By Brete Murphy · November 11, 2026
The Seven Lodges · Connecting Stories 18
Queens lodges shared rooms, sent degree teams, supplied plans and borrowed one another’s experience. These everyday arrangements reveal a working network long before later consolidations brought many of their charters together.
The Seven Lodges: Series Guide · Connecting Stories · Queens History Blog
On August 26, 1914, a district deputy set a new lodge from Ridgewood to work under dispensation. According to the lodge’s own history, published more than thirty years later, the ceremony took place in Woodhaven, in the temple Hillside Lodge had opened that January.[1]
Tadmor did not yet have a hall of its own. Hillside’s new room was available for its beginning.
That arrangement was one of many. During the following decades, Queens lodges provided meeting places, sent teams to confer degrees, shared architectural work and called on experienced men from neighboring lodges.
Collected in one place, these episodes reveal a practical network that crossed lodge boundaries. It existed long before the consolidations that reshaped the borough’s Masonic map.
More Lodges, Shared Resources
The charter count compiled for this series places twenty-one constituent charters between 1911 and 1931.[2]
Every new lodge needed suitable premises, officers familiar with the work and members able to take part in degree ceremonies. A separate charter did not immediately supply all those resources.
Established lodges could help.
The habit predated the twentieth-century boom. Cornucopia’s anniversary history records that the lodge began in 1864 with regalia and bylaws borrowed from Keystone. Anchor’s later history describes three Cornucopia brothers traveling to College Point on Tuesday nights to assist with its work in the 1870s.[3]
These were distinct institutions, but they did not have to operate in isolation.
Read The Tuesday Night Visitors: Cornucopia and Anchor →
Rooms
One of the most consequential forms of help was access to a room.
Tadmor’s anniversary account places its 1914 institution at Hillside. In May 1920, Prosperity was also instituted in Woodhaven, at Hillside’s temple, which became its meeting place.[1][4]
Advance’s temple housed Astoria’s first meetings in 1919. King David subsequently used the building from 1922 to 1934.[5]
Tadmor became a host in turn. Its first Fresh Pond Road temple accommodated Granite, the lodge organized by members who had belonged to Tadmor.[1]
Its second temple extended that role. Maspeth, Rufus King and Suburban were constituted there in May 1928. Suburban remained associated with the building for decades, with a meeting reference still appearing in 1955.[6]
Wakefield’s early history passed through several other lodges’ rooms. It was instituted in Cathedral’s premises over a Liberty Avenue theater in 1930, constituted at Tadmor in 1931 and meeting at Richmond Hill’s temple by 1936.[7]
These episodes establish shared use. They do not, by themselves, establish whether rooms were provided free, rented at a favorable rate or occupied under an ordinary tenancy.
Read Hillside Masonic Temple →
Read One Hall in Ridgewood: Tadmor’s Shared Temple →
Degree Teams
A room was only part of what a lodge needed. Degree ceremonies also required practiced participants.
In March 1923, Prosperity’s Fellowcraft team went to Elmhurst to exemplify a degree at Geba.[8]
In May 1925, Hillside’s Fellowcraft team traveled to Ridgewood to take part in the third degree at Tadmor. That same month, masters from other Queens lodges filled Tadmor’s chairs for another degree ceremony.[9][10]
In November 1926, King David held a degree in the Flushing temple with Council’s team performing the dramatic work.[11]
A Brooklyn lodge’s Fellowcraft team visited Tadmor’s temple in 1929 to work the third degree for Suburban.[6]
The exchange could also serve as a test of readiness. Wakefield’s anniversary book records that its prospective officers exemplified all three degrees before Cathedral in June 1930.[7]
Not every visit proves that the receiving lodge lacked capable officers. Some may have been demonstrations, special occasions or expressions of fellowship. What the notices establish is that ritual work regularly crossed institutional boundaries.
Plans, Gifts and Recognition
Some assistance took a material form.
Granite gave the pipe organ for Tadmor’s new temple in 1926. A lodge that had shared Tadmor’s earlier premises was contributing to its new home.[12]
Architect Arthur E. Wenige’s firm supplied Advance with lodge-room plans previously drawn for Hillside, at what Advance’s records describe as a reasonable rate. The account places this assistance in 1915, when Advance was having difficulty securing an architect.[13]
That was not necessarily a gift, but it was a useful transfer of experience.
Other presentations recognized service. In 1923, Geba made Richmond Hill’s Hugh I. DeGroot, the district deputy, an honorary member and presented him with a framed certificate and a gold watch.[8]
These transactions were different in kind: a donated instrument, professional work supplied on accommodating terms and a ceremonial expression of thanks. Together, they show several ways lodges acknowledged and supported one another.
Read Arthur E. Wenige: The Engineer’s Room →
Experienced Men
The network also depended on people whose work extended beyond their own lodge.
Thomas J. Towers of Richmond Hill delivered a historical lecture at Tadmor in 1925.[14]
Edward J. Smith of Tadmor appears at several institutional beginnings. He led Tadmor’s delegation to Geba’s institution, presented Astoria’s dispensation and served in ceremonial offices at Wakefield’s institution and constitution.[7][15]
These were roles at particular events, not evidence that he held the corresponding permanent Grand Lodge offices.
In the 1950s, Frank P. Bennett served as tyler for Rufus King, Queens Village and Council.[15]
His service illustrates the sharing of an experienced officer. It does not, without separate membership records, establish that he belonged to all three lodges.
Read Thomas J. Towers and the Queens Masonic Association →
Read Edward J. Smith: Mr. Mason of Queens →
The Connections, in Order
| Date | Provider or participant | Receiving lodge or lodges | Documented connection |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1864 | Keystone | Cornucopia | Borrowed regalia and bylaws.[3] |
| 1870s | Three Cornucopia brothers | Anchor | Tuesday-night assistance with lodge work.[3] |
| 1914 | Hillside | Tadmor | Premises for its institution, according to Tadmor’s 1946 history.[1] |
| 1915 | Wenige’s firm | Advance | Lodge-room plans previously prepared for Hillside, supplied at a reasonable rate.[13] |
| 1919 | Advance | Astoria | Premises for its first meetings.[5] |
| 1920 | Hillside | Prosperity | Premises for institution and subsequent meetings.[4] |
| 1922–1934 | Advance | King David | Meeting premises.[5] |
| Early 1920s | Tadmor | Granite | Use of Tadmor’s first temple.[1] |
| 1923 | Prosperity | Geba | Visiting Fellowcraft team.[8] |
| 1925 | Thomas J. Towers of Richmond Hill | Tadmor | Historical lecture.[14] |
| 1925 | Hillside | Tadmor | Visiting Fellowcraft team.[9] |
| 1925 | Masters of other Queens lodges | Tadmor | Officers’ chairs filled for a degree ceremony.[10] |
| 1926 | Council | King David | Visiting degree team.[11] |
| 1926 | Granite | Tadmor | Pipe organ for the new temple.[12] |
| 1928 | Tadmor | Maspeth, Rufus King and Suburban | Premises for constitution; Suburban continued meeting there for decades.[6] |
| 1929 | A Brooklyn lodge’s Fellowcraft team | Suburban | Third-degree work at Tadmor’s temple.[6] |
| 1930 | Cathedral | Wakefield | Premises for institution and an earlier exemplification of the degrees.[7] |
| 1931 | Tadmor | Wakefield | Premises for constitution.[7] |
| By 1936 | Richmond Hill | Wakefield | Meeting premises.[7] |
| 1950s | Frank P. Bennett | Rufus King, Queens Village and Council | Service as tyler.[15] |
What the Connections Built
Read down the table and the modern lineages repeatedly intersect.
Hillside, Prosperity and Council belong to the Springfield Gardens line. Advance and Geba belong to Advance Service Mizpah. Astoria, Granite, Cathedral, Richmond Hill and Wakefield belong to Anchor-Astoria’s history.
King David, Maspeth and Rufus King belong to Harmony’s line. Cornucopia and Tadmor retain their separate identities.[16]
The later consolidations did not create every relationship from nothing. Some joined lodges that had already shared premises, ceremonies and experienced officers.
Wakefield, for example, later combined with Richmond Hill, whose temple it had used.
These earlier connections provide context for consolidation. They do not prove that mergers were easy, inevitable or caused by the favors recorded here. The decisions of later decades require their own evidence.
What the earlier record does show is a habit of cooperation across separate charters.
Explore Springfield Gardens’ Nine-Lodge Lineage →
Still Lending Rooms
The arrangement has outlived the building boom.
According to the author’s November 2026 confirmations, Cornucopia and Harmony meet at Anchor-Astoria’s College Point temple, while Tadmor meets at the Advance temple in Astoria.[16]
Advance’s building carries another connection: its lodge-room plans followed work originally prepared for Hillside, where Tadmor’s own anniversary history places its beginning.[1][13]
More than a century after that first Woodhaven meeting, separate lodges are still making use of one another’s rooms.
Read Where the Lines Meet: The College Point Temple →
Source Notes
The references below follow the manuscript and the author’s research compilation. Newspaper details and institutional claims have not been independently verified for this revision. Direct clipping links were not supplied.
1. Tadmor’s Beginning and Granite’s Early Premises
Ridgewood Times, June 14, 1946: Tadmor’s anniversary history, placing its institution on August 26, 1914, at Hillside’s temple.
Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4 and June 14, 1925: Granite references at Tadmor’s first temple.
The Hillside location for Tadmor’s institution rests here on a retrospective account, not a contemporary 1914 report.
2. The Charter Count
The author’s Lineage 8 essay, “Thirty-Four Charters.”
The count of twenty-one refers to the constituent charters dated 1911–1931 within this series. It is not a count of every lodge chartered in Queens during those years.
3. Cornucopia, Keystone and Anchor
Cornucopia Lodge No. 563, 1940 anniversary program.
Anchor-Astoria history quoting Anchor’s Golden Jubilee booklet.
See The Tuesday Night Visitors.
4. Prosperity at Hillside
Brooklyn Daily Times, May 27, 1920: Prosperity’s institution at Woodhaven.
See the Hillside lodge research and Hillside Masonic Temple.
5. Astoria and King David at Advance
Anchor-Astoria history: Astoria’s first meeting, June 27, 1919.
The author’s King David lodge article: occupancy at Advance from 1922 to 1934.
See Connecting Stories 2 and 13 in the Connecting Stories guide.
6. Tadmor’s Second Temple and Suburban
Brooklyn Eagle, May 20 and 21, 1928; April 21, 1929.
Daily News, September 21, 1955.
The 1955 reference establishes continued association with the building; it does not supply Suburban’s eventual departure date.
7. Wakefield’s Early History
Wakefield Lodge No. 1110, tenth-anniversary book, 1940.
Supports the Cathedral, Tadmor and Richmond Hill premises sequence, the degree exemplification and Smith’s ceremonial roles.
See Wakefield’s Founders and Connecting Stories 10.
8. Prosperity at Geba and the DeGroot Presentation
The author’s Geba Lodge No. 954 article and its underlying March 1923 references.
Supports Prosperity’s visiting team and Geba’s recognition of Hugh I. DeGroot.
9. Hillside’s Team at Tadmor
The Chat, May 9, 1925.
Identifies Hillside’s Fellowcraft team at Tadmor.
10. Visiting Masters at Tadmor
The author’s Geba article, including Kaplan’s service as senior deacon in the May 1925 masters’ lineup.
See Connecting Stories 16.
11. Council’s Team at King David
Brooklyn Daily Times, November 14, 1926, page 28.
The manuscript’s preliminary notes also named the Brooklyn Eagle, November 30, 1926, among the strongest references. That issue is assigned to the organ presentation below, not substituted for this degree-team notice.
12. Granite’s Pipe Organ
Brooklyn Eagle, November 30, 1926.
Identifies Granite’s contribution to Tadmor’s new temple.
13. Wenige’s Plans for Advance
Records of Advance Lodge No. 635, as summarized by Brete Murphy.
The plans were supplied at a reasonable rate; the account does not establish an outright donation.
See Arthur E. Wenige: The Engineer’s Room.
14. Towers at Tadmor
Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4, 1925.
See Thomas J. Towers and the Queens Masonic Association.
15. Smith and Bennett
Brooklyn Eagle, June 8, 1919: Smith at Geba.
Anchor-Astoria history: Smith at Astoria.
Brooklyn Eagle, September 28, 1954: Bennett’s service as tyler.
Smith’s Wakefield roles follow the anniversary book listed in Note 7.
See Edward J. Smith: Mr. Mason of Queens.
16. Consolidations and Present Meeting Places
Grand Lodge of New York records as compiled by Brete Murphy.
The series guide and the author’s confirmations of meeting places, November 2026.
Present meeting arrangements are attributed to those confirmations rather than to a fresh check of lodge schedules.
Questions Still Open
- Can a contemporary 1914 notice confirm Tadmor’s institution at Hillside?
- Which room arrangements were rentals, reduced-rate tenancies or courtesy use?
- What other degree-team visits appear in lodge columns between 1915 and 1935?
- Do lodge minutes record requests that were declined?
- Can treasurers’ reports clarify payments for visiting teams, architectural work or shared premises?
The surviving examples show cooperation. They do not yet provide a complete account of its costs, limits or frequency.
The Seven Lodges: Series Guide · Connecting Stories
Springfield Gardens: Start Here · The College Point Temple · Queens History Blog
