Raised in Williamsburgh in 1863, he sold sewing machine materials on Broadway and became the first Secretary of a new Masonic lodge in Astoria.
← Queens History Blog · The Lodges That Built Queens: Series Overview · Advance Lodge No. 635: Lodge History
Caleb G. Francis was a charter member of Advance Lodge No. 635 and its first Secretary, named among the officers who helped the new lodge get underway. He had been raised a Master Mason in 1863. A Connecticut native and a merchant, he joined twenty-one other men in founding a lodge in Astoria, and the brethren named him Secretary.
Secretaries leave the lodge’s memory behind them in the form of paper. Francis left very little of his own, which makes the scraps that survive worth reading closely.
A Connecticut Merchant in Williamsburgh
The lodge’s register of petitioners lists him third: Caleb G. Francis, age thirty-two, a native of Connecticut, a merchant. He was raised on May 21, 1863, in Marsh Lodge No. 188 in Williamsburgh, receiving his Masonic education in a Brooklyn lodge a few years before the Astoria petition.
If the age was recorded at the 1866 petition, he was born about 1834. If it was recorded at his raising in 1863, the year would be about 1831. Which town in Connecticut he came from, and what he sold in 1863, the register does not say.
Sewing Machine Materials on Broadway
On the night of November 9, 1865, a burglar entered the Broadway premises of a merchant named Caleb G. Francis. About twelve hundred dollars’ worth of sewing machine materials was stolen, and a detective found a portion of it in the thief’s possession.
The man pleaded guilty in the Court of General Sessions, and The New York Herald printed the item on December 12. That paragraph is the only glimpse the clippings give of the merchandise associated with Francis’s name.
The identification with Advance Lodge’s founder is plausible, but no business address, directory entry, or other record consulted for this article independently confirms it. Nor do the clippings establish whether the founder was living in Astoria at the time.
Twenty-Two Men and a Minute Book
In 1866 twenty-two Master Masons gathered in Odd Fellows’ Hall in Astoria and agreed that traveling to distant lodges was a poor way to practice brotherhood. They petitioned Grand Master Robert D. Holmes for permission to establish a lodge in the village.
The first officers included John R. Clark as Master, John E. Oloff as Senior Warden, Edwin A. Cadwell as Junior Warden, James D. Torrey as Treasurer, and Caleb G. Francis as Secretary.
Treasurer and Secretary, the two offices that keep a lodge’s money and its memory, went to a printer and a merchant. Henry Martin’s history of the lodge, prepared for the cornerstone ceremony of its temple in 1915, lists “C. G. Francis Sec’y” among the first officers.
The lodge had its dispensation before its charter, which followed in 1867. It began its work on the strength of a Grand Master’s permission. Whatever Francis wrote in those first pages has not surfaced in the material gathered for this article.
His place among the charter members of Advance Lodge No. 635 is nevertheless clear. He was not simply a petitioner whose name remained on a list. He accepted an office at the beginning.
A Summons on Eastern Parkway
Thirty years later a Caleb G. Francis of Branford, Connecticut, turns up in a Brooklyn police court. The Brooklyn Citizen reported on June 14, 1896, that park police under Commissioner Timothy L. Woodruff had been busy that week with cyclists.
Among those arraigned before Justice Steers was Francis, caught on the main driveway of the Eastern Parkway with a business wagon. When told to take the side drive, the paper said, he refused. The justice fined him three dollars, the same as a cyclist caught riding at night without a lamp.
If this was the same man, and if his recorded age belonged to the 1866 petition, he was about sixty-two. The notice would place him in Connecticut while still bringing a business wagon into Brooklyn. It suggests a continuing commercial connection, though it does not identify his trade.
A Warden in Trinity Parish
The New Haven Register of April 30, 1898, reports that at a meeting of Trinity parish the previous Wednesday evening, Caleb G. Francis and Henry F. Jourden were elected wardens. A committee to engage an organist included a Caleb Francis, possibly a relative or a repeated reference to the same man, along with George Newall.
The report does not establish that the warden was Advance Lodge’s first Secretary. The name makes the notice worth considering, but the connection remains unconfirmed.
On October 30, 1906, the Brooklyn Eagle carried the death of Charlotte A., wife of Caleb G. Francis, at Branford. The funeral was set for that Tuesday, with burial at Evergreen Cemetery in Brooklyn the next afternoon.
The choice of a Brooklyn cemetery suggests that this family’s ties to the city outlasted its Connecticut residence. Whether this household belonged to the lodge’s founder is another question the available records do not settle.
What the Secretary Left Behind
Lodge secretaries rarely have their portraits painted. They get a name in a column, once, beside an office, and the minutes go on without them.
Around Francis’s name, the surviving notices form a possible outline: a Broadway burglary, an Eastern Parkway fine, a parish election, and a wife’s funeral notice, spread across forty years and two states. None of it is large. Nor can every item yet be securely attached to the same man.
What is established is his place at Advance Lodge’s beginning. He was a Connecticut-born merchant, raised in Williamsburgh in 1863, a charter member of the new lodge in Astoria, and its first Secretary.
If the later clippings follow that same man, they suggest that he was chosen in Connecticut, as he had been in Astoria, for work that required someone to be counted on in the room. For now, that remains a possibility rather than a conclusion.
It is a small ledger for a founder. The lodge he helped begin has kept the clearest part of it: his name, his membership, and the office entrusted to him.
Endnotes
Lodge Records
- Advance Lodge No. 635 records as examined by Brete Murphy: the register of petitioners, listing Caleb G. Francis as no. 3, age 32, native of Connecticut, merchant, raised May 21, 1863, in Marsh Lodge No. 188, Williamsburgh; and the founding narrative identifying the lodge’s first officers, including Francis as Secretary.
- Henry Martin, “Historical Data of Advance Lodge No. 635 F&AM,” prepared for the cornerstone ceremony of November 20, 1915.
- The records of Marsh Lodge No. 188 were not consulted directly.
Newspapers
- The New York Herald, December 12, 1865, Court of General Sessions report.
- Brooklyn Citizen, June 14, 1896, park police arrests.
- New Haven Register, April 30, 1898, Trinity parish meeting.
- Brooklyn Eagle, October 30, 1906, death notice of Charlotte A. Francis.
Public and Genealogical Records
- No census, vital, probate, or city directory record was consulted for this article.
- The research summary in the clippings file identified a library catalog entry for a history of Marsh Lodge covering 1847 to 1900. That history was not consulted or used.
- No record consulted establishes Francis’s middle name, Connecticut hometown, family relationships, business address, or date of death. Unrelated search results in the research summary were excluded.
Note on Identification and Age
The Broadway merchant of 1865, the Branford man of 1896 and 1906, and the Trinity parish warden of 1898 are possible matches for Advance Lodge’s Caleb G. Francis. The shared name and middle initial, the founder’s Connecticut birth, and the Brooklyn connections make the notices relevant, but no record in hand confirms that they concern the same person.
His age may have been recorded at the 1866 petition, suggesting a birth around 1834. If it was recorded at his raising in 1863, the year would be about 1831.
That he lived in Astoria or Long Island City in 1866 is the author’s belief, not a fact established by these clippings. The “Caleb Francis” named on the 1898 parish committee is not identified.
Continue Reading
- Advance Lodge No. 635: Lodge History — Follow the lodge from its founding to its later home on Grand Avenue.
- The Charter Members of Advance Lodge No. 635 — Meet the company of men who helped establish the lodge.
- James D. Torrey, Charter Treasurer of Advance Lodge No. 635 — The printer entrusted with the new lodge’s money alongside Francis as Secretary.
- William M. Berger: A Founder Who Became Master — Another charter member who went on to lead Advance Lodge.
- The Lodges That Built Queens: Start Here — Explore the full series.
← Advance Lodge No. 635: Lodge History · Charter Members · Series Overview · Queens History Blog →
