Queens History and Freemasonry / Springfield Gardens Series / Queens Village Lodge No. 1046
November 10, 2026 · By Brete Murphy
Chartered the year after its neighborhood adopted the name Queens Village, Lodge No. 1046 found a home in the community’s own civic house. Its story connects shared rooms, neighborhood service and a succession of mergers that eventually carried its institutional line into Springfield Gardens.
Series Overview · Main Feature: Nine Lodges, One Living History · Companion: Queens Village Community House
A Lodge for a Newly Named Neighborhood
Before it was Queens Village, the neighborhood was simply “Queens.”
Earlier names included Little Plains and Brushville. The name Queens, adopted in 1856, created an obvious opportunity for confusion with the larger county.
According to the Queens Village Republican Club’s historical sketch, local voters added “Village” in 1924. Forgotten New York also associates that year with the neighborhood’s elevated railroad station and its fuller name.12
Within a year, the community had a Masonic lodge bearing that name.
Grand Lodge records, as compiled by Brete Murphy, date the charter of Queens Village Lodge No. 1046 to May 6, 1925.3
A dealer’s listing for a twenty-fifth-anniversary roster booklet identifies its commemorative span as 1925–1950. The booklet itself has not been examined for this article.4
The lodge entered a neighborhood already accustomed to organizing.
At a 1926 anniversary dinner of the Citizens’ Association of Queens and Bellaire, a state senator remarked that some thirty-five organizations were working in the territory. The newspaper account described representation from practically all of them.5
Queens Village Lodge became another institution in that crowded civic landscape. Its history would unfold not in an isolated Masonic building, but in rooms within the community’s own meeting house.
Rooms in the Community House
The surviving notices place Queens Village Lodge in the Queens Village Community House during the 1920s and 1930s.
A 1927 notice located the building on Jamaica Avenue at 214th Street. A 1935 account gave Jamaica Avenue and 215th Place.67
Those descriptions should be retained as reported rather than silently reduced to one precise address. Property records, directories or a contemporary map would help reconcile them.
The Community House supplied a lodge room for stated communications and degree work. In February 1928, the lodge announced a special communication for the second, or Fellowcraft, degree.8
The building also accommodated its social calendar.
A spring entertainment and dance in 1927 promised professional talent and a door prize. A ladies’ night in 1935 reportedly drew more than a hundred people.67
These notices document a lodge using shared civic space for both its formal work and its social life. They do not establish uninterrupted occupancy throughout the lodge’s entire independent existence.
The building has its own companion article: Queens Village Community House.
A Neighborhood Lodge at Work
Queens Village’s activities extended beyond its own meeting room.
In January 1927, Master Guy F. Helms presented the working tools during a Fellowcraft degree at Kings County Lodge in Brooklyn.9
The visit connected a relatively new Queens lodge with the wider fraternity. It also illustrates how officers could participate in another lodge’s ceremonies without changing their own affiliations.
The following year, Queens Village planned a George Washington’s Birthday program, along with a dance and reception.8
In November 1934, members took part in “Go to Church Sunday.” They marched with Master Walter Sprake to Queens Baptist Church, where the announced sermon was “Religion Calls for Men Today.”10
The 1927 notices also listed committee assignments extending to approximately twenty names.6
Together, these reports show several kinds of participation: ritual visits, public observances, entertainment and the committee work needed to keep a lodge’s calendar running.
They do not supply a complete membership count, but they reveal more than a list of officers alone would show.
Members and Their Working Lives
Individual notices give the institution a more personal scale.
Ernest Grant Manning was a civil engineer who worked on plans in the city’s Queens topographical bureau. His obituary also described a long residence in Queens Village. The date of that clipping remains to be confirmed from the research packet.11
Frank P. Bennett connected several lodges through a different kind of service.
His 1954 death notice identified him as Tyler for three lodges: Queens Village, Council Lodge in Richmond Hill and Rufus King Lodge in Jamaica.12
Bennett’s overlapping appointments offer a useful reminder that the lodges in this series were not sealed-off institutions. The same individuals could serve more than one body and help sustain connections across neighborhoods.
Council’s institutional history appears in Council Lodge No. 979 and Council-Hillside: Two Histories, One Number.
Membership Beyond the Neighborhood
Later notices place Queens Village members well beyond the neighborhood whose name they carried.
Past Master Howard Kuntz’s 2017 obituary credited him with sixty-eight years of membership. His later homes included Farmingdale and Homosassa, Florida.
Other notices in the research packet associate members with Kingston, Brewster and Garden City Park.13
These accounts show that a local affiliation could survive a change of address.
They do not establish how frequently distant members attended, how the lodge’s membership changed from year to year or why it ultimately consolidated.
For those questions, annual returns, minutes and correspondence would be more revealing than obituaries alone.
The Consolidation Years
According to the author’s compilation of Grand Lodge records, Queens Village’s independent institutional history ended in a series of consolidations.3
1981: Suburban-Queens Village
On March 27, 1981, Queens Village Lodge No. 1046 consolidated with Suburban Lodge No. 1087, associated with Ridgewood.
The resulting lodge became Suburban-Queens Village Lodge and retained No. 1046.
Queens Village’s name and number therefore continued, although the institution’s name and composition had changed.
1984: Prosperity Joins
Prosperity Lodge joined the combined lodge in 1984.
That addition brought another institutional history into the Suburban-Queens Village line.
Read Prosperity Lodge No. 962: Shared Rooms, a Social Calendar and a Traveling Degree Team.
1998: Jamaica-Queens Village
On April 24, 1998, the combined lodge consolidated with Jamaica Lodge No. 546.
The resulting institution became Jamaica-Queens Village Lodge No. 546.
The Queens Village name survived again, but No. 1046 did not remain the number of the combined lodge.
2013: Into Springfield Gardens
In 2013, Jamaica-Queens Village consolidated into Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057.
That union carried the Queens Village institutional line into the continuing Springfield Gardens lodge.
For the larger framework, read Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History.
A Name That Outlasted Separate Meetings
Queens Village Lodge began soon after its neighborhood adopted the name by which it is known today.
Its early notices place it inside a community building, holding degrees, arranging entertainments and participating in the wider life of the neighborhood.
Later, its members’ addresses spread farther afield.
Through consolidation, the Queens Village name remained in use first alongside Suburban and then alongside Jamaica. Its institutional line eventually entered Springfield Gardens.
The Community House and the lodge tell related but distinct stories.
One concerns the shared space in which local organizations gathered. The other concerns the members, work and succession of an institution that did not need a purpose-built temple to establish a neighborhood identity.
Sources and Research Notes
The newspaper references below follow the author’s supplied manuscript and research notes. Direct clipping URLs were not supplied, so the references are preserved without speculative archive links.
- Queens Village Republican Club, “Historical Sketch, 1875 to 1940.” Source for the addition of “Village” in 1924.
2. Forgotten New York, “Quick Trip to Queens Village.” Source cited for the earlier names Little Plains and Brushville and the elevated railroad station’s association with 1924.
3. Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy. Source for the May 6, 1925 charter; March 27, 1981 consolidation with Suburban; Prosperity’s addition in 1984; April 24, 1998 consolidation with Jamaica; and continuation into Springfield Gardens in 2013. Dates are presented from the author’s compilation rather than an independent examination of the original instruments.
4. Queens Village Lodge twenty-fifth-anniversary roster booklet, 1925–1950. Identified through a dealer’s listing; the booklet itself has not been examined.
5. “Burkhard Urges Civics to Unite,” Brooklyn Daily Times, December 1, 1926, p. 13. Civic organizations and the Citizens’ Association of Queens and Bellaire anniversary dinner.
6. The Chat, April 30, 1927, p. 16. Community House location, entertainment and dance, and committee assignments.
7. “Masons’ Ladies’ Night in Queens Village,” Times Union, February 14, 1935, p. 18. Attendance and the Jamaica Avenue–215th Place address description.
8. “Masons Plan Events,” Brooklyn Eagle, February 6, 1928, p. 20. Special Fellowcraft communication and planned social and commemorative events.
9. Brooklyn Eagle, January 22, 1927, p. 22. Master Guy F. Helms’s participation in a Fellowcraft degree at Kings County Lodge.
10. Times Union, November 4, 1934, p. 7. Master Walter Sprake, “Go to Church Sunday” and the Queens Baptist Church service.
11. Ernest Grant Manning obituary, Mount Vernon Argus. Date to be confirmed from the research packet. Source for his engineering work and Queens Village residence.
12. Frank P. Bennett death notice, Brooklyn Eagle, September 28, 1954, p. 9. Service as Tyler for Queens Village, Council and Rufus King lodges.
13. Members’ obituary and death-notice references: Howard Kuntz, Citrus County Chronicle, 2017; William U. Kessler, The Daily Freeman, Kingston; Lewis B. Davison, Newsday, May 1961. Exact dates and the individual residential references should be checked against the original clippings before further biographical expansion.
A Note on the Evidence
The documented Community House meetings do not establish that the lodge occupied that building continuously from 1925 to 1981.
The statement that Queens Village never built a temple requires a fuller property and meeting-place record than the cited notices alone provide.
The 214th Street and 215th Place descriptions remain to be reconciled.
The anniversary booklet is known here through a dealer’s listing, not an examination of its contents.
Occupational examples are individual biographies, not a complete survey of the membership.
Members’ later addresses demonstrate geographic dispersal, not a proven cause of consolidation.
The consolidation chronology follows the author’s Grand Lodge compilation. Institutional succession does not, by itself, establish the present custody of every original charter, minute book or artifact.
Continue the Springfield Gardens Series
The Main Feature
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History
Place Queens Village within the full consolidation framework.
The Companion Building History
Queens Village Community House
Explore the shared civic building in which the lodge held its early meetings and social events.
A Later Addition to the Line
Prosperity Lodge No. 962: Shared Rooms, a Social Calendar and a Traveling Degree Team
Follow the institution that joined Suburban-Queens Village in 1984.
Another Neighborhood Lodge
Dunton Lodge No. 1017: A Clubhouse First, a Lodge Second
Compare Queens Village’s use of a community house with Dunton’s club-led building campaign.
The Series Overview
Open the Springfield Gardens Lodge Series
Find the related lodge histories, building articles and meeting-place studies.
Springfield Gardens Main Feature · Series Overview · Queens Village Community House
Lodge Histories · Masonic Buildings in Queens · Queens History and Freemasonry
