Seven Lodges, Thirty-Three Histories: What the Queens Lineages Reveal

Lodge Lineage

Nov 12

By Brete Murphy · November 10, 2026

Three Manhattan beginnings, six nineteenth-century Queens lodges, twenty-one institutions from the early twentieth century and three postwar additions: the constituent histories behind the Queens District’s seven lodges reveal several generations of organization, cooperation and consolidation.

← Lineage 7: Harmony · The Seven Lodges: Complete Series Guide · Connecting Stories →

Seven lodges make up the Queens District in the November 2026 account used for this series.

Their present names are Advance Service Mizpah, Tadmor, Anchor-Astoria, Francis Lewis, Cornucopia, Springfield Gardens and Harmony.

Behind them, the revised constituent lists identify thirty-three lodge histories.

Some remain visible in present names.

Others survive through a number, a consolidation record, a building or the biographies of their members.

Taken together, they offer a way to read several periods in the development of New York and Queens.

They do not represent every lodge that ever worked in the borough.

Nor do they encompass every Masonic jurisdiction or tradition active in its neighborhoods.

They are the constituent histories of these seven institutions.

That boundary makes the comparison useful—and keeps the count honest.

What Is Being Counted?

This essay counts distinct constituent lodges in the seven revised lineage accounts.

A name change within one continuing institution does not create another constituent.

Oscar Coles and Constitution therefore count as one.

A founding connection does not automatically create an absorbed predecessor.

Atwood belongs to Metropolitan’s origin story, but it is not an additional constituent in the later consolidation sequence examined here.

Likewise, a lodge that supplied visitors or meeting space is not counted as part of another lodge’s consolidation tree merely because it assisted it.

The resulting total is:

Present lodge	Constituent lodge histories
Advance Service Mizpah No. 586	6
Tadmor No. 923	1
Anchor-Astoria No. 729	6
Francis Lewis No. 273	4
Cornucopia No. 563	1
Springfield Gardens No. 1057	9
Harmony No. 241	6
Total	33

This is a working synthesis of the author’s constituent lists.

It is not a count of every physical charter document or warrant issued during their histories.

The individual Grand Lodge records remain the controlling sources.[1]

Three Manhattan Beginnings

Three constituent institutions began in Manhattan during the 1850s:

Oscar Coles No. 241, later Constitution, in 1851.
Metropolitan No. 273 in 1852.
City No. 408 in 1856.

Their meeting-place histories include Lower Manhattan lofts, Odd Fellows’ Hall, Broadway premises and later halls elsewhere in Manhattan.

Those addresses connect institutions that eventually entered different Queens lines.

Metropolitan joined Whitestone in 1972.

City joined Service in 1973.

Constitution joined Maspeth in 1974.[1]

That three-year sequence is a striking institutional connection.

It does not establish that every lodge moved its meetings to Queens on its consolidation date.

Nor does it establish that the members had all moved east generations earlier.

Selected notices identify members living outside Manhattan. Complete residential and attendance histories require more evidence.

The strongest conclusion is institutional: three Manhattan beginnings entered the histories of three present Queens District lodges.

Read Francis Lewis: The Number That Traveled East →

Read Harmony: A Manhattan Number, Six Lodge Histories →

Read Advance Service Mizpah’s Lineage Essay →

Six Lodges Before the Borough

Six constituent lodges began in Queens during the 1860s and 1870s:

Lodge	Charter year in the supplied compilation
Jamaica No. 546	1864
Cornucopia No. 563	1865
Island City No. 586	1866
Advance No. 635	1867
Anchor No. 729	1873
Mizpah No. 738	1873

Their beginnings belong to Queens before the 1898 consolidation of New York City.

They connect Jamaica, Flushing, Hunters Point, Astoria, College Point and Newtown.

Those communities should not be treated as interchangeable examples of an “old village.”

The lodge histories describe different settings: civic centers, waterfront industry, industrial communities and established settlements.

Their relationships also crossed local boundaries.

Jamaica recommended Cornucopia.

Cornucopia visitors assisted Anchor.

Later, Island City shared Mizpah’s Elmhurst temple before their formal consolidation.

The record therefore shows both local identity and practical dependence on institutions elsewhere.[2]

Read Cornucopia: One Charter, Many Connections →

Read The Tuesday Night Visitors: Cornucopia and Anchor →

Twenty-One Early Twentieth-Century Beginnings

The largest group contains twenty-one constituent lodges whose charter or constitution references fall between 1912 and 1931.

Their organizing activity sometimes began earlier.

The group includes:

Richmond Hill and Hillside.
Tadmor.
Geba, Astoria and Prosperity.
Whitestone, Council and Woodhull.
King David and Bayside.
Granite, Service and Dunton.
Cathedral.
Queens Village.
Springfield Gardens.
Suburban, Maspeth and Rufus King.
Wakefield.

Twenty-one of the thirty-three constituent histories fall within this group.

That concentration is the clearest numerical pattern in the series.

It identifies a substantial period of lodge organization, not proof that every neighborhood developed at the same pace.

The individual histories also complicate any single founding formula.

Some lodges grew from clubs.

Some used another lodge’s temple.

Some acquired or constructed buildings.

Others worked in community premises or rooms prepared for each meeting.

Dunton’s clubhouse project preceded its lodge charter.

Queens Village used a Community House.

Wakefield’s early history passed through several hosts.

Suburban, Maspeth and Rufus King shared a constitution ceremony at Tadmor’s temple but later entered different surviving lines.[1][3]

Read Springfield Gardens: Nine Lodge Histories →

Read Tadmor: One Charter, Many Rooms →

Three Postwar Additions

Three constituent lodges belong to the postwar period.

North Shore No. 1149 and Cardozo No. 1150 received their charters on May 4, 1955.

Brandeis No. 1165 followed at Floral Park in 1969.

North Shore and Cardozo later entered Harmony.

Brandeis entered Francis Lewis.[1]

These are the least fully developed institutional histories in the present synthesis.

Their founders, early premises and particular reasons for organizing need further documentation.

Their dates establish another generation of lodge formation.

They do not, by themselves, establish identical relationships with housing development or suburban movement.

Twenty-Five Consolidation Events

The revised lineage accounts list twenty-five consolidation events between 1963 and 2024.

Present line	Consolidation events
Advance Service Mizpah	5
Anchor-Astoria	5
Francis Lewis	3
Springfield Gardens	8
Harmony	4
Tadmor	0
Cornucopia	0
Total	25

Why do twenty-five events reduce thirty-three institutions to seven rather than eight?

Because one event combined three existing bodies.

Harmony’s formation in 1990 brought together Maspeth-Constitution, Cardozo-Rufus-King-David and North Shore.

That event reduced the number of separate bodies by two.

The other listed events combined two bodies into one.[1]

The count describes institutional consolidation.

It does not measure membership loss.

A merger could involve bodies of different sizes, financial conditions and property arrangements.

The reasons for each decision belong in the minutes, accounts and resolutions.

The Buildings Are a Second Record

The property histories cannot simply be read from the merger table.

Island City’s temple passed into federal use.

Cornucopia sold its Flushing temple decades before the building’s demolition.

Hillside’s building acquired a church use.

Tadmor left its Ridgewood premises while continuing independently.

Those are different sequences.

Tenancy, sale, relocation, demolition and consolidation are not interchangeable events.[2]

The present arrangement is clearer.

Under the author’s November 2026 account:

Meeting place	Lodges in this seven-lodge set
Advance Masonic Temple, Astoria	Advance Service Mizpah and Tadmor
Anchor-Astoria temple, College Point	Anchor-Astoria, Cornucopia, Harmony and Francis Lewis
Scottish Rite premises, Rockville Centre	Springfield Gardens

Six of the seven therefore meet in two Queens buildings.

The seventh meets in Nassau County while remaining within the Queens District account used here.[4]

This table describes the seven-lodge set.

It is not a complete inventory of every lodge or Masonic body using those buildings.

Two Kinds of Continuity

Consolidation is only one way an institution can continue.

Tadmor and Cornucopia retained their separate identities while changing premises.

The other five present lodges incorporated additional institutions through consolidation.

Both patterns belong in the capstone.

Without that distinction, the whole story would become an inevitable progression from many lodges to fewer lodges.

The histories show choices and arrangements, not one uniform mechanism.

An institution could sell a building without consolidating.

It could share a temple without surrendering its identity.

It could retain an old number while adopting a new name.

Continuity had more than one form.

The Connections Beyond the Family Trees

Some of the most revealing relationships do not appear in a merger diagram.

Arthur E. Wenige’s firm supplied Advance with lodge-room plans previously used at Hillside.

Edward J. Smith performed duties connected with the beginnings of several lodges.

Charles W. Froessel assisted at ceremonies that brought new institutions into being.

Tadmor’s temple hosted constitutions for lodges that later entered Harmony, Springfield Gardens and Anchor-Astoria.

These relationships show why the connecting-story series belongs beside the lineage essays.

The consolidation tree records what combined.

The connecting stories record how institutions worked together while remaining separate.

Read The Engineer’s Room →

Read Edward J. Smith: Mr. Mason of Queens →

Read Charles W. Froessel →

What the Whole Set Reveals

The thirty-three constituent histories reveal several patterns.

Their beginnings are concentrated in the early twentieth century.

Their geographical reach extends from Manhattan across Queens and toward Nassau.

Their later histories include substantial consolidation.

Their continuity repeatedly depended on access to shared premises and assistance from people outside their own membership.

What the set does not yet establish is equally important.

It does not identify the peak number of lodges in Queens.

It does not measure the residential movement of the whole membership.

It does not explain every consolidation or property sale.

Those questions require further records.

The capstone’s contribution is narrower and more durable.

Seven present institutions preserve thirty-three constituent histories.

Read together, those histories show not only how lodges began and combined, but how a network of people and places allowed them to continue.

Endnotes

1. Constituent and Consolidation Counts

The seven lineage essays and their underlying Grand Lodge compilations by Brete Murphy.

The working constituent total is:

6 + 1 + 6 + 4 + 1 + 9 + 6 = 33.

The consolidation-event total is:

5 + 0 + 5 + 3 + 0 + 8 + 4 = 25.

Harmony’s final three-body consolidation accounts for the additional reduction needed to bring thirty-three constituent institutions to seven.

Atwood is treated as an antecedent to Metropolitan, not an additional absorbed constituent.

Oscar Coles and Constitution count as one continuing institution.

The counts remain subject to final checking against the controlling records.

2. Institutional and Property Histories

The author’s lodge and temple articles across the seven series.

Property events are distinguished from institutional consolidations.

The individual articles should retain the precise evidence for tenancy, sale, departure, change of use and demolition.

A later building use does not establish when the lodge stopped meeting there.

3. The Early Twentieth-Century Group

The author’s charter compilations and individual lodge histories.

Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4, 1925.

Brooklyn Eagle and Brooklyn Daily Times, May 1928.

These sources provide context for the period’s lodge organization and the Tadmor constitution ceremony.

The twenty-one-lodge grouping combines charter and constitution references from the individual histories; it is not a claim that all twenty-one began organizing on their charter dates.

4. Present Meeting Places

Brete Murphy, November 2026 account, and the lodge listings cited in the individual series.

Supports the present distribution of the seven lodges across Astoria, College Point and Rockville Centre.

The date of Francis Lewis’s arrival in College Point remains unresolved.

5. Excluded Ridgewood Lodge

Ridgewood Lodge No. 710 of Brooklyn is not included.

The author’s correction, based on Grand Lodge records, supersedes its earlier inclusion drawn from a 2014 Landmarks Preservation Commission release.

Its separate consolidation history does not belong to the seven constituent lines examined here.

6. Scope and Limits

This is a synthesis of the seven present Queens District lodges identified in the supplied account.

It is not a complete history of Freemasonry in Queens.

It does not encompass all Prince Hall institutions or every other Masonic body active in the borough.

General histories of transportation, housing and demographic change provide context but do not establish lodge-specific motives.

Questions for Further Research

Can every constituent and consolidation be checked against the controlling Grand Lodge record?
What was the peak number of lodges in Queens, and when?
How did district boundaries change?
What do membership returns show at each consolidation?
When did Francis Lewis begin meeting in College Point?
When did Springfield Gardens begin meeting in Rockville Centre?
Which records explain each relocation and property sale?
How should ceremonial venues, regular premises and owned temples be distinguished on a companion map?

Read the Seven Lineage Essays

Explore the Connecting Stories