By Brete Murphy · November 9, 2026
One Manhattan division, two Queens village temples and three later consolidations lie behind Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273. This series follows the people, rooms and records that carried an old lodge number east.
← Queens History Blog · The Lodges That Built Queens: Start Here · Next: Atwood and the 1852 Division →
On a Monday night in December 1852, the members of Atwood Lodge No. 208 were summoned to their room at Crosby and Broome Streets because “business of importance” would come up for action.
The notice ran twice in the New York Herald over the name of the Master, Charles G. Waterbury. What the business was, the newspaper did not say.
By then, the lodge had already divided. The departing members had a new name and a new number: Metropolitan Lodge No. 273.
That number is still in use.
It belongs to Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273, whose lineage brings a nineteenth-century Manhattan lodge together with lodges founded in Whitestone, Bayside and Floral Park.
Between Crosby Street and northeast Queens lie a division, three consolidations, a succession of meeting rooms and two temples built during the borough’s expansion in the 1920s.
This series follows that line link by link.
Why Follow a Lodge Number?
A lodge name tells only part of an institution’s history.
When lodges consolidate, the resulting body may retain one number, combine names or adopt a new name altogether. An older identity can disappear from the meeting notice while remaining part of the surviving lodge’s institutional history.
Read backward, the record begins to resemble a family tree.
Not every connection is the same. A division creates a branch. A consolidation brings branches together. A change of name does not necessarily create a new lodge.
The history behind No. 273 contains all three.
Atwood supplies the parent connection. Metropolitan carries the number. Whitestone, Bayside and Brandeis enter through later consolidations. Francis Lewis is the name under which those combined histories now meet.
The number is the thread, not the whole fabric.
Why This Is a Queens Story
The oldest part of the line is not in Queens.
Atwood was a Lower Manhattan lodge associated with a rival Grand Lodge. Metropolitan emerged from its division in 1852 and remained a Manhattan institution for more than a century.
The Queens branches began in a different setting.
Whitestone and Bayside organized lodges during the early 1920s, when northeast Queens was growing as a place to live within reach of the city’s workplaces. Both built temples of their own.
Brandeis came later, chartered at Floral Park in 1969.
The sequence follows an outward movement: from Lower Manhattan to Queens village centers and then to the city’s eastern edge.
That does not establish why every member joined or why every consolidation occurred. It does make the lineage a useful way to study the relationship between membership, meeting places and a changing borough.
The lodge number stayed recognizable while the geography around it changed.
Five Lodge Histories Behind the Line
The dates below follow Grand Lodge records supplied by the author. Atwood’s place in the lineage requires a distinction: it was the lodge from which Metropolitan separated, not a later consolidation partner.
| Lodge | Charter or recognition milestone | Original setting | Connection to the surviving line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atwood Lodge No. 208 | Established in 1850; entered the united Grand Lodge on December 27, 1850 | Lower Manhattan | Divided in 1852; departing members formed Metropolitan |
| Metropolitan Lodge No. 273 | December 9, 1852 | Manhattan | Consolidated with Whitestone on December 21, 1972 |
| Whitestone Lodge No. 973 | May 4, 1921 | Whitestone | Joined Metropolitan as Metropolitan-Whitestone Lodge No. 273 |
| Bayside Lodge No. 999 | May 3, 1922 | Bayside | Joined Metropolitan-Whitestone as Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273 on August 14, 1986 |
| Brandeis Lodge No. 1165 | May 6, 1969 | Floral Park | Consolidated into Francis Lewis on September 22, 2015 |
These are different kinds of dates. Atwood’s December 1850 entry concerns recognition at a Grand Lodge union; it should not be treated as interchangeable with the later lodges’ charter dates.
The surviving line can be read in four steps:
- Atwood divided, and Metropolitan No. 273 emerged in 1852.
- Metropolitan and Whitestone became Metropolitan-Whitestone No. 273 in 1972.
- Metropolitan-Whitestone and Bayside became Francis Lewis No. 273 in 1986.
- Brandeis joined Francis Lewis in 2015.
The Manhattan Beginning
Atwood Lodge took its name from Henry C. Atwood, the ritualist and organizer associated with St. John’s Grand Lodge.
That body existed alongside the Grand Lodge of New York until their union on December 27, 1850. The present Grand Lodge’s [Past Grand Masters page](Past Grand Masters | Grand Lodge of the State of New York
Past Grand Masters | Grand Lodge of the State of New York
recognizes the former St. John’s leader as a Past Grand Master from that union, although it prints his name as “Henry S. Atwood.”
Atwood Lodge entered the united body in 1850.
Within two years, its internal disagreements had become serious enough for the Grand Stewards’ Lodge to recommend “a separation of their members, a division of all their property, pro rata.”
The departing members became Metropolitan Lodge No. 273.
The record is not entirely tidy. A Grand Lodge entry supplied for this series logs Atwood No. 208 “in dissolution” on August 16, 1852. The later lodge history and December newspaper notices indicate that the No. 208 warrant continued in use, with the lodge subsequently renamed Cyrus.
This series therefore treats Metropolitan as the departing branch of the division, rather than describing Atwood as simply extinguished.
Continue with Part 2: Atwood Lodge and the 1852 Division →
A Manhattan Lodge With Members Living Elsewhere
For the next 120 years, Metropolitan’s institutional home remained in Manhattan.
Its meeting notices trace a succession of rooms: Odd Fellows’ Hall at Grand and Centre Streets, Broadway addresses, rooms over a savings bank on Fourteenth Street and eventually the Grand Lodge’s Masonic Hall on West 23rd Street.
The members’ addresses tell a different story.
By the 1930s, the death notices assembled for this series placed Metropolitan members in Flatbush, Glendale, Woodhaven, Queens Village, Lynbrook and Mount Vernon.
Those notices do not constitute a complete membership survey. They do show that a Manhattan meeting place did not mean a wholly Manhattan membership.
The lodge’s rooms stayed in the city’s older center while some of its members made their homes farther out.
That distinction matters to the later Queens consolidation. The institutional move came after an outward residential movement already visible in the record.
Read Part 3: Metropolitan Lodge’s Manhattan Century →
Two Village Lodges Build Their Own Rooms
Whitestone Lodge No. 973 was instituted in the village Odd Fellows’ Hall in July 1920.
It received its charter the following May and moved into its own temple in January 1922. Grand Master Robert H. Robinson dedicated the building that February before several hundred Masons from across Queens.
Bayside Lodge No. 999 followed.
The contemporary account places its organization in May 1922 at Cornucopia Lodge’s Flushing temple and calls Cornucopia its “daddy.”
A year later, Bayside laid the cornerstone of a three-story red-brick temple at Bell and Lamartine Avenues. The ceremony brought a parade, the Fort Totten band and, according to one newspaper estimate, two thousand spectators.
These were not merely changes of meeting address.
The lodges were establishing buildings around which members, families and neighborhood organizations could gather. The temple stories are therefore part of the villages’ histories as well as the lodges’ own.
Newspaper reports counted twenty-six Queens lodges in January 1925 and thirty-one by November 1929, when the borough’s Masonic organization expanded to two districts.
The author’s present-day district count is seven active lodges.
The figures describe different moments and should not be read as a complete account of what happened between them. The consolidations in this series supply part of that missing middle.
Read Part 4: Whitestone Lodge No. 973 and Its Temple →
Read Part 5: Bayside Lodge No. 999 and the Bell Boulevard Temple →
Three Consolidations, One Surviving Number
In December 1972, Metropolitan and Whitestone became Metropolitan-Whitestone Lodge No. 273.
The combined name preserved both identities. The number came from Metropolitan.
In August 1986, Metropolitan-Whitestone and Bayside joined under a new name: Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273.
Francis Lewis was a Welsh-born merchant, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a Whitestone resident. His local connection is described in NYC Parks’ history of Francis Lewis Park.
The choice also had a useful geographical resonance. Francis Lewis Boulevard ran through both Whitestone and Bayside.
That is an observation about the name’s local fit, not proof of the consolidating members’ reasons for choosing it. Establishing those reasons requires the contemporary minutes or an account of the naming decision.
In September 2015, Brandeis Lodge No. 1165 joined Francis Lewis.
Brandeis had been chartered at Floral Park in May 1969. Its addition brought another generation and another local setting into the surviving lodge’s history.
Read Part 7: Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273 and the Brandeis Connection →
The Buildings Form a Second Line
The institutional lineage is only one route through this series.
The meeting rooms form another.
A lodge can retain its name while changing rooms. A temple can remain standing after the lodge that built it has consolidated. A building’s later occupants may have no direct connection to its original charter.
Keeping those histories separate makes both clearer.
The series therefore includes a related building study of Arthur E. Wenige of Advance Lodge No. 635 and the lodge-room plans associated with his firm.
The author’s research connects those plans with Hillside in Woodhaven and Advance in Astoria. Bayside offers a different case: its temple was designed by one of its own members, Herbert O. Wiegand.
The Wenige article is a companion to the 273 lineage, not another ancestral lodge in it. It asks how the rooms themselves were conceived, built and used.
Read Part 6: Arthur E. Wenige and the Room That Serves Three →
Follow the Series
Part 1: Start Here
The overview: how Atwood, Metropolitan, Whitestone, Bayside and Brandeis connect to Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273.
Part 2: Atwood and the Division
Atwood Lodge No. 208 and the Birth of Metropolitan No. 273
The rival Grand Lodge, the disputed separation and the gold-pen makers associated with the departing faction.
Part 3: Metropolitan’s Manhattan Century
Metropolitan Lodge No. 273: A Manhattan Lodge With an Expanding Geography
Meeting notices, changing rooms and members whose addresses reached into the boroughs and suburbs.
Part 4: Whitestone Builds a Temple
Whitestone Lodge No. 973 and Its 1922 Temple
A village lodge’s beginnings, its move from borrowed rooms and its place in the later consolidation.
Part 5: Bayside’s Bell Boulevard Temple
Bayside Lodge No. 999 and the Bell Boulevard Temple
The lodge, its member-architect and the building’s wider neighborhood life.
Part 6: A Companion Building History
Arthur E. Wenige: The Room That Serves Three
A related investigation of lodge-room design in Queens, distinct from the 273 institutional lineage.
Part 7: Francis Lewis and Brandeis
Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273: The Consolidations and the Continuing Line
The combined lodge, its adopted name and the Brandeis consolidation of 2015.
Where the Number Came to Rest
The line began with a lodge named for a man associated with a rival Grand Lodge.
It continues under the name of a man whose Whitestone property was destroyed by British troops in 1776 and whose wife was taken prisoner.
Between those names, the number survived changes that neither original namesake could have anticipated.
Metropolitan’s members met in Manhattan while some made their homes elsewhere. Whitestone and Bayside built temples close to their own neighborhoods. Later generations combined institutions that earlier generations had organized separately.
The number did not make that journey by itself.
People carried it—in petitions, warrants, minute books and the decisions to keep meeting when the arrangements changed.
This series follows what they carried, and the places where they put it down.
Sources and Research Notes
1. Grand Lodge Records Supplied by the Author
Grand Lodge of New York records supplied by Brete Murphy establish the principal dates used in this series:
- Atwood Lodge No. 208: 1850 history and December 27, 1850 union connection.
- Metropolitan Lodge No. 273: December 9, 1852.
- Whitestone Lodge No. 973: May 4, 1921.
- Metropolitan-Whitestone Lodge No. 273: December 21, 1972.
- Bayside Lodge No. 999: May 3, 1922.
- Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273: August 14, 1986.
- Brandeis Lodge No. 1165: May 6, 1969.
- Brandeis consolidation into Francis Lewis: September 22, 2015.
These record extracts were supplied by the author; direct public item links were not supplied.
The Atwood record includes an August 16, 1852 “in dissolution” entry that does not align neatly with the later lodge history and newspaper evidence of continued use of No. 208. This series preserves that discrepancy rather than treating the entry as a complete account of the division.
2. Atwood and the Grand Lodge Union
[Grand Lodge of the State of New York, “Past Grand Masters”](Past Grand Masters | Grand Lodge of the State of New York
Past Grand Masters | Grand Lodge of the State of New York
The page identifies the former head of St. John’s Grand Lodge as having been made a Past Grand Master at the union of December 27, 1850.
It prints the name “Henry S. Atwood,” while the manuscript and historical account used for this series identify Henry C. Atwood. The difference should be retained as a source discrepancy, not silently corrected in a quotation.
3. Atwood, Cyrus and the 1852 Division
“Cyrus Lodge No. 208,” Grand Lodge of New York lodge histories, 1910, as identified in the author’s research through an OCR transcription hosted by Studylib.
The account includes the recommendation for separation and a proportional division of property.
The December 1852 New York Herald notices name Charles G. Waterbury as Master and announce “business of importance.”
A direct transcription URL and full newspaper issue dates should be added when available.
4. Metropolitan’s Meeting Places
- New York Herald, November 10, 1857.
- New York Times, May 30, 1861.
- New York Herald, December 12, 1870.
- New York Herald, February 17, 1873.
- Brooklyn Eagle, April 24, 1942.
The author’s assembled death notices supply the examples of members living outside Manhattan. Those notices illustrate geographical reach; they are not a complete residential analysis of the membership.
5. Whitestone Lodge and Its Temple
- Brooklyn Daily Times, July 3, 1920.
- Brooklyn Daily Times, May 28, 1921.
- Brooklyn Daily Times, January 11, 1922.
- Brooklyn Daily Times, March 1, 1922.
These references support the institution, charter, move into the temple and dedication sequence.
6. Bayside Lodge and Its Temple
- Times Union, May 14, 1922.
- Brooklyn Eagle, May 31, 1923.
- Brooklyn Citizen, May 31, 1923.
The reported crowd of two thousand is a newspaper estimate, not an independently established attendance count.
7. Queens Lodge Counts
- Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4, 1925.
- Brooklyn Daily Times, November 23, 1929.
- Queens Masonic District information and the author’s present-day count.
The historical figures are reported counts for particular dates. The current figure should be checked against the district roster when the article is published or updated.
8. Francis Lewis and Whitestone
NYC Parks, “Francis Lewis Park: History”.
Supports the overview of Lewis’s Welsh origins, merchant career, Whitestone residence, role as a signer and the destruction of his property and capture of his wife.
This article does not use the park history as evidence of Masonic membership. Francis Lewis’s own lodge affiliation remains a separate research question.
9. The Wenige Companion Article
The building comparison follows the author’s research for Arthur E. Wenige: The Room That Serves Three.
Wenige’s connection to the series is architectural and thematic, not an additional branch of the Francis Lewis lodge lineage.
Questions the Series Carries Forward
- What records establish Francis Lewis’s own Masonic affiliation?
- Did Metropolitan begin meeting in Queens before the 1972 consolidation?
- Which meeting rooms has Francis Lewis Lodge used since 1986?
- What “business of importance” came before Atwood in December 1852?
- Which charters, jewels and minute books survive from the constituent lodges?
- Do consolidation minutes explain the selection of the Francis Lewis name?
These are research questions, not claims resolved by this introductory article.
Continue Reading
- Next: Atwood Lodge No. 208 and the Birth of Metropolitan No. 273
- Metropolitan Lodge No. 273: Lodge History
- Whitestone Lodge No. 973: Lodge History
- Bayside Lodge No. 999: Lodge History
- Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273: Lodge History
- The Lodges That Built Queens: Series Overview
← The Lodges That Built Queens · Queens History Blog · Part 2: Atwood and the Division →
