Historian - June 2008

As written in our Lodge’s website, St. John's Lodge proudly dates its history to the year 1736 and was one of the earliest Lodges to be formed in what is now the United States.

According to written records, only the larger cities of Boston, Massachusetts (a Lodge chartered in 1733); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Lodge records from 1731); Charleston, South Carolina (a Lodge chartered in 1736); and Savannah, Georgia (a Lodge chartered in 1734) had Lodges before the small city of Portsmouth. St. John's is proud to be the oldest continuously meeting Lodge in the United States, and indeed the Americas, and we are fortunate that Portsmouth was spared the many calamities and wars that interrupted the meetings and destroyed the records of other Lodges.

St. John's Lodge was constituted by Henry Price, Provincial Grand Master in New England for the Premier Grand Lodge of England (later known as the "Moderns") on June 24, 1736.

June 24 is the Feast of St. John the Baptist, one of the traditional Patron Saints of Masonry. In 1789, the Lodge was a founding Lodge of the Grand Lodge of New Hampshire, and today continues as a Constituent Lodge of that Grand Lodge.

On June 22^nd, we will celebrate the Feast of St. John the Baptist and the 272^nd birthday of St. John’s Lodge in our traditional way by processing to Divine services at St. John’s Church in Portsmouth. I look forward to seeing you as we assemble and step off together that Sunday morning from the former home of our Lodge and the birthplace of the Grand Lodge of New Hampshire, the William Pitt Tavern in Strawbery Banke.

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