‘Tompkins remembrance next Friday’

   

Magpie file photo

Daniel D. Tompkins bust at the church.

The brethren of Tompkins Lodge 471 will visit Daniel D. Tompkins’ burial place next Friday for their annual memorial ceremony.

With the Tompkins Historical Society, which will hold a meeting at McSorley’s after the event, the lodge will gather at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery on East Tenth Street at 6 p.m. on Friday the second for the service.

Daniel D. Tompkins was made a Mason at Hiram Lodge 72 in Westchester County. He became Grand Secretary of our Grand Lodge, and he served as the first Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. He seemed to have eked out some existence outside the fraternity, having served as:

• Assemblyman, State of New York (1804)
• Associate Justice, State Supreme Court (1804-07)
• Governor of New York (1807-17)
• Vice President of the United States (1817-25)

Magpie file photo

Tompkins’ grave at St. Mark’s Church.

Tompkins bankrupted himself raising and equipping troops to fight England in the War of 1812. He died at his home in Staten Island on June 11, 1825. The Masons of the lodge named for him seem to do this about that date each year. I recommend checking it out. St. Mark’s is a historic church worth visiting in its own right. And, again, McSorley’s is just a few blocks down.

For some background on what the first such service was like, click here. And try this one for more Daniel D. Tompkins info.

     

‘The great mission of our fraternity’

    

The hundredth anniversary of the constitution of my lodge is a month away, so I am reading about that occasion and about the concurrent activities of Freemasonry in the State of New York. The latter is particularly impressive.

The Grand Lodge of New York obviously was a huge jurisdiction. Its lodges numbered 921 and had 272,634 Master Masons on the rolls in 1922-23. And it was a force internationally, having chartered lodges in Finland and Romania, with more planned in Hungary.

Europe’s wounds from the First World War were still being triaged, and the Grand Lodge became a leader in trying to establish an international federation of Masonic grand lodges to reconnect the fraternal bonds severed by the war. Ultimately, the Masonic International Association, the first of its kind in the Order’s history, did not come to fruition, but the Grand Lodge of New York was alone among the forty-nine U.S. jurisdictions to make the effort. Grand Master Arthur Tompkins, in his address to the Grand Lodge at the close of that term, said:

MW Arthur S. Tompkins

The spirit of strife is abroad in the world. National hatred, racial hatred, class prejudices, religious hatred, and individual hatreds are the curse of humanity and a blight upon the civilization of the twentieth century, and the world needs the influences of religion and the precepts of the Great Light in Masonry and the practical application of the Doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man to cure its ills and heal its wounds and calm the passions and subdue the prejudices of men and classes of men and nations and to bring concord, peace, and happiness to all nations. These are the only forces that can reach and regenerate the hearts of men and transform their brutal, selfish, and intolerance instincts into the attributes of love and service and toleration, and we American nations should welcome every opportunity to extend our activities and influences throughout the world….

Why cannot Masonry cooperate throughout the world to help suffering humanity and save the civilization now in jeopardy?

American Freemasonry, with all its prosperity and strength, owes to the Masons of all the countries of the world its sympathy, cooperation, the influence of its ideals, the power of its example, and the benefits of its counsel and leadership. We American Masons should not confine our activities and benefactions to our own country and our own national problems. The Masons of Europe are looking to us for leadership, and I believe that a union of all the Masonic forces in the world will be a great power, a potential force, for the promotion of the spirit of fraternity and brotherhood, peace and goodwill and may materially aid in the moral reconstruction of the world.

It’s a grandiose message to the modern ear. Quite a shift in Masonry’s focus from how Tompkins expressed it then to today. Now it isn’t even “our own national problems” (if only), but is merely the fraternity’s organizational maladies. But a century ago was patriotic times. The Grand Lodge made Masonic holidays of Flag Day and George Washington’s Masonic birthday for the lodges to celebrate. MW Tompkins urged the lodges to support public education, calling it “the cornerstone and bulwark of our liberties, and the only sure guarantee of our stability and perpetuity as a republic.” (Talk about changing times!) And, of course, there was the recent establishment of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Hospital.

Outside the sacred retreat, Arthur Tompkins was a major figure in civic and political life. A party chairman, a holder of judgeships, a U.S. Congressman. During the years he served as deputy grand master and grand master of the Grand Lodge of New York, Arthur S. Tompkins also was a New York Supreme Court justice. From what I’ve read, Tompkins simply could have asked for his party’s gubernatorial nomination in 1926, but he did not, and he endorsed another judge. In the thirties, near the end of his life, Tompkins was an associate justice of the Appellate Division.

And, yes, he was related to Daniel D. Tompkins; theirs was a family that established roots in America in the 1640s.

On Americanism, he was an idealist. In that same speech to the Grand Lodge, he concluded:

I have heard it stated by overzealous Masons that our government is a Masonic government. If by that they mean that Masons had much to do with the early history of our Republic, its birth and growth, they are right, but if intended in the broader sense, they are wrong and such statements are only calculated to cause controversy and resentment. We hear people talk about a white man’s government, and a Protestant government. These statements are true only in the sense that there are more white people and more Protestants in our country than there are people of other colors and creeds. Our Government is not exclusively a white man’s government, or a Catholic, or a Protestant or a Jewish or a Gentile Government, in the sense that the liberties, privileges, opportunities, and all the good things of the American Republic are for one class alone or that one class or race or creed may dominate all others in respect of their liberties, rights and privileges, and never will be such a Government if the ideals and purposes of the patriot fathers, the founders of our Republic, are perpetuated. Ours is a great democracy, made up of all kinds and classes, from all nations and all tongues and creeds. It is a Government as Lincoln declared “of the people, by the people and for the people,” of and by and for all the people, Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, white and black, and we cannot set up class against class, labor against capital, Protestant against Catholic, Jew against Gentile, the white man against the black man, without impairing the stability and imperiling the perpetuity of our Republic. Our democracy cannot permanently endure unless all classes, creeds, and races are allowed to live and work and worship freely and peaceably under the equal protection of the law. Any movement that is calculated to fan and intensify the fires of religious bigotry or class antagonisms or race prejudices will be deprecated and deplored by men who love their country and who want to keep it noble and make its future greater. There are peaceful and lawful agencies for the punishment of crime, the protection of individual and property rights, the redress of wrong, the vindication of the right and the preservation of our institutions and all the things that we Masons hold dear. Let us then be true to our Masonic faith and by precept and example, by loyalty and steadfastness, strive to allay the bitterness, to close the breach, to heal the wounds that have been and are being caused by these unfortunate and unnecessary antagonisms. Let our aim and all our influence be for a universal brotherhood and a world-wide peace, that is the great mission of our fraternity.

Arthur Tompkins cocktail

In my brief reading on Arthur Sydney Tompkins, I see how he was a serious cigar lover, and that the Rockland Tobacco Company of Nyack sold a cigar named Judge Tompkins Corona with the tagline “A Supreme Cigar Verdict.” I also stumbled across the existence of a cocktail named Arthur Tompkins. I haven’t yet found its history (nor have I pinned down his politics vis-à-vis Prohibition), so I can’t conclude it is named for our past grand master, but I’ll keep looking. The recipe is simple though:

 Photos courtesy cocktailpro

     

‘Remembering Daniel D. Tompkins’

    

Daniel D. Tompkins

On this date in 1774 was born a great, if historically overlooked, American man and Mason: Daniel D. Tompkins. Biographical highlights include being made a Freemason at Hiram Lodge 72 in Westchester County (later affiliating with Salem 74); serving as Grand Secretary of our Grand Lodge; and becoming the first Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. Oh, and he was governor of New York (1807-17) before becoming the sixth vice president of these United States (1817-25). He died June 11, 1825 and was buried in Manhattan.

While George Washington is credited for transcribing a seventeenth century book of ethics into his personal journal as a boy, Daniel Tompkins composed a series of philosophical essays while a student at Columbia College. He addressed moral quandaries that impacted American life at the close of the 1700s, from slavery to capital punishment to how best to select government officials. He also expounded on matters of personal growth: education, honesty, prejudice. These essays, some of them fragmentary because of the vicissitudes of time, were anthologized for a book published by Columbia University in 1940 under the title A Columbia College Student in the Eighteenth Century. (The originals are found in the State Library in Albany.)

Of course this is long out of print—I can’t imagine a student at Columbia today even picking up this book with a pair of tongs—so I share brief excerpts here to remember how serious a young mind can be. Daniel Tompkins was a credit to our nation and to our gentle Craft. (I leave it to you to read of how he came to die tragically.)

The only criterion I know of by which to judge of the expediency of electing a man that has filled a station is to inspect into his former conduct. Has his aim hitherto been the good of the people? We may then reason from analogy that such will be his conduct hereafter. In fine so long as the people hold in their hands the chastening rod, the freedom of frequent elections [and] the right of making a change, we need not fear but that the officer will endeavor to secure the happiness and liberty of his constituents.

On Choosing Public Officials, 1792.

’Tis true that many valuable authors have written in the dead languages but I doubt whether there are not equally celebrated ones in the English and French languages and equally valuable…. If four or five years of Virgil’s early life had been spent in the study of languages other than his own, we should not have been favored with such excellent poetry from him so early as his twenty-fourth year.

On the Study of Dead Languages, 1792.

Happy for America that she has been successful in her struggle for Liberty, but unhappy that she has not fully completed her design although it was in her power to have done it. It would seem that the inhabitants of this Country have not that innate love for Liberty which many of them profess; otherwise we should not behold our fellow creatures in Slavery when it is in our power to relieve them. Liberty naturally fits and qualifies us for improvement in knowledge and knowledge allures us to, and gives us a relish for “the ineffable delights of sweet humanity.” Among those who are free and enlightened, if one man promote the happiness of another, his own delight is increased in the same ratio; and no man can enjoy real felicity whilst he beholds others miserable.

On Slavery 1, 1793.

In short if we look into the world, we shall find few men utterly free from prejudice of one kind or another. Local attachments, habit and the like frequently beget and nourish prejudice. I know many who are of this and the other profession in Religion and [profess] a substantial reason for it too, to wit, that their fathers before them were of the same profession. Yet subject as we all are, to be duped by Prejudice, the least appearance of it in others excites our disgust. When we find the historian swayed by prejudice in the relation of facts all our pleasure of reading him is diminished.

On Prejudice, 1794.

In society, every member is bound by the most sacred ties to preserve Harmony and the Tranquility of all the community. This consideration sufficiently evinces the perniciousness of Dishonesty. Besides whatever success Knavery may find for once, it will find it difficult to succeed a second time, for one imposition places all on their guard, and affixes a mark of infamy, which causes the person to be universally shunned. Prodigality generally accompanies dishonesty; and soon consumes what an act of Knavery has acquired. He is therefore reduced to the necessity of having recourse a second time to dishonesty. But as I said before, he will find all prepared for his attack—and even tho’ he should find it necessary to deal for once with probity, he will find none to negotiate with him. For when the wind blows from one quarter we commonly expect it to continue there for sometime.

On Dishonesty and Extreme Indulgence, 1794.

In short, whether Law, Divinity or Physic be your aim—whether Agriculture or Trade is to be made a science, there may you lay the foundation to advantage. Go on then students of Columbia, with eminence and glory in your view. In this land of liberty and peace, genius may extend her wings, unshackled by the restraints of arbitrary power. And real fame, true and lasting honor, belong only to the virtuous and the good. With tender wishes for your prosperity and happiness, we bid you…be virtuous! Be happy.

Valedictory Oration, May 6, 1795.

     

‘Celebrating a historic grand master’

     

Magpie file photo

Bust of Daniel D. Tompkins at the church.

I didn’t know this was an annual tradition, but the Freemasons of Tompkins Lodge 471 in Staten Island do conduct a graveside memorial service at the final resting place of their lodge’s namesake, Daniel D. Tompkins, marking the anniversary of his birth—and they will do so today.

Daniel D. Tompkins was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York; Governor of the State of New York; the first Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite; and the sixth Vice President of the United States.

Click here for more information and photos of a past commemoration.

Today’s event will be led by Worshipful Master Justin Mack, with lodge brethren, beginning at 6 p.m. at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, located at 131 East 10th Street in Manhattan.

Magpie file photo

The gravesite of Daniel D. Tompkins.

Tompkins was born June 21, 1774 in Scarsdale, New York, and died June 11, 1825 in Tompkinsville, New York.
     

‘Back to the Bowery’

  

Bust of Tompkins
at the church

Freemasonry is headed back to the Bowery this weekend.

Beginning the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction’s celebration of its bicentenary, the New York Council of Deliberation will re-dedicate the gravesite of Daniel D. Tompkins, the first Sovereign Grand Commander of the NMJ, on Saturday morning.

Click here for information about the site and a previous celebration of Tompkins.

The gravesite is located at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, at 131 East 10th Street, at Second Avenue. The brethren will gather there at 11 a.m.

Any questions should be directed to Event Chairman Moises Gomez at gomez1rego(at)aol.com
  

‘Daniel D. Tompkins remembered’

“The Best of the Rest of 2009” continues on The Magpie Mason. I’d better wrap this up before the end of the month, eh?


On Monday, November 9, the New York City Chapter of U.S. Daughters of 1812 hosted its service of commemoration and grave-marking to honor Daniel D. Tompkins (1774-1825). The U.S. Daughters’ interest in Tompkins stems from his service as Governor of New York, and Vice President of the United States, and as a crucial financier of the American war effort of 1812. This historical society had held a similar ceremony 70 years earlier, almost to the day, when it dedicated a bronze bust of Tompkins in the yard at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, where he is laid to rest.

Was Tompkins a Freemason? Not only was he a Mason, he was Grand Master of New York, and the first Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (Northern Masonic Jurisdiction).

Freemasonry became involved, if I understand it correctly, almost by accident. Bro. Isaac Moore of Mariners Lodge No. 67 in New York City happened upon Tompkins’ gravesite one day. Struck by the neglected condition of the burial place, he let the brethren know how this illustrious Mason’s final resting place could benefit from some rehabilitation. One of the Masons Isaac had spoken to was Cliff Jacobs, 33° of St. John’s Lodge No. 1 and the Valley of New York City. Ill. Cliff discovered the U.S. Daughters’ project to fix up the gravesite, and the Daughters welcomed the brethren into the endeavor.

The affair on November 9 was a very special and memorable occasion, as I hope these photos will convey.

The final resting place of Daniel D. Tompkins. Governor of New York. Vice President of the United States. Grand Master of New York. Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

The Veteran Corps of Artillery, State of New York, founded in 1790, served as the color guard for the ceremony.

Freemasonry was represented in numbers that day. That is John Mauk Hilliard at left, accepting a presentation from Anne Farley, Mary Raye Casper, and Emily Malloy of U.S. Daughters of 1812. Also present were Peter Samiec, 33°, Deputy for New York; RW Vincent Libone, Deputy Grand Master of New York; W. Kenneth Lorentzen, Master of Tompkins Lodge No. 471; and several dozen others. Malloy was chairman of U.S. Daughters’ Tompkins Commemoration Committee.

Participants and guests gather outside the church at the gravesite for prayer and the rededication.

Left: Brian G. Andersson, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Records and Information Services, presented a proclamation from Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Right: Dr. George Hill is a descendant of Daniel D. Tompkins.

The Rev. Michael Relyea of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery reflected on the life of Daniel Tompkins, crediting him with outspoken support of Abolition, scores of years ahead of the Civil War, which Relyea attributed to the reversals of fortune Tompkins suffered at the end of his life.

Ill. John William McNaughton, 33°, Sovereign Grand Commander of the AASR-NMJ, saluted his predecessor’s service to the American people and to Freemasonry.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery is located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Its yards contain the burial places of a number of early Dutch settlers of New York, most notably Petrus ‘Peter’ Stuyvesant, Captain General and Governor in Chief of Amsterdam in New Netherland (New York) and the Dutch West India Islands (1612-72).

Alpha hosts MW Hughes

   

Worshipful Master David Lindez, left, introduces MW Thomas R. Hughes, Sr., Grand Master of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of New Jersey at Alpha Lodge last night. The Grand Master was the ‘closing act’ on a very busy 2009 calendar of lectures and educational programs at Alpha.

The Regular Communication last night of historic Alpha Lodge No. 116 made for a superbly fitting crescendo to the ever heightening excitement and purpose that have been felt all year long. It was the final meeting of Alpha with W. Bro. David Lindez in the East; his remaining responsibility is to have his duly elected successor properly installed – and without putting too fine a point on it, he’s got that under control! (It’s been a pretty busy year for David, with a Master’s Degree completed and a new job begun.)

David’s capstone took the form of a big showing of brethren from the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of New Jersey – and I mean about 45 guys! – accompanying their Grand Master, MW Thomas R. Hughes, Sr., the guest speaker for the evening.

“How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity....” Well they come from all over the world to dwell at Alpha, but there is a special friendship between the Masons of Alpha 116 and the Masons of Prince Hall New Jersey. Visitations of Prince Hall brethren to Alpha is not at all unusual, and official visits of entire PHA grand lines seem to have become an annual occurrence there. It is impossible not to appreciate these visits because dozens of Masons arrive, and the fraternal bonding ensues en masse, and what I notice particularly is how Masons who never even met before start chatting like they’re picking up a conversation that left off 20 years ago. I suppose it’s like a family reunion for a very large family.

Grand Master Hughes’ topic of discussion was the role of Freemasonry in the African-American community, and he gave us a frank talk that covered truths of both spiritual and historical natures. A less talented speaker could have resorted to an informative, but not truly effective, speech on treasured PHA Masons who contributed mightily to their fellow men – “The Famous Masons Speech” – and MW Bro. Hughes did touch on that, but he had a greater philosophical point to make: Where will the Freemasons of the next generation come from? His is not necessarily a grim forecast, but he is not unrealistic about the direction undertaken by society at large as regards the value placed on family, education, and morality.

Alternating between commiseration and humor, Hughes lamented how men “who look just like us” live in a world of crime and degradation; how counterproductive “No Child Left Behind” legislation sometimes needs to be replaced with a “Child Left With No Behind” policy; and how having a president “who looks just like us” does not mean there is no more work to be done in the home, in the schools, and in the streets. It was a rousing speech dotted with personal asides, like the wry tale of how he managed to lose both his 33° ring and his wedding band(!); and a joyful reunion with a former college classmate who happens to be a Past Master at Alpha; and even the startling revelation that Hughes is a descendant of Daniel Tompkins, the first Sovereign Grand Commander of the AASR, Governor of New York, and Vice President of the United States. (Coincidentally, New York Freemasonry had taken part in the rededication of Tompkins’ gravesite on Monday morning.)

I cannot emphasize enough the appropriateness – and I mean the tailoring for a perfect fit – of this particular address on this specific evening. Longtime Magpie readers have been following the events at Alpha of 2009, a full schedule of lectures that took the brethren on an intellectual and spiritual grand tour: Tim Wallace-Murphy visited to tell us how the unresolved mysteries of Rosslyn Chapel can be understood as the gnostic missing links connecting the Knights Templar to Freemasonry. Bro. Oliver taught us that some Masonic degrees in the world are treasured inviolable paths toward a communion with God. Alpha brethren themselves took turns exchanging their personal speculations of ritual and symbol, achieving poignant insights that were developed even further during the electrifying post-lecture discussions. And that ain’t the half of it. And in conclusion, last night, MW Hughes brought us full circle – a return to operative roots, if you will – with plain talk about the real world and the need for Freemasonry to take up its tools and starting building anew.

‘Under your present escort’ – Alpha Lodge receives Grand Master Hughes. Do not adjust your monitor. The air was thick with incense in Alpha Lodge last night.

I told the Worshipful Master today that from my seat in the west of the lodge room, where I could hear the brethren’s softly spoken replies to many of Hughes’ points, that it felt like a Sunday morning at St. Matthew AME in Orange. (No, you may not ask me why I’ve spent Sunday mornings listening to Reggie Jackson.)

Both Hughes and RW Charles Brown, Senior Grand Warden, received honorific parchments from W. Lindez. Then the lodge was closed with the bang of a gavel wielded by Hughes, Lindez, and RW Al Wright, PDDGM. The brethren headed downstairs for a feast and further fellowship.

David, you made it!

As above: Bro. Taoman, W. David, and Bro. Carlos.
As below: The brethren at the agape feast.