street ; Bravura, No. 1285, Sumner av- enue and Fulton. street ; Brevoort, No. 1350. Johnston Building; Brooklyn, No. 72, John- ston Building; Burnside, No. 625, Brooklyn avenue and Fulton street ; Bushwick, No. 1327, 1556 Broadway; Canarsie, No. 1678, avenue G and 9th street ; Carroll Park, No. 630, Liv- ingston and Smith streets; Champion, No. 1618, 153 Pierrepont street ; Commonwealth, No. 542, 153 Pierrepont street ; Dauntless, No. 1757, 897 Gates avenue ; De Forest, No. 1527, Fulton street and Bedford avenue; De Long, No. 725, 16 Graham avenue ; DeWitt Clinton, No. 419, Redford avenue and Madison street : East New York, No. 953, Bushwick and Ja- maica avenues ; Fern, No. 774, Johnston Build- ing; Fort Greene, No. 1048, Johnston Build- ing ; Franklin, No. 253. 970 Fulton street ; Fra- ternity, No. 504, 16 Graham avenue ; Fulton, No. 299. Johnston Building ; General Putnamn, No. 1446, 897 Gates avenue ; General Slocun, No. 1701, Gates avenue and Broadway; Gil- bert, No. 1343. Johnston Building ; Gramercy, No. 1510, 1028 Gates avenue: Iolanthe, No. 318, Argyle Building ; J. F. Price, No. 1769 .. 1028 Gates avenue; Kings County, No. 459,. Nostrand and DeKalb avenues : Lefferts, No. 1452, 6 Brooklyn avenue; Liberty Bell, No. 1589, 1584 Fulton street; Long Island, No. 173. 153 Pierrepont street ; Manhasset, No. 1518, 217 Court street ; Midwood, No. 1615. 8~2 Flatbush avenue; Montauk, No. 651, 153 Pierrepont street; Morning Star, No. 680, Johnston Building: Nassau, No. 822, John- ston Building; Ocean Hill, No. 1134, Gates avenue and Broadway; Old Glory, No. 1712, Myrtle and Waverly avenues; Osceola, No.

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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

759, Manhattan and Meserole avenues; Ox- ford, No. 650, Johnston Building; Palm, No. 1626, 1360 Broadway ; Peconic, No. 631, John- ston Building; Philadelphos, No. 562, Nos- trand and Gates avenues; Pro Patria, No. 1312, 869 Bedford avenue; Prospect Heights, No. 1521, 265 Prospect avenue; Ridgewood, No. 678, 897 Gates avenue; Stuyvesant, No. 690, Howard avenue and Madison street ; Suy- dam, No. 1746, Broadway and Halsey street ; Templar, No. 1376, Johnston Building; Un- dine, No. 1547, Gates and Nostrand avenues ; Utrecht, No. 1332, Bath avenue and Bay 22d street; Valiant, No. 1559, 1089 Broadway ; Vigilantia, No. 1065, Jolinston Building ; Vigi- lant, No. 1536, 54th street and 3d avenue ; Washington Irving, No. 821, 897 Gates av- enue ; Welcome, No. 703, Howard avenue and Madison street ; Williamsburgh, No. 441, Bed- ford avenue, near South 9th street.

QUEENS .- Defender, No. 1502, Arcanum Hall, Cedarhurst; Far Rockaway, No. 1693, Far Rockaway; Floral Park, No. 706, Ar- canum Hall; Flusning, No. 997, Masonic Hall, Flushing ; Jamaica, No. 433, Town Hall, Ja- maica; Newtown, No. 717, Jeben's Building, Corona; Olive Branch, No. 1729, Turn Hall, College Point ; Ozone, No. 1465, Odd Fellows' Hall, Ozone Park; Queens, No. 1669, Ar- canum Hall, Corona; Richmond Hill, No. 1625, Arcanum Hall; Sunswick, No. 1374, 756 Boulevard Astoria.

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A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 102

Author: Ross, Peter. cn Publication date: 1902 Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1188

Author: Ross, Peter. cn
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1188