Mother Lodge

from the book Encylcopedia of Freemasonry & its Kindred Sciences
by Albert C. Mackey M. D.

This book is in the public domain. The text was duplicated from the book using Optical Character Recognition software and errors may be present.

Mother Lodge - In the eighteenth century certain Lodges in France and Germany assumed an independent position, and issued Charters for the constitution of Daughter Lodges, claiming the prerogatives of Grand Lodges. Thus we find the Mother Lodge of Marseilles, in France, which constituted many Lodges. In Scotland the Lodge of Kilwinning took the title of Mother lodge, and issued Charters until it was merged in the Grand Lodge of Scotland. The system is altogether irregular, and has no sanction in the laws of the Fraternity

Perfect Sincerity Lodge, of Marseilles, France, was of English descent organized in 1767 as a Subordinate Lodge of the Grand Lodge of France and was a subordinate of the Grand Orient of France since the consolidation in 1806- Perfect Sincerity Lodge granted a Charter to Polar Star Lodge of New Orleans in 1796 and reported this action to the Grand Orient of France, which latter Body approved the course that had been taken and healed the work of Polar Star Lodge from the time they commenced working up to 1804, at which time the Grand Orient granted them a Charter. As Polar Star Lodge No. 4263, working under the Grand Orient of France, they continued to so operate until the organization of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana.

These facts were obtained through a search caused by Post Office Inspector M. G. Price and given on page 248, Thomson Masonic Fraud. This Lodge and the one usually called the Mother Lodge of Marseilles or Mother Scotch Lodge of France, are sometimes confused. They are distinctly independent Bodies (see also Thory, Acta Latomerum, page 63; Ragon, Orthodoxie Maconnique, page 120, and Outline of the Rise and Progress of Freemasonry in Louisiana, James B. Seot. The particulars are to be found in the aceount of the Craft in Louisiana, Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry, pages 1554-9).