The town of Surry’s former fire station on Church Street contains a cornerstone engraved with the words “Jefferson Lodge No. 65, A.F. and A.M., 1801-1945” and the square-and-compass symbol of the Freemasons, a worldwide and centuries-old society of men whose ranks once included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and other founding fathers of the United States.

The granite block sat undisturbed since the firehouse’s construction in 1945, concealing within it a plastic box that was removed for the first time in 80 years on May 31.

The masons of Jefferson Lodge don’t know yet what’s inside. The box has been sent to the Grand Lodge in Richmond to be opened in case there’s anything older than 1945 inside.

“They have a lab there for preserving old documents,” said Jefferson Lodge Master Steven Holloway.

Though the building itself is less than a century old, Jefferson Lodge is among the oldest masonic chapters in Virginia. It was chartered in 1801.

Holloway said the location of the original meeting site remains unknown. Charles Hawkins, another member of the masonic lodge, said the masons had asked the town in 1945 to add a second story for the group to use as a meeting place when a prior lodge burned in a fire.

Hawkins said the masons met there from 1945 through the early 2000s. They now meet in a building on Colonial Trail East, also known as Route 10, adjacent to Surry’s town hall.

The firehouse has seen multiple tenants over the decades. It now houses Surry County’s Economic Development Department.

Holloway said Jefferson Lodge got the idea to look behind its own cornerstone and obtained permission from the town to remove it after members of Smithfield Union Lodge No. 18 assisted last year with the removal and opening of a 100-year-old cornerstone at Benn’s United Methodist Church. That removal, which was done to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the gothic-style church, revealed a 1924 letter from Benn’s leadership agreeing to a construction cost of $17,454 and a July 4 edition of the Times from that year – the second-oldest known preserved printed edition of Smithfield’s 1920-founded newspaper.

 

What makes a mason?

Surry’s Jefferson Lodge is one of over 270 lodges in Virginia, collectively accounting for over 26,000 masons throughout the state, according to the Grand Lodge’s website. There are an estimated 4.7 million masons worldwide. Thirteen signers of the Constitution and 14 former U.S. presidents, including Washington, were masons.

The masonic square-and-compass symbol is a nod to the tools of medieval English and Scottish guilds of cathedral-builders, from which Freemasonry is thought to have arisen according to the society’s website, though some masonic documents trace the science of geometry and masonry to ancient Egypt.  “A.F. and A.M.” stands for “ancient free and accepted mason.”

The founding of the first Grand Lodge in London in 1717 marked the beginning of modern Freemasonry, when members were no longer required to be actual stonemasons.

The core tenets of Freemasonry, according to the society’s website, include “brotherly love and affection, relief and truth,” and a shared belief in “the existence of a supreme being,” though men age 18 and up of any religion can join. The society’s website states there are three degrees of Freemasonry: “entered apprentice,” “fellowcraft” and “master mason,” which aspiring masons must complete to become full members. They are loosely based on the journeyman system used to educate medieval craftsman.