The Arizona Keystone Scientia Coronati Research Lodge #4 F. & a. m. Newsletter jul – sep 2009 A.L. 6009
Volume 2, Issue 3
RESEARCHING AND UNDERSTANDING
The Arizona Keystone Volume 2, Number 3 Jul - Sep 2009 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Keith Rosewitz, Master MANAGING EDITOR George E. Weil, Secretary The Arizona Keystone is an official publication of Scientia Coronati Research Lodge #4 F. & A. M. and printed quarterly. Unless otherwise noted, articles appearing in this publication express only the private opinion or assertions of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of Scientia Coronati Research Lodge #4 F. & A. M. or the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Arizona. Articles are subject to editing and becomes the property of Scientia Coronati Research Lodge #4 F. & A. M. No compensation is allowed for any article, photographs, or other materials submitted for publication.
CONTENTS FEATURES 3. EDITOR’S NOTES 4. PEN AND PAPER
Permission to reprint articles will be granted upon written request to the Editor. When reprinted, articles should note “Reprinted with permission of The Arizona Keystone (Month, year).”
Please direct all correspondence to: Editor: The Arizona Keystone 773 S. Maple Lane Chino Valley, AZ 86323
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E d ito r ’s N o t e s My Brothers, Our Masonic Research Lodge is formed around the principles of research and enlightenment. As each of us continue to expand our educational growth and further understanding of different subjects, we also uncover more facts that may clarify the subject matter as fact or fiction. Research speaks a language of unlocking facts about some subject matter. Defenders of research often say that this maybe an over simplification of what it means to do research. Is research a series of obstacles that need to be overcome? The obstacles are seen as the volumes of corroborating evidence and sources that many researchers have to wade through. It is no wonder that many who wish to do research and are impatient with the requirements in general and attempt to bypass the hard work necessary to accomplish serious studious work for others to follow. This is a pity for research contains within itself the key that unlocks the deeper meanings and dynamics of wise and serious truths. It is only through thorough investigation of a subject can others really appreciate the full meaning of the subject. This issue of our newsletter is dedicated to all of us who have forged forward to research and write about a Masonic subject . Research can seem confusing , more like a shapeless mass of verbiage and papers than a carefully constructed whole; a jumble of noise, not a symphony; a blotch of random colors, hardly a masterpiece of art. But research is an art form, and like the other arts, the first step to appreciate is to recognize the pattern of work within it.
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P E N A N D PA P E R Remember when you had to go north to get to New Mexico? By Jack Buta P.M. Karen, better known as “She who must be obeyed”, dragged me off to the Fort Whipple museum to soak up a little local history yesterday. Since I had been coming to the VA Hospital here for the last four years, I reluctantly gave up my keyboard and went along. Well, perhaps realizing that failing to do so would have meant eating my dinner alone at McDonalds might have influenced me. Anyway, I really had no option. Once I arrived at the museum my attention was drawn to a small copy of a map of the United States in 1859. At first, I thought the cartographer must have been drunk. The map showed Nebraska Territory stretching from the Canadian Border in the north to Kansas in the south. Texas could have fit within its’ border with plenty of room left for Rhode Island. That’s when I noticed that Arizona was shown as a narrow strip of desert running from California to Texas. Directly north of Arizona was a much larger New Mexico. I suddenly realized that I didn’t know that much about the history of the state I have called my home for more than 34 years, nor could I recall just how Freemasonry had started here and what effect Freemasons had on this state or when my Lodge Aztlan #1 came into being. Once we returned home I began my search. Here is what I found out. After the United States’ war with Mexico in 1846-1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave the United States possession of New Mexico Territory, which included the portion of Arizona north of the Gila River. Apparently no one wanted the desert below the Gila River at that time. Then in 1853, the government acquired the southern desert and named it Arizona, which is how Arizona appeared in the 1859 map. How the Territory got its name “Arizona” is still disputed but I happen to like the version told by Don Garate, historian and chief interpreter at Tumacacori National Historical Park. He says the name originated in 1736. While prospecting in Sonora near the Arizona ranch, a Yaqui Indian named Antonio Siraumea found a 50-pound ball of silver lying on the ground. He returned to the nearby mining camp of Agua Caliente for his children to help him gather up the silver. The other prospectors followed them back. One of them, Fermin de Almazan, found a piece of silver weighing an incredible 2,500 pounds. It had to be cut in pieces to be moved. The find resulted in a massive court case in the Spanish courts and the area where the silver was found became forever linked with the name Arizona, for the area where it was found. Many Arizona settlers had come from the South and were sympathetic to the Confederate cause so when the Civil War broke out in 1861, Tucson voted to join the Confederacy. That apparently did not go over well in Washington and two years later Congress created the Arizona Territory as it appears today.
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The first recorded mention of Masonic activity occurs in 1865 but from the wording of this document we can infer that a Lodge existed in Prescott at least a year earlier. Freemason John N. Goodwin took control of the area as Arizona’s first governor on December 27, 1863. His headquarters were at the temporary capital of Fort Whipple. The first permanent capital was established in Prescott in 1865. In 1867 it was moved to Tucson, then back to Prescott in 1877, and finally to Phoenix in 1889. At the sixteenth Annual Communication of the Grand Lodge of California, April of 1865, an application was received from Aztlan Lodge in Prescott asking that its’ dispensation be continued until the next Annual Communication. This would seem to indicate that the Lodge had received an earlier dispensation though none is referred to in the Committee on Dispensations and Charters report: “The Lodge is located in Arizona territory and the great distance between us and that locality and the uncertain and slow means of communications affords sufficient reason why its records and returns have not been received. Brother Alsap the Master of the Lodge, says it well in his application, ‘This is a small community far removed from others- an advanced post of the army of civilization – fighting against barbarism and a hostile and savage foe around and depending upon our own armed hands for safety of life and property. But I say it proudly nowhere are the constitutions of Freemasonry more cherished and loved or its principals better or more nobly illustrated. The worthy distressed brother has ever found a friendly word and helping hand.’
For these reasons your committee offer the following resolution: Resolved: That the dispensation be granted to Aztlan Lodge in Prescott, Arizona Territory on the twenty-second day of April, 1865, be and hereby continued until the next Annual Communication of this Grand Lodge.” The Committee’s statement regarding not having received the Lodges records and returns would also seem to imply an earlier history of the Lodge. That said, on October 11, 1866, Aztlan Lodge #177 in Prescott received its Charter from the Grand Lodge of California. Reportedly the first meetings were in the Governor's Mansion (1864) which is located on the Sharlot Hall Grounds. The second meeting place was in the loft of a log building on the North Side of Gurley St between Cortez and Montezuma over a saloon owned by Levi Bashford. This very easily could be the location of the Bashford Burmister Bldg which now houses shops and the Prescott Brewery. The name of the lodge deserves attention. “Aztlan” is said to refer to the region of Aztecs while a more literal translation would mean white land. For a Lodge surrounded by hostile Indian tribes either meaning of the word would seem appropriate. Although some members wanted to change to name in honor of their being part of the expansion of the Arizona Territory in 1863, the name Aztlan stuck. The Aztlan Lodge #177 had jurisdiction over the entire Arizona Territory until August 9, 1879. The Goldwater men, Michael aged 53 and the 24 year-old Morris, who would become a Grand Master of Arizona arrived from California in 1876. They opened one of the area's first general merchandising stores on the southeast corner of Cortez and Goodwin (where City Hall is now located). Three years later they built a new, larger establishment on this site. A leading citizen of early Prescott, Morris served as mayor from 1879-1880, 1894-1897, 1905-1913, and 1919-1927. Their two-story building built in 1876 housed the Masonic Lodge. In 1878, John C. Fremont “pathfinder of the West” was named Territorial Governor of Arizona Territory. Although there seems to be no evidence of his initiation, Fremont is widely accepted as a Freemason and Albert Mackey dedicated his The Symbolism of Freemasonry Illustrating and Explaining its Science and Philosophy, its Legends, Myths and Symbols to him. The first Master of Aztlan Lodge was John T. Alsap, an attorney and judge. When the capital was moved to Phoenix in 1877 he moved was well to serve as the first Territorial Treasurer, and the first mayor of Phoenix. Two years later as the first Master of the Arizona Lodge in Phoenix he obtained a dispensation from the Grand Lodge of California and a Charter showing the lodge as #257 on the Grand Lodge rolls.
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By 1868, a small colony had formed approximately four miles east of the present city of Phoenix. Swilling's Mill became the new name of the area. It was then changed to Helling Mill, after which it became Mill City, and years later, East Phoenix. Swilling, having been a confederate soldier, wanted to name the new settlement Stonewall after Stonewall Jackson. Others suggested the name Salina, but the only known Lord among the early citizens would come up with the name by which it would become known, Lord Darrel Duppa. He proposed the name Phoenix, which he thought would rise from the ancient Indian canals like the mythological bird that rose from its ashes. The settlement to the east of town by the buttes across the Salt River reminded him of the Vale of Tempe in Greece. Both names stuck. Duppa, like many of the early citizens of Arizona was a Freemason and is buried in the Masonic section of the Pioneer and Military Park below Madison Street. You will find two gravestones marking his final resting place. Of the original five Lodges which made up the Grand Lodge of Arizona in 1883 only one was not charted by the Grand Lodge of California. White Mountain Lodge of Globe was granted its dispensation July 5, 1880 and its charter January 18, 1881 from the Grand Lodge of New Mexico. The reason for this is that there were no twostory buildings in Globe and the Grand Lodge of California required a Masonic Lodge to be on the second story where the ritual would be safe from prying eyes. New Mexico on the other hand had chartered several one story Lodges. All five Lodges in the territory were invited to join into an Arizona Grand Lodge in Tucson but Aztlan Lodge, the oldest by more than a decade, declined. It was quite content with its relationship with the Grand Lodge of California and expressed the opinion that it was "inadvisable and premature to consider constituting a Grand Lodge." That did not stop the representatives assembled in Tucson on March 25, 1882. They installed the elected and appointed officers of the Grand Lodge of Arizona. Three months later, Aztlan faced with the existence of a Grand Lodge and offered the post honor of becoming #1 under the new Grand Lodge, accepted and on June 14, 1883, a petition was granted under the name of Aztlan Lodge No. 1, F. & A.M. of Arizona. On the 19th of July, King Solomon Lodge of Tombstone was officially given their charter with the number 5.
My Brothers, Until the next issue...May the light shine brightly in your lives forever and ever.
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