By Brete Murphy · November 10, 2026
A Tadmor Master who became Grand Master of New York and a judge of the Court of Appeals, Charles W. Froessel also assisted at the beginnings of lodges whose histories now continue in Harmony and Springfield Gardens. His career connects a Ridgewood lodge room with institutions across the state.
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On November 29, 1926, Tadmor Lodge’s new Ridgewood temple filled for a family occasion.
Its Master, Charles W. Froessel, was to raise five of his brothers to the degree of Master Mason.
The newspaper accounts reported more than fifteen hundred Masons in the building, with about a thousand in the lodge room. Those were contemporary estimates, not a verified attendance count, but the scale of the gathering is unmistakable.
Past district deputies assisted, including Thomas J. Towers of Richmond Hill.
Froessel was then a young lawyer and Queens assistant district attorney.
Eighteen years later, he would become Grand Master of Masons in New York. In 1950, he would take his seat on the state’s highest court.
The evening in Ridgewood did not explain those later achievements. It does provide a place from which to follow them: a new temple, a crowded room and a Master conducting a ceremony for his own family.[1][2]
Williamsburgh, Work and Night School
Charles William Froessel was born on November 8, 1892, in the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn.
His parents were Theodore Froessel, an Alsatian immigrant, and Barbara Hoffmann Froessel.
The Historical Society of the New York Courts describes an early working life shaped by his father’s death. Froessel began working at thirteen and continued his education at night.
He attended New York Law School, earning his law degree in 1913 and a master’s degree in 1914. He was admitted to the bar in July 1915.
During the First World War, he served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy.
These details give the later public career a firmer beginning than a general story of neighborhood ambition.
He had combined employment and education before holding either judicial or senior Masonic office.
His association with Ridgewood places that career within the same Brooklyn–Queens landscape followed elsewhere in the Tadmor series. It should not, however, be used to infer the ancestry or background of other members from their surnames.[3]
The Prosecutor in the East
By 1926, Froessel was serving as an assistant district attorney in Queens.
He was also Tadmor’s Master.
The lodge was preparing a new home at Forest Avenue and Summerfield Street after its earlier years in borrowed rooms and the Halleck Avenue building.
The contemporary notices describe bazaars, public guests and preparations on a scale larger than a stated meeting.
The five-brothers ceremony was one of the new temple’s early major gatherings. A dedication by the Grand Master followed in December.
The newspapers’ descriptions of the room as exceptionally large should remain attributed to those accounts. They do not establish an independently measured ranking among Brooklyn and Queens lodge rooms.
The overlapping careers are worth noticing without turning the lodge into an explanation for professional advancement.
Tadmor gave Froessel responsibilities and a public setting within the fraternity.
The sources do not establish that it produced his political following, secured his appointments or determined his judicial career.[1]
Read Tadmor Lodge No. 923: Lodge History →
Three Lodges in One Night
In 1928, Froessel appeared in a different role.
As district deputy grand master, he assisted when Grand Master John A. Dutton came to Tadmor’s temple to constitute three new Queens lodges.
The ceremony took place on May 19.
The three were Suburban Lodge No. 1087, Maspeth Lodge No. 1089 and Rufus King Lodge No. 1091.
Contemporary coverage described a large gathering of officers and members from across Queens. Any claim that it was among the borough’s largest Masonic occasions belongs to the newspaper account, not an independent comparison.
The lodges then followed separate institutional paths.
Suburban’s later line entered Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057.
Maspeth and Rufus King entered the histories now combined in Harmony Lodge No. 241.
Froessel’s participation connects those surviving lines with Tadmor, but it does not make him the sole founder of the three lodges.
Their members organized them. The Grand Lodge constituted them. Froessel assisted in the office he then held.
The distinction gives the evening its proper scale: several institutions, many participants and one ceremony bringing them into the same room.[5][6]
Explore Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057 →
Explore Harmony Lodge No. 241 →
From the Prosecutor’s Office to the Supreme Court
Froessel’s legal career continued alongside his Masonic service.
The Historical Society’s biography records his election to the New York State Supreme Court in November 1937.
He served in Queens until taking his Court of Appeals seat on January 1, 1950.
The distinction between those courts matters.
New York’s Supreme Court is not the state’s highest appellate court. That position belongs to the Court of Appeals, to which Froessel was elected in 1949.
His judicial career therefore did not move directly from prosecutor to the highest court.
It included more than a decade on the Supreme Court bench.[3]
Grand Master, 1944–1946
In May 1944, Froessel was elected Grand Master of Masons in the State of New York.
His service continued through 1946.
The wartime setting is important. The office carried responsibilities during the final phase of the war and the first postwar year.
A later Masonic profile describes his handling of restrictions affecting the 1945 annual Grand Lodge session. It states that the session was postponed rather than abandoned and subsequently held when restrictions permitted.
That account should remain attributed to the profile until the proceedings and correspondence are checked.
The Historical Society’s biography also identifies his later chairmanship of the Conference of Grand Masters in 1946 and 1947.
The record establishes a substantial progression in Masonic responsibility.
The Master photographed and reported in Ridgewood in 1926 had become the head of the state’s Grand Lodge.
It is unnecessary to rank the jurisdiction by size without a contemporary membership figure. The office itself establishes the significance of the appointment.[3][4][7]
New York’s Highest Court
On November 8, 1949, his fifty-seventh birthday, Froessel was elected an associate judge of the New York Court of Appeals.
He began service in January 1950 and remained until the end of 1962, the year he reached the mandatory retirement age of seventy.
The Historical Society’s biography describes a judge associated with long working hours and continued public service.
It also records a responsibility involving another institutional building.
During the reconstruction of Court of Appeals Hall in 1958 and 1959, Froessel chaired the court’s building committee.
The contemporary rededication publication identifies him in that role and includes his account of the restoration.
It is a different kind of building story from Tadmor’s temple. The documentary connection is the responsibility he accepted on behalf of the court, not a claim that his lodge experience caused the appointment.[3]
[Read the Historical Society’s Froessel Biography](Charles William Froessel - Historical Society of the New York Courts
Charles William Froessel - Historical Society of the New York Courts Charles W. Froessel served as an Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals from 1950 until his mandated retirement from the Court at the … More Charles William Froessel »
Read the 1959 Court of Appeals Hall Rededication Publication.
The Fair Comes to Queens
The 1964 World’s Fair gave Froessel another Masonic role in a public Queens setting.
The Masonic profile identified in the author’s research credits him with chairing the Masonic World’s Fair Commission associated with the Masonic Brotherhood Center.
Anchor-Astoria’s later history records fundraising by Astoria and Anchor members for the center.
Those references provide the connection between this part of Froessel’s career and the Anchor-Astoria series.
The profile and lodge history should be checked against commission records, fair publications and contemporary reports before reconstructing the complete project.
The available material supports a narrower account.
Froessel held a leading commission role, and local lodge members contributed to the Masonic presence at the fair.
It was another occasion when his work extended beyond Tadmor while remaining connected to Queens.[4][9]
Read Anchor-Astoria Lodge No. 729 →
Service After Retirement
Retirement from the Court of Appeals did not end Froessel’s public work.
The Historical Society records his service on a reapportionment commission in 1966 and as a delegate to the 1967 state constitutional convention.
He also remained closely associated with New York Law School.
Its account identifies his chairmanship of the board of trustees from 1958 to 1972 and his work on the school’s accreditation and relocation.
These responsibilities belong to the later career rather than a second ascent to judicial office.
They show the continuing institutional work of a man whose formal retirement did not end his commitments.[3]
Back to Ridgewood
Froessel died on May 2, 1982, aged eighty-nine.
His funeral was held at Ridgewood Presbyterian Church. He was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Brooklyn, according to the Historical Society’s biography.
The church had an earlier connection with Tadmor.
In the 1920s, its pastor, the Reverend Arthur B. Rhinow, served as the lodge’s chaplain. Newspaper references describe Masonic services attended by the lodge and associated organizations.
Those reports establish a relationship between church and lodge.
They do not establish Froessel’s presence at every service or identify particular pews he occupied.
The return to Ridgewood is meaningful without supplying that imagined detail.
The funeral brought his later public life back to a community and institution connected with the years in which he had served Tadmor as Master.[1][3]
What the Ridgewood Beginning Reveals
Froessel’s career cannot be explained by one lodge room.
His education, legal practice, military service, public appointments and judicial work require their own records.
The Masonic history adds another sequence.
A Master raised five brothers in a new temple. A district deputy assisted at the constitution of three lodges. A Grand Master served during the war’s final years. A former Grand Master later chaired a commission for a public Masonic presence at the World’s Fair.
Those roles connect Tadmor with Harmony, Springfield Gardens and Anchor-Astoria through specific events.
They do not turn every participating lodge into a branch of Tadmor.
The connection is the man and the work he performed at each stage.
That is what carries this story from Tadmor’s East to the Grand East—and back to Ridgewood.
Endnotes
1. Tadmor’s 1926 Ceremony and Church Connections
- Brooklyn Eagle, November 28 and 30, 1926.
- The Chat, November 27, 1926.
- Brooklyn Times Union, September 8, 1926.
- The Chat, February 19, 1921.
- Brooklyn Citizen, May 7, 1923.
Support the announced and reported five-brothers ceremony, temple descriptions, public-event arrangements and Rhinow’s church and lodge connections.
Attendance and room-capacity figures are contemporary estimates or descriptions.
The article does not treat a claim of exceptional room size as a verified architectural ranking.
The five brothers’ names remain to be established.
2. Thomas J. Towers
Brooklyn Eagle, November 30, 1926.
Identifies Towers among the assisting past district deputies.
The relationship is also discussed in the author’s Anchor-Astoria research, Article 4.
3. Legal and Biographical History
Historical Society of the New York Courts, “Charles William Froessel”.
Drawn from The Judges of the New York Court of Appeals: A Biographical History, edited by Albert M. Rosenblatt, Fordham University Press, 2007.
Supports:
- Birth on November 8, 1892.
- Parents and early employment.
- Legal education and admission to the bar.
- First World War Navy service.
- November 1937 Supreme Court election.
- Court of Appeals election and service.
- Grand Mastership, 1944–1946.
- Conference of Grand Masters service.
- Later public and educational work.
- Death, funeral and burial.
The biography supplies the principal framework for the public career.
“The Rededication of Court of Appeals Hall,” 1959, identifies Froessel as chairman of the court’s building committee and includes his restoration account.
4. Masonic Profile
Craftsmen Online, profile of Grand Master Charles W. Froessel, as identified in the author’s supplied research.
The exact article URL was not supplied.
Used provisionally for:
- The account of the 1945 Grand Lodge session.
- The Masonic World’s Fair Commission chairmanship.
Both subjects should be checked against Grand Lodge proceedings and commission records.
The profile’s Snyder–Gray prosecution reference is not repeated in this article.
5. The Three-Lodge Constitution
- Brooklyn Daily Times, May 17, 1928, p. 10.
- Brooklyn Eagle, May 20, 1928, p. 8.
- Brooklyn Eagle, May 21, 1928, p. 10.
Support the May 19 ceremony, Grand Master Dutton’s participation, Froessel’s district role and the three lodges constituted.
The article does not repeat an unreconciled count of all Queens lodges or use the occasion alone to date the division of the borough’s Masonic districts.
6. Later Institutional Lines
The author’s Harmony and Springfield Gardens research.
Identifies:
- Maspeth and Rufus King within the later Harmony line.
- Suburban within the later Springfield Gardens line.
See Harmony Lodge No. 241 and Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057.
These later connections do not imply that the lodges were already institutionally combined in 1928.
7. Election as Grand Master
- Brooklyn Eagle, May 3, 1944.
- Brooklyn Citizen, May 4, 1944.
Support the election.
The 1944–1946 span is also given by the Historical Society biography.
8. Obituary Lead
“Charles Froessel, Ex-Judge, Is Dead,” New York Times, May 3, 1982, as identified in the supplied research and the Historical Society’s references.
A direct obituary URL was not supplied.
The Historical Society biography is preferred here to relying on a Wikipedia summary of that obituary.
9. The 1964 World’s Fair
Anchor-Astoria Lodge No. 729, “History,” as transcribed in the author’s research packet.
Records fundraising by Astoria and Anchor for the Masonic Brotherhood Center.
The account is a later lodge history. Commission records and contemporary fair coverage remain priorities for a fuller article.
A Note on Interpretation
The article follows parallel legal and Masonic careers without claiming that either caused the other.
It does not infer political advancement from lodge membership.
It distinguishes participation in a constitution from founding a lodge.
The five-brothers ceremony is presented as a reported family event, not evidence that the lodge created Froessel’s later following.
The church ending is based on documented institutional connections, not an invented reconstruction of his personal attendance.
Questions for Further Research
- When and where was Froessel made a Mason?
- Was Tadmor his first lodge?
- Who were the five brothers raised in 1926?
- Do photographs or lodge minutes document that ceremony?
- What do the 1944–1946 proceedings establish about his appointments and wartime decisions?
- What records survive from the Masonic World’s Fair Commission?
- What was his precise role, if any, in the Snyder–Gray prosecution?
- What did his reported federal slum-clearance work involve?
- How did his Navy service fit within his early legal career?
Lodges in This Story
- Tadmor Lodge No. 923
- Harmony Lodge No. 241, through Maspeth and Rufus King.
- Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057, through Suburban.
- Anchor-Astoria Lodge No. 729, through Towers and the World’s Fair fundraising connection.
Follow the Connecting Stories
- The Engineer’s Room
- The Thirteen Who Left Advance
- The Tuesday Night Visitors
- Mr. Mason of Queens: Edward J. Smith
- From Tadmor’s East to the Grand East: Charles W. Froessel — You are here.
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