Freemasonry in Frederick County, Maryland
A County of Many Lodges
Frederick County, Maryland has never belonged to a single lodge, and that has always been to its credit. The county stretches from the row houses of Frederick city to the river towns along the Potomac, and Freemasonry settled into it the way water settles into low ground — wherever men gathered in sufficient number and asked the Grand Lodge of Maryland for a charter. Four lodges now hold that ground: Columbia Lodge No. 58 and Fredericktonian Lodge No. 12 in the city of Frederick, Brunswick Lodge No. 191 along the old B&O line, and Fervency Lodge No. 200 in the river village of Point of Rocks. Each was born of a different need, and together they form the Masonic landscape of the county.
Columbia Lodge No. 58 and Fredericktonian Lodge No. 12 — the City of Frederick
Columbia Lodge No. 58 is the elder of the county's lodges, holding more than two centuries of continuous work in the seat of Frederick County. It sits alongside Fredericktonian Lodge No. 12, and between the two lodges, generations of the county's merchants, farmers, and professionals have been initiated, passed, and raised. A Mason visiting Frederick city today walks into lodge rooms where the ritual has been worked, without interruption, since long before most of the county's present roads were paved. That kind of continuity is rare, and the brethren of Frederick city have earned the right to be proud of it.
Brunswick Lodge No. 191 — the B&O Town
West of Frederick, where the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad once employed a good share of the town, Brunswick Lodge No. 191 grew up alongside the rail yards. Brunswick was a railroad town in the truest sense — shift work, machine shops, and men who kept the same hours as the trains — and its lodge reflects that history. Brunswick No. 191 and Fervency No. 200 share more than a county line; both were shaped by the same corridor of river, canal, and rail that runs the length of western Frederick County, and Masons of the two lodges have long visited freely between one another.
The Frederick Scottish Rite
Beyond the Blue Lodge, Frederick County is also home to the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite's Valley of Frederick, where Master Masons who wish to continue their study beyond the three degrees may take up the appendant work of the Rite. The Scottish Rite does not compete with the Blue Lodges of the county — it extends them, offering further historical and philosophical instruction to men already raised a Master Mason in a lodge such as Columbia, Fredericktonian, Brunswick, or Fervency. A Frederick County Mason interested in that further work is best directed to inquire through his own lodge.
Fervency Lodge No. 200 — the Rural Outpost at Point of Rocks
Fervency Lodge No. 200 is the youngest of the county's lodges and the only one seated outside Frederick city or Brunswick proper. It was chartered in 1898 by eleven men — railroad workers, merchants, and farmers — who found the journey to the nearest lodge too long for regular attendance and petitioned the Grand Lodge of Maryland for a charter of their own. Read the full history of Fervency Lodge. More than a century later, the lodge still meets in Point of Rocks, in the western reach of the county where the Potomac River and the old rail line pass beneath the cliffs — a quieter corner of Frederick County's Masonic map, but no less a part of it.
How a Frederick County Man Petitions
A man does not need to live near Frederick city to become a Freemason in this county. Whether he lives closer to the courthouse square, the rail yards of Brunswick, or the river bend at Point of Rocks, the path is the same: he asks a Mason, or he inquires directly of a lodge. Each of Frederick County's lodges welcomes petitions from men of good character who meet the qualifications of the Craft, and a man is free to attend the lodge nearest him, or the one whose brethren he already knows. Learn how to petition Fervency Lodge No. 200, or begin, as Masons always have, by simply asking. Visit the Fervency Lodge No. 200 homepage to learn more about the brotherhood at Point of Rocks.