INTERESTING HISTORY CONCERNING GEORGE WASHINGTON

    Brother Jack Scott of Zenith Lodge, No. 4, Vancouver, B.C., who is
interested in Masonic Research, has compiled some information regarding
George Washington, the first President of the United States, and we quote
below from particulars he has furnished.

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

This Lodge was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1758 and
re-chartered by the Grand Lodge of Virginia in 1787.  It was, of course, a
perfectly legal Lodge in George Washington's time and M.W.Brother Edward H.McCann, a Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Virginia, with whom Bro.Scott has been in correspondence, informed the latter that while they can only prove their lodge as of September 1752, it is presumed the Lodge began in the 1730's when an Irish Regiment was stationed in Fredericksburg.  M. W. Brother McCann also mentioned that in the 1750's Scotsmen were the chief trading merchants and the first millionaire in America was a Scotsman by the name of Basil Gordon who is buried in their old Masonic Cemetery.

    Brother Scott expresses the opinion that Scottish settlers, of whom
there were a great number, formed time immemorial Lodges in America and as the Grand Lodge of Scotland was not in existence until 1736, this could explain Fredericksburg No. 4 not receiving a charter until 1758 although presumably founded in the 1730's.

Submitted by R.W.Bro. N. Gordon McQuarrie; Published in
MASONIC BULLETIN; December, 1972.