Jim Memmott

For 83 years, the large symbol-laden stones waited to be found.

Down 30 feet in the earth, buried first beneath a theater and then a parking lot, they lingered in the dark. It was a far cry from when they graced the Rochester Masonic Temple in downtown Rochester and people looked up at them in curiosity and admiration.

And then, late last year, they saw the light again.

Workers on the excavation stages of the new Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority terminal along Mortimer Street between North Clinton Avenue and St. Paul Street came upon the stones and realized they could have historic value.

Taking care, they brought up the seven heavy stones — some weighed a ton — and placed them on pallets at the work site.

Chris Mahood of Mendon, an RGRTA employee and a member of the Masons, or Freemasons, was shown the stones. He quickly verified the fact that they contained Masonic symbols, including the compass and square with a central "G."

He then got the word out to other Masons, an international fraternal group that has had lodges in Rochester since the 1820s.

The Masons quickly organized to retrieve the stones, all the while giving thanks to the RGRTA staff and the workers from LeChase Construction and the Pike Company involved in the terminal project.

"The people involved were so caring," says Stephen Whittaker, a Mason from Perinton. "We as Freemasons were delighted to have retrieved such treasures."

The stones had been used to enhance the facade of the Masonic Temple at the corner of N. Clinton Avenue and Mortimer Street. When that building was torn down, officials must have chosen to bury the stones rather than cart them away.

The temple had opened to great fanfare in 1903. Civic officials – at least three judges and one future mayor — turned out for the dedication of the building said to have cost $270,000, the equivalent of nearly $7 million today.

The pomp and circumstance of the Temple opening, and the A-list of attendees, suggests that the Masons had weathered the controversies of the previous century.

The most famous of the public flaps was caused by the 1826 murder — perhaps by Masons, perhaps not — of a Batavia resident who had threated to write a book exposing the organization's secret rituals.

Controversy aside, Masons have always stressed that their purpose is the moral improvement of their members. And the list of notable Americans who were Masons includes presidents (both Roosevelts among them), entertainers and war heroes.

Masonic membership here continued to increase after the construction of the temple. Thus, in 1930, the Masons moved to a new building on East Main Street, a structure that contains what is now known as the Auditorium Theatre.

Left behind, the former Masonic Temple building was razed to make way for the RKO Palace Theater. That building would later be replaced by a parking lot.

Though their membership is not as large as it was 100 years ago when the Masonic Temple thrived, the Masons remain active here with 13 lodges in Monroe County.

Whittaker, who is a 33rd Degree Mason, an honor given for exceptional service, notes that the Masons have several public-service programs including private funding of classes to help dyslectic children read.

He also reports that the seven long-buried stones are now resting peacefully at a camp south of Rochester. Eventually, a permanent place for them will be identified. Above ground, they will gain a new life in the light of day.

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On Remarkable Rochester

Retired Senior Editor Jim Memmott reflects on what makes Rochester distinctively Rochester, its history, its habits, its people. Contact him at: (585) 278-8012 or jmemmott@DemocratandChronicle.com or Remarkable Rochester, Box 274, Geneseo, NY, 14454.

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Remarkable Rochesterians

Let's add this name of a prominent 19th resident to the list of Remarkable Rochesterians found at RocRoots.com:

Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881): An attorney, a pioneering anthropologist, a politician, this native of Aurora, Cayuga County, he graduated from Union College in 1840 and two years later came to Rochester to begin practice as a lawyer. He soon began to study Iroquois language and culture, that work culminating in the publication of League of the Iroquois in 1851. In later works, he wrote of kinship systems among Native Americans. He also served in the State Legislature.