He was an insurance broker from an old New York family, and he was made a Mason in Manhattan. In Astoria, he joined the founders of Advance Lodge.
Advance Lodge No. 635: Lodge History · Meet the Charter Members · Related: Robert McCoskry Graham
When Advance Lodge No. 635 came together in Astoria in 1866, two of the names on its founding roll were Edward Chauncey Graham and Robert McCoskry Graham. Edward was about fifty. He was a Manhattan-born insurance broker who had been raised a Master Mason across the river in Howard Lodge No. 35. He brought something to the young lodge that no charter can grant: decades of experience, and a family name New York had known since the early days of the republic.
A Lorimer by Way of London
He was born in New York City on July 29, 1815, to Nathan Burr Graham and Jean Lorimer, who had married in London in 1797. His mother's family name ran through the household. His older brother was James Lorimer Graham, and the Lorimer name would pass on to another generation after that. It was a large family of brothers and sisters, spread over two decades, and Edward was one of the youngest.
By early middle age he had settled into the insurance trade, which is a business built on patience, trust, and the arithmetic of other people's risk. Census takers in 1860 and 1870 recorded him as an insurance broker, and the second time as a broker in fire insurance specifically. In a city of wooden buildings and coal stoves, that was serious work.
Vows Before Dr. Potts
On June 5, 1849, the Rev. George Potts, D.D., married Edward to Elizabeth Strong Bacon. The Evening Post described them as “both of this city,” though her roots were in New Haven, where her late father, Albert S. Bacon, had lived. A daughter, Louise Bacon Graham, was born in 1850. A son, Albert Bacon Graham, named for his mother's father, followed in 1860.
By then the family had crossed the East River. The 1860 census found them in the town of Newtown, Queens, which then included the village of Astoria. Astoria was still a place of riverfront estates and open ground, and it would become the Grahams' home for the rest of Edward's life.
Raised at Forty-Six
Howard Lodge No. 35 recorded him plainly: Edward Chauncey Graham, age forty-six, broker, of New York, raised April 20. The available record does not supply a year. Taken together, his recorded age and July 1815 birth date point to April 20, 1862, though that year remains an inference pending confirmation from the original lodge register.
It was a hard year. On Wednesday, September 17, 1862, Elizabeth died suddenly at Astoria. The notices asked friends to gather at Dr. Potts' church on University Place, so her funeral took place at the church of the same minister who had married them thirteen years earlier. Edward was left with a twelve-year-old daughter and a son of two. When the city recorded his death decades later, it listed him as a widower.
Two Grahams on the Founding Roll
Advance Lodge received its dispensation in 1866 and its charter the following year. Edward and Robert McCoskry Graham were among its charter members. Their precise family relationship remains to be established.
The founders included blacksmiths, a painter, a ship carpenter, merchants, and a fire chief. Edward added the experience of an insurance broker who had entered Masonry through an established Manhattan lodge.
His trade and his fraternity both concerned obligations to others, though they took different forms. Insurance addressed financial risk through contractual arrangements; a lodge offered fellowship and mutual assistance. Edward's own bereavement gives that distinction a human setting, without telling us why he chose to help establish Advance.
Chief Mourner on Tenth Street
In 1882 the Graham family lost its most prominent member. General James Lorimer Graham died at his home at No. 22 West Tenth Street in Manhattan in the seventy-ninth year of his life. The funeral on September 2 was small and private: no pallbearers, only relatives and close friends.
The Brooklyn Eagle named Edward Chauncey Graham, “brother of the deceased,” first among the principal mourners. Behind him came the nephews, James L. Graham Jr. and General James M. Varnum. The General was laid in the family vault at Trinity Cemetery. Edward, the younger brother, would outlive him by seventeen years.
The Old Resident of Woolley Street
Those years he spent in Astoria, in a house on Woolley Street, as the village around him became part of Long Island City and then, in 1898, part of Greater New York. He was an invalid for a long time toward the end. He died on Sunday, August 27, 1899, at eighty-four.
The Brooklyn Daily Times called him one of the oldest residents of Astoria and said he was highly respected for his “probity of character.” It was the kind of praise an insurance man would have valued. The funeral was private. He was buried at Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, the city his wife had come from half a century earlier.
What the Charter Remembers
Edward Chauncey Graham's place in Advance Lodge's history rests not on a famous office or a monument, but on his presence at its beginning. In 1866 he joined a lodge that did not yet have a charter or the long history it would later acquire.
Its lineage continues in Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586. That history leads back to the founding roll, where Edward Chauncey Graham and Robert McCoskry Graham remain recorded among the men who helped give Astoria a lodge of its own.
Endnotes
Lodge Records
- Howard Lodge No. 35, New York City: membership record of Edward Chauncey Graham, age 46, broker, New York; raised April 20. The year 1862 is inferred from the recorded age and birth date, not supplied in the available record.
- Advance Lodge No. 635, Astoria: charter membership records for Edward Chauncey Graham and Robert McCoskry Graham.
Newspapers
- The Evening Post (New York), June 7, 1849, p. 3, marriage notice.
- Christian Secretary, marriage notice, 1849.
- The New York Herald, September 20, 1862, p. 2, death notice of Elizabeth S. Graham.
- The New York Times, September 20, 1862, death notice of Elizabeth S. Graham.
- Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 2, 1882, p. 4, “Funeral of Gen. James Lorimer Graham.”
- The New York Times, August 30, 1899, p. 7, death notice.
- The Brooklyn Daily Times, August 30, 1899, p. 7, death report, Long Island City.
Public and Vital Records
- United States Census, 1860, Newtown, Queens County, New York, indexed as “Edwd E Graham.”
- United States Census, 1870, occupation recorded as fire insurance broker.
- “Connecticut, Marriages, 1630–1997,” Edward C. Graham, 1849, FamilySearch.
- “New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795–1949,” Edward C. Graham, August 27, 1899, Queens, FamilySearch.
Genealogical Sources
- Dunscombe.info family database, entries for Edward Chauncey Graham and Jean Lorimer.
- FamilySearch Family Tree, Edward Chauncey Graham (1815–1899).
- Find a Grave, Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut.
Continue Reading
- Robert McCoskry Graham and Freemasonry in Queens
- Advance Lodge No. 635: The Charter Members
- Advance Lodge No. 635: Lodge History
- Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586: A Living Inheritance of Six New York Lodges
- How Long Island City Was Created in 1870
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