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 after neighborhood efforts to establish a community house had stalled. Their building opened in 1925. Through later consolidations, Springfield Gardens Lodge became the meeting point of nine lodge histories—and continued its work beyond the Queens boundary.
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 the lodge’s twenty-fifth-anniversary history, earlier efforts to agree on a community house had gone nowhere.
The Masons organized a club and took up the project themselves.
Later institutional tradition places their early meetings above a barber shop in nearby Rosedale.
By April 1921, the Masonic 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 hall for a neighborhood, not simply a charter for a lodge.
Then came the slow part.
The holding company bought 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.
Ground was broken 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 forty-two men at the organizing meeting, the club’s hundred members and the thirty lodge petitioners describe different stages and categories. They should not be treated as competing versions of one membership count.
A Hall Before the Charter
The temple was formally dedicated 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 remains unsettled. The advance notice and subsequent report require comparison with their original images.
The month and year can be stated without choosing prematurely between January 14 and January 21.
The building was intended from the start to serve more than formal Masonic meetings.
By January 1928, a Rosedale dancing school was presenting its pupils’ recital in the auditorium.
The temple still stands at 138-35 Springfield Boulevard.
The [New York City Organ Project’s record of the building](Masonic Temple - Springfield Gardens (Queens), N.Y.
Masonic Temple - Springfield Gardens (Queens), N.Y.
identifies its later use by Agape Church of God and documents a Möller organ installed during its Masonic years.
The lodge meets elsewhere.
Between that building campaign and the present meeting place lies a history connecting Jamaica, Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, Queens Village and Ridgewood.
The Oldest Continuing Branch
The oldest continuing branch in this lineage is Jamaica Lodge No. 546, chartered on June 16, 1864.
An earlier Jamaica lodge existed in the eighteenth century, but its history should not be joined to No. 546 as an uninterrupted charter line.
The lodge that entered this consolidation sequence was the nineteenth-century institution.
In September 1864, Jamaica recommended the dispensation for Cornucopia Lodge in Flushing.
Cornucopia’s published history preserves that assistance.
It does not establish common ownership of their later temples.
Jamaica’s building was on Union Avenue in Jamaica. Cornucopia’s stood at Northern Boulevard and Union Street in Flushing.
They were different properties in different communities.
Springfield Gardens’ own institutional history remembers Jamaica Lodge as the principal nearby lodge around the beginning of the twentieth century.
That established presence supplied a setting in which newer organizations could begin.
The Lodge in the Town Hall
For years, Jamaica Lodge rented the top floor of the old Jamaica Town Hall.
A dispute in 1902 makes those arrangements unusually tangible.
After the lodge moved out, the city planned to convert its former rooms 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 confrontation sharply. Beneath its tone was a practical distinction: leaving a room did not necessarily end a tenant’s legal interest in it.
Jamaica’s institutional continuity had not depended on owning that room.
Its next home, however, would be property it acquired and substantially remade.
A Chapel on Union Avenue
Contemporary reports describe Jamaica Lodge purchasing the Dutch Reformed Church’s old chapel, moving it to Union Avenue, and remodeling and enlarging it.
Grand Master Elbert Crandall dedicated the temple on October 22, 1902.
In 1909, the lodge contracted with M. P. Möller for a two-manual 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 specifications and contract information.
The agreement’s emphatic completion wording—“Positively”—belongs to its payment and delivery history, not proof that every subsequent milestone occurred exactly as planned.
In 1911, the lodge filed plans for a $10,000 front addition.
The proposed extension included a columned entrance, bronze doors and additional banquet accommodation.
Later notices place the temple on 162nd Street, identified in the author’s street-concordance research as the numbered successor to Union Avenue.
Its later ownership and ultimate fate remain to be traced.
A Building Where Other Lodges Began
Jamaica also supported the formation of new lodges.
In January 1921, Woodhull was organized in the Union Avenue temple. The newspaper described it as an offshoot of Jamaica Lodge.
Later notices repeatedly place Woodhull in the building, although they do not establish uninterrupted tenancy.
No temple owned or commissioned by Woodhull has been identified in this series’ research.
Read Woodhull Lodge No. 982: The Search for a Temple of Its Own.
The distinction matters.
An established temple could support more institutions than the name on its cornerstone.
A new lodge could acquire officers, members and a regular calendar without first financing separate walls.
A Temple Ahead of the Elevated
The Woodhaven branch followed a different 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 hired Wenige & Nelson to design a temple.
Arthur E. Wenige was a lodge officer and the holding company’s secretary.
By the time the new hall 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.
The lodge room was to occupy the upper portion, with banquet space below.
Ground was broken in October 1913 on Willard Avenue, now 96th Street, in the developing section known as Brooklyn Manor.
The cornerstone followed on November 15.
Building While Raising the Money
Contemporary reporting describes 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.
Joel Steven Kuszai’s “Hillside Temple” places the building before the elevated railway’s 1917 arrival in the neighborhood.
Hillside’s temple belonged to an earlier phase of local development, not merely to the completed transit suburb that followed.
A Design That Reached Astoria
The author’s Advance Lodge research identifies another consequence of the commission.
Wenige’s firm supplied Advance Lodge No. 635 with lodge-room drawings previously used at Hillside.
The surviving Advance room offers a comparison with the earlier design. It should not be assumed to reproduce every original finish, furnishing or later alteration.
Read One Room, Three Lodges: Arthur E. Wenige and the Advance Masonic Temple.
Hillside soon needed more space.
A 1920 newspaper report described a membership approaching five hundred and plans to enlarge the building.
Prosperity Lodge No. 962 was meeting there by 1925.
The hall also accommodated civic associations, veterans and other fraternal groups.
Its complete 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, its Masonic Club was reported to have 125 members drawn from fifty-nine lodges.
The club laid the cornerstone of a proposed $50,000 clubhouse on Van Wyck Avenue near Jerome.
It was intended as “a centre of community activity.”
Construction would proceed in stages as funds became available.
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 chartered lodge followed.
Their legal relationship and the property’s ownership sequence 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 Building
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 occupancy, not ownership of the entire property.
Suburban Lodge No. 1087 received its charter on May 3, 1928.
It was constituted at Tadmor’s Ridgewood temple on May 19 and continued meeting there in later decades.
Some predecessors acquired or commissioned buildings. Others used rooms in established halls.
Both arrangements could sustain a lodge.
For Suburban’s setting, read Tadmor’s Two Masonic Temples: From Fresh Pond Road to Summerfield Street.
Tuxedos and Monday Nights
Springfield Gardens’ twenty-fifth-anniversary account reports 160 members in 1950.
Its public figures included Robert J. Hunt, Master in 1929 and a member of 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 are individual examples, not a complete occupational survey.
The lodge’s own account remembers its working calendar with greater detail.
It describes maintaining a full officer line through the Second World War, holding four degree classes annually and raising approximately twenty new members in a year.
Officers wore tuxedos on visits around the Second Queens District.
The Masonic Club met on Monday nights.
An Actor’s Club drew on members interested in performance and ritual presentation.
The temple also hosted district instruction.
Springfield Gardens teams traveled to other lodges to perform degree work, including visits to Jamaica.
The institution depended on recurring work: learning parts, assembling officers, welcoming candidates and returning for the next meeting.
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.
The figure and ranking remain attributed to the lodge’s account until compared with contemporary collection records.
The history also remembers feeding donors and providing small gifts.
In April 1970, the Grand Master of Massachusetts included Springfield Gardens in his visiting itinerary.
The proceedings index identified in the research places the lodge in Brooklyn.
That geographical label should not override the institution’s Queens location.
The visit and the erroneous place label are separate facts.
Breaks in the Officer Line
The lodge history describes difficulties in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Officers moved away or took jobs requiring night work.
Gaps opened in the succession of officers.
That is direct evidence of the institution’s explanation for a practical problem.
It should not be expanded into a complete explanation of southeast Queens’ 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 continuing to name their Masonic affiliations.
A Springfield Gardens member died in Binghamton in 1974.
A Queens Village Past Master moved to Farmingdale and later Florida.
Other notices identify long-serving members after the lodge began meeting in Rockville Centre.
The lodge’s name remained attached to Queens while members’ addresses spread farther away.
Those notices establish relocation and continued affiliation. They do not establish why every member moved or how representative the examples were.
Consolidation in Several Branches
The later inheritance did not form through one simple sequence.
Springfield Gardens did not absorb each predecessor separately.
Several branches had already combined before entering No. 1057.
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.
According to the author’s Grand Lodge compilation, it entered Springfield Gardens on July 22, 1994.
Queens Village, Suburban and Prosperity
Queens Village and Suburban consolidated on March 27, 1981.
Prosperity joined the combined lodge in 1984.
The transcribed record is inconsistent about the intermediate number after that union.
The relationship can be described without silently choosing between the conflicting entries.
The original consolidation documents should settle the number.
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 keeping the conflict visible for comparison with the original record.
The 2013 Union
On July 22, 2013, Jamaica-Queens Village entered Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057.
The [Grand Lodge connect listing for Springfield Gardens](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 charter date of May 6, 1926.
The two dates belong to different stages of the institution’s history.
Nine Founding Identities
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.
The count describes institutional ancestry.
It does not establish that Springfield Gardens physically possesses every predecessor charter, minute book or artifact.
An inventory would be needed to describe those holdings.
Salvage
Springfield Gardens’ own history remembers members hoping they would remain strong enough to continue independently as membership pressures persisted.
It describes the unions as amicable.
That is the institution’s retrospective account. Merger agreements and meeting minutes would offer a fuller view of the negotiations.
Consolidation can be read as contraction: fewer independent lodges, fewer officer lines and fewer separately operating names.
It can also be read as a means of continuation.
Members retained a working institution rather than ending their Masonic association.
The disposition of records, assets and honors must be established for each union. It should not be assumed to have been identical every time.
The larger relationship is nevertheless clear.
The histories did not all remain independent.
They entered a shared succession.
Temples with Other Lives
The buildings followed different routes.
Hillside’s temple became Queens Tabernacle. Its Masonic cornerstone and carved Psalm remain 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 predecessors used shared premises rather than owning a temple of their own.
A Reversal of Use
The church-reuse examples still reveal an instructive reversal.
Jamaica’s early twentieth-century temple began as a chapel adapted for Masonry.
Later, the Hillside and Springfield Gardens buildings accommodated congregations.
Assembly buildings can serve successive institutions, but their ownership and alterations must be traced individually.
A surviving building does not prove that its original organization remained.
The reverse is equally important: an institution can continue after leaving the building it created.
Lincoln Avenue
Springfield Gardens now meets at 28 Lincoln Avenue in Rockville Centre.
Its Grand Lodge listing identifies the Rockville Centre location while retaining the lodge’s Queens affiliation.
The 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.
It records displays that include aprons dating to 1921.
Those exhibits belong to the building’s broader Masonic activity. They should not automatically be presented as Springfield Gardens’ 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 acquiring land and building a hall.
Their successors continued under different circumstances.
The lodge’s 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.
It carries an institutional succession reaching from Jamaica’s nineteenth-century lodge through the neighborhood organizations of the early twentieth century.
The founders built a room in which people could gather.
Their successors kept gathering after the room changed.
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 comparison with 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 organ history.
The 1950 article’s OCR produces inconsistent building dates. This chronology 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.
Craftsmen Online, “Huntington No. 26: Long Island’s First Masonic Lodge,” as identified in the author’s research. Earlier Jamaica lodge context, not proof of an uninterrupted line into No. 546.
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. Chapel purchase, relocation and adaptation; 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.
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”. Building, neighborhood use, enlargement and 1986 sale. Property-history claims remain attributed pending deed comparison.
Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4, 1925. Hillside and Prosperity 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, proposed cost, staged construction and intended community use.
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.
“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 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
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, Counts and Interpretation
The nine-lodge count refers to separately founded institutions, not every combined name used during consolidation.
The lodge’s original charter date and the 2013 date displayed in a modern listing represent different stages.
Dunton’s merger is dated May 22, 1986, in the supplied Grand Lodge compilation and 1985 in the district history. The original record should resolve the discrepancy.
The intermediate number after Prosperity joined the Suburban-Queens Village branch remains inconsistent in the transcription.
Both the 1994 and 2013 consolidations are assigned July 22 in the supplied records. These dates should be compared with the original instruments.
No claim is made that all branches originated in Jamaica Lodge or that every predecessor owned a temple.
Members’ relocation is documented through individual notices. A complete explanation of demographic change or merger decisions requires additional evidence.
“Inherited histories” describes institutional succession, not verified physical custody of every original record or artifact.
Questions Still Open
- Was the January 1927 dedication held on January 14 or January 21?
- Who designed the Springfield Boulevard temple?
- When and through which entity was the property 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?
- Which number did the combined Suburban-Queens Village institution use after Prosperity joined?
- Who were the thirty original Springfield Gardens petitioners?
- Where are the predecessor lodges’ surviving records and objects?
- Why does the transcribed 1926 charter entry place Springfield Gardens in Nassau County?
- Which Past Master later served as Grand Master, and during which years?
Explore the Springfield Gardens Series
The Series Overview
Open the Springfield Gardens Lodge series
Follow the branches that converged in No. 1057 and find the companion histories.
Woodhaven’s Temple
The Hillside Temple in Woodhaven
Explore the building campaign, 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 a meeting-place history reconstructed without an identified lodge-owned temple.
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
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