THE EVOLUTION OF THE CORNERSTONE CEREMONY
S. Brent Morris is a member and Past Master of Potmos Lodge #70, Ellicott
City, Maryland and a Fellow of the Philalethes Society. He is the author of
Masonic Philanthropies , an excerpt from which was the May 1991, STB, "And the
Greatest of These is Charity."
This Short Talk Bulletin is excerpted from Cornerstones of Freedom; A
Masonic Tradition, by Bro. S. Brent Morris and published by the Supreme Council,
33ø, S. J. in October 1993. The book can be ordered from the Supreme Council
1733 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009-3199, (202) 232-3579. -Editor
The Masonic cornerstone ceremony, like most complex customs, has evolved over
years of use. It is easy for the romantic to imagine King Solomon using our
current rituals to lay the cornerstone of the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem,
but such was not the case. The Masonic cornerstone ceremony first appeared in
the middle 1700s and in less than a century had finished evolving, except for
minor grammatical changes. The procedure, at least as used in America, can be
traced fairly well through its entire evolution, though Grand Lodges differ on
the exact details of their cornerstone ceremonies.
THE FIRST RECORDED MASONIC CEREMONY. "The earliest record of a formal and
official Masonic ceremony is that of the laying of the Foundation Stone of the
New Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh by the Earl of Cromarty, Grand Master of
Scottish Masons, on August 2, 1738." The description of the event was written
sixty-six years later in 1804 by Alexander Lawrie in his History of free
Masonry. Lawrie describes a simple, almost primitive ceremony.
"When the company came to the ground, the Grand Master, and his brethren of
the free and accepted Masons, surrounded the plan of the foundation hand in
hand: and the Grand Master Mason. along with the press [representatives] of the
Managers of the Royal Infirmary, having come to the east corner of the
foundation where the stone was to be laid, placed the same in its bed; and after
the Right Honourable the Lord Provost had laid a medal under it each in their
turns gave three strokes upon the stone with an iron mallet, which was succeeded
by three clarions of the trumpet, three huzzas, and three claps of the hands."'
James Anderson reported a similarly simple ceremony on March 19, 1721, in his
1723 The Constitutions of the Free-Masons, though the Grand Lodge of England
apparently was not involved.
"The Bishop of Salisbury went in an orderly Procession , duly attended, and
having levell'd the first Stone, gave it two or three Knocks with a Mallet, upon
which the Trumpets sounded, and a vast Multitude made loud Acclamations of Joy;
when his Lordship laid upon the Stone a Purse of 100 Guineas, as a Present from
his Majesty for the use of the Craftsmen."2
THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF PRESTON AND WEBB. What the two accounts above show is
that there was little form to the procedure. The only point in common to the two
"ceremonies was the symbolic striking of the Stone with a mallet. In just a few
decades, though, the ritual evolved into something more recognizable to the
modern form. In 1772 William Preston published illustrations of Masonry, which
presented an official version of the lectures, forms, and ceremonies of the
Lodge. Preston based his book on the practices in Lodges across England.
Twenty-five years later in 1797 Thomas Smith Webb published The Freemason's
Monitor, his version of Preston adopted for American Masonry.
The cornerstone ceremonies of Preston in 1772 and those of Webb in 1797 are
quite simple, though evolved beyond the descriptions of Lawrie and Anderson.
Preston limited attendance to the Grand Lodge while Webb welcomed members of
private Lodges. Webb's ritual shows the introduction of corn, wine, and oil, the
tests of trueness of the stone, and the now almost universal approbation from
the Grand Master that the stone is "well formed, true, and trusty."
Both Preston and Webb follow the generosity of King George toward the workmen
and have a voluntary collection taken for the workers; virtually all subsequent
rituals require a similar collection. This generosity may be based on the
description in Ezra 3:7 of the preparations for the second temple in Jerusalem.
"So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil
to the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea,
to Joppa, according to the grant which they had from Cyrus King of Persia."
THE U.S. CAPITOL CEREMONIES IN 1793. The cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol was
laid in 1793, between the publication of the first edition of Preston in 1772 in
London and the first edition of Webb in 1797 in Albany. Preston's Illustrations
of Masonry was certainly available to the Masons who planned the Capitol
cornerstone laying. More familiar to the planners would have been John K. Read's
New; Ahiman Rezon published in Richmond in 1791 , two years before the Capitol
event. Read's book was published for the guidance of Virginia Lodges and
dedicated to "George Washington, Esq. President of the United States of
America," but there were no instructions for cornerstone layings.
There is circumstantial evidence that the procedures used by George
Washington were more like those of Webb than Preston. The newspaper account of
the day specifically mentions that corn, wine, and oil were placed on the
cornerstone after it was set in place. Also, Alexandria-Washington Lodge #22
have a wooden triangle and T-square from the 1793 ceremonies, which must have
been used to symbolically try the stone.
LATER DEVELOPMENTS. Succeeding generations of Masonic lecturers and writers
have tried their hands at producing the "perfect" textbook for teaching Masonic
ritual. Each new monitor showed the "improvements" of its author-perhaps
expanded explanations, or improved grammar, or clarified directions. Sometimes
the books would reflect the peculiar development of Masonic ritual in some
particular part of the country. The cornerstone ceremony, however, has remained
relatively consistent from author to author and from region to region. The few
changes made were usually logical expansions of earlier ceremonies; there have
been no radical departures. Webb's anointing with corn. wine. and oil together
with his benediction for the stone, Which begins" May the all-bounteous Author
of Nature...," have been universally adopted by his American successors.
A brief summary of changes in the cornerstone ceremony from some of the more
popular Masonic monitors will give a sense of the evolution. In 1819 Jeremy Ladd
Cross published The True Masonic Chart of Hieroglyphic Monitor, which was
essentially Webb's book with the addition of original engravings, the first such
illustrations; it had no changes from Webb. Samuel Cole's 1862 Freemason's
Library does not differ materially from Webb or Cross, but Cole is one of the
only writers to omit the collection for the workers.
The Baltimore Convention of 1843 was the biggest attempt to produce a uniform
American Masonic ritual, and the effort failed. Charles W. Moore produced The
Masonic Trestleboard in 1843 following the convention's ritual. His only
significant change to the cornerstone ceremony was the recommendation of hymns
to be sung. The rituals of the Baltimore convention were not universally
accepted, which led John Dove to produce The Virginia Textbook in 1846,
supposedly correcting the errors found in Moore. Dove and Moore agreed on the
essentials of the cornerstone ceremony, though they did recommend different
hymns.
THE MODERN CEREMONY. Albert G. Mackey was one of the most productive and
successful Masonic writers of the nineteenth century (though his theories of
Masonic origins are entirely discounted by serious historians today). Mackey's
1862 Manual of the Lodge made three important additions to the ceremony, which
essentially brings the evolution to modern practices. First, there are brief
speaking parts for the Deputy Grand Master, Senior Grand Warden, and Junior
Grand Warden, respectively explaining and presenting to the Grand Master the
corn, wine, and oil. Second, Mackey has the now common address to the crowd
wherein the Grand Master announces, "Be it known unto you that we be lawful
Masons, true and faithful to the laws of our country.." It is not known why
Mackey thought it necessary to introduce this defense of Masonry. Finally,
Mackey has the stone lowered into place by three distinct motions.
Daniel Sickels was another prolific Masonic author and a contemporary of
Mackey He edited The Freemason's Monitor in 1864 and wrote The General Ahiman
Rezon and Freemason's Guide in 1866. His cornerstone ceremony represents about
the greatest elaboration of Preston's simple procedure from 1772. Rather than
the Grand Master, Sickels has three principal subordinate grand officers, the
Deputy Grand Master, Senior Grand Warden, and Junior Grand Warden, try the stone
with their jewels of offices, the square, level, and plumb respectively. The
Grand Master still declares the stone "well formed, true, and trusty." the corn,
wine, and oil are not just presented by the three grand officers but are spread
by them with a more elaborate explanation of the symbolism. Sickels follows
Mackey with the Grand Master's defensive address on Masonry.
NOTES
1. David Flather, "The Foundation Stone," Ars Quatuor Coronatorum. Vol. 48,
1939, p. 221; Lawric quoted in Flather, p. 222. 2. James Anderson, 'The
Constitutions of the Free -Masons (London: 1723; reprint. Bloomington Ill.: The
Masonic Book club, 1975), p42
(As noted earlier this STB is an excerpt from a new book, Cornerstones of
Freemasonry; a Masonic Tradition. Please see page 3 for more information as to
its availability,)
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