Jay Grossman

hometownlife.com

On a crisp Saturday night in early December, the Birmingham Lodge No. 44 of Free and Accepted Masons is opened for the installation of new officers.

In a ceremony dating back hundreds of years, Matt Wilde, a former back-up quarterback for the University of Michigan football team, is elected Worshipful Master of the lodge. As a symbol of his new position, he is presented with a top hat and a Master's gavel.

It’s the same installation ceremony that George Washington followed in 1788 when he was elected Worshipful Master of Alexandria Lodge No. 22, shortly before he was elected the first president of the United States.

“My grandfather was a Mason,” said Wilde, a 2002 Birmingham Seaholm High School graduate. “I always had a curiosity about Masonry, so I looked into it and decided to join. You hear everyone talk about a ‘secret society,’ but really we’re just a group of guys who want to contribute to our community. We’re a service organization.”

Wilde is the 116th Worshipful Master of the Birmingham Masonic lodge.

Recognized as the oldest fraternity in the world, Freemasonry came to the Great Lakes territory in the mid-1700s by the French. The Grand Lodge of Michigan was established in 1826, and the Birmingham lodge received its charter in 1851

A number of the key players in the American Revolution were Freemasons. Along with Washington, the list includes Benjamin Franklin, James Monroe, Paul Revere and John Hancock, among others.

The Boston Tea Party was planned at the Green Dragon Tavern, a gathering spot for Freemasons. The majority of Washington’s generals in the Continental Army were Freemasons.

Locally, prominent names such as Charles Shain, Wylie E. Groves, Ebenezer Raynale, Hugh McCurdy and Charles Bingham were members of Birmingham Lodge No. 44. So was Almeron Whitehead, founder of the Birmingham Eccentric, and many others.

From 1922 until 1963, the Freemasons of Birmingham met in the historic Peabody Mansion at the corner of Old Woodward and Brown Street. Wilde said his mom used to tell him stories about dropping off her dad at the Birmingham lodge.

Who are Freemasons?

“To be a Free and Accepted Mason means you’re a man free born, of good rapport and well recommended,” said Robert Hall, who serves as the chaplain for the Birmingham lodge. “It means you’ll try to live up to what we call the tenets of Masonry: friendship, brotherly love and morality.”

Some date the Masons back to the days of King Solomon, suggesting the top hat worn by the Worshipful Master is a reflection of his crown. Freemasonry, as it’s widely known today, dates back to the 17th Century.

Many of the group’s so-called ancient rituals began in England and Scotland. A Scottish bagpiper in full kilt dress, for example, led the new officers into the hall at the installation ceremony.The term 'Worshipful' has Scottish roots and is meant to convey a position of honor.

Hall, a longtime resident of Royal Oak, became a Mason in 1985. He served as Worshipful Master twice, in 1997 and in 2007.

“We all have different reasons for joining,” he said. “My father was very active in the Masons. He was a Shriner – and to be a Shriner, you have to be a Mason first.”

Today, the Birmingham Masonic lodge is located at 37357 Woodward Ave. in Bloomfield Hills, just down the street from Cranbrook Schools. The lodge has about 300 members – a sharp decline from 25 years ago, when there were well over 600 members.

Go Blue!

Wilde, 33, is a fourth-generation Birmingham resident. His family first arrived in Birmingham in 1919. His grandfather, Gordon Deneau, graduated Birmingham high in 1941, and his mother Gail Wilde (Deneau) graduated Seaholm in 1970.

He played football at U-M under Coach Lloyd Carr from 2002 through 2005. Some of his teammates included future NFL players such as Chad Henne, Braylon Edwards, Mario Manningham, David Harris and LaMarr Woodley.

He also played on the 2002 lacrosse team at Seaholm that beat Brother Rice in the state finals.

“I actually had more offers to play lacrosse than I had for football. But at the end of the day, I knew I’d be happier playing football at Michigan, said Wilde, an attorney who's pursuing an MBA from the U-M Stephen M. Ross School of Business. His wife Liz is a social worker at Derby Middle School.

He petitioned to join the Birmingham lodge in 2010, and eventually became interested enough that he earned his three degrees of Masonry. The process took several years to complete before he reached the level of Master.

His fellow Masons at the lodge elected him to serve as Worshipful Master for the upcoming year, a position that requires him to run the weekly Thursday meetings, preside over the lodge and keep track of the books. Tom Baranowski, who is Senior Warden and second-in-command of the Birmingham lodge, also went to Seaholm, played football there and graduated in 1985.

“A lot of the older members are pretty thrilled because I’m the youngest Master in quite a while,” he said. “So it’s a bit symbolic, bringing in a new generation. A lot of the lodges really struggled with membership for the past 20 years, but there seems to be a resurgence of new people wanting to join. We’ll have five new guys in January.”

The Masons welcome “all men of quality,” regardless of race, religion or creed. Although Masonry is not a religion, members must have a belief in a Supreme Being.

“My father-in-law is from Venezuela and he just joined our lodge,” Wilde said. “You have to be at least 21 and a resident of Michigan. We’re not allowed to recruit members, but we’re certainly supportive of anyone who’s interested in joining.”

Indians, Truman and Irving Berlin

The all-seeing eye above an unfinished pyramid on the one-dollar bill is considered by many to be Mason symbol.

The square and compasses is probably the most identifiable symbol of Freemasonry. The square, to square one’s actions; the compass, to circumscribe and keep members within boundaries of their fellow men.

The top hat, worn by the Worshipful Master during meetings, is a sign of respect. The apron worn by all Masons is symbolic of honesty and integrity.

There are more symbols and rituals, but those are for the Masons to keep among themselves.

“We are not a secret society – we are a society that has secrets,” said Hall. “And those secrets, very simply, are means of recognition. They’re certain words, handshakes, steps and signs. Those are the only secrets we have … everything else is pretty much public.”

The Birmingham Masonic lodge has a storied history. In 1849, the first Masons in the area met at Lodge No. 22 in Pontiac. According to the lodge scuttlebutt, there were Indians along the trail who were rather hostile toward the traveling parties on horseback.

“This was all wild and undeveloped territory,” Hall said. “White people were trespassing uninvited on Indian property, and they didn’t like it.”

The Birmingham lodge was officially granted a charter on Jan. 9, 1851, and a man by the name of William Brown was the first Worshipful Master. The annual dues at the time was 25 cents.

Ebenezer Raynale was the first postmaster of Franklin Village and a delegate to the first territorial convention of Michigan. Hugh McCurdy, born in England in 1829, came to the U.S. when he was 8 years old to become a cooper’s apprentice, which involved making barrels for beer or cider.

Alanson Partridge, whose portrait hangs in the entrance vestibule of the lodge, was the most celebrated member of the lodge in its first 100 years, having served as a Worshipful Master on and off from 1854 to 1883.

A number of presidents, from Andrew Jackson to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Gerald Ford, were Masons. One of Hall’s favorite Masons was Harry S. Truman.

“He was active all his life in Masonry, and would always try to go to the local lodges whenever he traveled around the country,” Hall said. “This drove the Secret Service nuts, because those who were not Masons could not go into the lodge room … they had to let the president go into a room filled with strangers, and they had no idea if they were honorable or not, or if they carried weapons.”

And then there’s Harold Lanning. The 90-year-old member sang “God Bless America” during the installation ceremony. Afterward, Lanning told the audience that in October 1946 he shook hands with Irving Berlin, the person who wrote the song.

The heyday of Freemasonry in the U.S. was during the 1940s and early 1950s. Today, there are roughly 2 million Masons in North America and around 5 million worldwide. There's a Grand Lodge in every state of the country. Michigan's is located in Alma.

"Go to the Grand Lodge website to learn more about us," said Wilde. "We're very welcoming."

jgrossman@hometownlife.com

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