Mr. Mason of Queens: Edward J. Smith and the Work of Starting Lodges

Nov 12

By Brete Murphy · November 10, 2026

Tadmor’s first Master appeared at the beginnings of Geba, Astoria and Wakefield lodges, carrying out different duties on each occasion. His calendar connects institutions that now continue within three of Queens’ seven active lodges.

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When Tadmor Lodge prepared to lay the cornerstone of its new Ridgewood temple in September 1925, the announced contents of the copper box included a history, membership rosters, a Bible, a silk flag, copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, the Brooklyn newspapers and one photograph.

The photograph was of the lodge’s first Master.

That was Edward J. Smith.

By then, Smith’s name had appeared in accounts of more than Tadmor’s beginnings. He had accompanied its members to Geba’s institution, presented Astoria Lodge’s dispensation and installed Astoria’s officers at its constitution.

Later, he would take different Grand Lodge roles at Wakefield’s first ceremonies.

His obituaries in 1957 remembered him as “Mr. Mason of Queens.”

The phrase belongs to that later remembrance. The earlier reports show the work behind it: appearing on the appointed night, carrying out a particular responsibility and helping a new institution begin.[1][2]

A Working Life in Borough Offices

Smith’s public career ran through Queens offices and courts.

The supplied obituary accounts identify service as secretary to the commissioner of public works, chief clerk of the County Court and deputy clerk of that court.

In 1927, he was appointed a Municipal Court justice serving the Ridgewood district.

The exact sequence and dates of his earlier appointments still need to be reconstructed from the full obituaries and official records.

The same accounts state that he had been a Mason since 1907. The lodge in which he was made a Mason has not yet been identified for this article.

The public and fraternal records suggest a useful comparison.

Both involved offices, documents, appointments and responsibilities performed on behalf of an institution.

That comparison should not become an invented account of favors obtained through personal contacts. The sources do not show Smith carrying a request to Jamaica and returning with an answer.

They show a man experienced in administrative work who also accepted formal duties in Masonry.[2][3]

Tadmor’s First Master

Tadmor’s anniversary history states that thirty-one Masons signed a petition for a Ridgewood lodge in June 1914.

Smith became its first Master.

The same retrospective places Tadmor’s institution under dispensation at Hillside’s new temple in Woodhaven on August 26, 1914.

Contemporary 1915 references identify the next stages: constitution in June at the Masonic temple in Jamaica and rooms on Halleck Avenue by August.

Those events belong to different phases of organization.

The petition sought authority to begin. The dispensation permitted the new lodge to work. The later constitution followed its charter.

Smith’s position at the beginning is clear, even where individual dates and venues still need to be checked against the original records.

The lodge grew quickly.

By early 1920, a newspaper account reported more than 350 members and 150 applicants. Tadmor had acquired its Halleck Avenue building and was arranging bazaars to reduce a reported twenty-thousand-dollar debt.

The membership and application figures describe the newspaper’s account at that moment. They are not interchangeable counts.

In 1922, members helped establish Granite Lodge No. 1011, which also used Tadmor’s building.

The institution Smith had first led was becoming a place from which other connections developed.[1]

Read Tadmor Lodge No. 923: Lodge History →

A Delegation Goes to Elmhurst

A June 1919 newspaper notice placed Smith with a Tadmor delegation preparing to attend Geba Lodge’s institution in Elmhurst.

Tadmor’s Master, John H. Nuhn, led the delegation. Smith was identified as the newly appointed district deputy.

Geba’s institution took place on June 10, with Deputy Grand Master Robert H. Robinson presiding, according to the event references identified in the author’s research.

The distinction between those two accounts matters.

The June 8 notice establishes the planned delegation and Smith’s reported title. The completed-event report should establish who attended and what duties each participant performed.

Smith should not be described as Geba’s founder merely because he accompanied Tadmor or held district office.

His documented connection is participation in its beginning.

Geba’s later institutional history entered the line now represented by Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586.[4]

Seventeen Days Later, Astoria

On June 27, 1919, Smith appeared in another lodge’s early history.

Astoria Lodge’s account places him at its first regular meeting in the Advance Masonic Temple on Grand Avenue, where he presented the dispensation.

The new lodge had been organized by thirteen men associated with Advance.

The following year brought another ceremony.

On June 2, 1920, Grand Master Robinson constituted Astoria Lodge No. 963. The lodge history reports that Smith installed the officers and presented the charter.

Those were specific responsibilities.

They are more informative than a general claim that he “started” Astoria. The founders organized the lodge; Smith performed duties through which its authority and officers were formally recognized.

Astoria later consolidated with Anchor in 1985. Its history now belongs within Anchor-Astoria Lodge No. 729.

Smith’s calendar therefore connects Tadmor with both the Advance building and the Anchor-Astoria institutional line.[5]

Read The Thirteen Who Left Advance →

Read Anchor-Astoria Lodge No. 729 →

A Borough-Wide Association

Smith’s obituary credits him with helping organize the Queens Masonic Association.

The working research dates its formation to 1925 and identifies relief for the widows and orphans of Queens Masons among its purposes.

Thomas J. Towers of Richmond Hill was its first president.

Smith should not displace Towers in that account, nor should either man be presented as the sole organizer without further records.

The Association offered another kind of connection.

Lodges retained their own officers and meeting places, while a borough-wide organization arranged activities around shared purposes.

The 1929 charity ball at the Hotel Pennsylvania supplies one example. Newspaper coverage identified participating lodges and reported a fundraising goal of ten thousand dollars.

That was a target, not a verified net result.

The Association’s founding minutes, financial records and later history remain research priorities.

For Smith’s biography, the significant point is the role attributed to him by his obituary: assistance in building a common organization beyond his own lodge.[2][6][7]

Public Officials at Tadmor’s Bazaar

Smith’s public and Masonic responsibilities sometimes appeared in the same newspaper item.

In September 1926, as Tadmor prepared activities connected with its new temple, he was named among those expected to welcome public officials to a bazaar.

Other participants included men holding political, judicial and prosecutorial positions.

Smith joined the Municipal Court bench the following year.

The overlap deserves attention without exaggeration.

A lodge could include members whose work brought them into contact with government. A public event could draw officials as guests. Neither fact establishes that the lodge itself directed party politics.

The bazaar notice shows a particular occasion on which those circles met.

It does not make every public office an extension of the lodge room.[1][3]

Wakefield: Two Nights, Two Duties

More than a decade after the Geba and Astoria ceremonies, Smith appeared in Wakefield’s early record.

Wakefield’s tenth-anniversary history describes an organizing group drawn from nine lodges.

The lodge was instituted on September 8, 1930, in Cathedral Lodge’s room at 113-10 Liberty Avenue.

Smith, identified with the Grand Lodge committee on charters, acted as Grand Marshal.

On June 11, 1931, Wakefield was constituted in Tadmor’s lodge room in Ridgewood.

Towers acted as Deputy Grand Master. Smith acted as Grand Secretary.

The roles should remain as the anniversary account gives them. Acting in an office for a ceremony does not necessarily mean holding that office as an elected or appointed Grand Lodge officer.

The sequence also returns the story to Tadmor.

Smith was participating in another lodge’s constitution in a room belonging to the institution he had first led.

Wakefield’s later history entered the Anchor-Astoria line through its 1978 consolidation with Richmond Hill and the subsequent Queensboro sequence.[8]

Explore Anchor-Astoria’s Institutional History →

What His Calendar Connects

Smith’s name appears in different capacities at different beginnings.

At Tadmor, he was the first Master.

At Geba, he was associated with the visiting Tadmor delegation and district leadership.

At Astoria, he presented the dispensation, then installed officers and delivered the charter at the later constitution.

At Wakefield, he acted as Grand Marshal and, on another evening, Grand Secretary.

These are not interchangeable contributions.

Taken together, they explain why his biography belongs among the connecting stories.

The institutional lines now lead to three active Queens lodges:

Tadmor itself.
Advance Service Mizpah through Geba.
Anchor-Astoria through Astoria and Wakefield.

Hillside adds another relationship through Tadmor’s early Woodhaven venue. Its later line continues through Springfield Gardens.

Smith’s story is therefore not a list of lodges he supposedly founded.

It is a record of responsibilities carried across their boundaries.

Read The Engineer’s Room: Hillside, Advance and Tadmor →

The Photograph in the Foundation

The 1925 cornerstone notices described a photograph of Tadmor’s first Master among the objects selected for the copper box.

The present location and condition of that box have not been established here.

It should not be described as still inside the stone without an inspection, opening record or other reliable confirmation.

The original choice is meaningful enough.

A lodge preparing a new building selected documents, emblems, newspapers and the image of the man who had first presided over it.

Smith later became a judge and participated in other lodges’ organizing ceremonies. Tadmor’s planned deposit identified him more simply.

Its first Master.

The obituary supplied the larger phrase, “Mr. Mason of Queens.”

The earlier record gives it substance through individual evenings and individual duties: a delegation, a dispensation, officers installed, a charter presented and another lodge constituted.

The work was done one occasion at a time.

Endnotes

1. Tadmor’s Beginnings, Growth and Cornerstone

Brooklyn Times Union, September 25, 1925, p. 3.
The Chat, September 26, 1925.
Ridgewood Times, June 14, 1946.
Brooklyn Daily Times, June 21 and August 21, 1915.
Brooklyn Times Union, January 18, 1920.
Brooklyn Times Union, September 8, 1926.

The 1925 references describe the cornerstone arrangements and proposed copper-box contents. A report after the ceremony would strengthen confirmation that the deposit occurred exactly as announced.

The 1946 account supplies Tadmor’s retrospective history of the petition and Hillside institution.

The 1920 figures for membership, applicants and debt are reported newspaper figures.

The copper box’s present survival and location remain unresolved.

2. Smith’s Obituaries

Daily News, January 21, 1957.
Kings County Chronicle, January 22, 1957.

Identified in the supplied research as sources for:

“Mr. Mason of Queens.”
Public offices.
Masonic membership beginning in 1907.
Queens Masonic Association participation.

Full obituary texts should be obtained before supplying exact birth and death dates or a complete career chronology.

The nickname is attributed to the obituaries, not assumed to have been used throughout his earlier career.

3. Municipal Court Appointment

Brooklyn Daily Times, May 15, 1927.

Supports Smith’s appointment to the Municipal Court.

Later elections, terms and retirement remain to be researched.

4. Geba Institution

Brooklyn Eagle, June 8, 1919.

Announces the Tadmor delegation led by John H. Nuhn and identifies Smith as the newly appointed district deputy.

The author’s research also identifies New York Times coverage of the June 10, 1919 institution. Its exact publication date, page and account of Smith’s role should be added.

The article distinguishes the delegation announcement from a completed-event report.

See the Geba research within the Advance Service Mizpah series.

5. Astoria Lodge

Anchor-Astoria Lodge No. 729, “History,” as transcribed in the author’s research packet.

Supplies:

June 27, 1919 dispensation presentation.
June 2, 1920 constitution.
Smith’s installation of officers and charter presentation.

The account is a later lodge history. Contemporary reports and Grand Lodge proceedings should be compared with it.

See The Thirteen Who Left Advance.

6. Queens Masonic Association

Smith’s 1957 obituary references and the author’s Anchor-Astoria research, Article 4.

Identify the 1925 organizing period and Thomas J. Towers as first president.

Smith’s role as an organizer remains attributed to the obituary account pending the Association’s own records.

7. The 1929 Charity Ball

Brooklyn Daily Times, November 23, 1929, p. 5.

The author’s research also identifies a New York Times list of participating Masters from November 1929.

The ten-thousand-dollar figure is a fundraising goal, not an established net receipt.

8. Wakefield’s Institution and Constitution

Wakefield Lodge No. 1110, tenth-anniversary book, 1940.

Edward W. Palmer, “Ten Years of Masonic Endeavor.”

Supplies:

The organizing group.
September 8, 1930 institution at Cathedral’s room.
Smith acting as Grand Marshal.
June 11, 1931 constitution in Tadmor’s room.
Towers acting as Deputy Grand Master.
Smith acting as Grand Secretary.

The supplied draft assigns Cathedral No. 1031, while other project notes use a different number. The number is omitted here pending verification against the anniversary book and Grand Lodge record.

Acting ceremonial roles are not treated as proof of permanent Grand Lodge office.

A Note on the Evidence

This article is based on the author’s supplied research descriptions and citations.

Direct newspaper-clipping and archival-document URLs were not supplied.

Smith’s participation at another lodge’s beginning is not automatically described as founding or membership.

The article does not establish the exact length of his district-deputy service or committee tenure.

Public and Masonic responsibilities are compared without assuming political influence or undocumented motives.

Questions for Further Research

Where was Smith made a Mason in 1907?
Did he retain that membership after Tadmor’s organization?
What are his exact birth and death dates?
What do the 1919 and 1920 Grand Lodge proceedings say about his district service?
What was his precise role at Geba’s institution?
How long did he serve on the committee on charters?
Did he hold other Grand Lodge offices or rank?
What survives of the Queens Masonic Association’s records and relief fund?
What became of Tadmor’s cornerstone box?
What was the full course of his Municipal Court service?

Lodges in This Story

The Advance article is an entry into the wider Advance Service Mizpah series, not a substitute for Geba’s own history.

Follow the Connecting Stories

The Engineer’s Room
The Thirteen Who Left Advance
The Tuesday Night Visitors
Mr. Mason of Queens: Edward J. Smith — You are here.
From Tadmor’s East to the Grand East: Charles W. Froessel