History of Freemasonry

The 16th and 17th centuries were hard on the building trades. The Reformation halted cathedral construction across Protestant Europe. Wars, plague, and changing tastes reduced demand for the great stone projects that had sustained masons for generations. The lodges had a problem: not enough work.

Their solution would change everything. Lodges began accepting men who were not stonemasons at all — gentlemen, scholars, merchants, clergy — as "accepted" or "speculative" Masons. The earliest documented case is Elias Ashmole, an English antiquary initiated at a lodge in Warrington in 1646. By the late 1600s, some lodges had become entirely speculative; the working masons had simply died out and the gentlemen had stayed.

These new members were not interested in cutting stone. They were drawn to the lodge's rituals, its symbols, its insistence on equality between men of different ranks, and the way it used the language of building as a metaphor for shaping moral character. The square reminded a man to act with honesty. The plumb told him to walk uprightly. The trowel spread brotherly love. By 1700, Freemasonry was no longer a trade — it was becoming a philosophy.

Freemasonry rode the Enlightenment. In a Europe of rigid class hierarchies and religious persecution, the lodge was a radical proposition: a room where a duke could sit as a brother beside a shopkeeper and a Jew could meet a Catholic on equal ground. The Craft attracted Voltaire, Goethe, Mozart, Frederick the Great, and most of the rising professional class. By 1738, the Catholic Church had taken notice and issued the first papal condemnation of Freemasonry — a condemnation that has been renewed many times since but never reversed.

The American colonies took to Freemasonry quickly. The first lodge in Philadelphia operated by 1730. Benjamin Franklin joined St. John's Lodge there in 1731 and became Grand Master of Pennsylvania in 1734. George Washington was initiated at Fredericksburg Lodge No. 4 in Virginia in 1752 and was a Master Mason by 1753. By the Revolution, at least nine signers of the Declaration of Independence and thirteen signers of the Constitution were Freemasons. See our list of 37 famous Freemasons for the full picture.

The 18th century also brought the first major schism. In 1751, a group of mostly Irish Masons in London formed a rival Grand Lodge, calling themselves the "Antients" and pejoratively naming the original Grand Lodge the "Moderns". The dispute was partly about ritual differences and partly about class — the Antients drew more working-class Masons and made their lodges more accessible. The two grand lodges operated in parallel for 62 years. They reunited in 1813 as the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), which is still the senior English Masonic authority today.

Meanwhile, in 1784, a Black abolitionist named Prince Hall — who had been refused entry by white American lodges — received a charter from the Grand Lodge of England for African Lodge No. 459 in Boston. From this lodge grew Prince Hall Freemasonry, the historically African American Masonic tradition. Prince Hall and mainstream Grand Lodges operated separately, often without recognizing one another, for almost two centuries. Mutual recognition has only been granted by most U.S. Grand Lodges within the past thirty years.

Roughly 2 million Freemasons are active worldwide today — about 1 million in the United States, 200,000 in the United Kingdom, and hundreds of thousands more across Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Brazil, and most of continental Europe. Membership has declined from its mid-century peak, mirroring the decline of fraternal and civic organizations in general across Western countries.

The modern Craft is also more diverse than it has ever been. Prince Hall and mainstream Grand Lodges now recognize one another across most U.S. jurisdictions. Appendant bodies like the Scottish Rite, York Rite, Shriners, and Order of the Eastern Star have grown around the core three Blue Lodge degrees, offering members additional paths for study, service, and fellowship.

North American Freemasons donate approximately $2 million per day to charity — supporting children's hospitals, scholarships, dyslexia learning centers, cancer research, and dozens of other causes. Most lodges meet twice a month, conduct ritual work, raise money for charity, and welcome visitors. If you're curious whether you could join, take our short quiz at /can-i-join, or find a lodge near you in our directory.