‘Help wanted: Grand Historian’

    

The Grand Lodge of New York seeks a Grand Historian.

After serving under several Grand Masters, RW Gary Heinmiller apparently is exiting that office, and MW Steven Rubin, our Grand Master as of last month, is looking for a successor.

Rubin, during his time as Deputy Grand Master, built the foundation for a Grand Lodge that honors its illustrious history. And let’s be honest, few grand lodges have accomplished anything approaching what New York has.

His initiatives, just off the top of my head, include: Craftsmen Online, the Lafayette bicentennial, the lodge history project, Masonic Leadership Academy, the Masonic history project. That last one involves self-guiding walking tours in various parts of the state to see places significant to Freemasonry. There’s probably more, but I can’t remember.

And Gary? I don’t hear from him lately, but he and I go back to the Masonic Light group twenty or so years ago. He is a legend in local historian work way up in the Liverpool area. He has compiled meticulous histories and biographies on Masons. Amazing dedication to preserving information that, frankly, only the nerdiest among us appreciate. Read more about him here, although that is very out of date.

In the graphic above, that is Tacitus on the right. I don’t recognize the fellow on the left, but since he’s smoking a pipe, you can bet he knows what he’s talking about!

Tacitus? Arguably, the great historian of Rome’s first century CE empire period. I got to know him during my college days. Not breezy reading.

Good luck with the application!

(Yes, I applied, last fall. No, I don’t have what it takes. If you know me, you recognize I’m not Grand Lodge material.)

     

’New York’s Lodge History Project’

    

If you maintain an absurdly active Masonic schedule, you may be invited to Sunday night Zoom meetings for discussions of special topics that either demand participants from far away or that require more time than a local meeting can afford. I’m lucky for not having too many of these, and I just signed off from an organizational meeting for an effort near to my heart.

RW Steven Rubin, our Deputy Grand Master, and RW Gary Heinmiller, our Grand Historian, launched the Lodge History Project to benefit the more than 300 lodges in the Grand Lodge of New York. Thirty-eight Masons from all over the state were present for this preliminary discussion of what we can do, should do, how to do, etc. in a shared effort to uncover, inventory, and preserve items and just tell the Masonic story.

This is going to be ginormous.

From lodge artifacts and documents to public statuary and infrastructure, there are countless things to see, to explain, to inventory, to document. This work is daunting even at its most fundamental and local level. We have lodges in this jurisdiction that are older than our country, but even a lodge that’s several decades old will have volumes of records and boxes of ephemera, plus mementos and other treasures of all kinds that say “We were here and what we’ve done mattered!”

There are some plans soon to come to fruition that I can’t wait to share with you.

There wasn’t much time for us to talk during this introductory meeting, but some of the concerns mentioned were of one lodge discovering in storage the apron worn by its first Worshipful Master circa 1766. Tompkins Lodge 471 on Staten Island has an apron worn by its historic namesake. Another lodge is vexed by a painting in its possession.

There’s a whole other Masonic world packed away in attics, closets, basements, and other storage crannies—to say nothing of what venerable elder brethren took home for safe keeping.

I think we’ll have to fly Heather Calloway out here eventually.

     

‘Grand Lodge facts and figures’

    

The big day is tomorrow! On Monday at 9 a.m., the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York will assemble and open its 241st Annual Communication in Masonic Hall in Manhattan with Grand Master Richard J. Kessler presiding. Sorry to say I cannot attend, but someday I’ll be available on a weekday for these things.

I’ve been perusing reports and other documents that are circulated in preparation for the two-day meeting, and there are a few interesting points to share.

Total members as of January 1: 26,383

Number of lodges: 438

Number of research lodges: 4

That’s The American Lodge of Research, Infinity Lodge of Research, Justice Robert H. Jackson Lodge of Research, and Western Lodge of Research. Esoteric Lodge of Research UD is listed as dormant. (I don’t know what or where that was.) Speaking of The ALR, Worshipful Master Conor has his report to Grand Lodge included among all these documents.

In the history department, Grand Historian Gary Heinmiller says: “We have gone from zero lodges reporting lodge Historians appointed to now over 140. This will increase each year until each lodge has appointed an active Historian.” I didn’t know this was a thing until reading Gary’s report, but I did notice long ago that lodges here didn’t have Historians. As soon as I read this report (he and I go back about twenty years via the Masonic Light group), I emailed my lodge’s incoming Master to volunteer to serve as Historian for the ensuing year. Yeah, sure, he said. So make that 141 lodges.

(Click here for How to Serve as Lodge Historian.)

History is one of my favorite fields in Masonic doings, and effective, professional communication is another. There are a number of initiatives coming soon that will help Masons exchange ideas among themselves, and put forth information to the world outside.

You know about craftsmenonline, and in the works is a website for Masonic education named Hiram.

Something else I haven’t heard of previously is the job of District Public Relations Officer. Or maybe I was informed, but I forgot. Anyway, I’m on a Communications Subcommittee, and I’m writing a “how to” manual for publicizing Masonic activities. (I’m from Publicity Lodge, after all.) I don’t think there’s much those of us in Manhattan can do, but lodges in the smaller cities, the suburbs, and rural areas have local media they can leverage. You just have to know how to help them help you. I doubt I’ll finish this booklet before summer, but it’ll be useful.

The Communications Committee has four subgroups, according to the White Book. I really feel like I ought to be more aware of these things, but maybe I need to see it in print for it to sink in. Anyway, there are Social Media, Publications, Press Releases, and Speakers Bureau working groups.

Also coming our way is Our Quarry, described by Deputy Grand Master Steven Rubin as “a digital magazine, published by region, celebrating and promoting the programs, news, and events from around our Grand Jurisdiction.”

Looking abroad, there are some noteworthy happenings in Europe. Last year, a New York delegation visited Finland to join the centennial celebration of Suomi Lodge 1. It was New York Grand Master Arthur Tompkins who set the lodge to labor in 1922 and led a degree team to make twenty-seven men Master Masons, including Jean Sibelius. The centenary of the Grand Lodge of Finland comes next year, and the partying will continue. (Take a minute and google “Finnish jokes.”)

Meanwhile in Romania, they must think they’re French or something because a rebellious faction tried to dismiss the Grand Master, alleging corruption; the National Grand Lodge expelled the rebels; then everybody went to court. I don’t know where it all stands at this moment, but I have canceled my vacation plans. (No matter. They say Sammy’s Steakhouse, the deeply missed old school Roumanian place, will reopen soon on Orchard.)

There are tons more reports, statistics, speeches, and the like. Be sure to read the book of proceedings when it comes out.

     

‘A Perspective of Craft Symbols’

     

RW Gary Heinmiller

It’s been almost exactly 18 years since I first “met” Bro. Gary Heinmiller on the day he was admitted to the Masonic Light group. That was the place to be for thinking Freemasons in the world of Yahoo! Groups during the early days of this century—a simpler world before Facebook and the rest of that stuff ruined humanity. So long ago, in fact, Gary’s email provider was something called bluefrognet.net. Anyway, his regular participation in our discussions revealed his deep and wide knowledge of things Masonic, particularly in ritual and symbol, but also in history, philosophy, and other necessities. I think his internet labors on behalf of Masonic education actually predate the internet! Where would we be without this?

Today Bro. Gary is the Right Worshipful Grand Historian of the Grand Lodge of New York (my Grand Lodge), and he serves the Craft in this capacity with the written and spoken word. Rashied says there are no coincidences, but a few months ago, I posted a message to my lodge brothers in our—d’oh!—Facebook private group about the history of flaming swords. (I’m one of those Past Master-Tilers, and I wish I had one of those implements.) It must have been at about that same day when Gary wrote an article for The Empire State Mason magazine (page 16) on the subject of—the history of swords, including flaming swords! His version is better than mine.

If you are in or near Fayetteville and are available Thursday the 24th, go hear Gary present “A Perspective of Craft Symbols of the Lodge.” From the publicity:


The Worshipful Master of Nortrip Lodge 998 cordially invites you to the October 24 presentation of “A Perspective of Craft Symbols of the Lodge” by RW Gary Heinmiller, Grand Historian of the Grand Lodge of the State of New York.

Refreshments will be served at 6:30 p.m. Tiled meeting and the presentation at 7:30 p.m. at the Fayetteville Masonic Temple, 116 East Genesee Street in Fayetteville, New York.

RW Gary Heinmiller is the Grand Historian for the Grand Lodge of New York. He founded and serves as the Archivist for the Onondaga and Oswego Masonic Districts Historical Societies, which maintains an active website with more than 8,000 pages of Masonic history, philosophy, ritual, geometry, and links. He has been the Charter Area 11 Historian for the Grand Lodge from 1994 to the present. Among his works are a list of New York lodges from 1759 to the present, the book Freemasonry and a View of the Perennial World Philosophy, a compilation of more than 4,000 pages of New York Freemasons in the Civil War, and lodge histories for nearly every lodge in the Grand Lodge of New York, most of which, and more, may be viewed at the OMDHS website.

Please RSVP before October 18 to the Worshipful Master here or to the Secretary here.


We’ll have to get him to the Fourth Manhattan District soon!