A short glossary of Masonic lodge terms for readers of Queens lodge history, in plain English and in no particular hurry.
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This glossary of Masonic lodge terms explains the words readers will meet in the Queens histories of One Lodge, Six Charters.
Lodge history comes with a vocabulary, and most of it is older than the buildings. A lodge has a Master who is called Worshipful. A meeting is a communication. A merger is a consolidation, and a newspaper from 1915 might report that a man was raised, which has nothing to do with his upbringing.
None of this is hard, but it is easy to trip on.
You can read the glossary straight through or return when a page uses a word you have not met. The definitions concern how the words appear in lodge records and old newspapers. They stay on the public side of Freemasonry.
Lodges and Charters
Lodge. The local organization of Freemasonry. The word does triple duty: it can mean the members, their meeting room, or the organization itself. Old newspapers use it all three ways.
Charter. The Grand Lodge’s written authority for a group of Masons to work as a chartered lodge. It is distinct from the temporary permission called a dispensation. The charter dates adopted in this series follow Grand Lodge of New York records. City Lodge No. 408 was chartered on September 1, 1856, and Service Lodge No. 1009 on May 3, 1923.
Dispensation. Temporary permission to meet and work before receiving a charter. Advance Lodge received its dispensation on January 22, 1867, and its charter on July 2 of that year. Island City’s dispensation came on June 18, 1865, and its charter a year later. A lodge working under dispensation is marked U.D. in the records. The distinction explains why a lodge may have two founding years without either being an error.
Grand Lodge. The governing body for the lodges under its jurisdiction. The Grand Lodge of the State of New York grants charters, assigns lodge numbers, and keeps records. Its head is the Grand Master, and its officers appear throughout this series at cornerstone ceremonies, installations, and anniversary dinners.
Charter member. A member identified with a lodge’s original charter or founding body. The series distinguishes named charter members from other early members where the surviving records allow it. Advance Lodge’s founders numbered about two dozen, and several later served as Master.
Lineage. In this series, the succession by which separate lodges became the present lodge. Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586 has six lodges in its lineage. The Family Tree draws the connections.
Consolidation. The joining of two or more lodges into one, under a combined name and a single number. In this lineage the combined lodge generally retained one number and ceased using the others. The Merger History follows the five consolidations.
Buildings and Ceremony
Temple. A building built or used for Masonic meetings. In these histories, it is a meeting house, sometimes with an auditorium, dining room, kitchen, rental space, or bowling alley. Several lodges could share one, and in this lineage they often did. The Advance Masonic Temple, Mizpah Masonic Temple, and the Flushing Temple used by Service Lodge are examples.
Lodge room. The room in which a lodge holds its formal meetings. A temple could contain other rooms for dinners, dances, fairs, and recreation. The Island City temple combined lodge space with commercial accommodation, although its proposed and later reported floor arrangements differ.
Communication. A formal meeting of a lodge. A stated communication is a regular meeting held on an established schedule. A special communication is called for a particular purpose. A joint communication brings several lodges together, as when four Queens lodges met at Mizpah Temple in 1946. Lodges also number their communications: Service Lodge’s May 1956 invitation announced its 637th.
Cornerstone ceremony. A public Masonic ceremony marking the laying of a building’s foundation stone. Grand Lodge officers and participating lodges appear in the accounts used here, with prayers, music, processions, and other public acts recorded to varying degrees. Island City laid its cornerstone on September 8, 1906, Advance on November 20, 1915, and Mizpah on January 1, 1920. The series describes each occasion only as far as its sources support.
People and Paper
Worshipful Master. The presiding officer of a lodge. “Worshipful” is a title of respect, commonly abbreviated W. before a name. A former Master is a Past Master. Some early Masters served for several years: Garret J. Garretson led Mizpah from its beginning through 1876. “The East” refers to the Master’s station. The records also use R.W. for Right Worshipful and M.W. for Most Worshipful, titles associated with particular Masonic offices and distinctions.
Raised. Made a Master Mason, the third of the three basic degrees, following Entered Apprentice and Fellowcraft. A record saying that a man was raised in 1866 identifies a degree milestone, not his upbringing or necessarily his first admission to the lodge. A dated entry can help establish his connection to a particular lodge.
District Deputy Grand Master. The Grand Master’s representative to a group of lodges called a district. The First Queens District appears throughout the series in connection with Astoria, Long Island City, Elmhurst, Flushing, Bayside, and neighboring communities. Deputies made official visits, and lodge notices often announced those visits as special occasions.
Fraternal order. An association organized around fellowship, shared traditions, mutual aid, and social or charitable activity. Freemasonry is one. The Odd Fellows, whose Grand Street hall housed City Lodge, were another. The Order of the Eastern Star and the Knights Templar also appear in the Queens clippings, though their organizations and membership requirements are distinct.
Proceedings. The Grand Lodge’s published record of its business, including charters, lodge numbers, officers, and other official actions. Proceedings are central sources for dates and numbers. How This Series Is Researched explains how they are weighed alongside newspapers, lodge histories, and other records.
A familiar word can lead a reader astray as easily as an unfamiliar one. In these histories, a temple may have tenants, a communication may end with supper, and a man who was raised may already have been a member for months. The vocabulary becomes easier once it is returned to the rooms and occasions that gave it work to do.
Sources and Notes
Grand Lodge Records
Grand Lodge of the State of New York proceedings and records.
[Before publication: add the specific volumes and page references used to verify the terminology and charter-date examples.]
Series Sources
Lodge histories, programs, and newspaper notices cited on the individual pages of the One Lodge, Six Charters series.
The linked lodge, cornerstone, temple, and reference pages supply the historical examples used here.
Note 1: Usage and Limits
The definitions concern New York usage as it appears in the records used for this series. Terminology, titles, and organizational practice can differ among Masonic jurisdictions.
A lodge working under dispensation should not be described as nonexistent merely because it has not yet received its charter. The two forms of authority mark different stages.
“Charter member” and “founding petitioner” are not treated as automatically interchangeable where the records distinguish them. Member directories should follow the surviving charter or founding records.
A raising date records attainment of the Master Mason degree. It is not necessarily the date a man first joined the lodge or received his first degree.
The original draft’s current meeting schedule has been omitted because it has not been verified. Historical examples of stated and special communications remain.
The 1906 Island City temple plans put the lodge room on the third floor, while later descriptions put it on the second. The glossary does not choose between those arrangements.
The cornerstone definition does not assign every element of a general ceremony to each event in the series. Individual articles rely on the public acts recorded in their own sources.
Charter dates in the examples follow the lodge pages, which use Grand Lodge of New York records as the authority. The consolidations of 1973, 1982, 1987, and 1993 are given by year because their months are not reliably established in the working record.
Start Here · Series Hub · Timeline · Previous Article: To Be Assigned · Next Article: To Be Assigned · Related Directory: To Be Assigned · Related Member Profiles: To Be Assigned
Related Reading
The Merger History of Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586
The Lodge Family Tree of Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586
Advance Lodge No. 635 and the Laying of Its Cornerstone
How This Series Is Researched: Sources for Queens Lodge History
