STB-81-10
FREEMASONS AT YORKTOWN
by
James R. Case, Grand Historian
Grand Lodge of Connecticut
October 19, 1981 marks the 200th Anniversary of the surrender at Yorktown, officially ending the American Revolutionary War. This Short
Talk Bulletin is the last of a series commemorating
the American Bicentennial. We express sincere
thanks to Brother Case for this summary of
Masonic activity in and around Yorktown.
The settlement at Jamestown, Virginia in
1607, located on the James River, proved to be
only a point of departure from which the firstcomers soon moved to better port facilities
from which to ship products of their expanding
agriculture. In 1781 only two houses remained
at Jamestown, standing on the eroding riverbank.
Across the Peninsula, and nearer the open
sea, Yorktown was pioneered at an early date,
and the county seat located there in 1638. In
1680 it was named as one of 19 ports designated
for trade and customs control, indicating that
places on the James, Rappahannock and
Potomac rivers were used considerably. Large
scale planters typically had their own wharfs
for direct export of tobacco and grain.
Freemasonry appeared in Virginia about
1730 at Norfolk, at Fredericksburg in 1750 and
soon after at Port Royal, Petersburg, Hobbs
Hole and Hampton. Traders from Britain, factors, sea-captains and sojourners are presumed
to have held occasional lodges according to ancient usage, from which regularly chartered
lodges naturally followed.
In 1755 the Golden Age of the settlement at
Yorktown was losing its luster. The little town,
on a cliff overlooking an arm of the
Chesapeake Bay, was still the county seat,
although already surpassed in commercial importance by other ports of entry and export.
The population and productive enterprise were
moving away from the depleted soil in tidewater territory.
Across the street from the Court House was
the Swan Tavern, where a Masonic lodge was
meeting on the Ist and 3rd Wednesdays under
warrant from the Grand Lodge at London,
dated August 1, 1755. The "constitutional fee"
had been paid, and the lodge was kept on
Grand Lodge rolls, with changes in numeration, until the Union of 1813, when the list was
purged at organization of the United Grand
Lodge of England. The lodge had never made
any returns, there is no record of its representation at London, and there is no correspondence
on file in the Grand Secretary's archives.
Neither is the name of any of the seven petitioners for the lodge "in York Towne,
Virginia" under the number 205 known to us,
much less is there any account of what they may
have done, aside from their regular meetings, if
they were continued. One account states that
the lodge lapsed before the Grand Lodge of
Virginia was organized at nearby Williamsburg
in 1777. There were enough Masons in town to
have continued or renewed some sort of existence, as on February 22, 1780 a charter was
granted by the Grand Lodge of Virginia to a
lodge at Yorktown with the number 9, the first
lodge to be added to the constituent lodges. It
had not been represented at the two earlier
Grand Lodge conventions. We know the name
of the Master, as the record shows that $500
was contributed to the Grand Lodge Fund for
Charitable purposes on behalf of the lodge by
Rt. Wors. Thomse Wyld, Jr.
In 1781 Yorktown was a settlement of about
60 houses with a few hundred inhabitants,
when Cornwallis was ordered by the British
High Command to move his troops there in anticipation of an early waterborne evacuation.
But delay in his relief and intervention of the
French fleet left him stranded. The location was
accessible for rescue by water but untenable for
defense without control of approach from
the sea.
Lafayette and his Light Infantry division
had been sent south during the winter of 1780
to impede the advance of Cornwallis from the
Carolinas into Virginia, a great arsenal and
storehouse of warlike munitions. Wayne and a
division of Pennsylvania Continentals were sent
to reinforce Lafayette. The American forces
maneuvered so as to contain the British within
the peninsula and under such pressure, Cornwallis concentrated his command at Yorktown
and began to fortify the place with a triple ring
of earthworks. Lafayette called for help from
the Commander-in-Chief.
Meanwhile, in early August, Washington
received intelligence that de Grasse with a
French fleet, and several thousand troops in
convoy, was headed for the Chesapeake, and
the threat of investiture of New York City was
abandoned. A large part of the Main Army was
moved across the Hudson, and, along with
6000 French soldiers under Rochambeau, was
far away on an overland hike to Virginia before
any effective move could be made by the British
in New York City to stop the movement. The
allied regulars, reinforced by Virginia militia,
closed in on Yorktown and Gloucester, across
the river. Siege works were opened on the sixth
of October and heavy artillery emplaced, the
undertaking ending when the British surrendered on October 19,1781. The French fleet
had blockaded the river, had landed 3000 infantry, and they played a crucial role in the final
victory. The order of battle included 4000
militia. Honors for success of the Yorktown
campaign must be distributed among many,
without detracting from the glory merited by
Washington as the grand strategist and
commander-in-chief.
Returns of personnel under command of
Cornwallis showed 5600 Red Coats, 3000 Hes-
sians, 2000 Loyalists and 1800 negroes, the lat-
ter being laborers and servants. Among the
British units penned up in Yorktown were
detachments of the following regiments: 17th,
23rd, 33rd, 43rd, 71st, 76th, and 80th, several
of which, at different times, are known to have
had lodges among the officers.
No lodge could find a place to congregate,
much less do any work, under conditions existing in Yorktown under siege, with 15,000
humans compressed within the tightening
defense works. The Hessians had no lodges until later and then in the POW enclosure at
Charlottesville, and in the final few months of
the occupation of New York City.
None of the units of the Allied army investing the town had a lodge among their officers, and none existed in the Light Infantry
detached for service under Lafayette. In fact,
their detachment deprived the army lodges of
the young Junior officers who were the most
active in lodge work. Records of American
Union show a gap in the minutes about that
time. The lodges warranted under Pennsylvania
were destined for service in the southern department, or on the way south.
No contemporary diatrist or chronicler of
the events at Yorktown give any hint of
Masonic activity during the advance, during the
investment and siege, or following the surrender.
We know that immediately following the
surrender, Brigadier General O'Hara, who
delivered Cornwallis' sword to Major General
Lincoln, was entertained by Washington at
table. This was protocol of the times and com-
mon courtesy. O'Hara gave no evidence of
chagrin, in fact was "quite sociable and entirely
at ease." That night Washington and his staff
were occupied with preparation of dispatches to
Congress, to enlarge upon the simple statement
carried by mounted courier that "Cornwallis is
taken! "
The next day was one of jubilation and
several of the general officers kept open house.
Some of the French officers recorded that when
they rose from the table they went to call on
Cornwallis who the day before was reported ill.
Conditions in the town were "pestilential." On
Sunday there were special services of worship
and thanksgiving by the several brigade
chaplains. On Monday, British POWs were
marched off to detention areas at Frederick,
Maryland and Winchester, Virginia. On Tuesday the 22nd, Cornwallis, who had been confined to his quarters by an attack of humiliation, was sufficiently recovered to be a dinner
guest of Washington, along with the senior officers of all three armies. This magnanimous
gesture by the victor was not expected to be
returned by the vanquished.
Meanwhile, the Continentals were again on
the march, Wayne leading his divisions
southward to reinforce General Nathanial
Greene, the units of the Main Army hurrying
back to the Hudson Highlands. The French remained at Williamsburg for clean-up operations, staying there for the winter and well into
1782. At least one lodge was held at
Williamsburg among the French officers, for
many of whom there was no hesitation on account of their religion.
Yorktown never recovered from the
devastation of the occupation and siege of
1781, being additionally handicapped by the
flight from the worn-out soils of the Peninsula,
and the shift of production to the westward.
Obviously, Yorktown Lodge No. 9 was
forced out of town when the British moved to
the area in August, 1781, but a few of the
faithful must have returned and found a place
to meet somewhere in the ruins. We don't know
from the record, as John Dove, longtime Grand
Secretary, states that the Grand Lodge did not
meet in 1781, '82 or '83. It resumed meetings in
1784 at Richmond, now the capitol of the state,
but Yorktown Lodge was represented only by
proxy. In 1786 the lodge was reported to have
"shut their doors," but intended to resume
labor when certain "obstacles" were removed.
We are kept in the dark concerning what may
have happened, as the lodge was conditionally
"suspended" and nothing further is known
about Masonry in Yorktown until 1817. Then
the doors were opened upon the petition of
several Brothers "to revive the labors" and the
lodge recovered briefly, paying insurance on
the Court House where it met. It went dark
again in 1823, was declared dormant in 1826,
and dropped from the rolls in 1832. For the
next half century, the population of the town
did not exceed a few hundred in number, not
sufficient to form or support a lodge.
Meanwhile, during the War of 1812-14,
British raiders had been sent into the
Chesapeake Bay under orders to "destroy and
lay waste such towns and districts upon the
coast as may be found assailable." Yorktown
was among the places visited. The Court House
was burned along with other buildings, before
the fleet moved up the Bay against the capitol
city of Washington, which was burned, and
Baltimore where the fort resisted under a Star
Spangled Banner that flew through the night.
On February 22, 1850, Past Grand Master
Robert S. Scott, orator when the cornerstone of
an equestrian statue of Washington was being
placed at Richmond, let his exuberance get the
best of him, and by one statement originated a
tale which has lost nothing in the retelling. He is
quoted as saying ". . . in Yorktown was Lodge
No. 9, where, after the siege was ended,
Washington, Lafayette, Marshall and Nelson
came together and by their union bore abiding
testimony to the beautiful tenets of Masonry."
Ten years later, in his book entitled
"Washington and His Masonic Compeers,"
Sydney Hayden quoted the statement with the
comment that he had been "unable to verify the
actual occurence." William Moseley Brown,
historian of Freemasonry in Virginia, called it
"one of the weirdest sentences in the whole of
Masonic literature."
Since there is no corroboration, there is no
point to guessing why the orator picked only a
few names, as those were well known to all
Virginians and Masons, who were proud of
them. Imagine any lodge meeting where the
Commander-in-Chief was to be present that
would not have attracted every Mason off duty
at the time! At Philadelphia on St. John's Day
in December, 1778, more than 300 Masons were
in the procession to church. At West Point on
St. John's Day in June, 1779, when
Washington was guest of honor at an outdoor
meeting in the Colonnade, 107 Masons 'paid
their club'. At the meeting of American Union
Lodge at Morristown on St. John's Day in
December, 1779, more than 100 of the Craft
crowded into the tavern where the meeting was
held, and a frugal collation served.
A bi-centennial brochure titled a "Primer of
Freemasonry in Yorktown 1755-1955" was
written by Albert W. Banton, Jr. In anticipation of the 175th anniversary of the siege, he
had identified more than 100 known Masons
who were there. Aside from the general officers, there were many other of lesser military
rank who afterwards advanced to positions of
leadership in the Fraternity. The initial fable
has often been repeated and elaborated, one
writer going so far as to include Cornwallis in
attendance! Reginald V. Harris, historian of
Freemasonry in Nova Scotia, sought diligently
for some evidence, but could never satisfy
himself that Charles Cornwallis was a Mason.
Over a span of 30 years preceding the Civil
War, Yorktown changed but little. When the
Federal government resorted to forceful
measures against the seceding states, an attempt
was made to advance up the Peninsula against
Richmond. An army under McClelland began
to move in April, 1862 and again disaster and
destruction was the lot of Yorktown village
which was an anchor in the line of defense by
the Confederates. The string of earthworks
held for only two weeks before they were abandoned. The area became a supply base
throughout the rest of the war. Then the town
fell back into a drowsy routine after a decade of
reconstruction and recovery.
Virginia Freemasonry made another of its
great displays before the public on October 18,
1881 when the Grand Lodge laid the cornerstone of the Centennial Monument at
Yorktown. Although Congress had authorized
such a memorial years before, just after victory
was achieved, it was not until a century had
passed that the public memory was awakened.
A joint Congressional Committee on the
Yorktown Centennial Celebration had been appointed, and they requested the Grand Lodge
of Virginia to participate in the program by
conducting appropriate ceremonies as the foundation was laid.
Grand Master Peyton S. Cole issued an appeal for a large attendance, admitting the site
was "remote and inaccessible. " More than
1000 Masons responded and took part in the
grand procession under escort of Knights
Templar. A tent city had been set up for visiting
Masons and the military units which were
assembled for the affair. Carriages were collected from wide and near to bring passengers
from the railroad stations, several miles distant.
The river was crowded with paddle-wheel
steamers which in those days provided the most
convenient way to reach the village, in fact ran
into hundreds of landings all through
Tidewater and up the Chesapeake. Grand
Masters of the 13 original states had a part in
the ceremonies, as did delegates from many
other jurisdictions.
President and Brother James A. Garfield
had accepted an invitation to attend, but an
assassin's bullet caused his death on September
19th, and President Chester A. Arthur appeared instead. Garfield was eulogized as "a
brilliant orator, an able, knowing and daring
man. "
The Grand Master wore the Washington
apron and sash loaned by Alexander-
Washington Lodge; he sat in the Botetourt
chair loaned by the lodge at Williamsburg; he
used a silver trowel presented by his own lodge,
Widows Son of Charlottesville; he wielded a
gavel fashioned from the timbers of the Lake
Erie flagship of Commodore Perry, which had
been used at the battle monument at Monmouth and at Cleopatra's Needle in Central
Park, New York City. The demonstration had
public notice in every newspaper and magazine
in the Nation.
Quiet returned to Yorktown for another few
decades, until World War I brought thousands
of military personnel, ship yard workers, and
supporting services to the lower Peninsula.
With a railroad spur and hard surfaced roads
over which automobiles and trucks rolled into
town, Yorktown was no longer remote and inaccessible. Now a center of military and social
activity, the natural consequence was the
revival of Masonic interest.
After a few years of informal gatherings, a
Masonic Club was organized in 1924 from
which a petition to the Grand Lodge of Virginia
resulted in the issuance of a charter to
Yorktown Lodge No. 353, dated February 11,
1925. The number 9 had been lost by reassignment long before, the number 353 was changed
to number 205 in 1956, but numbers do not
matter.
No longer meeting in a tavern, or in
makeshift quarters, and after the trials, tribulations and vicissitudes of 225 years, the Lodge at
Yorktown built a home of its own in 1936. Today it sits in a town literally risen from dust and
ashes, one which in 1981 will be the focus of nationwide attention, this time on TV.
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