Similar
![LA MATAZÓN [Material gráfico] Carta Etnografica de Gran Canaria, Spain](https://cache.getarchive.net/Prod/thumb/cdn8/L3Bob3RvLzIwMTYvMDUvMTUvbGEtbWF0YXpvbi1tYXRlcmlhbC1ncmFmaWNvLWE4ZmEyMS02NDAuanBn/40/26/webp "LA MATAZÓN [Material gráfico] Carta Etnografica de Gran Canaria, Spain")
Related
Masonic Hall, Shenandoah Street, Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County, WV
Summary
Significance: Like many earlier nineteenth-century structures in Harpers Ferry, the Masonic Hall Building was originally conceived by Philip Coons to house commercial stores on the first floor with dwelling quarters above. However, the Masonic Hall Building varies somewhat from this pattern. The first assembly hall of Charity Lodge #111, one of the earlier Masonic Lodges in the area which would become West Virginia, was destroyed in a fire in January 1845. Shortly thereafter, Coons, who was a member of Charity Lodge #111, agreed to allow the Masons to construct a new lodge room on the third floor of the building he had begun erecting the previous year. The third-floor assembly hall was most likely completed by the time of the Masons' first meeting there on November 22, 1845. Although the first two stories generally followed local building conventions, the third floor and roof constructions are unique among the town's surviving buildings. An elliptical vaulted ceiling was suspended from an elaborate king-post roof to create a large, virtually uninterrupted meeting room. The vaulted ceiling is particularly distinctive as it was constructed with salvaged timbers from "gundalows" which ran freight down the Shenandoah River. The third floor continued to function as the Masonic Hall for over a century until the building was deeded to the State of West Virginia in 1952.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N246
Survey number: HABS WV-279
Freemasonry's impact on America is more significant than anything that speculation would hold. A movement that emerged from the Reformation, Freemasonry was the widespread and well-connected organization. It may seem strange for liberal principles to coexist with a secretive society but masonry embraced religious toleration and liberty principles, helping to spread them through the American colonies. In a young America, Masonic ideals flourished. In Boston in 1775, Freemasonic officials who were part of a British garrison granted local freemen of color the right to affiliate as Masons. The African Lodge No. 1. was named after the order's founder, Prince Hall, a freed slave. It represented the first black-led abolitionist movement in American history. One of the greatest symbols of Freemasonry, the eye-and-pyramid of the Great Seal of the United States, is still on the back of the dollar bill. The Great Seal's design was created under the direction of Benjamin Franklin (another Freemason), Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Freemasonry principles strengthened America's founding commitment to the individual's pursuit of meaning. Beyond fascination with symbolism and secrecy, this ideal represents Freemasonry's highest contribution to U.S. life. Freemasons rejected a European past in which one overarching authority regulated the exchange of ideas. Washington, a freemason, in a letter to the congregation of a Rhode Island synagogue wrote: "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily, the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens..." Freemasonry's most radical idea was the coexistence of different faiths within a single nation.
Tags
Date
Contributors
Source
Copyright info
