On 21 February 1734, James Oglethorpe established the first Masonic Lodge within the British Colony of Georgia. Entered upon the official engraved lists of the Premier Grand Lodge of England as Lodge No. 139, it is now known as Solomon's Lodge No. 1, F. & A. M. and is claimed to be the "Oldest Continuously Operating English Constituted Lodge of Freemasons in the Western Hemisphere".
The brick building in the picture is the current Meeting place of Solomon's Lodge, but for centuries Masonic history has recalled that it was there beneath the "Sunbury Oak" that the gentle and kind founder of Georgia, Brother James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785) instituted the first Lodge of Freemasons in this State. |
