THE BUILDER JUNE 1916

THE WEBB RITUAL IN THE UNITED STATES
BY BRO. SILAS H. SHEPHERD, WISCONSIN

THE year 1717 will ever stand out as a prominent date in the
history of Freemasonry. Since then we have voluminous written and
printed records; before then we had but about a hundred old
manuscript charges, a few mentions of Freemasonry in biography and
laws, and a very few lodge minutes.

Previous to 1717, the rituals, or forms and ceremonies of reception
of candidates and other work of the lodge, were most probably given
in the language and manner the presiding officer chose. It may have
been in a "set form of words," which form was transmitted orally
from one generation to another.

Soon after the "revival," or the organization of the Grand Lodge in
1717, Rev. James Anderson, the author of the "Book of
Constitutions" of 1723, and Dr. John T. Desaguliers, the master
mind of the organization, arranged the lectures into the form of
questions and answers for the first time, and this was adopted by
the Grand Lodge as the authentic lectures. (1)

In 1732, Martin Clare revised the lectures and made a few Christian
applications which were not in strict conformity to the
cosmopolitan character of the fraternity. Dr. Thos. Manningham and
Thos. Dunkery were the next to "improve the work" and Dr.
Manningham's prayer is still used, with slight modifications in
opening a lodge and at the reception of candidates. Thos. Dunkerly
is said to have given the theological ladder its three principal
rounds. In 1763, Wm. Hutchinson again revised and "improved" the
lectures and gave more Christian applications to their rites and
ceremonies. (2)

The greatest of all ritualists, however, was William Preston who
was made a Mason in a lodge of "Antients," in 1763, and soon after
induced that lodge to be reconstituted by the "Moderns." In 1767 he
became master of his lodge. He believed that Freemasonry should not
only be a progressive moral science, but that it should have an
educational value in giving its votaries more knowledge of the
liberal arts and sciences. His "Illustrations of Masonry" was the
result, and no book having more influence has ever been written on
Masonry. He was the father of the monitor. By 1774 he had completed
his system of "work" and established a school of instruction, and
from that time to the present the Preston "work" has been, and
undoubtedly far into the future it will continue to be, one of the
most potent influences of the ritual. Preston's "work" continued to
be the standard work for the Grand Lodge of England until 1813,
when the "United Grand Lodge" adopted the Hemming lectures. The
Hemming lectures differ in many particulars from the Preston. The
Preston lectures are still given once a year in England under the
auspices of a foundation made for that purpose.

When Freemasonry was first established in America is an open
question. We are not quite sure that the stone with the date 1606
is really a Masonic stone of that date, or that Mordecai Campanell
and his companions conferred the degrees of Masonry in 1656 at
Newport, R. I. (3) Neither are we certain as to where Freemasonry
was first practiced in this country by authority of the Grand Lodge
of England after 1717. It is, however, well known that lodges were
established in the colonies and that Daniel Coxe, Henry Price and
James Graeme were issued deputations as Provincial Grand Masters.

The ritual of the English lodges would naturally have been the one
used in the English colonies, and in this connection it is well to
call attention to the fact that the "Grand Lodge of England
according to the old Institutions," or "Ancients," was established
in 1751, and from that time until 1813 chartered lodges in all the
colonies. In many of the colonies there were two conflicting
Provincial Grand Lodges.

In the establishment of the "Ancient" Grand Lodge changes were made
which were of considerable importance. (4) Uniformity was not
accomplished in England until 1813, and it has not yet been
attained, and probably never will be attained, in America.
Pennsylvania still retains the "Ancient work."

After the Colonies had declared their independence of Great
Britain, the Provincial Grand Lodges naturally declared their
independence of the Grand Lodges to which they owed their origin.
Each was then a sovereign Grand Lodge.

To return to the lectures; they took the form of the place whence
they came, and were quite probably not transmitted with a great
degree of accuracy, and were not very uniform in the United States
at the close of the Eighteenth century.

Thos. Smith Webb was born in Boston, Mass., October 13, 1771, and
became a printer or book binder. Early in life he became a Mason
and a teacher of Masonry. In 1797 he published the "Freemason's
Monitor." He subsequently did more for Masonry than almost any one
else in his day, and was probably personally instrumental in
founding the "American Rite," or system of degrees of Royal Arch,
Council and Commandery. What we are particularly interested in,
however, is his connection with ancient craft Masonry.

About the close of the eighteenth century a printer named Hanmer
came to America and brought the Preston work. He communicated it to
Webb. Soon afterward Webb abridged it, arranged it differently, as
to sections, and taught this revision to Benjamin Gleason, Henry
Fowle, Bro. Snow, and others. In 1806 a joint committee of six, of
which Bros. Gleason and Fowle were members, met and agreed upon the
Webb work as the standard work of Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Bro. Jeremy Cross claimed to have received his work from this
committee. (5) In an address before the Grand Lodge of Vermont in
1859 G. M. Philip Tucker gave much valuable information from which
we excerpt the following:


"About the year 1800--twelve years after the publication of
Preston's Illustrations an English brother, whose name I have been
unable to obtain, came to Boston and taught the English Lectures as
they had been arranged by Preston. The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts
approved them and they were taught by Thomas S. Webb and Henry
Fowle, of Boston, and Brother Snow, of Rhode Island. About the year
1801, Brother Benjamin Gleason, who was a student of Bro. Webb,
received them from him, and embodied them in a private key of his
own. About the year 1805, Bro. Gleason was employed by the Grand
Lodge of Massachusetts to teach all the Subordinate Lodges of that
jurisdiction, and was paid for that service, fifteen hundred
dollars. To those lectures the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts still
adheres, with a very slight variation in the Fellow Craft and
Master's Degree. Bro. Snow afterwards changed and modified the
Lectures he had received--mingling with them some changes from
other sources--so that the system of lectures descending through
him, is not reliable.

"Bro. Gleason was appointed Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of
Massachusetts in 1805, and that Grand Lodge appointed no other
Grand Lecturer until 1842. He was a liberally educated man;
graduated at Brown University in 1802, and was a public lecturer on
geography and astronomy. He was a member of Mount Lebanon Lodge, in
Massachusetts, in 1807, and died in Concord in that State, in 1847,
at the age of 70. He visited England and exemplified the Preston
Lectures as he had received them from Bro. Webb, before the Grand
Lodge of England, and the Masonic authorities of that Grand Body
pronounced them correct. In the year 1817, Bro. John Barney,
formerly of Charlotte, Vermont, went to Boston and received the
Preston Lectures there as taught by Gleason, and as they were
approved by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.

"I am unable to say whether he received them from Bro. Gleason
himself, or from Bro. Henry Fowle. My impression is that he
received them from Bro. Fowle. In possession of these Lectures he
returned to Vermont, and at the Annual Communication of our Grand
Lodge in October, 1817, visited that Grand Body and made known the
fact. The subject was submitted to a committee for examination,
which reported that these Lectures were according to the most
approved method of Work in the United States, and proposed to give
Bro. Barney letters of recommendation to all Lodges and brethren,
wherever he may wish to travel, as a brother well qualified to give
useful Masonic information to any one who may wish his services.

"The Grand Lodge accepted and adopted the report of its committee,
and Bro. Barney, under the recommendation thus given, visited many
of the then existing Lodges of this State, and imparted to them a
knowledge of these Lectures. Among others, in the year 1818, he
visited Dorchester Lodge, in Vergennes, and imparted full
instructions in them to Right Worshipful Samuel Wilson, now and for
several years past, Grand Lecturer of this State. Upon this
occasion Bro. Barney wrote out a portion of them in private key,
and Bro. Wilson wrote out the remainder. Both were written in the
same book, and that part written by Bro. Wilson was examined
carefully and approved by Bro. Barney. That original manuscript is
still in existence, and is now in possession of my son, Bro. Philip
C. Tucker, Jr., of Galveston, Texas, to whom Bro. Wilson presented
it a few years ago. Bro. Wilson has a perfect copy of it, and
refers to it as authority in all cases of doubt. Bro. Gallup, of
Liberty Lodge, at Franklin, was one of the original Grand Lodge
committee, and is still living to attest the correctness and
identity of these Lectures as taught by Barney, in 1817.

"These are the only Lectures which have been sanctioned in this
jurisdiction, from October, 1817, to the present day. The Grand
Lodge has sanctioned no others. My predecessors, Grand Masters
Robinson, Whitney, Whales and Haswell, sustained them against all
innovations, and to the extent of my power I have done the same. I
think upon these facts I am justified in saying that the Lectures
we use are the true Lectures of Preston.

"Webb changed the arrangement of the sections as fixed by Preston.
for one which he thought more simple and convenient, but, as I
understand, he left the body of the Lectures themselves as Preston
had established them. Subsequently to 1818, Bro. Barney went to the
western and southwestern States; he was a man in feeble health at
the time, and pursued Masonic lecturing as a means of subsistence.
Upon his return to this State, a few years afterwards. he stated to
his brethren here--as I have been credibly informed and believe--
that he found different systems of lecturing prevailing at the west
and south-west, and that, upon presenting the Lectures he had been
taught at Boston in 1817, to different Grand Masters, they were
objected to, and that various Grand Masters would not sanction his
lecturing in their jurisdictions, unless he would teach the
Lectures then existing among them, that desiring to pursue his
occultation, he did learn the different systems of lecturing then
existing in the different States, and taught them in the different
State jurisdictions, as desired by the different Grand Masters in
each. This circumstance accounts for the strange disagreement
between the east and west and south-west as to what are the true
Barney Lectures. They meant one thing in New England and another in
the west."

Again, in 1861, he says: "Bro. Gleason was appointed Grand Lecturer
of Massachusetts in 1805 and no other Grand Lecturer was appointed
by that Grand Lodge until 1842. During all this time Bro. Fowle was
a member, sometimes a subordinate officer, and occasionally Master
of St. Andrew's Lodge of Boston, one of the oldest and best
informed Lodges in the world. For most of this time, also, Bro.
Gleason was at home in Massachusetts, and holding his office of
Grand Lecturer of his State. Is it not a very violent presumption
to assume that he did not know what Lectures and what kind of Work
were taught in one of the strongest Lodges of Boston.

"I knew Bro. Henry Fowle from my boyhood. My father was one of his
intimate friends, and they were members and officers of the same
Charter. Bro. Fowle was a man of far more mind and attainments than
are usually found among men of his sphere of life. His was not a
mind to forget anything, and was too tenacious a Mason to make
changes without authority. But setting all inferences from such
considerations aside, I remark, that I was present at St. Andrew's
Lodge in 1823 or 1824. AND SAW THE WORK DONE, BRO. FOWLE TAKING
PART IN IT THAT EVENING AS A SUBORDINATE OFFICER, AND THE WORK WAS
IDENTICALLY THAT WHICH HAS BEEN PRACTICED IN THIS JURISDICTION FROM
1818 TO THIS DAY. AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE LECTURES COMMUNICATED TO
WILSON BY BARNEY. I add also, that I was subjected, upon another
occasion, to a thorough examination, in an ante-room of the same
Masonic hall, upon a visit to St. Andrew's Chapter, by a strong
examining committee, which, finding that I answered readily, ran
through the Lectures ENTIRE from entered apprentice to Royal Arch,
and that the whole of them were IDENTICAL with those in use in the
Lodges and Chapters of Vermont. There can be no doubt, then, that
the Lectures communicated by Fowle to Barney were the genuine
Lectures taught by Webb and Gleason, the same which Gleason
received from Webb in 1801 or 1802; the same which he taught as
Grand Lecturer of Massachusetts, from 1805; the same that I found
among the Boston Masons, in 1823 or 1824 and the very same which
are taught there now.

"Was there any opportunity for them to be falsified in their
translation from Barney to Wilson? Barney received them in 1817 and
made private notes of them; in October of that year, he submitted
them to the Grand Lodge of Vermont, and got its permission to teach
them in this jurisdiction: he was well known here, was a man of
integrity and had every motive of interest and honor to preserve
them in their purity. In 1818--and before he had gone from the
State to teach elsewhere at all--he imparted them to Bro. Wilson,
having his original notes before him, and aiding that Brother in
making a correct copy of themand when they came into use
practically, they were found to exactly agree with those used in
the jurisdiction from which Bro. Barney received them. There seems
no room for error or mistake here. The link in the chain of
transmission is not broken at all."

The work of Webb was evidently well done, and in his life time
there existed a fairly uniform method where he or his disciples
taught. He died in 1819. Jeremy L. Cross published his "True
Masonic chart" in 1819. It was the Webb monitor with the addition
of a series of illustrations of the emblems. This feature has been
copied in most monitors since.

The "Morgan excitement" in 1826 put Masonic activity to a
disadvantage, and there was little done from 1826 to 1839 or
thereabouts. Then there was a revival of interest and an agitation
for uniform work resulting in the Baltimore Convention of 1843, at
which the delegates adopted the "Webb work."

John Barney, of whom Philip Tucker speaks, was made a Mason in
Friendship Lodge No. 20, at Charlotte, Vt., in 1811. After teaching
the Webb work in Vermont he went west. He was Grand Lecturer in
Ohio from 1836 to 1843, and Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of
Illinois in 1846 and 1847. He died at Peoria, Ill., June 22, 1847.
He was the most influential ritualist of Vermont, Ohio and
Illinois. Michigan and Wisconsin, and the states which have since
become independent Masonically, derived their work from these, and
follow the Barney work to the best of their knowledge.

John Barney was the delegate from Ohio to the Baltimore Convention
of 1843. Charles W. Moore of Massachusetts, was also a delegate. In
a letter written in 1863 he says:

"The work and lectures of the first three degrees, as adopted and
authorized by the Baltimore Convention, in 1843, were, with a few
unimportant verbal exceptions, literally as they were originally
compiled by Bro. Thos. S. Webb, about the close of the last
century, and as they were subsequently taught by him during his
lifetime, and also by his early and favorite pupil, Bro. Benjamin
Gleason, from the years 1801-2 until his death in 1847. In a note
to me, under date of NOV. 25, 1843, Bro. Gleason says: 'It was my
privilege while at Brown University, Providence, R.I., (1801-2) to
acquire a complete knowledge of the lectures in the first three
degrees of Masonry, directly from our late much lamented brother
Thos. S. Webb.' In 1805 Bro. Gleason was commissioned by the Grand
Lodge of Massachusetts as its Grand Lecturer and empowered to visit
and instruct the Lodges in the ritual, as he had received it from
Bro. Webb. This duty he performed with great fidelity, and to the
entire satisfaction of the Grand Lodge; and this ritual is in use
in the lodges of Massachusetts at the present time. There may be
some verbal departures from the original, but no material change
has been made in it. In 1823-4 Bro. Gleason was my Masonic teacher.
I learned the work and lectures of him. We were connected by family
ties, and close Masonic relations continued to exist between us
until his death in 1847. I was associated with him in all the
various branches of Masonry for nearly a quarter of a century, and
enjoyed all the rare advantages of his extensive and accurate
knowledge of the various rituals of the different grades of the
Order. In 1843 I was appointed by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts
a delegate to the Baltimore Masonic Convention, called for the
purpose of revising the various modes of work then in use, and
agreeing upon a uniform system for the country. Before leaving
home, and as a preparation for the better discharge of the duties
of the appointment, I availed myself of the assistance of Bro.
Gleason, in a thorough and careful revision of the lectures, which
I had originally received from him and which, on frequent
occasions, I had been called to deliver and work with him, both
in-and out of the Lodge. I was, therefore, qualified to report them
to the convention, through its committee on the work, in their
purity and integrity, and, beyond all doubt, just as they
originally came from the hand of the late Bro. Webb. I had the
honor to be a member of the committee, and to report the
amendments, and the lectures as amended, to the convention. This I
did without notes, but subsequently took the precaution-to minute
down the alterations from the original; and these are now in my
possession. They are mostly verbal, few in number, and not material
in their results. The only change of consequence was in the due
guards of the second and third degrees, which were changed and made
to conform to that of the first degree in position and explanation.
This was analogically correct."

At this Baltimore Convention sixteen of the twenty-three then
existing Grand Lodges of the United States were represented, and
the "work" adopted was called the "National" or "Barney" work. No
opposition of consequence to this work occurred until 1860, when
Robert Morris tried to have a "Webb-Preston work as taught by
Robert Morris" adopted through the medium of a Conservator's
Association. This Conservator's Association gained much influence
and many brethren lent it their support. The plan was to have a
conservator in each lodge who was to use his best efforts to
promulgate the "Webb-Preston work as taught by Robert Morris." Each
conservator was provided with a copy of "Mnemonics," which Robert
Morris claimed was the true work.

The Grand Lodges, however, became alarmed and promptly condemned
the Conservators; in the early 60's most of them passed resolutions
reaffirming the work as handed down through Gleason, Barney,
Wilson, Wadsworth, Cross and others, and as approved and
recommended by the Baltimore Convention. Robert Morris claimed to
have received the work from Bro. Wilson of Vermont; but Bro. Wilson
says:

"In 1857 Robert Morris visited Vermont for the purpose of
ascertaining what were the true Webb lectures. P. C. Tucker
introduced Morris to me for the purpose, and I loaned him a copy
(not my original) of my cipher, and which unfortunately had several
omissions through mistake. In copying this, Morris made several
mistakes and misread many passages. In fact he could never read it
at all until I met him in Chicago in 1860, and I think he cannot
read it all now. This copy, with its blunders and omissions, is the
text from which the book you refer to (Mnemonics) was made."

If we are correct in judging the condition which prevailed from
1843, when the Baltimore Convention was held, until the time of the
Conservator's Association, we would conclude that there was a
difference in the work in the different Jurisdictions which made a
Conservator movement possible. (6)

Robert Morris may have been sincerely desirous of promoting a
uniform work and believed he could accomplish it; He probably could
if he had possessed either the Preston work or the Webb work, but
he had neither. His was a Morris work, and there had been too many
changes to suit the Brethren, and from then until now the work
adopted and maintained in the East and Northwest (7) has been as
near the Webb work as our ritualists could ascertain, with the
exception of Pennsylvania which still adheres to the "Ancient"
work.

(1) See Mackey's Enc., Article Lectures, for simple questions and
answers.
(2) See Hutchinson's "Spirit of Masonry."
(3) History of Freemasonry and Concordant Orders, by Hughan, page
250.
(4) A considerable difference of opinion exists as to what was
done. See "Hughan's English Royal Arch." "Sadler's Reprints and
Revelations."
(5) We think this a rather improbable claim, as Bro. Cross was not
made a Mason until 1808.
(6) "Two text books, differing materially were issued, each
claiming to be the work adopted. ( By the Baltimore convention). I
have heard a dozen variations of the lectures, each declared to be
such as were agreed upon at Baltimore." A. T. C. Pierson, G. M.,
Minn., 1858.
(7) I am uninformed as to the South and Southwest.

OUR COUNTRY

Our country ! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she
always be in the right; but our country right or wrong!

--Stephen Decatur.

THERE DAWNS A DAY

I know there shall dawn a day
--Is it here on homely earth ?
Is it yonder, worlds away,
Where the strange and new have birth,
That Power comes full in play?

Then life is--to wake not sleep,
Rise and not rest, but press
From earth's level where blindly creep
Things perfected, more or less,
To the heaven's height, far and steep.

Where, amid what strifes and storms
May wait the adventurous quest,
Power is Love--transports, transforms
Who aspired from worst to best,
Sought the soul's world, spurned the worms'.

I have faith such end shall be:
From the first, Power was--I knew.
Life has made clear to me
That, strive but for closer view,
Love were as plain to see.

When see? When there dawns a day,
If not on the homely earth,
Then yonder, worlds away,
Where the strange and new have birth,
And power comes full in play.
--Robert Browning.

VICTOR HUGO'S PROPHECY

(In His Presidential Address at the Peace Congress in 1849.)
A day will come when you, France--you, Russia-- you, Italy--you,
England--you, Germany--all of you nations of the continent--shall,
without losing your distinctive qualities and your glorious
individuality, blend in a higher unity and form a European
fraternity, even as Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace,
all the French provinces, have become blended.

A day will come when war shall seem as absurd and impossible
between Paris and London, between St. Petersburg and Berlin, as
between Rouen and Amiens, between Boston and Philadelphia. A day
will come when bullets and bombs shall be replaced by ballots by
the universal suffrage of the people, by the sacred arbitrament of
a great sovereign senate, which shall be to Europe what the
parliament is to England, what the diet is to Germany, what the
legislative assembly is to France.

A day will come when a cannon ball shall be exhibited in our
museums as an instrument of torture is now, and men shall marvel
that such things could be. A day will come when shall be seen those
two immense groups, the United States of America and the United
States of Europe, in face of each other, extending hand to hand
over the ocean, exchanging their products, their commerce, their
industry, their arts, their genius --clearing the earth, colonizing
deserts, and ameliorating creation, under the eye of the Creator.

WHERE IS GOD?

"Oh, where is the sea?" the fishes cried
As they swam the crystal clearness through;
"We've heard from of old of the ocean's tide
And we long to look on the waters blue.
The wise ones speak of an infinite sea;
Oh, who can tell us if such there be ?"

The lark flew up in the morning bright
And sang and balanced on sunny wings,
And this was its song: "I see the light;
I look on a world of beautiful things;
And flying and singing everywhere
In vain have I sought to find the air."
--M. J. Savage.

WAR

War begets Poverty, 
Poverty, Peace-- 
Peace begets Riches, 
Fate will not cease-- 
Riches beget Pride, 
Pride is war's ground-- 
War begets Poverty, 
So the world goes round.
--Old Song.

