N 1730 the Grand Lodge of England issued a deputation appointing Daniel Coxe, of Trenton, Provincial Grand Master of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. As the document is interesting, not only on account of its importance in early American Masonic history, but on account of its being the standard around which many a Masonic tradition has been woven and many a Masonic battle fought it is here reproduced in full.

Sic Subscribitur NORFOLK, G. M.

To all and every, our Right Worshipful, Worshipful and loving brethren now residing, or who may hereafter reside in the Provinces of New York, New Jersey and Pensilvania, His Grace, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal and Hereditary Marshal of England, Earl of Arundel, Surry, Norfolk and Norwich, Baron Mowbray, Howard Seagrave, Brewse of Gower, Fitz-Alan, Warren, Clun, Oswaldestre, Maltravers, Graystock, Furnival Verdon, Lovelot, Strango of Blackmere and Howard of Castle Rising, after the Princes of the Royal Blood first Duke, Earl, and Baron of England, Chief of the illustrious family of Howards, Grand Master of the Free and Accepted Masons of England, sendeth greeting:

Whereas, application has been made unto us by our Rt. Worshipful and well-beloved Brother, Daniel Cox, of New Jersey, Esqr., and by several other brethren, Free and Accepted Masons, residing and about to reside in the said Provinces of New York, New Jersey and Pensilvania, that we should be pleased to nominate and appoint a Provincial Grand Master of the said Provinces: Now, Know ye that we have nominated, ordained, constituted and ap

pointed, and do by these Presents, nominate, ordain, constitute and appoint our Rt. Worshipful Brother, the said Daniel Cox, Provincial Grand Master of the said Provinces of New York, New Jersey and Pensilvania with full Power and Authority to nominate and appoint his Dep. Grand Master and Grand Wardens, for the space of two years from the feast of St. John the Baptist, now next ensuing, after which time it is our Will and Pleasure, and we do hereby ordain that the brethren who do now reside, or may hereafter reside in all or any of the said Provinces, shall, and they are hereby empowered, every other year on the feast of St. John the Baptist to elect a Provincial Grand Master, who shall have the power of nominating and appointing his Dep. Grand Master and Grand Wardens. And we do hereby empower our said Provincial Grand Master, and the Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master and Grand Wardens for the time being, for us and in our place and stead to constitute the Brethren (Free and Accepted Masons) now residing, or who shall hereafter reside in those parts, into one or more regular Lodge or Lodges, as he shall think fit, and as often as occasion shall require. He, the said Daniel Cox, and the Provincial Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master and Grand Wardens, for the time being, taking special care that all and every member of any Lodge or Lodges so to be constituted, have or shall be made regular Masons, and that they do cause all and every the regulations contained in the printed Book of Constitutions, except so far as they have been altered by the Grand Lodge at their quarterly meetings, to be kept and observed, and also all such other Rules and Instructions as shall from time to time be transmitted to him or them by us, or Nath'l Blackerly, Esqr., our Deputy Grand Master, or the Grand Master or his Deputy for the time being, and that he, the said Daniel Cox, our Provincial Grand Master for the said Province, and the Provincial Grand Master for the time being, or his Deputy, do send

to us or our Deputy Grand Master, and to the Grand Master of England or his Deputy for the time being, annually an account in writing of the number of Lodges so constituted, with the names of the several members of each particular Lodge, together with such other matters and things as he or they shall think fit to be communciated for the benefit of the Craft. And, lastly, we will and require that our said Provincial Grand Master, and the Grand Master for the time being or his Deputy, do annually cause the brethren to keep the feast of St. John the Evangelist and dine together on that day, or (in case any accident should happen to prevent their dining together on that day) on any other day near that time as the Provincial Grand Master for the time being shall judge most fit, as is done here, and at that time more particularly and at all Quarterly Communications, he do recommend a General Charity to be established for the relief of poor brethren of the said Province.

Given under our hand and seal of office, at Lon

1730; that they were numerous enough to give rise to the hope of the establishment of one or more Lodges, and that no regularly warranted Lodge then existed in North America so far as records of the English Grand Lodge had knowledge. It also shows the keen desire for regularity in Masonic matters and the division of the Masonic year into two distinct parts in which the officers were to be selected on the day of St. John the Baptist, June 24, and the brethren to feast together on the day of St. John the Evangelist, December 27. It specified that regular annual returns, not only of the names of Lodges, but of the names of the individual brethren were to be made to the Grand Lodge. But what will appeal to brethren in these passing days most

5730.

FREEMASONS' ARMS "MODERNS."

The original of this document is in the archives of the Grand Lodge of England. In it the name of the appointee is spelled without the final "e," which he affected and which we will use on the principle that a man is the best judge of the spelling of his own name.

Several things are made clear to us by this warrant. In the first place it makes it evident that there were Free and Accepted Masons in the territory covered by the document in

charity. It virtually closes the instructions given in the warrant, the arch as it were of the whole fabric of the constitution, the last, yet the greatest and grandest of the objects to be brought about by the issuance of the docu

ment.

Besides being prominent in his time in Masonic circles, Daniel Coxe was a most estimable citizen, and appears to have been held in general esteem, not only in London but by his fellow colonists in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. New York does not seem to have been at any time his home. We find that he lived for several years at Bristol, then a pleasant village, on the Delaware, and some 20 miles from Philadelphia. Then he moved across the river to Burlington, N. J. (where his remains finally were interred), and latterly at Trenton, N. J., the last change being necessary by his official position.

From a sketch of the career of this worthy, written by the late Clifford P. McCalla of Philadelphia, and some details furnished in Gould's History of Freemasonry and other sources the following data have been gathered. Daniel Coxe was born at London in 1673 and was the son of a noted physician of the same name who had been medical attendant to the

Queen of Charles II. and to other ladies of the reigning family. Dr. Coxe, who acquired much wealth, became possessed of large tracts of land in West Jersey and elsewhere in America, and from 1687 to 1690 was Governor of that province. When he crossed the Atlantic his son accompanied him and seems to have made his permanent home here. In 1703 young Coxe was appointed Colonel of the military forces in New Jersey, and in 1705 he became a member of the Provincial Council. At that time he appears to have been quite a sport, so much so that a little Quakeress describes him in a letter in 1707 as "a fine, flaunting gentleman, said to be worth a good deal of money." The occasion which called forth this comment was the Colonel's marriage. He had paid court to Sarah Eckley, the daughter of a Quaker merchant in Philadelphia, and one of the strictest of that sect. The lady's father refused, it would seem, to give his consent, and the result was an elopement, the young couple being married at midnight in a clump of woods, the officiating clergyman being the Chaplain of Lord Cornbury, then Governor of New York and New Jersey, possibly the most disreputable of all the royal officials in that section of the Colonies. In spite of what might be called its clandestine beginning the marriage thus solemnized "between two and three in the morning, on the Jersey side, under a tree, by firelight" seems to have been a happy one, and after life's battle was over the husband was laid by the side of the wife in the chancel of St. Mary's Church, Burlington, where she had. lain awaiting him for fourteen years. On her marriage she renounced Quakerism, at least we infer so from a remark in the letter of the young lady already quoted in which she said, "They have since proselyted her-and decked her in finery."

In 1716 Col. Coxe was again a member of the New Jersey Assembly and its Speaker. A year later he returned to England and made a prolonged stay. His purpose seems to have

been the prosecution of a claim which he inherited from his father to the ownership of a very considerable section of the then existing. colonies and a great deal of what was then unknown territory. In support of this claim he issued in 1722 a work entitled “A Description of the English Province of Carolana." The work, which is now rare, proved of little practical use, for it did not seem to help his cause to any extent, but it is notable in American literature from the fact that in it appeared, for the first time in type, a suggestion and plan for the union of all the Colonies.

It was during the course of this sojourn in London that Coxe became acquainted with Freemasonry, and we find his name enrolled on the list of members of Lodge No. 8, which met at "the Devil Tavern," within Temple Bar, and which was constituted 1722. Probably this was his mother Lodge, and as his name stood eighteenth on the roll in a total of 28, we may safely credit him with membership about 1725.

In 1728 Col. Coxe was back in the Colonies, for on April 28 he wrote to some of his English friends from Trenton. Soon after he must have returned to London, for it is fair to assume that it was at his personal request and as a result of his own application that the deputation already printed, appointing him Provincial Grand Master, was issued. His own testimony is to the effect that the document was delivered to him in person. That he did not return to the Colonies at once is evident from the fact that on Jan. 29, 1731, he attended a meeting of the Grand Lodge of England, when he responded to a toast in his honor as "Provincial Grand Master of North America." The news of his appointment reached the Colonies before him, for there are several evidences of his having lingered in London during at least the early spring of 1731, but probably the summer of that year saw him safely ensconsed in his New Jersey home. In 1734 he was appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey

and held that office until his death April 25, 1739.

As to the use which Col. Coxe made of his patent little, if anything, is definitely known. On the surface in fact there is actually nothing to place on record beyond dispute, yet it is impossible to think (although Gould throws out a hint to that effect) that one evidently so zealous in the craft, so appreciative as he must have been of the honor conferred in his appointment an honor that has kept his memory fresh and green to this day-should have thought so lightly of the matter on his return to America as to leave the document lying dormant in his pocket or desk. It is to be regretted that the destruction of his family residence by fire, in 1777, during the Revolutionary war, and when it was the home of his grandson, doubtless involved the loss of all his personal papers, letters and Masonic manuscripts or documents, the very material which the Masonic historian would have gleaned in the hope of finding at least some grains of historic truth, and from which we might have had some definite information regarding his doings as Provincial Grand Master.

Under these circumstances we have to gather our information at second hand and to study what the indications show rather than what absolute facts might demonstrate. This is a difficulty under which all students of early Masonic history labor, and while it is never satisfactory it cannot be avoided if we are to avoid a series of hiatuses. Even early official Masonic records were slovenly kept-when they were kept at all-due possibly to a prejudice in early times against putting on paper the slightest real Masonic information. Any one who has investigated early Lodge minutes must be sadly aware of the truth of all this, and it is painful to say that Grand Lodges were no better in this regard than their subordinates. Fortunately for the historian of the current days this condition of things has improved and Masonic records are now as faith

fully and honestly and fully kept as those of any institution in the world.

In a letter written Nov. 17, 1754, by Henry Bell, of Derry Township, Lancaster County, Penn., to Dr. Thomas Cadwalader, then an eminent physician of Philadelphia and a member of St. John's Lodge in that city, occurs the following passage: "As you well know, I was one of the originators of the first Masonic Lodge in Philadelphia. A party of us used to meet at the Tun Tavern in Water Street, and sometimes opened a Lodge there. Once in the fall of 1730 we formed a design of obtaining a charter for a regular Lodge, and made application to the Grand Lodge of England for one, but before receiving it we heard that Daniel Coxe of New Jersey had been appointed by the Grand Lodge as Provincial Grand Master of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We, therefore, made application to him and our request was granted."

In the Pennsylvania Gazette, No. 108, date Dec. 3-8, 1730, is an article on Freemasonrypresumably written by Benjamin Franklinin which this passage, already quoted, occurs: "As there are several Lodges of Freemasons erected in this Province and people have lately been much amused with conjecture concerning them, we think the following account of Freemasonry from London will not be unacceptable to our readers." Then follows the extract which is without any value in this work, and the point of what has been quoted lies in the fact that there existed several Lodges in or near Pennsylvania in 1730. In 1884 Mr. Clifford P. McCalla discovered in the rooms of the Historical Society of Philadelphia a manuscript volume, purporting to be the Secretary's ledger of St. John's Lodge and which gives the names of the members in connection with financial transactions from June 24, 1730, until 1737, showing that it was actually in existence and at work on the earlier

date.

In commenting on this question, in an

article published in 1875, W. J. Hughan, of Truro, after quoting the above authorities, presented the following additional evidence, and from the whole drew an emphatic conclusion.

Bro. Cadwallader was a distinguished physician in Philadelphia, and a member of the Provincial Grand Lodge in the year 1755; so the letter may fairly be taken as an important link in the chain of evidence. All these references, however, do not connect any particular Lodge with the introduction of Freemasonry into America, though the letter of Bro. Bell is to a certain extent confirmatory of the fact that Bro. Coxe did constitute one Lodge, if not more, in Philadelphia, as Provincial Grand Master, and so far nothing has transpired as to the "existence" of a Lodge under the Grand Lodge of England anywhere in New England prior to 1733, excepting the newspaper extracts of 1730-2, and the other documents herein mentioned. We now have the pleasure to add a little to the stock of information. In June of this year, we became the fortunate purchaser of a little book in which is a list of Lodges under the Grand Lodges of England and Ireland for A. D., 1735, one year earlier than any preserved by the Grand Lodge of England, excepting that of 1725, already alluded to. We obtained it from the important and extensive library of Bro. Spencer, Great Queen Street, London, and glad were we to have it when we discovered its contents. We had never heard of another such copy, but, singular to state, some boxes have, since then, been opened, which are in the possession of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, in the presence of R. W. Bro., the Honorable Judge Townshend, LL. D. and P. D. G. M., and our good friend and Brother James H. Neilson, of Dublin, and lo! another copy has turned up; so now we are not quite so isolated in our possession as we anticipated. Bro. Neilson also owns a copy of the London edition of the same "Companion," for 1735.

The first edition, Dublin, has the following for its title page:

A pocket Companion for Free-Masons, contain

VI.

A collection of the songs of Masons, both old and new.

VII. Prologues and Epilogues spoken at the Theaters in Dublin and London for the entertainment of Freemasons.

VIII. A List of the warranted Lodges in Ireland, Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, East and West Indies, &c.

Approved of, and Recommended by the Grand Lodge.

Deus nobis Sol and Scutum.
Dublin:

Printed by E. Rider, and sold at the Printing Office in George's Lane; T. Jones, in Clarendon Street; and J. Pennel, at the Hercules in St. Patrick Street, MDCCXXXV. (Price eight-pence). It is dedicated "To the Brethren and Fellows of the most antient and Right Worshipful SOCIETY of the Free and Accepted MASONS, by your loving Brother and most obedient servant," W. [illiam] S.[mith], and consists of preface, 2 pp., and 79 pp. octavo, with an emblematical frontispiece.

From this time it will be located in the Library of the Masonic Temple, Philadelphia, as we have forwarded the precious little book for that purpose the Brethren of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania having a peculiar interest in its preservation, and Masonic students in America can examine its contents at convenience.

The list of Lodges commences with those under the Grand Lodge of Ireland, numbered I to 37, and then follows "A List of the Warranted Lodges in Great Britain, France, &c.," numbered 38 to 163. The English Lodges then do not bear their proper but simply consecutive numbers after those of Ireland, so that to obtain the correct numbers of the English Lodges as on the Register of the Grand Lodge, we have to deduct 37 from the figures printed. Thus page 78, "116. The Hoop, on Water, street in Philadelphia, 1st Monday," would accordingly be No. 79. This is the earliest account known of a Lodge in America, and the record is in an earlier list of Lodges than has been known until of late.

In order to test the age of the Lodge, we must consult a list of Lodges with the years of constitution attached, which are absent from the Dublin "Companion." In the London edition of the same book, evidently published later, or in the same year, by "E. Rider, in Blackmore street, near Clare Market, MDCCXXXV," (octavo, p. 116,)* the No. 79 (116, Irish Edit.) is inserted, with the name of the Lodge omitted, and so, also, in the "Freemasons' Companion" for 1736.

In the engraved lists of 1736-7 and 8, the No. 79 *Each alternate page is blank, but numbered.