Brooklyn District Grand Lodge No. 1

A Historical Synopsis

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The 1934-1935 Report of Grand Council Proceedings held at Carlisle England on April 22nd, 1935, listed the composition of the Brooklyn Grand Jurisdiction in the United States of America as one of its overseas Branches with the following as constituting the said Grand Jurisdiction:

Grand Jurisdiction

Not included in the report was the Loyal Mizpah Lodge #16, a member Unit of the Brooklyn District which was inaugurated in the Bronx, NY in April 1925 but went into a state of dormancy for a while. The Loyal Mizpah Lodge #16 was later revived in 1931.

During the middle of the 1930s, the Grand Council and its Grand Jurisdictions in England were dwindling in membership having gone from 16 Districts there in 1897 to five Grand Jurisdictions in 1935. Something had to be done to protect the survivability of the Order. Bro. Joseph L Blades who was one of the Co-founders of the Brooklyn District Grand Jurisdiction in 1932 and the then Eminent Grand Master of the Sir Phillip Grand Lodge of Past Masters and Grand Christian Encampment began a campaign for the transfer of the Order Grand Council and International Headquarters from England to the United States. Some Units in the Brooklyn District were totally opposed to the idea while other divisional Units were extremely zealous and accommodating to the idea. These differences led to a fractious parallel positioning, and subsequently, to secession from the District Grand Jurisdiction by a number of Divisional Units. Leading the secessionist movement was Bro. Joseph F. Blades then the chief promoter of the transfer initiative.

Divisional Branch Units to seceded from the Brooklyn District Grand Jurisdiction were:

Sir Phillip Grand Lodge of Past Masters and Grand Christian Encampment #42
Triumphant District Grand Christian Encampment #2
Loyal Progress Lodge#34;
Morning Star Lodge #22
Triumphant Star Lodge #1

Shortly thereafter in 1939, Bro. Joseph F. Blades co- founded the Composite District Grand Lodge #2, in New York, and with the support of the Alpha and Ben Hur Districts in the New York Metropolitan New York, succeeded in his campaign for a transfer of Grand Council from England to New York, when in 1941 a New Grand Council of the Western Hemisphere was instituted here and in 1942, incorporated in the State of New York.

The remaining Branch Unit which had made up the Brooklyn District Grand Jurisdiction initially refused to be amalgamated into the New Grand Council and opted to remain for another twenty one years, operating independently under its original Dispensation from the former Grand Council in then in the United Kingdom. This decision turned out to be most devastating to the District and had threatened its very survivability.

Resulting from this, Brooklyn District which was once the strongest Branch of the IUOM in the United States saw its strength, its influence, and its membership, as reflect in the 1934 Reports of Proceedings, dwindled to a point of near total extinction. Nevertheless, the faithful did all that could have been done to keep the District from its total extinction.

Bro. Joseph Blades, who had seceded from the Brooklyn District Grand Jurisdiction with a number of its Branch Units and formed the Composite District Grand Lodge #2, went on to become the first Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Order in the United States under the Western Hemisphere.

The five principal Officers who were credited with preserving the survivability of the Brooklyn District Grand Jurisdiction were:
Bro. Charles Peters DGM
Bro. James Barry D.G.D.M.
Bro. John Stephens D. G. Secretary
Bro. Aubrey McNaughton D.G. Treasurer
Bro. Gladstone Hinkson D.G. Tyler