Queens History and Freemasonry / Springfield Gardens Series / Prosperity Lodge No. 962
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 · Companion: The Hillside Temple
Prosperity began meeting in Hillside’s Woodhaven temple in 1920 with the expectation of acquiring a home of its own. The available record instead follows shared rooms, crowded social events and ritual work carried to other Queens lodges.
November 10, 2026 · By Brete Murphy
A Lodge Inside Another Lodge’s Temple
On May 26, 1920, Prosperity Lodge assembled at the Hillside Masonic Temple on Willard Avenue in Woodhaven.
The next day, the Brooklyn Daily Times reported its institution.
The newspaper said the two lodges would share the building “until Prosperity acquires a temple of its own.”
The author’s compilation of Grand Lodge records gives May 6, 1920, as Prosperity’s charter date.
Those dates should remain distinct.
The charter grant preceded the ceremony described by the newspaper. The exact formal designation of that later event requires comparison with the original Grand Lodge record rather than an assumption that one date must be wrong.
The building was already an established Masonic home.
Hillside had begun constructing it in 1913, and its own membership had grown rapidly.
That summer, Hillside was preparing to enlarge the premises.
Prosperity’s appearance therefore coincided with growth in Woodhaven’s Masonic activity.
It does not, by itself, prove that Hillside’s membership created Prosperity or that the neighborhood could support only one building.
The Temple of Its Own
The 1920 report anticipated a future Prosperity temple.
No such acquisition or construction has been identified in the research assembled here.
Later notices continue to place Prosperity at Hillside’s building.
A January 1925 district schedule lists both lodges at the Masonic Temple on 96th Street.
A February 1926 notice gives Prosperity’s venue as Hillside Temple, 86-03 96th Street.
Those references establish shared use several years after the opening ceremony.
They do not establish the complete duration, rental terms or every later meeting address.
The absence of an identified property should not become an absolute claim that Prosperity never owned real estate.
What can be said is that the surviving evidence makes its institutional life visible without requiring a temple of its own.
The building history appears in The Hillside Temple in Woodhaven.
For the host institution, read Hillside Lodge No. 894: The Woodhaven Lodge That Outgrew Its Temple.
A Social Calendar Beyond the Meeting Room
Prosperity developed an active calendar.
In November 1921, it held a ladies’ night in Hillside’s lodge room.
The report described members and their wives gathering for professional entertainment before moving on to refreshments.
The occasion used the shared temple for more than formal degree work.
Prosperity’s Craftsmen’s Club also organized entertainments and novelty dances at Trommer’s Hall.
The fourth annual event, held in October 1923, reportedly filled the hall to capacity.
The numbering suggests an established sequence of club events, but it should not be used alone to assign dates or attendance figures to earlier occasions.
By 1928, another notice placed a ladies’ night at Triangle Hall in Richmond Hill.
The lodge’s social geography extended beyond its regular meeting place.
Its identity did not depend on every activity occurring under one roof.
An Associated Eastern Star Chapter
Prosperity Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star, was instituted in April 1921 at Arcanum Hall on Jamaica Avenue.
It was a separate organization, not an additional name for Prosperity Lodge.
Its appearance adds to the wider network of people and events associated with the lodge’s early years.
The chapter’s full membership, relationship to particular lodge activities and later history require their own records.
The distinction matters: affiliated social circles can overlap without becoming one institution.
A Degree Team on the Road
Prosperity’s activity was not limited to entertainment.
Its members also carried ritual work to other lodges.
In March 1923, a Fellowcraft team led by Master John C. Holsten traveled to participate in third-degree work at Woodhull Lodge’s Queens Masters’ Night.
The notice connects Prosperity’s working team with another institution, rather than simply recording attendance at a dinner.
Read Woodhull Lodge No. 982: The Search for a Temple of Its Own.
Illustrated Lectures
Prosperity members also supplied lectures.
In 1925, Frederick Jones presented the Entered Apprentice lecture with illustrations at Astoria Lodge.
The following year, Past Master William P. Mellen took a first-degree lecture with stereopticon slides to Dunton Lodge on Van Wyck Avenue.
These notices show a practical exchange of prepared work.
The visiting lecturer and team supplied knowledge and performance to another lodge’s meeting.
They also kept Prosperity connected to institutions outside Woodhaven.
For Dunton’s setting, read Dunton Masonic Temple: A Clubhouse Before a Lodge.
For Astoria’s later institutional history, see Anchor-Astoria Lodge No. 729: Two Villages, One Number.
Recognition Beyond Woodhaven
In 1923, Grand Master Arthur S. Tompkins appointed Prosperity member Edward L. Hein a Grand Steward.
The Chat placed the appointment on its front page.
The item establishes both the honor and its local visibility.
It does not supply a complete account of Hein’s Masonic career or prove that Prosperity had a particular standing relative to every neighboring lodge.
The broader pattern is nevertheless clear.
Prosperity’s members appeared elsewhere as lecturers, degree workers and Grand Lodge appointees.
The institution’s reach was not confined to the building in which it met.
Who Belonged
Death notices supply examples of members’ working and civic lives.
The research includes a food-products salesman born in York, Pennsylvania; a church musical director associated with Republican committee work; and a Woodhaven member active in the American Legion.
These are individual cases, not a complete portrait of Prosperity’s membership.
They should not be used to assume that every member shared the same occupation, politics or household circumstances.
Later notices identify members in Seaford, Massapequa and Hicksville.
Those references establish continued affiliation after relocation.
They do not explain the motives for every move or provide a numerical account of the lodge’s contraction.
Membership registers, annual returns and minutes would give a firmer basis for tracing those changes.
Into the Suburban-Queens Village Branch
According to the author’s Grand Lodge compilation, Prosperity joined Suburban-Queens Village Lodge in 1984.
That combined institution had been formed in 1981 from Queens Village Lodge No. 1046 and Suburban Lodge No. 1087.
The relationship brought together histories with different meeting-place backgrounds.
Prosperity had used Hillside’s Woodhaven temple.
Queens Village had used rooms in its Community House.
Suburban had met at Tadmor’s temple in Ridgewood.
Shared premises were therefore not incidental to the branch’s history.
Several predecessors had maintained institutional identities inside buildings associated with other organizations.
For Suburban’s setting, read Tadmor’s Two Masonic Temples: From Fresh Pond Road to Summerfield Street.
The Number That Needs Checking
The supplied Grand Lodge transcription gives the combined institution No. 962 after Prosperity joined in 1984.
It gives No. 1046 when the branch joined Jamaica in 1998.
The discrepancy should remain visible until the original records resolve it.
It should not be repaired by silently choosing whichever number makes the narrative simpler.
The broader route is established in the supplied research even while that intermediate designation remains uncertain.
From Jamaica-Queens Village to Springfield Gardens
On April 24, 1998, Jamaica and the Suburban-Queens Village branch combined as Jamaica-Queens Village Lodge No. 546.
Prosperity’s institutional history entered that body through the earlier union.
Jamaica-Queens Village then entered Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057 on July 22, 2013, according to the supplied consolidation research.
Prosperity’s route was therefore indirect:
Prosperity
→ the Suburban-Queens Village branch
→ Jamaica-Queens Village
→ Springfield Gardens
The sequence does not mean Prosperity remained separately active after its consolidation.
It describes institutional succession.
Read Jamaica-Queens Village Lodge No. 546: Keeping the 1864 Number.
The full framework appears in Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History.
What Prosperity Built
The first newspaper report anticipated a temple of Prosperity’s own.
The research assembled here has not found one.
It has found something else: a lodge using shared rooms, filling outside halls for social events and sending prepared teams and lecturers across Queens.
That is not evidence of institutional failure.
Nor does it prove that ownership was considered unnecessary by the members themselves.
It shows that the lodge’s visible achievements were not confined to real estate.
Prosperity built a calendar, a working team and relationships with other institutions.
Those were portable forms of organization.
Its later lineage continued after the separate name ended.
Sources and Research Notes
Newspaper references follow the author’s supplied clippings. Direct article URLs were not provided, so publication names and dates are preserved rather than assigned speculative links.
Formation and Meeting Place
“Prosperity Lodge, F. and A.M., Instituted at Woodhaven,” Brooklyn Daily Times, May 27, 1920, p. 3. May 26 ceremony and anticipated use of Hillside’s temple until Prosperity acquired its own.
Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy. May 6, 1920 charter and later consolidation sequence.
Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4, 1925. District schedule placing Hillside and Prosperity at the Masonic Temple on 96th Street.
“Prosperity Lodge Is to Confer 3rd Degree,” The Chat, February 13, 1926, p. 13. Hillside Temple address.
“Enlarge Hillside Temple,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 30, 1920. Hillside membership and building expansion. Context for the shared premises, not proof of Prosperity’s founding motives.
Social Activity
“Ladies’ Night at Prosperity Lodge,” The Chat, November 26, 1921, p. 22. Entertainment and refreshments at Hillside’s lodge room.
“Entertainment a Success,” Brooklyn Eagle, October 28, 1923, p. 32. Craftsmen’s Club event at Trommer’s Hall.
Brooklyn Eagle, September 20, 1928, p. 28. Triangle Hall event.
“Prosperity Chapter, U.D., Instituted,” The Chat, April 9, 1921, p. 21. Eastern Star chapter at Arcanum Hall.
Traveling Work and Recognition
The Chat, March 10, 1923, p. 37. Prosperity’s Fellowcraft team and Woodhull’s Queens Masters’ Night.
Brooklyn Daily Times, February 1, 1925, p. 9. Frederick Jones’s illustrated lecture at Astoria.
Brooklyn Eagle, February 20, 1926, p. 19. William P. Mellen’s stereopticon lecture at Dunton.
“E. L. Hein, of Woodhaven, Honored by the Masons,” The Chat, June 9, 1923, p. 1. Grand Steward appointment.
Members and Later Lineage
Times Union, October 10, 1932, and February 20, 1935; Brooklyn Eagle, January 26, 1942. Occupational and civic examples.
Newsday, February 5–6, 1957; October 15, 1966; March 4, 1971. Members’ residences and continued affiliations.
Author’s Grand Lodge compilation and Springfield Gardens lineage dossier. Prosperity’s 1984 union, the 1998 formation of Jamaica-Queens Village and the 2013 consolidation into Springfield Gardens.
[Grand Lodge connect, Springfield Gardens No. 1057](Groupable
Groupable
Present receiving institution and Queens affiliation. The current listing is not treated as independent confirmation of every earlier merger detail.
A Note on the Evidence
The May 6 charter date and May 26 ceremony are preserved as different milestones. Their precise formal relationship requires comparison with the original Grand Lodge record.
The 1920 newspaper’s expectation that Prosperity would acquire a temple is not evidence that it did so.
No Prosperity-owned property has been identified in the research presented here. That is not proof that none ever existed.
Hillside’s growth and Prosperity’s beginnings coincided. The evidence does not establish a direct membership split or a complete economic explanation for sharing the temple.
Prosperity Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star, is treated as a separate organization.
Members’ later addresses do not, by themselves, explain the 1984 consolidation.
The intermediate number following that union remains unresolved in the supplied transcription.
Institutional succession does not establish the physical location of every original charter, minute book or artifact.
Questions for Further Research
- Who were Prosperity’s founders and charter members?
- What do the Grand Lodge proceedings call the May 26, 1920 ceremony?
- Was a building committee, property purchase or temple fund ever organized?
- How long did Prosperity regularly meet at Hillside?
- What were the occupancy terms?
- Where did it meet in its later independent years?
- Do the Craftsmen’s Club or Eastern Star chapter records survive?
- What do annual returns show about membership?
- Which number did the combined lodge officially use after the 1984 union?
- Where are Prosperity’s surviving records and 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 or unidentified property record.
Continue the Springfield Gardens Series
The Main Feature
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History
Place Prosperity 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.
The Shared Woodhaven Building
The Hillside Temple in Woodhaven
Explore the premises where Prosperity began and later met.
The Host Institution
Hillside Lodge No. 894: The Woodhaven Lodge That Outgrew Its Temple
Follow the separate history of the lodge that shared its building.
The Later Combined Lodge
Jamaica-Queens Village Lodge No. 546: Keeping the 1864 Number
Trace the institution through which Prosperity’s lineage entered Springfield Gardens.
Related Meeting Places
Woodhull’s Rooms
Woodhull Lodge No. 982: The Search for a Temple of Its Own
Explore another lodge connected with Prosperity’s traveling work.
Dunton’s Clubhouse
Dunton Masonic Temple: A Clubhouse Before a Lodge
Discover the Van Wyck Boulevard setting visited by Prosperity’s lecturer.
Return to the Springfield Gardens Main Feature · Springfield Gardens Series Overview · Read the Hillside Temple History
Lodge Histories · Masonic Buildings in Queens · Queens History and Freemasonry
