‘Grand Master’s OV on the 29th’

   

Just need to add 1738.

Far as I’m concerned, it’s the Douglas Smith Lodge of Research, but its warrant reads “A. Douglas Smith Lodge of Research” No. 1949, it having been named for the Grand Lodge of Virginia’s MWGM of the year 1949. Normally, the lodge meets inside the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, but on August 29 it instead will meet at Hay Market Lodge 313 in Haymarket for the occasion of Grand Master Matt Szramoski’s Official Visit to the Research Lodge District.

Virginia Freemasonry is home to six lodges of research, so it makes sense to organize so many into one district. The first of those lodges was ADS, which was set to labor in 1982 by MW Lloyd Jefferson. Its namesake was a forceful proponent of non-ritual Masonic education.

In Vol. 3 of the lodge’s transactions, RW Kwame Acquaah explains:

The founders’ intent was to establish a lodge in Northern Virginia to foster research; promote the serious study among the brethren of the different aspects of Masonry and the subjects and issues related thereto; encourage the preparation and presentation of papers on Masonic subjects and their discussion in the lodge; associate with or collaborate with Masonic scholars in other jurisdictions; gather and preserve Masonic information; maintain a library; supply papers or speakers at the request of other lodges when convenient; and conduct a program of general service to the Craft in the field of Masonic education and information.

The lodge will tile at 10 a.m. and at one o’clock the barbecue lunch will be served. Attire, I’m told, is polo shirts and khakis.

I’d love to be there, holding membership in Civil War Lodge of Research, but instead I will be headed north to Connecticut for the Colonial EA° at New Haven, which I will tell you all about.