st. john's lodge no 2 - The Trestleboard

Jurisdiction where the travelling ritualists worked, there was a quiet resistance to change in many of the Lodges.

To some extent, Ritual diversity between Grand Jurisdictions was actually promoted by the Grand Lodges themselves. After all, if the Grand Lodge was not able to impose a uniform standard, then the next best thing was to approve Brothers who were well-versed in some form of ritualistic work. A half-century earlier, Thomas Webb and his students created a new method for how men learned the work in Lodges. Masonic lectures were no longer a system whereby men would learn Masonry by discussing the lessons in Lodge and contemplating Masonic emblems around their own individual symbol systems. They learned Masonry as something which was to be memorized.

And these early promoters of a uniform working were known and respected throughout America as legitimate teachers of the work. They were the first of several generations of travelling ritualists. These men were hired to instruct Lodges within a jurisdiction in a certain mode of working for the purpose of standardizing the work within a Grand Lodge.

The problem, of course, was that, after the death of this first generation of "ritualists by rote," men who claimed to know Webb's work would market themselves as travelling lecturers for the purpose of profiting off the Brethren they taught. And, too, individual Lodges would avail themselves of the services of travelling ritualists without the sanction of Grand Lodge. For example, in Indiana, the minutes of Webb Lodge No. 24, Richmond, state that the Lodge engaged one Brother Michael McLaughlin of Ohio to deliver a course of lectures covering a period of ten days, at $5 per day.

By the 1840s, when Grand Lodges were unable to agree on a system of instruction and did not have the finances to pay the salary of a Grand Lecturer, there were numerous instances in which Lodges arranged for their own schools of instruction. Minutes of Lodge after Lodge indicate repeated "contracts" with men who had been hired to deliver a course of lectures for a fee, plus expenses. The going rate was generally $20-25 a week, along with a vote of thanks from the Lodge.

But on rare occasion, the Lodges would turn against their own travelling degree peddlers. One such unfortunate fellow was David Vinton. In 1821, Vinton was summoned by the Grand Chapter of Virginia to be examined on charges preferred against him by Franklin Lodge No. 4 of Royal Arch Masons, to which Vinton belonged. The charges were for "highly improper and unmasonic conduct." Vinton did not respond to the summons, so he lost his privileges as a Mason in that Grand Chapter and "throughout the world." It was publicly claimed within the Craft that Vinton had made Mark Masters and Past Masters without a dispensation or a warrant.

But the real reason for the charge was that Vinton was caught furnishing cipher notes of the lectures. Vinton felt that competing lecturers, among them such noted names as Jeremy Cross, were simply trying to discredit his work. The incident caused some heated debate in the South.

The Grand Lodge of North Carolina followed with a public condemnation of Vinton in the Raleigh newspapers. This action upset the Grand Lodge of Georgia which declared that every Masonic Brother ought to have his good name protected until such time as he is formally accused by a regular Lodge, notified of the charges against him, and then given an opportunity to answer and stand before his accusers. In Vinton's defense, the Freemasons of Georgia issued a manifesto dated May 16, 1821, in which they claimed Vinton had "shown them documents which proved his moral character as a private citizen and a Mason."

Lodge stated, "We hailed with pleasure his arrival among us, and because, by his means, we could improve ourselves in the noble and ancient art of Masonry. We have not been disappointed. His instructions have been sensibly felt. His deportment has been that of the gentleman and the Mason; and, if we