‘Don’t miss the Tompkins dedication’

    

The brethren of Tompkins Lodge 471 again will venture into Manhattan next month for the traditional remembrance of their namesake at his final resting place. I recommend joining them because it’s an agreeable tribute to a consequential figure in both American and Masonic histories, and then everyone heads down to McSorley’s for refreshment. So, get to St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery on East 10th Street on Friday, June 19 at 6 p.m. to honor the memory of Daniel D. Tompkins.

He served as governor of New York from 1807 to 1817, when he resigned to become vice president of the United States to 1825. In Freemasonry, Tompkins was our Grand Secretary (an appointed position at the time) from 1801 to 1805, when Jacob Morton was Grand Master; and Tompkins himself served as Grand Master from 1820 to 1821. Along the way, he was the first Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite NMJ from 1813 to 1825, when he died on June 11, just days shy of his fifty-first birthday.

The titles are swell, but he should be remembered for his work as governor during the War of 1812 when he bankrupted himself (and died penniless) to provide for the defense of his state, and labored with his own hands in the construction of Fort Masonic at Brooklyn.

Click here for photos of a past Tompkins remembrance.