Queens History and Freemasonry / Active Lodges of Queens / Springfield Gardens Lodge
Main feature of the Springfield Gardens Lodge series · Part of The Lodges That Built Queens
Series Overview · Lodge Histories · Masonic Buildings
Forty-two Masons organized a club in 1920 after efforts to establish a community house had stalled. Their building opened in 1925. Through later consolidations, Springfield Gardens Lodge inherited histories reaching across Queens—and continued its work outside the borough.
November 10, 2026 · By Brete Murphy
A Community House by Other Means
In September 1920, forty-two Masons met in southeast Queens to attempt something their neighbors had not yet accomplished.
According to a history published for the lodge’s twenty-fifth anniversary, earlier efforts to agree on a community house had gone nowhere.
The Masons organized a club and took up the project.
Later lodge tradition places their early meetings above a barber shop in nearby Rosedale.
By April 1921, the club had a hundred members.
Five months later, its members formed a Masonic Holding Company so that a building could be raised “for the fraternal and civic organizations of the community.”
The project began with a room for a neighborhood, not simply a charter for a lodge.
Then came the slow part.
The holding company acquired a corner site on Springfield Boulevard in the spring of 1922, just south of the Long Island Rail Road crossing.
An architect was engaged in November 1924.
Groundbreaking followed in May 1925. On July 18, Grand Master William A. Rowan laid the cornerstone.
The building opened that October.
Springfield Gardens Lodge was instituted under dispensation on November 21, 1925, with thirty petitioners. Its charter as No. 1057 followed on May 6, 1926, according to the author’s compilation of Grand Lodge records.
The club, holding company, temple and lodge were connected, but they were not interchangeable organizations.
Their sequence is part of what makes this history distinctive.
A Hall Before the Lodge’s Charter
Formal dedication came in January 1927.
Contemporary coverage describes John A. Dutton conducting the ceremony for the Grand Master and an auditorium filled before the appointed hour.
The exact January date requires comparison of the advance notice and subsequent report. The sources assembled here support the month and year without requiring a premature choice between conflicting dates.
The building was intended for more than Masonic meetings.
By January 1928, a Rosedale dancing school was presenting its pupils’ recital in the auditorium.
The [New York City Organ Project’s account of the Springfield Gardens temple](Masonic Temple - Springfield Gardens (Queens), N.Y.
Masonic Temple - Springfield Gardens (Queens), N.Y.
identifies the property as 138-35 Springfield Boulevard.
It also records a later musical investment: M. P. Möller’s Opus 5636, a two-manual organ supplied in 1929 for a reported consideration of $2,800.
The temple survives in church use as the Agape Church of God.
The lodge meets elsewhere.
Between the building campaign and the present meeting place lies a consolidation history connecting Jamaica, Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, Queens Village and Ridgewood.
Springfield Gardens became more than the institutional history of one neighborhood.
Jamaica Before the New Suburbs
The oldest continuing branch in the lineage is Jamaica Lodge No. 546.
A separate Jamaica lodge had existed in the eighteenth century, but it should not be treated as an uninterrupted predecessor without the appropriate charter evidence.
No. 546 was chartered on June 16, 1864, according to the author’s Grand Lodge compilation.
That September, Jamaica supported the application for Cornucopia Lodge’s dispensation in Flushing.
Cornucopia’s published history preserves that relationship.
The recommendation established assistance between lodges, not joint ownership of their later temples.
Jamaica’s hall was on Union Avenue in Jamaica. Cornucopia’s temple stood at Northern Boulevard and Union Street in Flushing.
They were different buildings in different communities.
The Lodge in the Town Hall
For years, Jamaica Lodge rented rooms at the old Jamaica Town Hall.
A dispute in 1902 gives those arrangements an unusually tangible form.
After the lodge had moved out, the city intended to convert its former room into police sleeping quarters.
The Masons produced a lease that, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, still had nearly five years to run.
They had paid the rent and retained the receipt.
The newspaper treated the resulting confrontation sharply, but the underlying point is practical: leaving a room did not necessarily end the legal right to occupy it.
The episode also reminds us that the lodge’s history began in rented premises, not in a purpose-built temple.
A Chapel Remade for Masonry
Jamaica’s next home was an adapted religious building.
Contemporary 1902 reports describe the purchase of the Dutch Reformed Church’s old chapel, its relocation to Union Avenue, and its remodeling and enlargement.
Grand Master Elbert Crandall dedicated the temple on October 22, 1902.
In 1909, the lodge contracted for a Möller pipe organ.
The [New York City Organ Project’s Jamaica temple record](Masonic Temple - Jamaica (Queens), N.Y.
Masonic Temple - Jamaica (Queens), N.Y.
preserves the instrument’s history and specifications.
The contract’s emphatic completion wording—“Positively”—belongs to the agreement, not proof that every subsequent event occurred exactly on schedule.
In 1911, the lodge filed plans for a $10,000 front addition, described as a three-story brick extension with a columned entrance, bronze doors and additional banquet accommodation.
Later notices place the temple on 162nd Street, the numbered successor to Union Avenue in the author’s street-concordance research.
Its later ownership and ultimate fate remain to be established.
A Parent Lodge and Shared Rooms
Jamaica helped new institutions begin.
In January 1921, Woodhull Lodge was organized in its temple. The newspaper described Woodhull as an offshoot of Jamaica Lodge.
Woodhull’s later notices repeatedly place it in the Jamaica building, though they do not establish an uninterrupted tenancy.
Its history demonstrates why lodge lineage and building ownership need separate treatment.
No Woodhull-owned temple has been identified in the research assembled for this series.
Read Woodhull Lodge No. 982: The Search for a Temple of Its Own.
Jamaica’s role was wider than supplying a room.
It offered an existing institutional setting in which other Masons could organize, meet and conduct ceremonies without first financing a separate property.
A Temple Ahead of the Elevated
The lineage’s Woodhaven branch followed another course.
Hillside Lodge was instituted on May 29, 1911, and chartered as No. 894 on May 8, 1912.
Its members organized a holding company and commissioned Wenige & Nelson to design a temple.
Arthur E. Wenige was an officer of the lodge and secretary of the holding company.
By the time the building opened for its January 1914 fair, he was Master.
The proposed appearance was described as “somewhat after the style of the Temple of Diana,” with substantial columns across the front.
Plans placed the lodge room above and banquet space below.
Ground was broken in October 1913 on Willard Avenue, now 96th Street, in the developing section called Brooklyn Manor.
The cornerstone followed on November 15.
Building and Fundraising Together
Contemporary reports described a structure approximately 37 feet wide and 100 feet deep.
A January 1914 fair brought a large workforce of women and men into the campaign.
The Long Island Grotto participated with a procession along Jamaica Avenue.
Hillside’s building preceded the elevated railway’s 1917 arrival in the neighborhood, according to Joel Steven Kuszai’s “Hillside Temple”.
The lodge did not simply follow a completed transit suburb. Its temple belonged to the neighborhood’s earlier building activity.
A Room Reused in Astoria
The author’s Advance Lodge research identifies another consequence of the project.
Wenige’s firm supplied Advance Lodge No. 635 with lodge-room drawings previously used for Hillside.
The surviving Advance room provides a comparison with the earlier design, although it should not be assumed to reproduce every original finish or furnishing.
Read One Room, Three Lodges: Arthur E. Wenige and the Advance Masonic Temple.
Hillside later enlarged its building.
Prosperity Lodge No. 962 was meeting there by 1925, and the hall accommodated civic, veterans’ and other fraternal organizations.
The complete building history appears in The Hillside Temple in Woodhaven.
Dunton’s Clubhouse Before Its Lodge
Dunton supplied another version of the club-to-building pattern.
In October 1921, the Dunton Masonic Club was reported to have 125 members drawn from fifty-nine lodges.
It laid the cornerstone of a proposed $50,000 clubhouse on Van Wyck Avenue near Jerome.
The building was intended as “a centre of community activity.”
Construction was to proceed in stages, depending on available funds.
Bazaars supported the work.
Dunton Lodge No. 1017 received its charter on May 3, 1923.
By 1938, it was celebrating its fifteenth anniversary at the Dunton Masonic Temple, 97-15 Van Wyck Boulevard.
The club began the project; the lodge followed.
Ownership arrangements among the club, lodge and any holding entity still require documentary examination.
The building no longer survives at the site identified by the author, but its demolition date and cause remain unresolved.
Read Dunton Masonic Temple: A Clubhouse Before a Lodge.
Not Every Lodge Owned a Temple
Queens Village Lodge No. 1046 was chartered on May 6, 1925.
Newspaper notices place its lodge room in the Queens Village Community House at 214th Street and Jamaica Avenue.
That establishes use of rooms in a community building, not ownership of the whole property.
Suburban Lodge No. 1087 received its charter on May 3, 1928, and was constituted at Tadmor’s Ridgewood temple on May 19.
It continued meeting there in later decades.
The distinction matters.
Some predecessors commissioned or acquired property. Others used established halls.
All could sustain an institutional identity.
For Suburban’s setting, read Tadmor’s Two Masonic Temples: From Fresh Pond Road to Summerfield Street.
Tuxedos and Monday Nights
Springfield Gardens’ anniversary history reports growth from thirty petitioners to 160 members by 1950.
Its public figures included Robert J. Hunt, the 1929 Master, who served in the State Assembly.
Kenneth W. Haslam’s obituary connects another member with the Rosedale Funeral Home, insurance work, civic organizing and the local volunteer ambulance effort.
These examples show particular careers.
They do not provide a complete occupational profile of the membership.
The lodge’s own account remembers its working calendar with more detail.
It describes a full officer line during the Second World War, four degree classes annually and approximately twenty new members raised in a year.
Officers wore tuxedos on visits around the Second Queens District.
The Masonic Club met on Mondays.
An Actor’s Club drew on members interested in performance and ritual presentation.
The temple also accommodated district instruction, and Springfield Gardens teams visited other lodges to perform degree work.
These activities made the lodge more than an occasional dinner or annual installation.
They depended on repeated attendance and members willing to learn particular responsibilities.
Service in the Temple
The institutional history records a large blood-collection effort in the late 1960s.
It gives a total exceeding 1,600 pints and describes the result as the strongest showing in New York State.
That superlative is the lodge’s own claim.
The figure and the reported scale of the event should remain attributed until compared with contemporary blood-bank records.
The account also remembers providing refreshments and small gifts to donors.
In April 1970, the Grand Master of Massachusetts included Springfield Gardens in his visiting itinerary.
The proceedings index identified in the research places it in Brooklyn.
That geographical label should not override the lodge’s Queens location.
It illustrates the need to read institutional travel records critically, even when the visit itself is well documented.
Breaks in the Officer Line
The lodge history identifies difficulties in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
It says officers moved away or took employment requiring night work.
Gaps opened in the succession of officers.
That is direct evidence of the institution’s own explanation for a practical problem.
It should not become a complete explanation of neighborhood demographic change.
Members’ obituaries supply a different kind of evidence.
They place Springfield Gardens and predecessor-lodge members in Nassau County, upstate New York and Florida while still naming their Masonic affiliations.
A Springfield Gardens member died in Binghamton in 1974.
A Queens Village Past Master moved first to Farmingdale and later to Florida.
Other notices identify long-serving members associated with the lodge after it began meeting in Rockville Centre.
These references establish relocation and continued affiliation.
They do not establish why every member moved, how representative the examples are, or whether all later merger decisions had the same cause.
Consolidation in Several Branches
The institutional inheritance took shape through several routes.
It was not a single sequence in which Springfield Gardens absorbed every predecessor separately.
Council and Hillside
Council Lodge No. 979, chartered in 1921, united with Hillside on April 29, 1963.
The combined institution became Council-Hillside Lodge No. 894.
It later entered Springfield Gardens on July 22, 1994, according to the author’s Grand Lodge compilation.
Queens Village, Suburban and Prosperity
Queens Village and Suburban consolidated on March 27, 1981.
Prosperity joined the combined lodge in 1984.
The transcribed record gives inconsistent intermediate numbers after that union. The original documents should resolve the discrepancy.
The sequence of relationships can be described without silently choosing between those conflicting entries.
Jamaica and Woodhull
Woodhull merged into Jamaica in 1985.
On April 24, 1998, Jamaica and the Suburban-Queens Village branch combined as Jamaica-Queens Village Lodge No. 546.
That institution brought together the Jamaica, Woodhull, Queens Village, Suburban and Prosperity lines.
Dunton and Springfield Gardens
The author’s Grand Lodge compilation dates Dunton’s merger into Springfield Gardens to May 22, 1986.
The district history gives 1985.
This article follows the supplied Grand Lodge date while preserving the conflict for comparison with the original instrument.
The 2013 Union
On July 22, 2013, Jamaica-Queens Village entered Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057.
The Grand Lodge’s [current lodge listing](connect | Grand Lodge of New York
connect | Grand Lodge of New York
displays that date in its charter field.
It should not be mistaken for Springfield Gardens’ original 1926 charter.
The modern listing and the historical charter refer to different stages of the continuing institution’s record.
Nine Founding Identities, One Continuing Lodge
The lineage described here includes nine separately founded lodges:
- Springfield Gardens No. 1057.
- Dunton No. 1017.
- Hillside No. 894.
- Council No. 979.
- Jamaica No. 546.
- Woodhull No. 982.
- Queens Village No. 1046.
- Suburban No. 1087.
- Prosperity No. 962.
Council-Hillside, Suburban-Queens Village and Jamaica-Queens Village were combined identities along the way.
They are not additional founding lodges in that count.
Nor does institutional succession establish that every predecessor charter, minute book or artifact is physically held at the present meeting place.
What the relationships establish is a continuing organization with several inherited histories.
Preservation Through Merger
Springfield Gardens’ own history describes members hoping they would remain strong enough to continue independently while membership pressures persisted.
It remembers the unions as amicable.
That is the institution’s retrospective account. Merger agreements and minutes would provide a fuller view of the negotiations.
Consolidation can be read as contraction: fewer separate lodges, fewer officer lines and fewer independent names.
It can also be read as a means of continuation.
Members retained a working institution rather than simply ending their Masonic association.
The precise disposition of records, assets and honors must be established for each union. It should not be assumed to have been identical every time.
But the broader pattern is clear.
The histories did not all remain independent. They entered a shared succession.
Temples with Other Lives
The buildings followed different paths.
Hillside’s temple became Queens Tabernacle, with its Masonic cornerstone and carved Psalm remaining visible.
Springfield Gardens’ temple became Agape Church of God.
Dunton’s building disappeared from the site identified by the author. Its final chronology remains unresolved.
Jamaica’s Union Avenue property requires further tracing.
It would therefore be inaccurate to say that every temple in the lineage became a church.
Two documented examples did.
Other buildings were shared premises rather than property owned by a predecessor lodge.
A Reversal of Use
The church-reuse examples are nevertheless revealing.
Jamaica’s early twentieth-century temple began as a chapel adapted for Masonic purposes.
Later, Hillside and Springfield Gardens buildings accommodated congregations.
Assembly rooms can support successive institutions, but plans, ownership and adaptations differ from property to property.
The continuity of a building does not imply continuity of its original organization.
The reverse is equally important: an institution can continue after leaving the building it created.
Lincoln Avenue
Springfield Gardens now meets in Rockville Centre at 28 Lincoln Avenue.
Its Grand Lodge listing identifies the lodge with Rockville Centre while retaining its Queens affiliation.
The meeting schedule supplied for this series is the second and fourth Tuesdays, except July and August. Visitors should confirm arrangements directly with the lodge.
The Lincoln Avenue property is not the temple Springfield Gardens built in Queens.
A 2018 Long Island Herald report by Ben Strack describes the Scottish Rite setting and the Valley Masonic Historical Society’s museum there.
It records displays including aprons dating to 1921.
Those exhibits belong to the building’s broader Masonic activity. They should not automatically be described as Springfield Gardens’ own collection.
The date of the lodge’s move to Rockville Centre remains to be established.
A Queens History Beyond the City Line
The founders tied their project to a place by buying land and building a hall.
Their successors continued under different circumstances.
The lodge’s membership and inherited histories crossed neighborhood boundaries. Its meeting place crossed the city line.
The Springfield Boulevard temple now serves a congregation.
Springfield Gardens Lodge still meets.
What it carries is not literally half of Queens, nor every original object from nine predecessors.
It carries an institutional succession reaching from Jamaica’s nineteenth-century lodge through the neighborhood organizations of the early twentieth century.
The room changed.
The work continued.
Sources and Research Notes
Newspaper references follow the author’s supplied Springfield Gardens clippings and dossier. Direct links are included where identified public sources are available. Unlinked historical references are preserved rather than assigned speculative URLs.
Springfield Gardens’ Origins
Queens Masonic District, history of Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057, composed after the 2013 consolidation. Source for the barber-shop tradition, working calendar, officer-line difficulties, blood drive and retrospective merger account.
“Masons Honor Cutchogue Man,” The News-Review, December 7, 1950, p. 21. Twenty-fifth-anniversary account: 1920 meeting, club growth, holding company, land purchase, building campaign, petitioners and membership in 1950.
Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy. Charter and consolidation dates throughout the lineage.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 6, 1927, p. 23; The Chat, January 22, 1927, p. 19. Advance dedication notice and subsequent report. Exact January date requires checking against the original images.
The Chat, January 28, 1928, p. 17. Rosedale dancing-school recital.
[New York City Organ Project, Masonic Temple—Springfield Gardens](Masonic Temple - Springfield Gardens (Queens), N.Y.
Masonic Temple - Springfield Gardens (Queens), N.Y.
Temple address, later Agape Church use and Möller Opus 5636.
The 1950 article’s OCR produces inconsistent building dates. The chronology used here follows the author’s comparison with the 1920s coverage rather than accepting the OCR literally.
Jamaica Lodge and Temple
Author’s Grand Lodge compilation. Jamaica No. 546 charter, June 16, 1864.
Cornucopia Lodge No. 563, “Our History”. Jamaica’s recommendation of Cornucopia’s dispensation.
“Freemasons Bar Police from Jamaica Town Hall,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 26, 1902, p. 6. Lease dispute.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 16, 1902, p. 11, and dedication report datelined October 23, 1902. Purchase, relocation and adaptation of the Dutch Reformed chapel; October 22 dedication.
“Masons to Spend $10,000,” The Chat, September 2, 1911, p. 29. Proposed front addition.
[New York City Organ Project, Masonic Temple—Jamaica](Masonic Temple - Jamaica (Queens), N.Y.
Masonic Temple - Jamaica (Queens), N.Y.
Möller Opus 1021.
Author’s street-concordance research and Times Union notices from 1935–1936. Union Avenue and 162nd Street identification.
“New Masonic Lodge Formed at Jamaica,” Brooklyn Daily Times, January 6, 1921, p. 4. Woodhull’s organization in Jamaica’s temple.
Hillside and Prosperity
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 28, 1913, p. 5; October groundbreaking coverage; November cornerstone coverage; fair notices and reports, December 1913–January 1914. Hillside’s building campaign.
Joel Steven Kuszai, “Hillside Temple”. Local-history account of the building, neighborhood use, addition and 1986 sale. Claims based on that account remain attributed pending property-record comparison.
Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4, 1925. Hillside and Prosperity meeting at the 96th Street temple.
Advance Lodge No. 635 records and the author’s Wenige research. Reuse of lodge-room drawings.
Dunton, Queens Village and Suburban
“Dunton Masons Start Building,” Brooklyn Daily Times, October 23, 1921, p. 12. Club membership, clubhouse proposal, estimated cost and staged construction.
The Chat, October 27, 1923, p. 119. Dunton bazaar and building fund.
Brooklyn Daily Times, June 21, 1925, p. 20; Brooklyn Eagle, May 15, 1938, p. 8. Dunton temple use and anniversary address.
Queens Borough Public Library Bulletin No. 647, April 1939, as transcribed in the author’s research. Dunton background.
The Chat, April 30, 1927, p. 16; Brooklyn Eagle, February 6, 1928, p. 20. Queens Village Community House lodge room.
“Three New Lodges Are Established in Queens by Masons,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 20, 1928, p. 8. Suburban’s constitution at Tadmor.
Working Life and Membership
“Queens Masons Gay at Ball,” Brooklyn Daily Times, November 23, 1929, p. 5. Robert J. Hunt.
Kenneth W. Haslam obituary, Newsday, March 27, 1987, p. 38. Professional and civic activity.
Times Union, March 10 and November 24, 1935, and January 26, 1936. Instruction and visiting degree work.
Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, Proceedings, 1970, as indexed in the author’s research. April 26 visit; erroneous Brooklyn location label.
Henry J. Weitzel obituary, Press and Sun-Bulletin, February 28, 1974, p. 28; Howard Kuntz obituary, Citrus County Chronicle, 2017; William Raymond Motz obituary, The Evening Sun. Examples of relocation and continued affiliation.
Consolidations and Present Meeting Place
Author’s Grand Lodge compilation. Council-Hillside, Suburban-Queens Village, Prosperity, Woodhull, Dunton, Jamaica-Queens Village and Springfield Gardens consolidation sequence.
Jamaica-Queens Village Lodge No. 546 website consolidation notice, identified in the author’s research.
[Grand Lodge connect listing, Springfield Gardens No. 1057](Groupable
Groupable
Present Rockville Centre identification, Queens affiliation and displayed 2013 date.
- Ben Strack, “Rockville Centre Hall Preserves History, Values of Freemasonry,” Long Island Herald, October 31, 2018. Lincoln Avenue building and museum context.
A Note on Dates and Counts
The thirty petitioners reported for Springfield Gardens’ institution are not the same category as the forty-two men at the 1920 organizing meeting or the club’s hundred members in 1921.
The club, holding company and lodge were related but distinct bodies.
The neighborhood’s frequently repeated 1927 naming date is not used to claim that the lodge invented or officially established the place name. A period source is still needed.
Dunton’s merger is given as May 22, 1986, in the author’s Grand Lodge compilation and 1985 in the district history. The original instrument should resolve the conflict.
The intermediate lodge number following Prosperity’s 1984 union is inconsistent in the transcribed record.
The July 22 dates assigned to both the 1994 and 2013 consolidations should be compared with the original records.
The nine-lodge count refers to separately founded institutions. Intermediate combined names are not counted as additional founding lodges.
No comparative claim is made that Springfield Gardens has more predecessors than every other Queens lodge.
The phrase “inherited histories” describes institutional succession. It does not establish physical possession of every predecessor’s records or artifacts.
Questions Still Open
- What was the exact January 1927 dedication date?
- Who designed the Springfield Boulevard temple?
- When and through which entity was it sold?
- When did Springfield Gardens begin meeting in Rockville Centre?
- What became of Jamaica’s Union Avenue temple?
- When and why was Dunton’s temple demolished?
- What was the official intermediate number after Prosperity joined the Suburban-Queens Village branch?
- Where are the predecessor lodges’ surviving records and objects?
- Which membership and financial records can explain the mergers beyond retrospective institutional accounts?
Explore the Springfield Gardens Series
Start with the Lineage
Open the Springfield Gardens series overview
Follow the branches that converged in No. 1057 and find the companion histories.
Woodhaven’s Temple
The Hillside Temple in Woodhaven
Explore the 1913–1914 building, Wenige’s work and later church use.
A Lodge in Shared Rooms
Woodhull Lodge No. 982: The Search for a Temple of Its Own
Follow the surviving meeting-place evidence rather than an assumed building history.
The Clubhouse Before the Lodge
Dunton Masonic Temple: A Clubhouse Before a Lodge
Discover the staged construction and fundraising campaign on Van Wyck Boulevard.
Suburban’s Ridgewood Setting
Tadmor’s Two Masonic Temples: From Fresh Pond Road to Summerfield Street
Explore the temple where Suburban was constituted and later met.
Wenige’s Astoria Connection
One Room, Three Lodges: Arthur E. Wenige and the Advance Masonic Temple
Follow the architectural relationship between Hillside and Advance.
Springfield Gardens Series Overview · The Lodges That Built Queens · Active Lodges of Queens
Masonic Buildings in Queens · Queens History and Freemasonry · Queens History Reader’s Guide
