‘Thomas Paine Day in New Rochelle’

     

Patch photo

Saturday will be Thomas Paine Day in the City of New Rochelle!

Paine was not a Freemason. There is some confusion about it on account of his writing a short book on the subject of the Craft, but he was not a Mason. The self-described atheist, who had difficulties supporting himself and was often viewed with suspicion, probably would not have been welcomed into a lodge of that period despite his value to the Revolution, however selflessly he contributed.

The book—a pamphlet, really—was published posthumously with the title On the Origin of Free-Masonry. Paine died on June 8, 1809 in Greenwich Village at what today is 59 Grove Street, now the site of Marie’s Crisis Cafe, a name alluding to Paine’s The American Crisis series of sixteen pamphlets (1776-83) exhorting the Americans to free themselves from British rule. A bronze plaque memorializing Paine can be seen on its exterior.

As a writer, Thomas Paine may have exceeded Thomas Jefferson as the wordsmith of the Revolution. (e.g., “These are the times that try men’s souls…”) His connection to New Rochelle is embodied by the farm that was given to him by the State of New York in thanks for his patriotic service and, frankly, to help him stay afloat.

But about Origin. It is entertaining. He begins: “It is always understood that Free-Masons have a secret which they carefully conceal, but from everything that can be collected from their own accounts of Masonry, their real secret is no other than their origin, which but few of them understand; and those who do, envelope it in mystery.”

Freemasonry, he continues, “is derived, and is the remains of, the religion of the ancient Druids, who, like the magi of Persia and the priests of Heliopolis in Egypt, were Priests of the Sun.” He explains how the use of the sun in our rituals and symbolism, which he gleaned from Prichard’s exposure Masonry Dissected, proves his theory, but there is more.

The colophon page explains how Origin came to be published.

 
In conclusion, Paine writes “I come now to speak of the cause of secrecy used by the Masons. The natural source of secrecy is fear. When any new religion overruns a former religion, the professors of the new become the persecutors of the old... A false brother might expose the lives of many of them to destruction; and from the remains of the religion of the Druids, thus preserved, arose the institution which, to avoid the name of Druid, took that of Mason, and practiced, under this new name, the rights and ceremonies of Druids.”

Paine’s writing on Freemasonry is wrong, but it is not nonsensical. There is a logic to his thesis that, frankly, is more solid than the weird suppositions about Masonry originating as a murderous Roman Catholic army deployed to the Holy Land. Paine’s pamphlet remains in print and can be had from your favorite bookseller. It is a quick read which I recommend to your attention.