Origin Of Freemasonry In Nova Scotia.

Jfasonry erecting her court and diffusing charities in those very places Avhich Avere once the residences of AAdld beasts or of savage men . The Craft thus established on the most respectable and surest foundation Ave hope Avill continue to the end of

time . " The above narrative furnishes an additional demonstration that the Massachusetts G . L . record Avas not manufactured until at least after the

19 th of July , 1750 . But the question now is Avas the list of the members of the "first lodge" copied from a preexisting record of the said lodge ? or was it compiled by Pelham from hearsayfor the purpose of incorporating the

, names according to the dates , into a record he then contemplated to make for the said lodge , similar to the one he made for the Grand Lodge . I have furnished both in The

Freemasonformerly—and also in The American Freemason many reasons for believing that the latter theory is the correct one . But Bro . 0 . W . Moore has lately furnished the most complete demonstration that Pelham coidd not have had a

"first Lodge" record , to copy that list of names from . Bro . Moore printed in liis magazine a feAv months ago , a neAvly discovered letter , signed by Price as G . M ., dated June , 1736 , designed as a letter of introduction to a brother Avho

was about to sail to England . Wherein Rice stated that the " lodge " meaning tlie first lodge Avas organized—not July 30 th , 1733 , but August 31 st of that year . Bro . Moore certified that he copied some by-laAvs from the record

wok of the "first lodge , " which began *< th the date of July 30 th 1733 . " The record of the G . L . also distinctly informs Jis that Price organized the Lodge at 'ae Bunch of Grapes on July 30 th , 1733 , jdule the letter printed by Bro . Moore , ori

! ' ° m an ginal copy in his possession ( la -ted less than three years after the organization of Masonry in Boston ju | tors from both records Avith regard 0 the date of the origin of the first 0 cl ge ; and Ave know that the G . L . ec ord was not manufactured until the

N $ aOi < close of 1751 . ^ ¥ nSinference is that the Lodge AVUS also Avithout a record up to about the same period ancl that it was Avritten also by a man Avho Avas not a Mason until many years after the lodge

was organized . To that letter of introduction of 1736 is appended a list of the then members of the lodge , and on comparing it with Pelham ' s list I found t \ A o more names in the appended list of the letter than

in that of Pelham , namely , Captain Willington ancl Governor Belcher . NOAA ^ , if Pelham had copied those names from a then existing record he never could have overlooked those names especially that of the Governor . And I must here add

that Pelham evidently took great pains and bestowed the utmost care in the compilation of that list of the members of the Lodge . Having thus proved that the Massachusetts " records both of the G . L . and first lodge , well the

as as members list , printed by Bro . Gardner in his address , have all been Avritten at least ei ghteen years

after the organization of Masonry in Boston and by one too who was not initiated until Sept ., 1744 . I must now add that from the Avell known brao-o- adocia proclivities of Price endeavourlnato transmit to posterity the idea that he the

was founder of Masonry here , there and everywhere iu American , I am strongly inclined to disbelieve that Price had ever granted deputations to Annapolis ancl Halifax , and also that Erasmus James Phili ps was ever initiated in

Boston at all . The narrative in the Halifax Constitution printed only thirty-six years after the foundation of Masonry there , when many persons must have been living who knew at least many of the originators of the lod

ge there , and where ( not like the G . L . record of Massachusetts , Avhich no one but a G . S . or a G . M . Avas ever likely to read and examine ) the book must have been read by the oldest members then living . And , moreover , the paragraph at the very beginning evidently indicates—b y being placed between quotation mark s —that the