Queens History and Freemasonry / Springfield Gardens Series / Jamaica Lodge No. 546
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 · Lodge Histories
Chartered in 1864, Jamaica Lodge helped other Queens lodges begin, maintained a temple used by younger institutions, and carried No. 546 through later consolidations. Its institutional line entered Springfield Gardens Lodge in 2013.
November 10, 2026 · By Brete Murphy
A Civil War Charter
Jamaica had Masons before it had this lodge.
An earlier Jamaica Lodge received a charter in 1787. Its brief history belongs to the eighteenth-century beginnings of organized Masonry on Long Island.
It should not be treated as an uninterrupted predecessor of Jamaica Lodge No. 546.
The lodge that entered the Springfield Gardens lineage received its charter on June 16, 1864, according to the author’s compilation of Grand Lodge records.
Jamaica was then a market center and an important railroad community.
Within months, the new lodge was helping another institution organize.
In September 1864, Jamaica joined Morton Lodge of Hempstead in recommending a dispensation for Cornucopia Lodge in Flushing.
Cornucopia’s published history preserves that assistance.
The relationship gives Jamaica an early place in a wider Queens network.
It does not establish that Cornucopia was Jamaica’s formal subsidiary or that the lodges later shared ownership of a temple.
For the Flushing side of the history, read Cornucopia Lodge No. 563: Borrowed Aprons and the Making of Flushing.
The Lodge That Was Already There
Springfield Gardens’ retrospective history remembers Jamaica as the principal nearby lodge around the beginning of the twentieth century.
That is an institutional recollection, not a surveyed boundary of Jamaica’s jurisdiction.
It nevertheless captures an important relationship.
Before several neighboring communities had lodges of their own, Jamaica offered an established organization, experienced officers and a meeting place.
Its nineteenth-century newspaper notices show the recurring work of that institution.
Master John S. Denton announced degree work and participated in officers’ installations during the late 1880s.
An official visit in 1894 brought District Deputy Townsend Scudder, who later became Grand Master of New York.
Jamaica members also participated in ceremonies beyond their own lodge.
The record shows an institution connected to neighboring lodges rather than operating in isolation.
A Name Across the Years
At the 1902 dedication of Jamaica’s temple, an R.W. John S. Denton acted as Deputy Grand Master in the ceremony.
He may have been the same John S. Denton who had served as Master in the 1880s.
The identification is plausible, but the shared name should not substitute for confirmation.
Likewise, acting in a Grand Lodge ceremonial role should not automatically be described as holding the corresponding elected office.
These distinctions matter when reconstructing careers from short newspaper reports.
The Lease the Police Could Not Ignore
For years, Jamaica Lodge rented the top floor of the old Jamaica Town Hall.
In 1902, after the lodge had moved out, the city planned to turn its former rooms into sleeping quarters for police officers.
The Masons produced their lease.
According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, it still had nearly five years to run.
They had paid the rent and retained the receipt.
The newspaper treated the dispute sharply, but the underlying issue was straightforward: moving out did not necessarily extinguish the lodge’s legal interest in the rooms.
The incident reveals a practical side of institutional continuity.
Before Jamaica had its own temple, its home depended on a lease and the documents supporting it.
A Chapel Remade into a Temple
Jamaica’s next home was an adapted religious building.
Contemporary reports describe the lodge purchasing the Dutch Reformed Church’s old chapel, relocating it to Union Avenue, and remodeling and enlarging it.
Grand Master Elbert Crandall dedicated the temple on October 22, 1902.
The building later received a pipe organ and further alterations.
The [New York City Organ Project’s Jamaica temple record](Masonic Temple - Jamaica (Queens), N.Y.
documents the Möller instrument associated with the property.
Later notices place the temple on 162nd Street, identified in the author’s street-concordance research as the numbered successor to Union Avenue.
That property must not be confused with Cornucopia’s former temple at Northern Boulevard and Union Street in Flushing.
The similar street names belong to different places.
Jamaica’s temple matters here because it gave the lodge a durable setting for its work—and supplied rooms in which other lodges could begin.
Elders and Long Service
In 1916, Jamaica honored twenty-two living Past Masters.
It made them life members, together with twenty-eight brothers who had maintained membership for twenty-five consecutive years.
The newspaper account records fifty recipients across those two described groups.
It does not establish the lodge’s total membership.
The gesture reveals how the institution understood continuity: past leadership and sustained participation deserved formal recognition.
Its dinners also brought public and professional figures into the temple’s social life.
Contemporary coverage names officeholders and local dignitaries among the guests.
Such attendance demonstrates association. It does not establish that the lodge controlled their public decisions or represented the entire community.
The Noble References
The Noble surname appears in accounts of these years.
Daniel Noble was identified with the surrogate’s office. Dr. Herbert Noble was Master in 1917 and participated in the district’s Past Masters organization in 1918.
Their shared surname does not, by itself, establish a family relationship.
The references are useful as individual identifications, not as an inferred genealogy.
A Temple Open to Soldiers
Herbert Noble’s year as Master fell during the First World War.
In November 1917, a notice described the temple opening on Saturday nights for soldiers visiting Jamaica, with women participating and dancing included.
The building was serving a social purpose beyond its regular lodge meetings.
The account should not be expanded into a complete wartime program without additional records.
It does establish that Jamaica’s premises could be put to uses requiring a hall rather than simply a ritual room.
That distinction helps explain the importance of the property to the institution’s public life.
A Ward for Jamaica Hospital
In October 1923, the Brooklyn Daily Times reported a substantial gift to Jamaica Hospital.
On the motion of Past Master E. J. Habighorst, the lodge voted $11,500 toward the hospital’s building campaign.
The report described it as the largest contribution by an organization in that campaign.
That ranking belongs to the contemporary newspaper account and should remain attributed.
The gift supported a six-bed men’s ward bearing the lodge’s name.
Here the evidence goes beyond ceremonial attendance.
It identifies a voted amount, a recipient and a specified purpose.
Hospital campaign records could provide further confirmation of payment and the ward’s later history.
Woodhull: A Lodge Begins Under the Roof
Jamaica continued to assist new lodge formation.
On January 6, 1921, the Brooklyn Daily Times reported that Woodhull Lodge had organized the previous day in Jamaica’s Union Avenue temple.
It called Woodhull “an offshoot of Jamaica Lodge No. 546.”
The new lodge’s chaplain was associated with Jamaica’s First Presbyterian Church.
The report connects a new institution with an existing lodge, an established building and a local congregation.
Woodhull did not need to begin by constructing its own premises.
Its later meeting-place history is traced in Woodhull Lodge No. 982: The Search for a Temple of Its Own.
District Leadership
In 1924, Jamaica member Edward R. Carman became District Deputy Grand Master for Queens.
Newspaper references continue to place him at the head of Jamaica delegations on fraternal visits in the 1930s.
His activity shows another form of institutional reach.
Jamaica supplied not only rooms but members who took responsibility in the wider district.
The Long Middle
Much of the twentieth-century record consists of ordinary lodge work.
There were degree nights, visiting teams, official calls and funerals conducted for members.
In 1935, Springfield Gardens’ Fellowcraft team visited Jamaica to participate in degree work.
The connection preceded the eventual consolidation of their institutional lines by many decades.
Members’ notices identify doctors, real-estate workers and tradesmen.
They also begin placing members outside Jamaica, including Nassau County communities.
These examples document particular occupations and residential moves.
They do not constitute a complete membership survey or explain every later consolidation decision.
A member could leave Jamaica while retaining an affiliation with Jamaica Lodge.
The institution’s practical community was becoming wider than its name.
Woodhull Returns
According to the author’s Grand Lodge compilation, Woodhull merged into Jamaica in 1985.
The institutional relationship described as parent and offshoot in 1921 became a formal union.
That gives the history a return, but not an unchanged circle.
Woodhull had maintained a separate identity for decades.
Its merger did not prove that it had continuously occupied Jamaica’s building throughout that period.
The meeting-place record and the consolidation record answer different questions.
Jamaica-Queens Village No. 546
On April 24, 1998, Jamaica joined the Suburban-Queens Village branch to form Jamaica-Queens Village Lodge No. 546, according to the supplied consolidation research.
The other branch already carried the histories of Queens Village, Suburban and Prosperity lodges.
The combined institution retained Jamaica’s number.
It is therefore more accurate to describe several institutional lines coming together than to say Jamaica simply took back lodges it had founded.
The evidence establishes a direct parent-and-offshoot relationship with Woodhull.
The other predecessor relationships must be described on their own terms.
The wider sequence appears in Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History.
The Number Reaches Rockville Centre
Jamaica-Queens Village later met in Rockville Centre, according to its lodge page identified in the author’s research.
Its own notice continued to claim service “since 1864.”
On July 22, 2013, it entered Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057.
The separate use of No. 546 in this line ended, while its institutional ancestry continued within the receiving lodge.
The span from the 1864 charter to the 2013 consolidation was 149 years.
Those were not 149 years under an unchanged lodge name.
Jamaica and Jamaica-Queens Village were successive identities within that period.
For the continuing institution’s present setting, read Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: A Queens Lodge Outside Queens.
A Mother Lodge, Not the Mother of Every Lodge
Jamaica’s history occupies a long middle in the Springfield Gardens lineage.
It was present before several neighboring lodges organized.
It supported Cornucopia’s application, supplied the setting in which Woodhull began, maintained a temple used by others and contributed members to district leadership.
Those relationships justify describing it as a mother lodge of southeast Queens.
They do not make every later lodge in the area its formal descendant.
The distinctions strengthen the story.
Jamaica’s influence can be traced through particular recommendations, rooms, people and unions rather than through a title assumed to explain them all.
What No. 546 Carried
The lodge’s physical settings changed.
Its early work took place in rented Town Hall rooms.
Its own temple began as a relocated chapel.
Its later combined identity reached Rockville Centre.
The number connected those stages without making them identical.
When Jamaica-Queens Village entered Springfield Gardens in 2013, the separate institution ended.
The lineage did not.
It became part of a continuing lodge whose name points to another Queens neighborhood—and whose meetings now take place beyond the borough.
Sources and Research Notes
Newspaper references follow the author’s supplied clippings and research packet. Direct links are included where identified public sources are available. Unlinked historical citations are preserved rather than assigned speculative URLs.
Earlier Jamaica Masonry and the 1864 Lodge
- [Craftsmen Online, “Huntington No. 26: Long Island’s First Masonic Lodge”](Huntington No. 26: Long Islands First Masonic Lodge
Huntington No. 26: Long Islands First Masonic Lodge A group of men, residing in several towns along the route of George Washington’s tour in 1790, go on to create the first Long Island Masonic Lodge
Eighteenth-century Jamaica lodge context. This is not used to establish uninterrupted continuity into No. 546.
Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy. Jamaica No. 546’s June 16, 1864 charter and later consolidation dates.
Cornucopia Lodge No. 563, “Our History”. Jamaica and Morton’s support for Cornucopia’s dispensation.
Queens Masonic District, history of Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057, as supplied in the author’s research. Retrospective description of Jamaica’s local role around 1900.
Nineteenth-Century Activity and the Temple
Brooklyn Daily Times, September 20, 1887, p. 1; January 5, 1888, p. 1; October 16, 1889, p. 5. Degree work, officers and John S. Denton.
“Official Visit to Jamaica Lodge,” Brooklyn Daily Times, May 2, 1894, p. 3. Townsend Scudder’s district visit.
Grand Lodge historical roster, as identified in the author’s research. Scudder’s later service as Grand Master.
Brooklyn Daily Times, February 16, 1895, p. 3; December 27, 1918, p. 9. Participation in wider fraternal activity.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, dedication report datelined Jamaica, October 23, 1902. Chapel adaptation, temple dedication and ceremonial officers.
“Freemasons Bar Police from Jamaica Town Hall,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 26, 1902, p. 6. Lease dispute.
[New York City Organ Project, Masonic Temple—Jamaica](Masonic Temple - Jamaica (Queens), N.Y.
Masonic Temple - Jamaica (Queens), N.Y.
Temple and organ history.
Service, Membership and District Work
“Past Masters Honored,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 9, 1916, p. 5. Life memberships for Past Masters and long-serving members.
“Jamaica Masons Dine,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 21, 1916, p. 5. Dinner and guests.
The Chat, November 17, 1917; Brooklyn Daily Times, December 27, 1918, p. 9. Herbert Noble, soldiers’ social evenings and district activity.
“Masons Give $11,500 to Jamaica Hospital,” Brooklyn Daily Times, October 25, 1923, p. 6. Voted gift and reported ward purpose.
“New Masonic Lodge Formed at Jamaica,” Brooklyn Daily Times, January 6, 1921, p. 4. Woodhull’s organization and parent-lodge description.
“Made District Deputy,” Brooklyn Eagle, June 11, 1924, p. 25. Edward R. Carman.
Brooklyn Daily Times, April 29, 1932, p. 48. Jamaica delegation.
Times Union, November 24, 1935, p. 5. Springfield Gardens’ visiting Fellowcraft team.
Members’ notices: Brooklyn Eagle, December 3, 1929; Times Union, April 29, 1932, and May 5, 1933; Newsday, October 3, 1961, and December 26, 1967. Occupational and residential examples, not a complete membership survey.
Consolidation and Continuation
Author’s Grand Lodge compilation. Woodhull’s 1985 merger into Jamaica and the April 24, 1998 formation of Jamaica-Queens Village No. 546.
Jamaica-Queens Village Lodge No. 546 website, as identified in the author’s research. “Since 1864” statement, Rockville Centre meeting place and July 22, 2013 consolidation notice.
[Grand Lodge connect, Springfield Gardens No. 1057](Groupable
Groupable
Present receiving institution, Rockville Centre setting and Queens affiliation.
A Note on the Evidence
The eighteenth-century Jamaica lodge and Jamaica No. 546 are treated as separate institutions unless a documented continuity is established.
“Mother lodge” is used descriptively for specific organizing and supportive relationships. It is not a claim that every southeast Queens lodge descended from Jamaica.
Cornucopia’s recommendation, Woodhull’s parent-and-offshoot relationship and later consolidations are different categories of connection.
The John S. Denton identification across the 1880s and 1902 remains provisional.
Shared surnames are not used to infer a relationship between Daniel and Herbert Noble.
The hospital gift’s reported ranking is attributed to contemporary coverage. Hospital records would provide an additional check.
The 149-year span describes the line from the 1864 charter to the 2013 consolidation, including the later Jamaica-Queens Village identity.
Institutional succession does not establish physical custody of every original charter, record or artifact.
Questions for Further Research
- What do Jamaica’s minutes establish about its support for younger lodges?
- Was the John S. Denton who served as Master the same man who participated in the 1902 dedication?
- What was the relationship, if any, between Daniel and Herbert Noble?
- Do hospital records document the payment, naming and later history of the six-bed ward?
- When did Jamaica leave its Union Avenue temple?
- What became of that property?
- When did Jamaica-Queens Village begin meeting in Rockville Centre?
- Where are Jamaica’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 photograph cited above.
Continue the Springfield Gardens Series
The Main Feature
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History
Place Jamaica within the complete consolidation framework.
The Series Overview
Open the Springfield Gardens Lodge series
Find the companion lodge histories, building articles and meeting-place studies.
Jamaica’s Offshoot
Woodhull Lodge No. 982: The Search for a Temple of Its Own
Follow the institution organized in Jamaica’s temple and later merged back into No. 546.
The Continuing Lodge Outside Queens
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: A Queens Lodge Outside Queens
Explore the Rockville Centre meeting place and the distinction between district identity and address.
Related Queens Histories
The Flushing Connection
Cornucopia Lodge No. 563: Borrowed Aprons and the Making of Flushing
Read about the lodge whose dispensation Jamaica helped recommend in 1864.
Another Branch of the Springfield Gardens Lineage
The Hillside Temple in Woodhaven
Explore a later neighborhood lodge’s purpose-built home.
Return to the Springfield Gardens Main Feature · Springfield Gardens Series Overview
Lodge Histories · Masonic Buildings in Queens · Queens History and Freemasonry
