By Brete Murphy · November 11, 2026
In 1925, a newly formed Queens Masonic Association proposed a common relief fund and a district charity ball. Its first president, according to the contemporary report, was Richmond Hill’s Thomas J. Towers—a familiar participant in ceremonies and meetings across the borough.
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The Brooklyn Daily Times of January 4, 1925, carried two pieces of Queens Masonic news that belong together.
One described a newly formed Queens Masonic Association and plans for the first Queens District Charity Ball at the Flushing Armory.
The other announced a historical lecture at Tadmor Lodge in Ridgewood.
The Association’s first president and the scheduled lecturer were the same man: Thomas J. Towers.[1]
That pairing supplies the subject of this story.
Towers belonged to Richmond Hill Lodge, but his work repeatedly took him into other lodges’ rooms.
The Association proposed another way to connect those institutions: a common charitable undertaking.
The planned ball has not yet been reconstructed as an event. Its date, attendance and proceeds remain research questions.
The announcement nevertheless records an ambition worth following.
Separate lodges were organizing a shared effort.
One Borough, Twenty-Six Lodges
The January 1925 report counted twenty-six lodges in Queens County.
Six constituent institutions familiar from this series dated from the nineteenth century: Jamaica, Cornucopia, Island City, Advance, Mizpah and Anchor.
Many of the others belonged to a much more recent period of organization.
The Association proposed a relief fund for the widows and orphans of Queens Masons, with the charity ball as a fundraising undertaking.[1]
That gave the new body a purpose beyond arranging visits or ceremonies.
It proposed to gather support across lodge boundaries.
The report does not yet establish exactly how the fund would operate, who would qualify, which lodges formally joined or how assistance would be approved.
Those questions require the Association’s rules, accounts or subsequent coverage.
Nor does the announcement establish that this was the first collective charitable effort by Queens lodges.
Its significance does not depend on that superlative.
It documents an attempt to organize a common cause under a borough-wide name.
A later tribute remembered Edward J. Smith of Tadmor as one of the Association’s organizers.
That credit comes from 1957, more than thirty years after the founding announcement, and should remain identified as retrospective testimony.[7]
Read Edward J. Smith: Mr. Mason of Queens →
The Richmond Hill Man
Towers’s own lodge supplies the earliest stages of his story in the present research.
Richmond Hill Lodge No. 892 was constituted on May 22, 1912, in Arcanum Hall on Jamaica Avenue.
Hillside Lodge No. 894 had been constituted in the same room the previous evening.[9]
The proximity is revealing.
Two separate institutions began their chartered work through ceremonies in a shared setting.
Towers was Richmond Hill’s junior deacon in 1914.
At the laying of the cornerstone of its Stoothoff Avenue temple in July 1915, he served as senior deacon and read the lodge’s history.
The account described flags displayed on neighboring houses.
He became Master in 1918, and an October 1920 report identified him as district deputy grand master.[2]
These references trace a progression from work within one lodge to a district office.
They do not yet supply a complete biography.
His occupation, residential history and birth and death dates remain unresolved in the material assembled for this series.
For now, Towers emerges through the responsibilities he performed and the occasions on which newspapers recorded his presence.
Read Anchor-Astoria’s Lineage: The Richmond Hill Connection →
A Scheduled Lecture in Ridgewood
The January 1925 notice placed Towers on Tadmor’s program as a historical lecturer.
Tadmor was then using its first temple at Halleck Avenue and Fresh Pond Road.
Its larger Forest Avenue and Summerfield Street building would follow in 1926.[3]
The notice establishes the planned appearance.
Without a subsequent account, it should not be treated as proof that the lecture occurred exactly as announced.
It also should not automatically be identified with a particular degree lecture unless the wording of the report establishes that connection.
What the announcement does show is an invitation across lodge boundaries.
A past Master from Richmond Hill was expected to contribute to Tadmor’s program in Ridgewood.
Other records show similar cooperation through degree teams.
A May 1925 notice described Hillside’s Fellowcraft team at Tadmor. The author’s Geba research records a Prosperity team there in 1923.[10]
These were specific forms of assistance.
They should not all be credited to the Association.
They demonstrate the wider practice of cooperation within which the Association appeared.
Read Tadmor: One Charter, Many Rooms →
Read Hillside’s Temple Story →
Froessel’s Night
A later Tadmor occasion places Towers in the completed Summerfield Street temple.
On November 29, 1926, Charles W. Froessel raised his five brothers to the degree of Master Mason.
The Brooklyn Eagle’s account the following day reported more than 1,500 present.
It also identified a pipe organ given by Granite Lodge and described the participation of past district deputies, including Towers.[4]
The attendance figure is the newspaper’s report, not an independently verified count.
It nevertheless conveys the scale attributed to the gathering.
The occasion brought together several kinds of relationship.
Froessel’s family supplied the central event.
Granite’s organ connected the room with another institution.
Former district officers contributed to the proceedings.
Towers’s appearance belongs to that network.
It does not establish that the Association organized the meeting or supplied its audience.
Read Charles W. Froessel: From Tadmor’s East to the Grand East →
Growth and the District Division
The author’s district history dates the division of Queens into two Masonic districts to April 19, 1926.
Two years later, contemporary accounts described the masters of thirty-two Queens lodges gathering at Tadmor’s temple for the constitution of Suburban, Maspeth and Rufus King.[5]
Read beside the January 1925 count of twenty-six, the later report indicates substantial growth in the number of lodges being described.
The counts should still be checked against the district boundaries and reporting dates before being treated as a complete statistical series.
The division also raises a question about the Association.
Did its membership and charitable work continue across both districts?
The founding report does not answer that.
Its borough-wide title suggests a scope worth investigating, but the title alone cannot establish its later structure or duration.
The district’s growth is documented.
The Association’s response to that growth still needs to be traced.
The Chair at Wakefield
The last Towers appearance identified in this article’s supplied sources comes from Wakefield’s constitution.
On June 11, 1931, Wakefield Lodge No. 1110 was constituted in Tadmor’s lodge room.
Wakefield’s tenth-anniversary history states that Towers performed the Deputy Grand Master’s role and Smith the Grand Secretary’s role in the ceremony.[6]
Those ceremonial assignments should not be confused with holding the corresponding Grand Lodge offices.
The occasion linked Richmond Hill, Ridgewood and South Ozone Park.
Wakefield’s founding group included Roy A. Steinmetz and Henry Christ, both identified as members of Richmond Hill Lodge.
The lodge’s account also described early organizing work in a Glen Morris clubhouse and rehearsals in a member’s cellar.
Its eleven founders came from nine lodges in two states.[6]
These details reveal an institution assembled through people with several earlier affiliations.
Tadmor supplied the constitution venue.
Towers and Smith supplied particular ceremonial service.
The new lodge retained its own identity.
A Later Union, Not a Predicted Outcome
Richmond Hill and Wakefield eventually consolidated on January 1, 1978.
In December 1986, Richmond Hill-Wakefield and Cathedral-Granite formed Queensboro Lodge No. 892.
Queensboro joined Anchor-Astoria on April 13, 2024, according to the author’s Grand Lodge compilation.[8]
That later sequence gives the 1931 ceremony an additional connection for readers of this series.
Two institutions linked through founders and ceremonial participants later entered the same consolidation line.
It does not mean the union was already anticipated.
Nor does it establish that the Association caused or prepared the decision.
The earlier cooperation and the later consolidation are related parts of the historical record, but the intervening decisions require their own evidence.
Read Anchor-Astoria: Six Lodge Histories Across Queens →
What the Association Adds to the Story
The Queens Masonic Association is not another constituent lodge in the seven lineage trees.
It belongs to a different institutional category.
Its announced purpose was collective relief, supported through a shared fundraising effort.
Towers’s appearances show another kind of connection: an individual carrying experience and ceremonial service between lodges.
The two histories overlap without becoming identical.
Not every event Towers attended was an Association undertaking.
Not every lodge relationship depended on its officers.
The article’s strongest conclusion is therefore specific.
In early 1925, a contemporary report described a new borough-wide charitable association and named a Richmond Hill Mason as its first president.
Other records place that same man at significant occasions in several lodges.
Together, those sources reveal cooperation operating at more than one level.
The Borough in One Room
In 1915, Towers read Richmond Hill’s history at the cornerstone of its temple.
In 1925, he was announced as a lecturer at Tadmor and identified as the first president of the Queens Masonic Association.
In 1931, he performed a ceremonial role at Wakefield’s constitution.
These are separate occasions, not evidence of one continuous program.
Together, they explain why he is a useful guide to the connecting stories.
His record moves between an individual lodge, a district-wide charitable proposal and ceremonies hosted elsewhere.
The planned Flushing Armory ball offered one image of that cooperation: many lodges gathering for a common purpose.
Whether the evening unfolded as proposed remains to be established.
The effort to bring them together is already part of the record.
Endnotes
1. The Association and the Planned Charity Ball
Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4, 1925, page 19.
The supplied reference describes:
- A newly formed Queens Masonic Association.
- A relief fund for widows and orphans.
- Plans for the first Queens District Charity Ball at the Flushing Armory.
- Twenty-six lodges in Queens County.
- Thomas J. Towers as first president.
The presidency and officer list require corroboration from another report.
The announcement is distinguished from evidence that the ball took place.
2. Towers and Richmond Hill
- Brooklyn Times Union, July 18, 1915.
- Brooklyn Eagle, March 16, 1916.
- The Chat, October 30, 1920.
The author’s Richmond Hill research supplies the additional office chronology summarized here.
These references establish parts of Towers’s Masonic career, not a complete personal biography.
3. Tadmor’s Announced Lecture
Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4, 1925.
The notice supports the scheduled lecture at Tadmor’s Fresh Pond Road premises.
It is not treated as a retrospective account of the completed event.
4. Froessel’s Five Brothers
Brooklyn Eagle, November 30, 1926.
The supplied account reports the raising of Froessel’s five brothers, attendance exceeding 1,500, Granite’s organ gift and assistance by past district deputies.
The attendance remains attributed to the newspaper.
The event is not identified as an Association undertaking.
5. District Growth
The author’s Anchor-Astoria research, Article 1, for the April 19, 1926 district division.
Brooklyn Eagle, May 20, 1928, and Brooklyn Times Union, May 1928, for the Tadmor constitution gathering.
The newspaper counts should be checked against Grand Lodge proceedings and district boundaries before being used as a complete numerical series.
6. Wakefield’s Constitution
Wakefield Lodge No. 1110, tenth-anniversary book, 1940.
Edward W. Palmer, “Ten Years of Masonic Endeavor.”
Supports the founding-group details, early arrangements, Richmond Hill affiliations and ceremonial roles at the June 11, 1931 constitution.
Performing a Grand Lodge officer’s part in the ceremony is distinguished from holding that office.
7. Smith and the Association
- Daily News, January 21, 1957.
- Kings County Chronicle, January 22, 1957.
The tributes credit Smith with an organizing role.
That evidence is retrospective and should be compared with contemporary founding coverage.
8. Later Consolidations
Grand Lodge of New York records as compiled by Brete Murphy:
- Richmond Hill-Wakefield, January 1, 1978.
- Queensboro, December 4, 1986.
- Consolidation with Anchor-Astoria, April 13, 2024.
These establish the later institutional sequence.
They do not establish a causal connection between the Association’s work and the consolidations.
9. Richmond Hill’s Constitution
- Brooklyn Eagle, May 19, 23 and 27, 1912.
- Daily Long Island Democrat, May 24, 1912.
Support the May 22 constitution at Arcanum Hall and its relationship in time and place to Hillside’s ceremony.
10. Degree-Team Cooperation
The Chat, May 9, 1925, for Hillside’s Fellowcraft team at Tadmor.
The author’s Geba article and underlying references for Prosperity’s team in 1923.
These examples establish specific inter-lodge assistance.
They are not automatically attributed to the Queens Masonic Association.
11. Scope and Remaining Gaps
This article follows Towers through the appearances identified in the supplied research.
It does not establish the Association’s first complete officer list, the outcome of its planned charity ball or its later institutional lifespan.
The 1931 Wakefield reference concerns Towers, not proof of the Association’s activity in that year.
Direct clipping URLs were not supplied with the manuscript.
Questions for Further Research
- What were Towers’s occupation, residential history and birth and death dates?
- Can a second contemporary report confirm his presidency?
- Who were the other founding officers?
- Which lodges formally joined?
- When was the first charity ball held?
- What attendance and proceeds were reported?
- How did the relief fund operate?
- Did the Association continue across both Queens districts after 1926?
- How long did it remain active?
- Did it own property or support a continuing institution?
- What contemporary evidence clarifies Smith’s organizing role?
Continue Through the Connecting Stories
- Edward J. Smith: Mr. Mason of Queens
- Charles W. Froessel: From Tadmor’s East to the Grand East
- The Engineer’s Room: Hillside, Advance and Tadmor
- The Tuesday Night Visitors: Cornucopia and Anchor
- Connecting Stories: Complete Guide
Follow the Lodge Lineages
- Anchor-Astoria: Richmond Hill and Wakefield’s Later Line
- Tadmor: The Host Room in Ridgewood
- Springfield Gardens: The Hillside Connection
- Harmony: The Maspeth and Rufus King Connections
- Seven Lodges, Thirty-Three Histories: The Capstone
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