By Brete Murphy · November 11, 2026
As Cornucopia’s Master in 1922, George U. Harvey brought public officials into a Flushing lodge meeting. As borough president in 1929, he became an invited official at Rufus King Lodge in Jamaica. The two occasions reveal a civic use of the lodge room—and connect several present Queens lodge lineages.
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In March 1922, Cornucopia Lodge No. 563 held a meeting devoted to the work of Queens public officials.
Its Master, George U. Harvey, was also an alderman.
Contemporary reports described officials explaining the responsibilities of their offices to the gathering in Flushing.[1]
Harvey occupied two roles that evening.
He was part of borough government and the presiding officer of the lodge that had invited government representatives into its room.
Seven years later, the arrangement was reversed.
Rufus King Lodge in Jamaica held a City Officials’ Night.
Harvey attended as borough president.
The two occasions do not establish that one lodge copied the other.
They document a recurring use of the meeting room: a place where members could hear from the people holding public office.
Harvey connects the scenes because he moved from host to guest.
Public Servants’ Night in Flushing
The March 31, 1922 accounts appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Times and Brooklyn Eagle.
The supplied research places Cornucopia’s program in the context of a Grand Lodge request for meetings that were instructive as well as social.
Harvey’s response was a Queens Public Servants’ Night.[1]
The reported participants included magistrates, a Municipal Court justice, the sheriff, the commissioner of public works, an alderman, a Board of Education member and police representatives.
Their subject was the work of their offices.
That makes the occasion different from a ceremonial appearance in which an official merely offered greetings.
The program brought administrative responsibilities into the lodge’s discussion.
It should not, however, be described as a meeting open to the whole public unless the reports establish the admission arrangements.
A civic subject did not necessarily make a lodge gathering a public forum.
An Advance Member Among the Officials
One participant was John Anderson Leach, identified in the supplied account as deputy police commissioner for Queens.
The author’s summary of Advance Lodge’s records identifies him as its 326th member, raised on October 17, 1905.[2]
That supplies a specific cross-lodge connection.
A police official affiliated with Advance appeared at a program hosted by Cornucopia.
The membership evidence and the event report do different work.
The register establishes Leach’s lodge connection.
The newspapers establish his participation in the officials’ gathering.
Neither should be used to fill gaps in the other.
The precise substance of Leach’s remarks remains a research question.
The connection is nevertheless clear enough to place Advance within the story without making the whole evening an inter-lodge undertaking.
Read Advance Service Mizpah’s Lineage Essay →
The Alderman Who Presided
The supplied membership research identifies Harvey as Cornucopia’s Master in 1922 and again in 1925.
It also identifies him as a member of Mizpah Lodge No. 738.
His Mizpah admission date and any offices held there remain unresolved.[3]
Those affiliations should be kept distinct from lodges he visited.
Cornucopia and Mizpah were membership connections.
Service and Rufus King appear here through announced or reported engagements.
Harvey’s political career supplies the changing role between the two officials’ nights.
He won an aldermanic seat in 1921.
In 1928, he won the special election for Queens borough president following Maurice Connolly’s departure from office amid the sewer scandal.[3]
The broader career, including his military service, elections and controversies, belongs in the separate Harvey biography.
For this article, the central point is narrower.
In 1922 he could invite officials as both an alderman and a lodge Master.
By 1929, another lodge invited him in his capacity as borough president.
Read Cornucopia: One Charter, Many Connections →
A Planned Appearance at Service
Cornucopia’s temple also accommodated Service Lodge No. 1009.
An April 25, 1926 notice announced that “Worshipful George Harvey of Cornucopia” would address Service’s members.[4]
The notice establishes a scheduled appearance.
Without a subsequent account, it should not be treated as a detailed record of the completed talk.
It also does not establish that Harvey belonged to Service.
The shared premises help explain the practical setting.
Cornucopia and Service were separate institutions using the same temple.
Harvey’s proposed contribution extended beyond his own lodge without requiring another membership.
Service’s later institutional history entered Advance Service Mizpah through its consolidations with City and Geba and the final 2018 union.
Mizpah’s separate line also entered Advance Service Mizpah.[5]
That later convergence gives the engagement another connection for readers of the series.
It does not turn Service into Harvey’s third documented lodge.
A Political Club in a Masonic Building
The use of Masonic premises was not confined to lodge programs.
In early 1928, the Hollis Republican Club held a smoker honoring Harvey at the Masonic Temple on 191st Street.
The supplied account records discussion of the “sewer situation.”[3]
The organizer matters.
This was a political club’s event in a Masonic building.
It should not automatically be described as a lodge endorsement, a Masonic political program or evidence that every occupant supported Harvey.
A building’s use and a lodge’s institutional position are different questions.
The reference nevertheless broadens the article’s picture of civic space.
A temple could accommodate both lodge activity and events organized by other bodies.
The participants, admission arrangements and sponsorship of each occasion need to be identified separately.
City Officials’ Night in Jamaica
Rufus King Lodge No. 1091 was barely a year beyond its constitution when it held City Officials’ Night in June 1929.
The Chat’s June 28 report described more than two hundred members attending at the Jamaica Masonic Temple.
Magistrate Benjamin Marvin, identified as a lodge trustee, introduced the guests.[6]
The reported officials included judges, District Attorney Richard S. Newcombe, representatives of the building and fire departments, the commissioner of jurors, an assistant district attorney and Borough President Harvey.
The account linked lodge friendship with “the welding of good citizens.”[6]
That phrase belongs to the contemporary report.
It expresses how the occasion was presented, not an independently measured civic result.
The parallel with Cornucopia’s 1922 gathering is striking.
Both brought officials into a lodge setting.
Harvey had presided over the earlier event.
At Rufus King, he was one of those being introduced.
There is no evidence here that Rufus King adopted the program from Cornucopia.
The two reports establish similarity, not transmission.
Read Harmony: Rufus King’s Later Institutional Line →
Read Jamaica Lodge’s Rooms and Union Avenue Hall →
The Charity Ball He Did Not Attend
Harvey’s public and fraternal roles did not place him at every Masonic gathering.
November 1929 coverage of a Queens Masonic Association charity ball at the Hotel Pennsylvania reported approximately two thousand attending and noted his absence.[3]
That figure remains the newspapers’ estimate.
The absence should not be assigned a political or personal explanation without evidence.
The report is useful for another reason.
It supplies an account of a later Association ball, distinct from the proposed Flushing Armory event announced in January 1925.
It should not be used to fill the missing date, attendance or proceeds of that earlier undertaking.
The two references belong to the Association’s developing history, not necessarily to the same event.
Read Thomas J. Towers and the Queens Masonic Association →
Joint Rites in 1946
Harvey died on April 6, 1946.
The supplied obituary accounts place his death after he had helped fight a brush fire near his Connecticut home.
The following funeral coverage described Masonic rites involving Cornucopia and Mizpah.[7]
The author’s summary identifies Mizpah secretary William F. Schweitzer as conducting the rites and Cornucopia’s Frank Cromley as chaplain.
The reports also connect the observance with Dr. Joseph N. Wickham, a Flushing surgeon and member of both lodges who died the same day.
The exact arrangements for the two men should follow the wording of the funeral reports.
Joint Masonic participation should not be expanded into a claim of a shared burial or a single graveside ceremony unless the sources establish it.
For this article, the important connection is institutional.
The two lodges associated with Harvey’s membership participated in the final observances.
Where Those Histories Continue
Cornucopia remains independent and now meets in College Point under the author’s present-day account.
Mizpah’s history continues within Advance Service Mizpah in Astoria.
Service’s later line also entered that lodge.
Rufus King’s history continues within Harmony, which shares the College Point building with Cornucopia.[5]
These present arrangements do not mean Harvey’s civic programs continued unchanged.
They show where the institutions connected with those occasions now belong.
The original scenes were separated by neighborhood, date and Harvey’s changing office.
The lineage essays bring their later continuations into view.
Read Where the Lines Meet: The College Point Temple →
From Host to Guest
The strongest connection is the simplest.
At Cornucopia in 1922, Harvey helped bring officials before lodge members.
At Rufus King in 1929, he was one of the officials.
Between those occasions, a proposed Service address and a political club’s temple event show other ways his public career intersected with Masonic premises.
Those events were not all the same kind of undertaking.
Their organizers, audiences and purposes differed.
Together, they demonstrate that the lodge room could be more than the setting for internal business.
It could also be a place to hear how government worked—and to meet the people responsible for it.
Endnotes
1. Public Servants’ Night, 1922
- Brooklyn Daily Times, March 31, 1922, “Flushing Masons Hear Talks by Queens Officials.”
- Brooklyn Eagle, March 31, 1922, “Officials Attend Meeting.”
Support the Cornucopia program and reported official participation.
The complete speaker list and precise wording of each official’s remarks should be checked against both reports.
The event is not assumed to have been open to the general public.
2. John Anderson Leach
Records of Advance Lodge No. 635, as examined and summarized by Brete Murphy.
The supplied summary identifies Leach as member No. 326, raised October 17, 1905.
The register evidence establishes lodge affiliation, while the March 1922 reports establish participation in the officials’ gathering.
See the author’s separate Leach member feature.
3. Harvey’s Membership and Public Career
The author’s George U. Harvey member feature and underlying research.
Sources supplied with the manuscript include:
- Cornucopia and Mizpah membership information compiled by Brete Murphy.
- The Chat, March 3, 1928.
- Brooklyn Eagle, June 4, 1928.
- Brooklyn Daily Times and Brooklyn Eagle, November 23, 1929.
- New York Times coverage cited in the member feature.
Cornucopia masterships are given as 1922 and 1925.
Mizpah membership dates remain unresolved.
The political club’s use of a temple is distinguished from a lodge’s institutional endorsement.
4. Service’s Announced Speaker
Brooklyn Daily Times, April 25, 1926, “Service Lodge to Hear Harvey.”
Supports the announced engagement.
The notice is not treated as proof of Service membership or as a retrospective account of the completed address.
5. Later Lodge Continuations
Grand Lodge of New York records as compiled by Brete Murphy.
The author’s Advance Service Mizpah and Harmony series.
See:
The earlier “Thirty-Four Charters” working title has been superseded.
6. Rufus King’s Officials’ Night
The Chat, June 28, 1929, page 4.
See the author’s “Rufus King Lodge No. 1091 and Civic Jamaica.”
Supports the reported attendance, guest introductions and quoted civic language.
The similarity with Cornucopia’s 1922 program is not treated as evidence that one directly inspired the other.
7. Death and Funeral Coverage
- Brooklyn Eagle, April 9 and 10, 1946.
- Daily News, April 7 and 8, 1946.
Support the death and funeral accounts summarized in the author’s research.
The precise sequence and arrangements for Harvey and Wickham should follow the original notices.
Joint Masonic participation is distinguished from a shared burial.
8. Scope and Remaining Gaps
This article follows Harvey through documented or announced lodge-related appearances.
It distinguishes membership, guest participation, political-club activity and use of a Masonic building.
It does not establish that Harvey originated the officials’ night format or that it spread directly from Cornucopia to other lodges.
Exact publication paths for the Harvey, Leach and Rufus King features were not supplied.
Direct clipping URLs were not supplied with the manuscript.
Questions for Further Research
- When did Harvey join Mizpah?
- Did he hold office there?
- What was the complete speaker list for Public Servants’ Night?
- What did Leach say?
- Does a subsequent report confirm Harvey’s Service address?
- Which other Queens lodges held officials’ nights?
- Was there any documented connection between those programs?
- Which Cambridge Lodge hosted Harvey in 1928?
- What were the exact arrangements for the 1946 rites involving Harvey and Wickham?
- What does further coverage establish about the Association’s November 1929 charity ball?
Follow the Lodge Connections
- Cornucopia: One Charter, Many Connections
- Advance Service Mizpah: The Mizpah, Service and Advance Lines
- Service Lodge No. 1009
- Advance Lodge No. 635
- Harmony: The Rufus King Line
Continue Through the Connecting Stories
- Thomas J. Towers and the Queens Masonic Association
- One Hall in Ridgewood
- Where the Lines Meet: The College Point Temple
- Connecting Stories: Complete Guide
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