Freemasons gather
As many as 1,000 Ancient Free Masons of South Carolina will arrive today and Friday at the Omar Shrine Center in Mount Pleasant for the organization's state meeting and banquet.
Masons from across the state will elect state leaders and discuss the organization's financial matters. The annual event begins with a religious service at 9 a.m. today. The grand lodge officially will be opened at 10 a.m. by its grand master, Gerald L. Carver, and the annual banquet will be at 7 tonight in the Omar Shrine Center.
The 272nd annual Communication of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Ancient Free Masons of South Carolina will represent fewer, but younger, Masons than in years past.
Membership has dipped steadily since the 1980s, when there were 70,000 statewide. In 2005, there were just 45,325 Masons, and today the organization numbers somewhere around 42,500, said Carver, 62, of Waterloo. But the average Mason's age of 68 in 2005 has dropped slightly to about 60 as younger men, many Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, join the fraternal organization.
Carver said veterans seem to find comfort in the organization, whose purpose is to encourage members to become better men and help others.
When examining South Carolina's Masonic history, membership surges correlate with the return of troops from war.
Freemasons saw an increase in numbers following the Civil War and World War I, according to Samuel Willis and Ross Cornwell, authors of "A History of Freemasonry in South Carolina, the Years 1860-1919."
They wrote, "There seems to have been a direct correlation between moments of great peril and uncertainty in the national life and increased general interest in an institution that offered a measure of certainty and stability dating from ancient times."
Carver said the biggest surge in membership came after World War II, when veterans from "the Greatest Generation" returned from war to rebuild the country. Many of those men also were Masons, Carver said. Most of the decline in the organization's membership is tied to the loss of World War II veterans, he said.
Members of Carver's generation, baby boomers and veterans of the Vietnam and Korean wars, joined in smaller numbers, he said. Ray Marsh of West Columbia, secretary of the state grand lodge, said Carver's generation often is referred to as "the lost generation." Carver said he became a Mason because his dad was a Mason.
In South Carolina, Masonry got its start before the Revolutionary War, when Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia sent a Mason to establish a printing press in Charleston in 1731.
The charter for the area's first lodge, Solomon No. 1, was obtained in 1735, and the lodge held its first meeting at Shepheard's Tavern at Broad and Church streets. It's one of about 10 stops on Don Burbidge's Masonic Walking Tour of Charleston. But like many historic sites on the walk, the actual building has been replaced.
Solomon No. 1 is now housed at the Masonic Center on Orange Grove Road in West Ashley.
Masons said their organization sometimes is known as a secret society, but they are simply a fraternity with secrets that date back to a time when the members were operative masons — craftsmen. The ancient stonecutters relied on rituals and handshakes to identify their status and how much they should be paid rather than the written word.
The new Masons keep those secrets and have gone from building the foundations of cathedrals to building better men whose main objective is to promote the happiness of the human race, Carver said.
Members have a code of guiding principles, or obligations, they must adhere to in order to remain members.
To join, members must avow belief in a supreme being, but politics and religion are forbidden topics of discussion within the lodge. Men must ask to join because Masons aren't allowed to solicit members.
"It's a good network for men from all walks of life," Carver said.
