Tyrian Freemasons?

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Bro. Robert Johnson 32°

      So, I found myself browsing Mackey's Masonic encyclopedia as I often do when I am looking for something interesting to research, when I came across an entry titled "Tyrian Freemasons". I immediately stopped to read the entry because I was intrigued by a couple words I saw in the paragraph, namely;  Dionysian and Solomon's Temple.

      So who were they? In short they are said to have been Freemasons who were Phoenician, from Tyre and members of a group called "The Society of Dionysian Artificers". The story goes that Hiram King of Tyre sent these Freemasons to help King Solomon build the Temple. These Tyrian Freemasons were masters in both operative and speculative masonry.

      According to this entry, the Freemasons in Jerusalem and those working on Solomon's Temple, were only masters in speculative Masonry having learned what they knew from Noah. Eventually these Tyrian Freemasons combined a system of operative and speculative both, which lasted for centuries.

     Whether true or not, I thought it was an interesting idea. Especially if you followed Bro. James E. Fry's series recently called "Son's of the East", where he dove into some of the interesting facets of the Phoenician designs used in the building of the Temple.









~RHJ

Bro. Robert Johnson, 32° is the editor of the Midnight Freemasons blog.  He is a Freemason out of the First North-East District of Illinois. He belongs to Waukegan Lodge No. 78. He is also a member of the York Rite bodies Royal Arch, Cryptic Council and Knights Templar, and a member of the Scottish Rite Valley of Chicago.  Brother Johnson currently produces and hosts a weekly Podcast (internet radio program) Whence Came You? which focuses on topics relating to Freemasonry. In addition, he produces video shorts focusing on driving interest in the Fraternity and writes original Masonic papers from time to time. He is a husband and father of three. He works full time in the safety industry and is also a photographer on the side as well as an avid home brewer. He is also working on two books, one is of a Masonic nature.

Connecting with History and Family

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

WB. Gregory J. Knott

While recently at a 3^rd degree in my home Lodge – Ogden Lodge No. 754, the lodge by-laws and constitution book were on Secretary Todd Creason’s table.  I started thumbing through the book and looked at the signatures of our many members since 1877.  

To my pleasant surprise I saw the name of my Great-Great-Great- Grandfather Mathew Jacobs who was a charter member of Ogden Lodge.

Mathew Jacobs was born on February 26, 1843 in Allegany County, Maryland on the family farm near Lonaconing.  

On September 12, 1861 he enlisted in Company A, 3^rd Regiment, Potomac Home Brigade, Maryland Volunteer Infantry.   He saw action at Grass Lick, WV and during the siege of Harper’s Ferry, and did duty at Annapolis, MD and in the defense of Baltimore.  Jacobs was discharged as a Corporal on January 2, 1865 at Buckhannon, WV.  Family tradition holds that the Jacobs family was divided with some fighting for the North and others for the South.   

After the war he lived at Point Bluff, Indiana for 4 years and in 1869 moved to Colfax Township in Champaign, County Illinois with his brother Nehemia Jacobs.   In 1877 Mathew moved to Ogden, Illinois on a farm 1 ½ miles NW of town.  

Mathew Jacobs grave in Mt. 

Olive Cemetery, Mayview IL

Mathew married Susan McMillen on September 4, 1874 and together they had three children; Charley Jacobs (1876-1947), Lulu Jacobs Leigh my G-Grandmother (1874-1972) and Ethel Jacobs Gordon 1888-1980.  Susan McMillen Jacobs died in a tragic accident on June 21, 1895.  Her horse was spooked when going down a hill and ran out of control, throwing Susan from the buggy.

After Susan’s death, Mathew continued to live on the farm near Ogden, until his death on March 5, 1913.  Mathew is buried at Mt. Olive Cemetery, Mayview, Illinois.

I know very little else of Mathew’s Masonic record.  He must have been a proud member of the fraternity, as his tombstone has a prominent square and compass on it. 

I had the privilege sign the same book as Mathew Jacobs, 130 years later.  One of our fraternity’s strengths is that shared experience across the generations.  Though I never met Mathew Jacobs, I have literally been able to walk in foot-steps on this journey.

~GJK

WB Gregory J. Knott is the Past Master of St. Joseph Lodge No. 970 in St. Joseph (IL) and a plural member of Ogden Lodge No. 754 (IL), and Homer Lodge No. 199 (IL). He's a member of both the Scottish Rite, and the York Rite, and is the Charter Secretary of the Illini High Twelve Club in Champaign-Urbana. He's also a member of the Ansar Shrine (IL) and the Eastern Illinois Council No. 356 Allied Masonic Degrees. Greg is very involved in Boy Scouts--an Eagle Scout himself, he serves the Grand Lodge of Illinois A. F. & A. M. as their representative to the National Association of Masonic Scouters.

Time Changes Our Duties

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Bro. Robert Johnson 32°

Some time ago I presented a piece about becoming a lodge officer. I briefly touched on the duties of some of the positions you might find yourself in. However those duties have not always been the same. Many of the duties prescribed to certain lodge officers have been eliminated. 

What duties you might ask? Well how about someone to wipe the floor? In the 1700’s all the way until the early 1900’s there were lodges that met in rented out rooms, after hours which had dirt floors. 

The members would draw the working tools and much of the symbology we use right on the floor in dirt to explain them to new candidates. When the meeting was over, a member, usually the tyler or perhaps the stewards would literally mess the dirt around the floor to conceal any and all traces of things that had been drawn. 

You have no doubt heard the Worshipful Master of your lodge say that “...if sooner specially convened, due and timely notice will be given by summons or otherwise.” In the 1700’s and 1800’s according to many Masonic scholars, the deacons would need to write out these summonses and it was the duty of the stewards to hand deliver them to the brothers of a lodge living throughout the land.

The duties we had to the craft in centuries past may have been different—I don't think anyone has to wipe down a dirt floor or hand deliver summons notes—but we do have brothers in lodge who are charged with managing a social media page for their lodge, managing a call-them-all phone system to advise members of upcoming events or  maintaining a lodge website. Whatever our duties are today and regardless of how time has changed those duties, let's do the best we can. 

Your lodge is counting on you. 

~RHJ

Bro. Robert Johnson, 32° is the editor of the Midnight Freemasons blog.  He is a Freemason out of the First North-East District of Illinois. He belongs to Waukegan Lodge No. 78. He is also a member of the York Rite bodies Royal Arch, Cryptic Council and Knights Templar, and a member of the Scottish Rite Valley of Chicago.  Brother Johnson currently produces and hosts a weekly Podcast (internet radio program) Whence Came You? which focuses on topics relating to Freemasonry. In addition, he produces video shorts focusing on driving interest in the Fraternity and writes original Masonic papers from time to time. He is a husband and father of three. He works full time in the safety industry and is also a photographer on the side as well as an avid home brewer. He is also working on two books, one is of a Masonic nature.

Memorizing

By Midnight Freemason Contributor

R.W.B. Michael H. Shirley

      One of the things I didn’t expect to do when I became a Mason was to devote a significant amount of time
 to memorizing ritual. And I don’t really, although I’m sure I spend more time than some of my Brethren. My days are filled with lots of other things. I spend maybe twenty minutes a day at it, on average. I’ve found that going to stated meetings and degrees regularly takes care of about ninety per cent of what I need to know for stated meetings, at least if I pay attention. I recall going to Workers Club in my second year as a Mason, having only really learned the parts necessary for my office (Junior Warden), and being placed in the West. I protested to our instructor, Jesse Higginson, past chairman of the Board of Grand Examiners, that I didn’t know the ritual. “I bet you do,” he said. He was right. Simply by going to lodge and paying attention I’d absorbed the lines I needed.

      Just showing up worked pretty well with routine ritual, but lectures and degree ritual are another story. I wanted to learn the Work, but thought it a daunting task. I remember going to a Second Degree shortly after becoming a Master Mason, and being amazed at the Worshipful Master’s seemingly effortless and endless ritual. But I had no idea how to start. Jesse did. One evening after a degree, he pointed at me and said, “Next Workers Club you’re going to know First Fellowcraft.” So I went home and learned the ritual, and at the next Workers Club I didn’t have to focus on the words, but was able to concentrate on the floor work. I realized that learning this stuff was going to take time. It wasn’t a big part as ritual goes, but the set speech took a little effort, and the reward was knowing more than I had, and a true feeling of competence. The next part I concentrated on was just a bit larger: the Senior Deacon’s lecture in the second section of the Second Degree. I did that for two reasons: first, there was one line I particularly liked, and I wanted to be able to say it; and, second, I was tired of calling the eighty-two-year-old retired banker who knew the part to help with our degrees. So every evening after the kids were in bed, I sat on my porch and worked on it, one line at a time. I’m not a memory prodigy, so it took weeks of constant effort, reciting it one line at a time, for it to stick. I didn’t take it in order: there are set paragraphs that don’t have anything to do with each other rhetorically, so I’d take one I found easier than another and build it up slowly. I’m not very good at building memory palaces, but I found visual mnemonic devices worked pretty well at getting me over difficult parts in a hurry. For example, if I had to remember a line involving three principal classes of workers, I’d picture the principals of our three local schools standing in a classroom with tool belts. 

      I know one Grand Lecturer whose memory is so good that he’s said to have memorized a ten-page speech in an hour. I can’t do that, or anything close to it. But I can memorize the Work, as others have before me. It’s not easy, but it’s simple, and simply put, it takes hard work, effort, and persistence. I said earlier that I spend about twenty minutes a day at memorizing ritual. That’s every day. I don’t miss one unless I’m sick. I’ll work on it while walking, relaxing on my porch, or cooking. I keep a Book of Standard Work open while I’m doing other things, and try to memorize a word or two beyond what I know. And slowly, slowly, I learn more. Some parts are harder than others (the Tenets and Cardinal Virtues lecture is giving me fits), but I’m getting it. And I will keep getting it, adding more until I know enough to test for Grand Lecturer. 

      I really didn’t expect to do this when I became a Mason, but I’ve found that the memorizing our Masonic ritual enables me to help my Brethren, to feel useful, and to feel competent. It also enables me to keep the ritual with me all the time, to think about it more deeply without having to hunt up a book, and to think of how it applies in my daily life. By internalizing the Work, I’ve become able to make connections I couldn’t make before. Memorizing the ritual isn’t just about making sure our meetings run effectively. It’s about something more. Memorizing the Work enables me to really work at being a Mason in my heart. And that is surely worth the effort.


~MHS


R.W.B. Michael H. Shirley is the Assistant Area Deputy Grand Master for the Eastern Area for the Grand Lodge of Illinois A.F. & A.M.  He is the Past Master of Tuscola Lodge No. 332 and Leadership Development Chairman for the Grand Lodge of Illinois. He's also a member of the Illinois Lodge of Research, the Scottish Rite, the York Rite, Eastern Star, and the Tall Cedars of Lebanon. He's also a member of the newly-chartered, Illini High Twelve No. 768 in Urbana-Champaign. The author of several articles on British history, he teaches at Eastern Illinois University.