CME Museum

The George Washington Letter to Lodge United Brothers 251 S.C. - A Historical Gem

by

Brother Gerard Besson, CME Museum Curator

The 2004 exhibition of Masonic artifacts and memorabilia at the National Library in Port-of-Spain marks the handing over of a large collection, some several hundred books, papers and other documents to the Heritage Library for safekeeping. The accumulated collection is the work of Masons for over 200 years.

A letter to the members of Lodge United Brothers 251 S.C. signed by George Washington, on display in facsimile, is the high point of the exhibition, overshadowed only by Lodge United Brothers as a historic institution of Trinidad and Tobago. Celebrating its second century in its present location at Mount Moriah, LUB's temple is the oldest building in the whole of Trinidad & Tobago built for the purpose that it is still used for.

The George Washington Letter is truly an ancient landmark in the annals of Freemasonry. It stands apart from other historical documents in that it defines a point in time when, in the course of world events, futures were determined.

It comes form a period of the New World's, the World of the America's, history when an old order in the process of changing was changing into what we know today, when institutions such as the monarchy were giving way to a political philosophy, expressed as democracy and applied to republican constitutions. The age of reason, so called by a generation that was seeking to leave behind institutionalised superstition and the last vestiges of feudalism and slavery, was creating documents such as "The Rights of Man", and in so doing enshrined concepts for an enlightened world, expressed as liberty, fraternity and equality.

In the period of the collapse of the British government in North America, the victorious party of liberty as led by George Washington found few institutions in place that were actually operative amongst the newly independent states. Freemasonry was one of those. As a popular movement, Freemasonry was probably THE prime example of the ideals expressed in the declaration of independence and in the new constitution. A large proportion of its signatories were Masons. It has been put forward by historians that the lodges were the anvils upon which the chisels were shaped that carved from rough stone the edifices that were to define freedom and democracy as we know it.

George Washington was made a Freemason in Fredericksburg Lodge No. 4 in Virginia in November 1752, passed in March and raised in August 1753.

This was the time also of significant change in these islands. After some 300 years of being a Spanish colony, Trinidad was about to join the British Empire. It was a period when the French Revolution was sweeping through the Caribbean. In the last years of the Spanish dominion of this island, a Cedula of Population had been promulgated, inviting settlement under very generous terms. This had been taken up by many French colonists and as such, when a young Mason by the name of Dominic Dert was forced to flee his native St. Lucia, he brought with him the charter of his mother lodge "Les Frères Unis". The influx of French colonists into Spanish Trinidad, many of them Freemasons, provided a membership core around which Lodge United Brothers (LUB) molded itself.

Under its charter, LUB was a member of the Grand Orient of France. But this was about to change, as the quick work of "Madame Guillotine" wiped out the membership of the Grand Lodge of France. In search of a new charter, the membership of LUB looked towards the emerging ideals expressed by their fellow colonists in the north, seeking association with the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. This was achieved, but was to prove short-lived, for with the capture of the island of Trinidad by the British, and Britain being at war with its North American colonies, the idea of a body of Masons meeting to work under an American charter was held in great suspicion. Particularly so in as much as the membership of LUB was almost entirely French at a time when France, and especially individuals such as the Marquis de Lafayette, a Freemason, was providing financial and military support for the rebellious colonists in North America.

The George Washington letter is a letter of fraternal greeting to all the daughter lodges under the aegis of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.

It was written after the establishment of a constituted United States.

It expresses the gratitude of the first president of the USA to all the Masons and their families who supported him in what was perhaps the greatest enterprise of the western world.

Its significance is not only that it is a document signed by Washington, but lies in its sentiments and the praise of a new order, one that we Masons of today are the inheritors of: the equality of all men, of the right to pursue happiness and freedom from tyranny.

When LUB's new temple was erected and dedicated at Mount Moriah on Piccadilly Street in 1804, the George Washington letter was hung upon the walls of its banqueting hall with pride in the knowledge of its place in history.

As a landmark, the association of a Masonic lodge in an obscure island with great events in a continent whose destiny it is to shape world events, the George Washington letter hanging on the wall of LUB's temple at Mount Moriah must have served as a great source of inspiration for another generation of Masons; those who would alter the course of history in the New World's southern hemisphere. In pursuit of a new charter under which to work, the brethren of LUB sought yet another Grand Lodge. They were successful with Scotland.

Amongst the brothers of LUB in this period was a young mason, a Venezuelan by the name of Santiago Mariño. A staunch follower of the patriotic leaders for South American liberty, Francisco Miranda and Simon Bolivar, both Freemasons, Mariño was instrumental in drawing around him a body of men of like mind, many of whom were members of LUB, to launch an attack from Chacachacare in the Bocas of Trinidad that served as the catalyst which successfully restarted the wars that led to the liberation of the entire continent.

The George Washington letter was to hang on the wall of the banqueting hall of LUB not merely as a silent witness to great events, but surely as an inspiration, the actual symbol of an ideal, possessed of great significance. Here are its words:

"Fellow Citizens and Brothers of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania:

I have received your address with all the feelings of brotherly affection mingled with those sentiments for the Society, which it was calculated to excite.

To have been, in any degree an instrument in the hands of Providence to promote order and union, and erect upon a solid foundation the true principles of government, is only to have shared with many others in a labour, the result of which let us hope, will prove through all ages, a sanctuary for brothers and a lodge for the virtues.

Permit me to reciprocate your prayers for my temporal happiness, and to supplicate that we may all meet there after in that eternal temple whose builder is the great Architect of the Universe."