CHAPTER II
THE FIRST PROVINCIAL GRAND LODGE
1738-84
ANCIENTS

The founding of Halifax in 1749 represented the first effort on the part of Great Britain at a systematic colonization of Nova Scotia. Inspired by such men as Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts who saw in the colony "the key to British interests and dominion in America." the President of the Board of Trade, Lord Halifax; and the Secretary of State, John, Duke of Bedford; the plan was carried to fruition by the new Governor of Nova Scotia, Edward Cornwallis, who arrived in the present Halifax Harbour in June 1749, with a flotilla carrying twenty-five hundred men, women, and children to settle in the province.1 Other settlers came to the colony, some almost at once, some much later. They included merchants from Boston who established themselves in Halifax; Englishmen who founded Dartmouth; German fishermen who occupied the lands of Western Nova Scotia and along the shore of Minas Basin; Yorkshiremen who brought an English atmosphere to the Tantramar marshes of Chignecto; and Scots who found in the eastern part of the province a rugged grandeur resembling the land of their birth. In the course of time the early settlements grew, and new communities were established. In many of them today are to be found our Masonic lodges.

Among the pioneers in the new Halifax were a number of Freemasons. These wished to have a lodge to attend and Brethren with whom to associate. In the Mother country of that day most of the officers and leaders in the Craft came from the princes, nobility, and high churchmen. In the colonies leadership was expected from the Governor and members of his Council. In Nova Scotia, Edward Cornwallis belonged to the Craft and was willing to give the desired leadership. Thus it was that in 1750, almost before permanent homes had been constructed, a number of Masons met with the Governor, and the group declared that it was for the good of the Fraternity that a lodge should be established in Halifax.2 To this end, they applied to Provincial Grand Master Price in Boston for the necessary permission, apparently unaware of the authority exercised by Erasmus James Philipps. Price referred the petitioners to Philipps at Annapolis Royal. They at once requested him to grant the desired deputation:

"At a meeting of true and Lawful brothers and Master Masons,

Assembled at Halifax, in order to Consult on proper measures for holding and Establishing a Lodge in this place, it was unanimously resolved on that a petition should be sent to you, who, we are informed, is Grand Master for the Province of Nova Scotia in order to obtain your Warrant or Deputation to hold and Establish a Lodge in this place according to the Ancient Laws and Customs of Masonry, and that the said petition should be signed by any five of the brethren then assembled".

"We therefore the undersigned subscribers pursuant to the above resolution, do most humbly Crave and desire your warrant to hold Establish a Lodge as aforesaid according to the Ancient Laws and Customs of Masonry as practised among true and Lawful Brethren, and this they Crave with the utmost dispatch and beg leave to subscribe themselves your true and Loving Brethren."3

The petition was signed by the Governor and four others, William Steele, William Nesbitt, Robert Campbell and David Haldane. All four came from England with the fotilla of 1749. Steele was listed as a Brewer, Nesbitt as a Governor's Clerk and Campbell and Haldane as Military Officers. Steele was one of the early members of the first Assembly of Nova Scotia, and the former was at one time its Speaker.4 They were, and continued to be active members of their community and in Freemasonry. The Governor, too, was interested in the Craft before, during, and after his sojourn in Nova Scotia. He founded a lodge in Ireland before he came to Halifax, and when Governor of Gibraltar from 1762 to 1772 he established a lodge there.5

Erasmus James Philipps was pleased to receive a petition from the distinguished group in Halifax, and promptly granted their request. The desired Warrant arrived in Halifax on July 19, 1750. The Brethren acted promptly, for they opened a lodge the same evening with the Governor in the Chair. Plans had been made well in advance, for a number of Naval Officers, the most distinguished of whom was Alexander, fourth Lord Coville, attended and received the Entered Apprentice Degree. Lord Coville took his second and third degrees in Boston. He served for a number of years in North America and rose to the rank of Vice-Admiral. During the year 1750, many other residents of Halifax joined the lodge. One of these was Richard Bulkeley who, beginning as an A.D.C. to the Governor, subsequently served as a member of the Council, Secretary of the Province, member of the Assembly, Judge of the Admiralty, and Grand Master of Masons.

Much of our knowledge of the growth of Masonry at Halifax in these years comes from A History of Freemasonry in Nova Scotia dated 1786. From it we learn that on the first St. John the Baptist Day after the founding of the lodge, June 24, 1751, the Members "resolved to celebrate the Festival with the usual pomp" by walking in procession to St. Paul's Church to hear prayers. About this time news arrived of the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son of King George II, and father of the later King, George III. Since the Prince was a member of the Craft, the Brethren appeared in mourning as a sign of respect. This gathering in St. Paul's Church was, as far as is known, the first Masonic Service to be held in Canada. The Church itself was little more than a year old, the cornerstone having been laid at an official ceremony on June 13, 1750. Since many of the leaders present were members of the Craft, the ceremony could be described as almost Masonic.

Governor Cornwallis was the first Worshipful Master of the new lodge, and continued in office until he left Halifax in 17526 For the most part, he did not preside over the lodge, but followed the custom prevalent in Scotland of using a deputy. His successor in the chair was another soldier, Colonel Charles Lawrence, who became successively Administrator, Lieutenant-Governor, and Governor of the Province.

For eight busy years, 1752-60, Lawrence was the centre of such well known historical events as the deportation of the Acadians, the calling of an Assembly, and the settlement of the New England Planters and fishermen in western Nova Scotia. He also found the time to join with Amherst and Wolfe for the capture of Louisbourg in 1758. Nor were those tranquil years for his leadership of the lodge, for he found himself, with Provincial Grand Master Philipps, required to make a choice between continuing the existing relationships with the Provincial Grand Lodge in Boston, or associating himself and his lodge with a comparatively new Grand Lodge that had been formed in England and called itself "The Most Ancient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons."

The founding of the original Grand Lodge of England in 1717, had been the work of four lodges of Old London that desired to have a central and coordinating authority. As the number of subordinate lodges increased, it became more difficult to control them all. As has been suggested, most of the leaders of the Craft in England were wealthy, or aristocratic, or both. Thus when some Irish Masons, who were neither wealthy nor aristocratic, arrived in London, they were not readily accepted by the governing group. When, either to confuse the new arrivals, or because of certain exposes, and criticisms, or both, the aristocratic leaders made changes in the ritual and forms of recognition, their opponents dubbed them Moderns, and called themselves the supporters of ancient Freemasonry, or in other words, Ancients.7 The date was 1751.

Among the leaders of the Ancients was Lawrence Dermott, who by his zeal and tireless work earned the title "the most audacious and indefatigable genius in the annals of Freemasonry."8 The Ancients began to charter new lodges and to compete with the Moderns for the control of existing lodges. Much bitterness resulted, but the rivalry was not all evil, for it compelled both groups to be "up and doing". The Moderns continued to control the Upper Classes and were strong in the Navy. The Ancients therefore concentrated on the Army. Since Masons overseas tended to be more democratic than the majority at home, they favoured the Ancients rather than the Moderns.

Also, as might be suspected, the Ancients in their efforts to be democratic gave their Provincial Grand Lodges so much authority as to be almost independent.9

HON. EDWARD CORNWALLIS

Worshipful Master, The First Lodge, 1750 - 1752

In Halifax, the future "Warden of the Honour of the North", ships of the Navy were already beginning to call, and the naval officers when in port were glad to find a lodge in which to visit. At the same time, due to Anglo-French conflict, especially between 1755 and 1763, Army units went and came, many with lodges attached to them. With his lodge so much in the centre of activity, Lawrence must have met both Moderns and Ancients, and may have had both visit him. Both the Governor and his Masonic superior at Annapolis Royal, Erasmus James Philipps were officers in the Army and therefore might be expected to favour the Ancients. Furthermore, there was a real temptation to shake off the supervising hand of the nearer Provincial Grand Lodge in Boston and to accept the more distant and less rigid control from across the Atlantic.

Probably in 1755, while Lawrence was busy with the deportation of the Acadians, Philipps transferred his personal allegiance and that of his fellow Masons at Annapolis Royal from St. john's Provincial Grand Lodge, Boston, to the four year old Grand Lodge, Ancients, in London.10 Soon Lawrence and the Masons of Halifax took the same step. The transfer was made official on December 27, 1757 when the Grand Lodge, Ancients meeting in London, approved of a petition from his Excellency Charles Lawrence, Major Erasmus James Philipps, Esq., Alexander Murray, Esq., and fifty-seven others "praying to be warranted," viz. one Provincial Grand Warrant, and two warrants for subordinate lodges11. Warrant No. 65 granted authority to the petitioners and their associates to hold in Nova Scotia, a Provincial Grand Lodge independent of any former Dispensation granted to New England or elsewhere, and made Right Worshipful Bro. Erasmus James Philipps, Provincial Grand Master with Worshipful Bro. Alexander Murray as his Deputy. The brethren of the jurisdiction were called upon to conform "to all and every of the good Rules, Orders, Issues and Decrees" of the new Provincial Grand Lodge and authorized the major officers and their assistants Nominate,Chuse and Instal their successors."12 Acceptance of this warrant marked the end of control from Massachusetts and the establishment of the first Provincial Grand Lodge of the Ancients overseas.13

Warrants Nos. 66 and 67, Ancients, authorized the formation of two subordinate lodges which became Nos. 2 and 3, Nova Scotia. No.2, with Robert Gillespie as Worshipful Master, was to meet at "the sign of the Rowe Barge in George Street". No. 3, with John Reen as Master, had its headquarters at "the Kings Arms" in the same street.14 Erasmus James Philipps was now Provincial Grand Master, Ancients, with several lodges under his control, Annapolis Royal, Gillespie's No. 2, Reen's No. 3, and the original First or Cornwallis Lodge now listed as No. 4. The Nova Scotia Lodges with one exception, remained under the Ancients until the union of Moderns and Ancients, 1813-14.

Philipps enjoyed his new honours for less than three years. He died of apoplexy in September 1760, at the early age of fifty-five. A few weeks later, Governor Lawrence was stricken with pneumonia and died on October 19, at the even earlier age of fifty-one. The passing of these two leaders almost at the same time gave Freemasonry in Nova Scotia a blow from which it did not easily recover. The two had committed the lodges under their care to the control of a comparatively new Grand Lodge overseas. Under these circumstances, strong leadership was required from within. There were among the brethren in Halifax, many good men and true, but none with the prestige of either Philipps or the Governor. Hence anxious questions were raised: Would Lawrence's successor be a Freemason, and would he lead the Craft? If not, where would a successor to Philipps be found? Answers to these questions were soon forthcoming?

II

Lawrence's successor as Governor was announced on March 21, 1761. He was Henry Ellis, who was little known either before or after his appointment. He held the office for three years, but at no time was he a resident of the Province. Thus, from the death of Lawrence to the retirement of Ellis, the Government was in the hands of the Chief Justice, Jonathan Belcher who, on the day of the Ellis appointment, was named Lieutenant Governor.

Johnthan Belcher was born in Massachusetts in 1710, the second son and namesake of a former Governor of that colony. He graduated in Arts from Harvard College and studied Law in the Middle Temple of London. His father desired that he should have a distinguished political career, but for twenty-five years, he did little but practice his profession in Ireland. In 1754 he was appointed Chief Justice of Nova Scotia.

Although actually in charge of the Government of the colony for only the three years of the Ellis regime, Belcher was a member of the Council under three other Governors, Montague Wilmot, Lord William Campbell, and Francis Legge. He was an able lawyer, as his codification of the laws of Nova Scotia bears ample testimony, but as an administrator he was pompous and overbearing, lacked diplomacy, and was therefore unpopular.15 Most of his associates on the Council were his opponents, if not his enemies, before, during, and after he had acted as Governor.16 In fairness to him, however, it must be remembered that he lived under the shadow of the American Revolution, and that some of his problems were not of his own creation. In the decade between the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765 and the clash between the Minute Men and the British on Lexington Green, relations and communications between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia, Halifax and Boston, underwent a significant change. There were in Halifax, as in other parts of the Province, some former New Englanders who sympathized with the Whig proclivities of their relatives and friends in their old homes. With these, a man such as Jonathan Belcher, trained in the English Constitution, and a staunch upholder of the Crown, could have no dealings, yet he met them both in politics and in Freemasonry.

Belcher was not a Mason when he came to Halifax, but he joined promptly with the first or Cornwallis Lodge. As acting Governor, he aspired to follow Lawrence as a leader in the Craft, and to succeed Philipps as Provincial Grand Master. He achieved both ambitions, but as in politics, so in Masonry, he did not attract men to him, and so could not make himself an aggressive leader. How he obtained the office of Provincial Grand Master is something of a mystery as there is no official record in England either in the archives of Ancients or Moderns of his appointment. It must be assumed, therefore, that he was appointed by the Craft in Nova Scotia under the authority of Warrant 65 of 1757.

The unsettled political conditions which foreshadowed the American Revolution affected Freemasonry both in New England and Nova Scotia. The Masonic light in Annapolis Royal had apparently gone out, and that in Halifax burned none too brightly. In 1768, the Grand Lodge, Ancients, ordered its lodges overseas to obtain new warrants and numbers direct from London. In the new era, the first or Cornwallis Lodge, hitherto No. 4, became No. 155. The former No. 3 became No. 156, but the original No. 2, either from hostility to Belcher, or Whig Sympathies, or both, broke away from the Ancients and became No. 109, Moderns of England, and No. 1, Moderns of Nova Scotia, March 26, 1770. Soon after this, apparently No. 156, formerly Reen's No. 3, ceased to exist, which left only two lodges in Nova Scotia, both in Halifax, one under the Ancients and one under the Moderns. Between the two, there developed a keen rivalry, and some unmasonic feelings. Also, as both the Provincial Grand Lodge Ancients and the Lodge Moderns were listed as No. 1, confusion was bound to result. On at least one occasion, charitable funds sent to No. 1 Moderns, was received and used by Provincial Grand Lodge Ancients, which caused some pointed, but in the end useless correspondence. These controversies and the political, economic, and religious changes caused by the American Revolution affected Freemasonry adversely. Thus when Belcher died, March 26, 1776, only a few months before the declaration of Independence, no apparent effort was made to elect a successor. The Warrant of 1757 became dormant, and the Craft was without either a Grand Lodge or a Provincial Grand Master. Under such circumstances, it was difficult, if not impossible, to tell what was genuine and what was clandestine Freemasonry. But in the midst of darkness, light had already begun to dawn. When Sir William Howe decided to evacuate Boston in the Spring of 1776, under pressure from the troops under George Washington, those citizens of the older colonies who wishes to remain loyal to King George III, accompanied Howe to Halifax. The next few years, the number of these loyalist exiles greatly increased, and with the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which acknowledged the Independence of the United States, the stream became a veritable flood. Among the thousands who found new homes in Nova Scotia, were many Freemasons. Where there were lodges in the communities to which they went, they joined them. In new areas, they founded them. With this new blood, the lodges of the jurisdiction took on new energy and enthusiasm.

Warrant No. 155 (Ancients) 1768

NOTES

1. William Shirley was Governor of Massachusetts from 1749 to 1756. George Montague, third Earl of Halifax, was appointed First Lord Commissioner of Plantations in 1748. John Russell, fourth Duke of Bedford, was Secretary of State from 1747-51.
2. History of Freemasonry in Nova Scotia, 1786. Hon. Wm. Ross, Freemasonry in Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1910, p. 20.
3. Under the date April 13, 1750, St. John's Grand Lodge in Boston records that "for the lodges in Annapolis and Halifax nobody appeared". This suggests that Cornwallis and his associates had applied to Price before they wrote Philipps at Annapolis Royal, and that it had been assumed the Lodge had been established. A copy of the Halifax Petition to Philipps in the handwriting of the latter is now in the Archives of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.
4. Steele, Nesbitt, Campbell, and Haldane came to Halifax in different ships. They were drawn together by their interest in Freemasonry.
5. Governor Edward Cornwallis was a son of Charles, third Baron Cornwallis, and Lady Charlotte Butler, daughter of Earl of Arran. He had a twin brother who became Archbishop of Canterbury. Edward entered the army and took part in such well known battles as Fontenoy and Culloden. In 1752 he was a Member of the House of Commons. He became a Major-General, and from 1762 to 1772 was Governor of Giberalter.
6. The Grand Lodge in Boston noted the existence of the lodge in Halifax on December 27, 1750 with this comment: "the Rt Worshipful His Excellency, Edward Cornwallis is their first Master."
7. An interesting example of criticisms of the original Grand Lodge of England is Prichard's Masonry Dissected, published about 1730.
8. Lawrence Dermott was Secretary of the Ancients for some thirty-five years. In 1771 he served as Deputy Grand Master under the Duke of Atholl.
9. In spite of their boasted democracy, the Ancients had titled meas. Grand Masters. Examples are the Earl of Blesinton, the Duke of Atholl, and the Duke of Kent.
10. The old lodge of the 40th Foot, "still under the watchful eye of Major Erasmus James Philipps," this same year l755, obtained Warrant 42 from the Ancients. R. V. Harris, History of St. Andrew's Lodge,No. 1, Second Printing, Kentville, 1950, p. 26.
11. Alexander Murray whose name appeared on the petition with Philipps and Lawrence was Commander at Fort Piziquid in Windsor and Assisted Colonel John Winslow with the deportation of the Acadians in the Minas Area.
12. Among other petitioners with Philipps, Lawrence, and Murray, were William Nesbitt and Otho Hamilton, already noted; and Joshua Mauger, Archibald Hinchelwood, Joseph Goreham, and one LeCompt. Another was David Lloyd. Hinchelwood came to Halifax in the Cornwallis flotilla. He became a member of the Assemble and Justice of the Peace. Joshua Mauger was a well-known merchant and contractor of early Halifax. Joseph Goreham was a brother of the better known Colonel John Goreham. He was a New Englander and a Member of the Council. In 1771 he became a Lieutenant-Colonel. David Lloyd was at one time Clerk of the Assembly. In short, these petitioners were all men of influence and position.
13. The Ancients conferred authority on the Masons of each particular territory to elect their own Provincial Grand Master. The dates of the establishment of such territories overseas are as follows: Nova Scotia, December 27, 1757; Pennsylvania, July 15, 1761; Montserrat, 1767; New York, 1781;
14. Ross, op. cit. pp. 12-13.
15. In his Neutral Yankees of Nova Scotia, New York, 1937, Chapter IV, the late J. B. Brebner describes Belcher as pompous and overly ambitious. He had problems with the finances of Nova Sscotia, and met opposition to any proposed changes.
16. Of seven members of his Council, Joseph Gerrish, John Collier, Henry Newton, Michael Franklin, Charles Morris, Alexander Grant, and Richard Gulkeley, only the latter could be called either friendly or cooperative in their associations with Belcher.