‘Freemasons and presidential funerals’

     
The lecture series at the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library of the Grand Lodge of New York will continue in two weeks with a presentation by the author of The President Is Dead! From the publicity:

The President Is Dead!

Presented by Bro. Louis Picone

Thursday, February 22 at 6:30 p.m.

Livingston Library

71 W. 23rd Street, 14th floor

Manhattan

Photo ID required to enter Masonic Hall

RSVP here

As many presidents of the United States of America were Freemasons, it is not surprising that the organization has been involved with presidential funerals. The history Freemasonry and presidential funerals goes back to the very beginning. Despite the fact George Washington asked for no “funeral oration,” Martha Washington allowed the Freemasons to hold final burial ceremonies for the first president. Louis L. Picone will discuss the Freemasons’ recurring role in several presidents’ funerals, burials, and tomb dedications that spanned from Washington into the twentieth century.

Courtesy Bill Mauer

Louis Picone

Louis L. Picone is the author of The President Is Dead! The Extraordinary Stories of the Presidential Deaths, Final Days, Burials, and Beyond (Skyhorse Publishing, 2016) and Where the Presidents Were Born: The History & Preservation of the Presidential Birthplaces (Schiffer Publishing, 2012). He has served on the board of the Roxbury Historic Trust and is a member of the Authors Guild, American Historians Association, and Mensa International. Louis has spoken widely on the topic of the presidents and the places we commemorate them, including the Grover Cleveland Birthplace State Historic Site, James A. Garfield National Historic Site, and the June 2016 international conference “U.S. Presidents and Russian Rulers” at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.