Queens History and Freemasonry / Harmony Series / Rufus King Lodge No. 1091
November 10, 2026 · By Brete Murphy
Chartered in 1928, Rufus King Lodge brought merchants, professionals and public officials into Jamaica’s Masonic life. Its newspaper record connects a shared temple, family successions, Jewish communal institutions and the consolidations that eventually carried its institutional line into Harmony Lodge No. 241.
Harmony Main Feature · Series Overview · Companion: Jamaica’s Union Avenue Temple · Sources
City Officials’ Night
On a Tuesday night in June 1929, Rufus King Lodge No. 1091 held City Officials’ Night at the Jamaica Masonic Temple.
The Chat reported an attendance of more than two hundred.
Benjamin Marvin, a city magistrate and lodge trustee, served as master of ceremonies.
The guests he introduced included Queens Borough President George U. Harvey, District Attorney Richard S. Newcombe, judges, magistrates and officials connected with buildings, fire administration and the courts.1
The speeches praised Masonic contributions to Jamaica and the friendships involved in “the welding of good citizens.”
Then the program changed register.
The entertainment committee presented a comedy acrobatic act, an English pantomimist and a singer.1
The evening combined public ceremony, fraternal hospitality and entertainment.
It is strong evidence of a young lodge cultivating civic connections. It is not, by itself, proof that the lodge exercised political influence.
Rufus King had received its charter little more than a year earlier.
Constituted at Tadmor
The author’s compilation of Grand Lodge records dates Rufus King’s charter to May 3, 1928.2
On May 19, Grand Master John A. Dutton constituted Rufus King, Maspeth and Suburban lodges together at Tadmor Masonic Temple in Ridgewood.
District Deputy Charles W. Froessel assisted.
The newspaper coverage described delegations led by the Masters of all thirty-two Queens lodges and characterized the occasion as one of the largest Masonic gatherings held in the borough.3
That size comparison belongs to the contemporary reporting rather than an independently established attendance ranking.
Rufus King’s first Master was Dr. Louis Saperstein.
The coverage also announced a public installation of its officers at the Jamaica Masonic Temple for the following Tuesday.3
The distinction between the two settings matters.
Tadmor hosted the constitution ceremony. Jamaica became the setting for the new lodge’s continuing work.
For another institution’s use of the Ridgewood building, read Suburban Lodge at Tadmor Temple: A Shared Masonic Home in Ridgewood.
A Local Name in a Commercial Center
The lodge’s name connected it with a prominent figure in Jamaica’s history.
Rufus King was a participant in the Constitutional Convention, a United States senator and a minister to Great Britain.
He purchased the Jamaica property now known as King Manor in 1805.4
The name therefore carried a local association as well as a national one.
The lodge emerged within a neighborhood whose business and civic organizations supplied a wider setting for its activities.
The sources identified for this article include a history of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce and accounts of the growth of the Gertz department-store business.56
Those connections become most tangible through individual members.
Rather than treating Rufus King as a mirror of the entire business district, the surviving notices allow a more precise account: particular merchants, professionals and officials participated in the lodge while also holding roles elsewhere in Jamaica.
The Temple on Union Avenue
Rufus King’s documented meeting place was a building created by another lodge.
Jamaica Lodge No. 546 had acquired a former Dutch Reformed chapel, moved it to Union Avenue and adapted it as a Masonic temple, dedicated in 1902.7
Union Avenue later became 162nd Street.
Notices from 1957 and 1959 identify the temple as 89-31 162nd Street.8
Earlier references sometimes describe the location more generally in relation to Jamaica Avenue. Those forms should be checked against the original notices rather than treated as proof that the building stood directly on that avenue’s corner.
The evidence assembled here documents Rufus King using Jamaica’s temple.
It does not establish the terms of occupancy or amount to a complete search proving that Rufus King never owned property.
For the building’s separate history, read Jamaica Lodge on Union Avenue: A Chapel Moved, a Temple Made.
A Calendar Inside the Shared Temple
The temple accommodated successive parts of Rufus King’s institutional life.
A February 1929 notice recorded a district visit.
In January 1935, the lodge publicly installed Morris Bunderoff as Master.
In 1950, Lawrence C. Lewin succeeded his brother in the Master’s chair.
A February 1952 notice announced an address by Brooklyn College President Harry D. Gideonse, with Queens Masons invited.
In June 1959, the temple was identified as the setting for Louis Diamond’s commissioning as District Deputy Grand Master of the Second Queens District.9
These references document repeated use across three decades.
They are not a complete calendar, nor do they establish uninterrupted occupancy in every intervening year.
Together, however, they show the temple supporting ordinary lodge work, installations, visiting speakers and district occasions.
Harry Gertz: Business and Communal Service
Harry Gertz provides one of the clearest links between the lodge and Jamaica’s commercial life.
He was president of B. Gertz, Inc., whose stores included Jamaica and Flushing, and a Past Master of Rufus King.
His obituary described service in France during World War I as a field-artillery first lieutenant and later leadership of a Selective Service board.
It also identified roles with the Board of Higher Education, Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, Jamaica Lions Club, Jamaica Jewish Center and the Queens branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.10
His funeral was held at the Jamaica Jewish Center in 1954.
Some newspaper accounts called him a “past grand master” of the lodge.
The supplied research identifies the appropriate lodge office as Past Master, a distinction also supported by the 1952 reference cited here.10
Gertz’s biography demonstrates overlapping commercial, fraternal and communal affiliations.
It does not establish that one affiliation caused his advancement in another.
Other Members, Other Institutions
Abraham L. Hirschl was Secretary of Rufus King when he died in 1951.
His obituary identified him as owner of the Hillside Glass Manufacturing Company and a graduate of the Hebrew Technical Institute and Cooper Union.11
Dr. Leo Lyons, a Queens Village dentist, was a Past Master.12
Samuel Weiss, associated with the Jamaica Arena and a bus-advertising business, was a member.13
Magistrate Benjamin Marvin served as a trustee.1
Another member, Henry “Pop” Silverman, worked in health education and athletics at Jamaica High School.
A 1951 newspaper column described a testimonial dinner supported by the lodge alongside the Jamaica Jewish Center, Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce.19
These biographies show members participating in several local institutions.
They should not be treated as a statistical portrait of the full membership.
They do establish that the lodge’s connections extended into business, education, professional practice and organized community service.
Brothers in the Master’s Chair
Family relationships also appear in the officer record.
In January 1950, Lawrence C. Lewin of Jamaica Estates succeeded his brother Vincent as Master.
The report identified three other brothers—Arthur, Charles and Milton—as present.14
The account documents a family’s participation in a particular installation.
It does not require an inferred relationship based on a shared surname.
A later example involved Chester Schwimmer, identified in the supplied research as Master in 1947 and subsequently a District Deputy.
In 1973, he installed his son as Master.15
The younger man is not named here.
These episodes reveal one way institutional continuity could become personal: an office passed between men whose relationships extended beyond the lodge room.
One Tyler, Three Lodges
Frank P. Bennett’s 1954 death notice supplies a different kind of connection.
It identified him as Tyler for Rufus King, Queens Village Lodge No. 1046 and Council Lodge No. 979.16
The overlapping appointments show one individual serving several institutions.
They do not establish common ownership, a single meeting place or a shared administrative structure.
They do illustrate why the lodges should not be imagined as isolated bodies.
Members and officers could connect them through practical service as well as visits and ceremonies.
Read Queens Village Lodge No. 1046: A Neighborhood Lodge in the Community House.
Jewish Connections and Public Life
An April 1935 notice stated that Rufus King would omit a meeting for Passover.17
That is direct evidence of a religious observance affecting the lodge’s calendar.
The biographies of Gertz, Hirschl and other members also connect individuals with Jewish educational and communal institutions.1011
Those relationships support discussion of Jewish participation in Rufus King’s history.
The names on an officer slate, however, are not sufficient evidence of each person’s religious identity.
Nor do the cited notices establish an exclusively Jewish membership or provide a count from which to calculate the lodge’s religious composition.
The more secure picture is of a Masonic institution whose documented members included men active in Jewish communal life and in the wider civic organizations of Jamaica.
City Officials’ Night, public installations and invited speakers belong to that same institutional record.
They show different forms of outward engagement, not a contradiction between communal affiliation and borough-wide participation.
Members Beyond Jamaica
Later notices place individual members outside Jamaica.
Samuel Weiss was living in Woodmere when he died in 1950.
Lawrence Lewin’s 1950 installation report gave Jamaica Estates as his residence.1314
In 1973, the incoming Master lived in Westbury and was identified with a sanitation company in New Hyde Park.15
These examples demonstrate a membership geography extending beyond the lodge’s original neighborhood.
They do not establish the proportion of members living in Nassau County or prove that residential change caused the eventual consolidation.
The supplied record for the years between 1960 and 1982 is comparatively limited.
That is a research gap, not evidence that the lodge’s activities ceased or became unimportant.
The 1982 Consolidation
According to the author’s Grand Lodge compilation, Rufus King consolidated with Cardozo-King David Lodge No. 994 on February 12, 1982.
Cardozo-King David had itself resulted from a 1975 consolidation.
The new institution took the name Cardozo-Rufus-King-David and continued with No. 994.2
On November 21, 1990, that branch entered Harmony Lodge No. 241.2
A later Harmony notice identified Bertram Eckert as the final Master of Cardozo-Rufus-King-David in 1990.
The author’s transcription notes an apparent “1993” error in the supplied text; the original post or image should be checked before quoting that wording.18
The consolidation sequence explains how Rufus King’s institutional line continued.
It does not, by itself, establish what happened to every predecessor charter, minute book, furnishing or other object.
For the wider framework, read Harmony Lodge No. 241: One Number, Six Lodge Histories.
A Civic History in a Shared Room
Rufus King operated separately for nearly fifty-four years, from its 1928 charter to its February 1982 consolidation.
Its located record is not a history of constructing a temple.
It is a history of activities conducted within an established one: public installations, speakers, official visits, family successions and a night when borough officials shared the program with an acrobatic act and a singer.
The biographies add another layer.
Merchants, a magistrate, a manufacturer, a dentist and an educator connected the lodge with institutions outside its doors.
Those documented relationships—not an assumption of political power or a uniform membership—give Rufus King its place in the history of civic Jamaica.
Sources and Research Notes
References follow the author’s supplied manuscript and research notes. Newspaper links within the article lead to these citations because direct clipping URLs were not supplied.
- The Chat, June 28, 1929, p. 4. City Officials’ Night, reported attendance, Benjamin Marvin, invited officials, speeches and entertainment. The guest list establishes participation in the occasion, not political influence exercised by the lodge.
2. Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy. May 3, 1928 charter; February 12, 1982 consolidation; resulting name and number; November 21, 1990 continuation into Harmony. See the Harmony lineage summary. Original instruments were not independently examined for this conversion.
3. Brooklyn Daily Times, May 17, 1928, p. 10; Brooklyn Eagle, May 20, 1928, p. 8; Times Union report of the same ceremony in the author’s packet. Constitution at Tadmor, first Master and announced public installation. The Times Union clipping is labeled May 4, 1928 in the supplied material, a date requiring correction against the original issue.
4. King Manor Museum, history material, as identified in the author’s research. Rufus King’s public career and 1805 purchase. King Manor Museum is the institutional research gateway; a specific history-page citation should be added when confirmed.
5. Brownstoner, “The Jamaica Chamber of Commerce Building.” Background on Jamaica’s commercial organization. Direct article URL remains to be added.
6. “Gertz (department store),” Wikipedia; Brooklyn Eagle, August 19, 1954, p. 13. Department-store background and Harry Gertz’s biography. The specific business-origin chronology should be checked against the underlying sources before expansion.
7. Jamaica Lodge on Union Avenue: A Chapel Moved, a Temple Made, and its cited contemporary sources. Chapel relocation, adaptation and 1902 dedication.
8. Daily News, June 30, 1957, p. 248; June 23, 1959, p. 349. Masonic Temple address at 89-31 162nd Street. Each notice’s subject should be retained separately when attributing a particular event to a lodge.
9. Brooklyn Eagle, February 26, 1929, p. 14; Times Union, January 9, 1935, p. 14; Daily News, January 9, 1950, p. 504; February 24, 1952, p. 191; June 23, 1959, p. 349. District visit, installations, Gideonse program and Louis Diamond’s commissioning.
10. Brooklyn Eagle, August 19, 1954, p. 13; Newsday, Nassau and Suffolk editions, August 19, 1954; Daily News, February 24, 1952. Harry Gertz’s career, community affiliations and Past Master identification. “Past Grand Master of the lodge” is treated as erroneous terminology rather than reproduced as an office he held.
11. Brooklyn Eagle, December 27, 1951, p. 11. Abraham L. Hirschl, occupation, education and lodge Secretary service.
12. Times Union, August 11, 1936, p. 18. Dr. Leo Lyons, dental practice and Past Master affiliation.
13. Brooklyn Eagle, January 4, 1950, p. 15. Samuel Weiss, business interests, residence and lodge membership.
14. Daily News, January 9, 1950, p. 504. Lawrence and Vincent Lewin, the installation and the presence of brothers Arthur, Charles and Milton.
15. Westbury Times, February 1, 1973, p. 29; February 7, 1974, p. 13. Schwimmer family connection, installation, residence and business reference. The younger Master is not named in this article.
16. Brooklyn Eagle, September 28, 1954, p. 9. Frank P. Bennett’s service as Tyler for Rufus King, Queens Village and Council lodges.
17. Brooklyn Eagle, January 20, 1935, p. 54; Times Union, January 9, 1935, p. 14; April 21, 1935, p. 6. Officer installation and Passover meeting cancellation. Names alone are not treated as proof of religious identity.
18. Harmony Lodge notice concerning Bertram Eckert, Queens Masonic Association Facebook page, August 18, 2017, as identified in the author’s research. The original post or image should be checked to resolve the supplied transcription’s 1990/1993 issue. Direct post URL remains to be added.
19. Brooklyn Eagle, 1951, p. 22, Jimmy Murphy’s column on the testimonial dinner for Henry “Pop” Silverman, identified through Newspapers.com. Exact date remains to be confirmed before final publication.
A Note on the Evidence
The charter and consolidation chronology follows the author’s Grand Lodge compilation.
The constitution ceremony, charter and public installation were separate milestones.
A public guest list does not establish political influence or preferential treatment.
The cited biographies are individual examples, not a complete occupational or demographic survey.
Jewish communal affiliations and the Passover notice document particular connections; officer names do not establish religious identity.
The temple references document repeated use, not a complete tenancy or property-ownership history.
Later residential examples do not establish a membership-wide migration or explain the consolidation on their own.
The 1960–1982 record remains incomplete in the supplied research.
The Silverman column’s exact date and the Eckert notice’s disputed year require checking.
Questions for Further Research
- Who signed Rufus King’s original petition?
- What agreement governed its use of Jamaica’s temple?
- Do complete membership rolls and annual returns survive?
- What other public programs followed City Officials’ Night?
- What do minutes reveal about the lodge’s activities between 1960 and 1982?
- Where was the lodge meeting immediately before consolidation?
- What reasons did members record for the 1982 union?
- Where are Rufus King’s surviving minutes, charter and ceremonial objects?
- What is the exact date of the Silverman testimonial column?
Continue the Harmony Series
The Main Feature
Harmony Lodge No. 241: One Number, Six Lodge Histories
Place Rufus King within the complete predecessor and consolidation framework.
The Astoria Branch
King David Lodge No. 994: Degree Nights, Castle Hall and Masonic Astoria
Explore one of the predecessor histories represented in Rufus King’s 1982 consolidation partner.
The Bayside Branch
Cardozo Lodge No. 1150: The Record So Far
Follow the other predecessor in Cardozo-King David.
The Shared Temple
Jamaica Lodge on Union Avenue: A Chapel Moved, a Temple Made
Read the building history separately from Rufus King’s institutional story.
Another Lodge in the Same Building
Woodhull Lodge No. 982: Jamaica’s Offshoot in Queens
Compare another institution’s use of Jamaica’s Masonic temple.
The Series Overview
Find companion lodge histories, meeting-place studies and lineage material.
Back to the Harmony Main Feature · Related: King David Lodge · Harmony Series Overview
Lodge Histories · Masonic Buildings in Queens · Queens History and Freemasonry
