‘Staten Island corner named for historic Freemasons’

    

Staten Island Advance

The intersection of two avenues in the Rosebank section of Staten Island has been named for a pair of historic Italian Freemasons, according to local news media. The corner of Tompkins and Chestnut avenues now has additional signage, as the former street was dedicated to Antonio Meucci, and the latter to Giuseppe Garibaldi last Wednesday.

Staten Island Advance

From left: New York Italian Consulate General Giuseppe Pastorelli, City Councilwoman Kamillah Hanks, District Attorney Michael McMahon, community leader Fran Curcio, National President Order Sons & Daughters of Italy Thomas Lupo. Seated is Joseph Sciame, chairman and CEO of the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum. At the far right is Dean Anthony J. Tamburri of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute.

The honor is based on the historical significance of the two immigrants, and not their Masonic affiliations. The Order Sons and Daughters of Italy took part in the public ceremony and, to my knowledge, no one from the Masonic Order was involved.

I cannot pin down Meucci’s Masonic affiliation. You know Garibaldi: Having joined the Grand Orient of France’s Les Amis de la Patrie lodge in Montevideo in 1844, he also was known to have visited lodges in New York (1850) and London (1853-4) before being raised to the Third Degree in 1860. Several years later, he was made a Scottish Rite Mason. In 1864, he was elected Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy. Garibaldi often is referred to as the George Washington of Italy, for his military and political success in unifying Italy and creating the nation-state we know today. But, unlike Washington, Garibaldi saw Freemasonry as a force to accomplish the goals of establishing the national sovereignty and securing a democratic system for its people.

Speaking on the sixtieth anniversary of the chartering of Garibaldi Lodge 542 in New York, Bro. Frank Bellini said:

… After the fall of the Roman Republic (1849), which he had strenuously defended, Giuseppe Garibaldi, the almost legendary champion of humanity, escaped from the papal and other tyrants’ gendarmerie and arrived in New York on board the ship Waterloo on July 10, 1850. One of the very first men whom Garibaldi met in America was a Brother Mason, [Antonio] Meucci, who, faithful to Masonic principles, welcomed the hero to his home on Staten Island. Garibaldi described this incident in his memoirs thus: “carried ashore like a trunk (suffering from rheumatism) at Staten Island, met a good man, a Florentine. He decided to establish a candle factory, and invited me to join him as partner, but having no capital, I adapted myself to do some work. Meucci treated me not like a workman but as one of his own family, which much love.”

 

Text of the speech in the June 1925 Masonic Review.

It seems that Garibaldi was soon offered a command in the United States Army by President Lincoln; he admired this country so much that he applied for citizenship and took out his first papers. During the time that Garibaldi remained in America and with Meucci, he must have been a powerful inspiration and comfort to the old scientist, who alternated his candle making with experimenting to perfect his invention of the telephone. Later, in order to uphold his right to priority in this invention, Meucci had to sustain a long court fight, in which he exhausted not only all his resources, but all his strength and energy. Penniless and heartbroken, he died in August of the following year (1889) in his little home on Staten Island.

   

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The Garibaldi and Italian lodges conducted the funeral service with full Masonic ritual, assisted by a strong delegation of members from other lodges. On September 16, 1923, the Italians erected a monument to his memory in front of his home at Rosebank, S.I., the work of MW Bro. Ettore Ferrari, illustrious sculptor and Past Grand Master of Masons in Italy.

That “little home on Staten Island” today is the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum, which has been owned by the Sons of Italy Foundation since 1919, and stands at the intersection renamed last Wednesday. It is open to visitors Thursday through Saturday, from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission costs $10 per person.