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Magpie coverage of the 250th anniversary celebration of American Union Lodge is forthcoming but, first, something in the mail.
Volume 138 of Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, the 2025 book of transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge 2076, is reaching U.S. mailboxes. Bro. Ric Berman has a brief piece in the Notes & Queries section titled “The First Grand Master of and in New York.”
This provides some intriguing biographical info and previously elusive context to the story of British Army Captain Richard Riggs, who was appointed Provincial Grand Master here on November 15, 1737.
(What is meant by “in New York,” I’m sure, is an allusion to Daniel Coxe, who was appointed Grand Master of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York—and who resided in New Jersey—in 1730.)
Riggs would serve until 1751 but, like Coxe before him, seems to have exercised no known Masonic authority. Except for several newspaper notices concerning a few meetings of a couple of lodges, there exists no information on the Craft’s existence in the Province of New York during his tenure.
Ric’s essay traces the nepotism and patronage that evidently fueled Riggs’ advancements in both the military and Masonry. (When the reader follows the connecting of those dots, he’ll be grateful for living in a society where no such naked inequity is possible!)
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