HeadingJANUARY 2017 Please read the article below and click on links for further articles
Ontario Freemasons celebrate 300 years
In 2017 Ontario’s Freemasons will join with those around the world to celebrate the formation of the first organized masonic government
at the Goose and Gridiron Tavern in St. Paul’s Churchyard, in London.
Freemasonry is the oldest and largest fraternal organization in the world. Its members share a common goal of helping each other
become better men. Its body of knowledge and system of ethics is based on the belief that each man has a responsibility to improve
himself while being devoted to his family, faith, country, and fraternity.
In the course of three hundred years Freemasonry would spread around the globe. Today Freemasonry varies across the continents as
it adjusts itself to changing social conditions, while observing its fundamental principles of brotherly love, relief and truth. It continues to
be, as originally conceived, a brotherhood of man under a fatherhood of God requiring a belief in a supreme being. Our focus is “to help
good men make themselves better.”
Many Canadians involved in the development of government and industry in Canada, the formulation of our medical, educational and
military systems, and so on, were Freemasons. But we never remember them clearly. The fraternity, or craft (interchangeable words
referring to Freemasonry as an institution) does not advertise itself, nor the extent of its support to members and to those outside
the membership who are in need of support. This means that while we remember Sir John A. Macdonald as our first Prime Minister few
know of his masonic connections and involvement, and fewer still remember him as being Prime Minister over a country of only
four confederated Provinces in 1867: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Or that Sir Arthur Currie of Victoria, BC,
commander of the Canadian Expeditionary Force of World War I, was a Freemason.
Our Grand Master, Most Worshipful Brother John C. Green, welcomes this opportunity to introduce a series of articles to outline the
various dimensions of Freemasonry and to explore the breadth and depth of the involvement of freemasons in the formation and growth
of Ontario and Canada.
In this way we pay our respects to those men who took the unprecedented step on June 24, 1717, to organize a system of
masonic government and to those who have followed them. As we strive to improve ourselves and those around us we honour the
memory of our founders.
As prepared by Michael Jenkyns, Grand Historian, Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M. of Canada
in the Province of Ontario