Queens History and Freemasonry / Springfield Gardens Series / Dunton Lodge No. 1017
Part of the Springfield Gardens Lodge series · An institutional history within The Lodges That Built Queens
Main Feature: Nine Lodges, One Living History · Series Overview · Companion: Dunton’s Temple
Dunton’s Masons began a clubhouse before Dunton Lodge received its charter. The institution that followed carried a small Queens community’s name through decades of meetings, members’ changing addresses and an eventual union with Springfield Gardens.
November 10, 2026 · By Brete Murphy
Club First, Lodge Second
Dunton’s building campaign began before its chartered lodge.
In October 1921, the Brooklyn Daily Times described a Dunton Masonic Club that was less than a year old.
It had 125 members drawn from fifty-nine lodges.
Those figures belonged to the club, not to Dunton Lodge No. 1017, which had not yet received its charter.
The club brought together Masons whose affiliations had begun elsewhere and gave them a local project.
That month, the Grand Master laid the cornerstone of a proposed $50,000 clubhouse on Van Wyck Avenue near Jerome.
The reported amount was an estimate, not a verified final cost.
Construction was to proceed in stages as money became available.
Dunton Lodge followed.
The Grand Lodge chartered it as No. 1017 on May 3, 1923, according to the author’s compilation of Grand Lodge records.
By 1925, notices placed it in the temple at Van Wyck and Jerome.
The building’s history appears in Dunton Masonic Temple: A Clubhouse Before a Lodge.
One Project, Several Organizations
The club and lodge worked closely together.
Their legal relationship should not be assumed from that cooperation alone.
In October 1923, the club advertised a bazaar whose proceeds would help complete the clubhouse.
Dunton Lodge, the Ladies’ Auxiliary and Dunton Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star participated in the campaign.
They were connected organizations, not interchangeable names for one body.
The notice reveals a broad support network around the building.
It does not establish which entity held title or how expenses were divided.
Incorporation in Albany
In September 1927, the Brooklyn Eagle reported that Dunton Lodge had filed articles of incorporation in Albany.
The named trustees were Oliver E. Miles, George F. Wade and August Williams.
Incorporation was a separate milestone from the lodge’s 1923 charter.
It also does not, by itself, establish ownership of the clubhouse.
The deed, corporate filings and lodge minutes would be needed to explain those arrangements.
The distinction matters because Dunton’s story began with a club undertaking a building project before the lodge existed.
The Wade References
The Wade name recurs in the early notices.
A 1926 report names the Master as George Wade, with the middle initial varying between the supplied references.
During his term, Prosperity Lodge’s William P. Mellen visited to present the first-degree lecture with stereopticon slides.
George F. Wade appears as a trustee in the 1927 incorporation report.
Henry Wade, associated with Jamaica’s volunteer fire service and the Odd Fellows, died in 1933. His funeral was held at Dunton Presbyterian Church, with Masonic services afterward.
The references may concern related men.
They do not establish a family relationship.
Even the identification of the 1926 Master with the 1927 trustee requires comparison of the original notices and additional records.
A recurring surname is a useful research lead, not a completed genealogy.
For the visiting lecturer’s institution, read Prosperity Lodge No. 962: Shared Rooms, a Social Calendar and a Traveling Degree Team.
Working Lives Around the Lodge
The members’ notices give Dunton’s history a social texture that a charter date cannot supply.
Charles Maas was a retired police sergeant who operated a private detective agency in Jamaica.
His obituary recalled three commendations for bravery, including a rescue from a burning Manhattan tenement.
William Bertram belonged to the electrical workers’ Local 3.
Harry W. Fisher had worked as an electrician at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
These are individual examples rather than a complete occupational survey.
They show a membership connected to public service, skilled work and local business.
They do not establish that every member shared the same income, politics or reasons for joining.
A Bank Delegation at the Installation
Alfred O. Ruben supplied another connection.
He managed the collection department of the Brooklyn Trust Company.
When he was installed as Dunton’s Master in January 1934, forty-five fellow Masons from the bank reportedly attended.
They presented him with a bronze gavel.
The event brought a professional network into the lodge’s local setting.
The following year, a ceremony at the temple honored Ruben’s appointment as Grand Director of Ceremonies.
The Brooklyn Eagle placed attendance at more than 200.
Municipal Judge Edward J. Smith presented the commission, and Roger Kipp of Springfield Gardens presented the jewel, according to the associated temple research.
The occasion connected Dunton with the wider Queens fraternity years before its eventual consolidation.
Smith’s earlier institution is explored in Tadmor Lodge No. 923: A Monument in the Making of Ridgewood.
Service Beyond the Membership
Dunton’s officers also performed work for Masons whose own affiliations lay elsewhere.
In October 1939, Master Alfred R. G. Stumpe conducted Masonic rites in Richmond Hill for Robert G. Elliott.
Elliott belonged to a Plattsburgh lodge.
He was a local electrical contractor and New York State’s official executioner.
The reference demonstrates fraternal service beyond Dunton’s membership.
It should not be used to make Elliott a Dunton member or to place the funeral inside Dunton’s temple.
A ceremony conducted by a lodge officer is not automatically an event held in that lodge’s building.
Members on the Move
Postwar notices place Dunton members beyond the neighborhood.
The examples supplied for this series include Seaford, Massapequa, Bay Shore and New Hyde Park; Shokan and Kingston; Wappingers Falls; and Miami.
Some retained their affiliations long after moving.
These notices demonstrate continuity at a distance.
They do not provide annual membership totals or establish a complete explanation for later consolidation.
The institution could carry Dunton’s name even when individual members no longer lived near Van Wyck Boulevard.
The Woodhaven Clue
A 1959 notice describes Dunton as being “in Hillside.”
Notices from the 1960s onward associate it with Woodhaven.
Those descriptions suggest a changed geographic setting.
They do not establish a precise address, a move date or a regular tenancy at Hillside’s temple on 96th Street.
That possibility remains a research question.
Read The Hillside Temple in Woodhaven for the building’s separate history.
The Temple and the Lodge Took Different Paths
The former clubhouse no longer survives at the Van Wyck site identified by the author.
The November 2026 observation places that location within the grounds of a later apartment development.
A historic-map and tax-lot comparison is still needed to establish the original footprint against the present landscape.
The demolition date and cause remain unresolved.
The Van Wyck Expressway’s construction supplies context, not proof that the temple was removed for the highway.
The lodge continued after the latest clear temple references in the clippings.
Its institutional history should therefore not be ended at the point where its building record becomes uncertain.
For the property questions, return to Dunton Masonic Temple: A Clubhouse Before a Lodge.
Into Springfield Gardens
The author’s Grand Lodge compilation dates Dunton’s merger into Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057 to May 22, 1986.
The district history gives 1985.
This article follows the supplied Grand Lodge date while preserving the discrepancy for comparison with the original instrument.
In Springfield Gardens’ retrospective account, Dunton was the first of three major incoming consolidations.
Council-Hillside followed in 1994, and Jamaica-Queens Village in 2013.
Those were not the first mergers anywhere in the larger lineage. Several predecessor branches had already combined.
Dunton’s place is more specific: it was the first incoming union in that account of Springfield Gardens’ later growth.
Read Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History.
From Many Affiliations to One Local Institution
The club of 1921 had assembled men from fifty-nine lodges around a neighborhood building campaign.
The lodge chartered in 1923 gave Dunton a separate institutional identity.
Its members worked in banks, the police service, electrical trades and other occupations. Its officers participated in the wider Queens fraternity.
Later members lived farther away, and its meeting-place references shifted.
The evidence does not establish that every change had the same cause.
It does establish an institutional arc.
A club began a clubhouse.
A lodge followed.
Decades later, that lodge entered Springfield Gardens and ceased operating separately.
Dunton’s name remained part of the continuing institution’s history.
Sources and Research Notes
Newspaper references follow the author’s supplied Dunton clippings and related temple research. Direct article URLs were not provided for these items, so publication names and dates are preserved rather than assigned speculative links.
Club, Charter and Incorporation
“Dunton Masons Start Building,” Brooklyn Daily Times, October 23, 1921, p. 12. Club membership, fifty-nine source lodges, cornerstone ceremony, proposed cost and staged construction.
Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy. May 3, 1923 charter and May 22, 1986 merger into Springfield Gardens.
Brooklyn Daily Times, June 21, 1925, p. 20. Dunton meeting at the Van Wyck and Jerome temple.
“Dunton Masonic Club’s Bazaar to Open Monday,” The Chat, October 27, 1923, p. 119. Building fund and participating organizations.
“Dunton Lodge Incorporates,” Brooklyn Eagle, September 4, 1927, p. 43. Incorporation and trustees.
Members and Leadership
Brooklyn Eagle, February 20, 1926, p. 19. Prosperity lecturer’s visit and the Master’s name. The varying Wade initials require comparison with the original notices.
Henry Wade obituary, Times Union, May 31, 1933, p. 22. Fire-service, Odd Fellows and funeral connections.
Brooklyn Eagle, September 8, 1928, p. 3. Charles Maas.
William Bertram death notice, Newsday, January 27, 1954, p. 61. Electrical workers’ affiliation.
“H. W. Fisher, Ex-Electrician,” Newsday, November 4, 1959, p. 110. Navy Yard employment and later lodge reference.
“Masons Install Ruben,” Times Union, January 11, 1934, p. 6. Installation, bank delegation and gavel.
“Dunton Masons Honor A. O. Ruben,” Brooklyn Eagle, July 3, 1935, p. 4. Grand Lodge appointment and ceremony.
“Elliott’s Funeral Held,” The New York Times, October 13, 1939. Stumpe’s conduct of rites for Robert G. Elliott. Elliott’s own affiliation was with a Plattsburgh lodge.
Later Locations and Continuation
Members’ notices in Newsday, 1954–1971; The Daily Freeman, January 1964 and April 1975; Poughkeepsie Journal, February 20, 1985. Residential examples and changing geographic descriptions of the lodge.
Brete Murphy, site observation and identification, November 2026. Former temple location. Parcel reconciliation and demolition history remain open.
Queens Masonic District, history of Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057, as supplied in the author’s research. Gives 1985 for Dunton’s merger and describes the later incoming consolidations.
[Grand Lodge connect, Springfield Gardens No. 1057](Groupable
Groupable
Present receiving institution and Queens affiliation. The current listing is not treated as independent confirmation of every earlier consolidation detail.
A Note on the Evidence
The club’s 125 members were not automatically Dunton Lodge’s charter membership.
The clubhouse’s $50,000 figure was an estimate.
The club, lodge and any property-holding entity should not be treated as legally identical without their records.
The Wade references do not establish a family relationship.
Occupational examples do not constitute a complete membership survey.
Members’ relocation does not, by itself, explain the merger.
References to Hillside and Woodhaven are location clues, not a confirmed meeting address.
The building’s disappearance and the lodge’s later consolidation are separate histories.
The 1986 merger date follows the author’s Grand Lodge compilation. The district history’s 1985 date remains unresolved.
Institutional succession does not establish physical custody of every original charter, minute book or artifact.
Questions for Further Research
- Who were Dunton Lodge’s charter members?
- Which belonged to the earlier Masonic Club?
- What was the legal relationship between club, lodge and property owner?
- Was the 1926 Master the same George F. Wade named as trustee in 1927?
- Was Henry Wade related to either man?
- What do annual returns show about membership after the 1930s?
- When did Dunton leave the Van Wyck temple?
- Where did it meet in the Hillside and Woodhaven years?
- Which original record resolves the 1985/1986 merger discrepancy?
- Where are Dunton’s surviving minutes, rosters and ceremonial objects?
Research Gateways
The Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Newsstand provides information about historic newspaper access.
The [NYC Automated City Register Information System](ACRIS Error
ACRIS Error
provides a starting point for recorded property-document research.
The NYC Municipal Archives provides information about historical city records and photographic collections.
These are research gateways, not direct links to every clipping, deed or unidentified photograph.
Continue the Springfield Gardens Series
The Main Feature
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History
Place Dunton within the complete consolidation framework.
The Companion Building History
Dunton Masonic Temple: A Clubhouse Before a Lodge
Explore the construction campaign, documented address and unresolved disappearance of the Van Wyck building.
The Series Overview
Open the Springfield Gardens Lodge series
Find the companion lodge histories, building articles and meeting-place studies.
A Visiting Lecturer’s Lodge
Prosperity Lodge No. 962: Shared Rooms, a Social Calendar and a Traveling Degree Team
Follow another institution connected with Dunton’s ritual calendar.
Another Incoming Consolidation
Council Lodge No. 979 and Council-Hillside: Two Histories, One Number
Explore the branch that later joined Springfield Gardens after Dunton.
The Continuing Institution
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: A Queens Lodge Outside Queens
Examine the lodge’s present meeting place beyond the borough.
Return to the Springfield Gardens Main Feature · Springfield Gardens Series Overview · Read the Dunton Temple History
Lodge Histories · Masonic Buildings in Queens · Queens History and Freemasonry
