Though there was a period in the 1980s when the Vatican forbade Catholics to join the Freemasons, Barsoum said “somewhere along the way, the Vatican retracted that” and there are a number of Catholics in the lodge.
Lodge marks birth with resurgence
Journal Staff Writer
John Barsoum, master of the Freemason Jenks Lodge in Pawtucket, speaks at Monday night’s 200th anniversary festivities, flanked by nutcrackers created by the wife of a lodge member.
The Providence Journal / RICHARD DUJARDIN
PAWTUCKET, R.I. –– As they reflect on their history, members of the Jenks Lodge of Freemasonry realize that the 1970s and 1980s were not a good time for their lodge.
After hitting a peak in membership in the 1960s, the fraternal and charitable organization began to see a slow and alarming downturn in membership as the lodge struggled with not much success to attract new and younger members.
But as longtime master mason Raymond Brisson of West Warwick tells it, something curious began to take place in the 1990s, a spurt in membership that has continued up through this year when members were able to officially accept into their ranks 18 new “master” masons, helping to swell the ranks to some 250, ranging from men in their 20s to Norman “Jake” Jacobson, now 102.
“We were wondering what was going on, and discovered a lot had to do with Dan Brown and his ‘Da Vinci Code.’ ”
The book, which weaves a tale involving the legendary Knights Templar and their quest for the Holy Grail, piqued the interest of quite a number of people, Brisson says, and perhaps may be one reason why Jenks Lodge was able to hold its 200th anniversary dinner Monday on an upbeat note.
This 1924 photo commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Holy Sepulchre Commandery of the Knights Templar, who were associated with the Freemason Lodge in Pawtucket.
The Providence Journal
For the record, the lodge’s history goes back a bit further, to March 7, 1808, when nine master masons and one apprentice met at the home of Ebenezer Tyler at Main Street and East Avenue to draft a request that they be allowed to break off from Providence’s St. John’s Lodge 1 and create yet another lodge in Pawtucket, at that time a mere village of 51 houses clustered around the Blackstone River in what was then North Providence.
Tom Holton, the lodge’s junior warden and historian, says some of those early founders included the likes of a member of the Smithfield Town Council and a former member of the General Assembly, David Wilkerson, who invented the slate lathe, an ironsmith and many others.
“We are not a religious organization, but members do have to believe in a higher being,” says the Lodge’s master, John Barsoum. “As long as you believe that, you can be from any religion.”
Though there was a period in the 1980s when the Vatican forbade Catholics to join the Freemasons, Barsoum said “somewhere along the way, the Vatican retracted that” and there are a number of Catholics in the lodge.
To be sure, the lodge membership is still not as high as it was in the 1920s when photographs show a few hundred members of the Holy Sepulchre Knights Templar from Pawtucket, posing for a picture in front of a building.
According to Barsoum, Masons around the world raise $1.2 million a day for various charities, though the biggest recipients of their charity have been the Shriners Hospitals, whose burn centers have provided care to victims of severe burns, often at no charge, and which treated many of the victims of Rhode Island’s Station nightclub fire in 2003.
At their celebration at their lodge at 50 Pleasant St. Monday night, Brandt Evans, of the Warren Lodge and a historian with the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom based at Touro Synagogue in Newport, said that while many believe Freemasonry came to Rhode Island only in the 1700s, there are documents that point to the existence of a lodge of freemasons among Portuguese Jews who were settled in Newport in 1658.
Richard Lynch, another local Freemason who has done interviews for the History Channel, said he also believes there is evidence to support his theory the famed stone tower in Newport, that some people believe was constructed by Vikings, was the work of freemasons who brought their stonecarving talents with them from Europe.
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