Freemasonry in Maryland: One Lodge's View

A Craft Older Than Most of the State's Institutions

The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Maryland was constituted in 1787, four years before Maryland's own capital took its modern civic form and only a year before the state ratified the United States Constitution. Freemasonry in Maryland is, in a real sense, older than most of the institutions that now govern the state — a fact that speaks less to any special virtue in the Craft than to how early and how widely Freemasonry had already taken root in colonial Maryland, in Baltimore's counting houses and in the courthouses and taverns of the state's oldest counties. For the authoritative, current account of that history, the Grand Lodge's own record at mdmasons.org is the place to begin; what follows is simply the view from one small lodge on the Craft's western edge.

Where Maryland's Oldest Lodges Stand

Maryland is home to lodges whose roots reach back before the Grand Lodge itself. Georgetown Lodge No. 9, chartered in 1789, and Federal Lodge No. 1, chartered in 1793, are among the oldest to hold continuous surviving records; Columbia Lodge No. 58 — Fervency's near neighbor here in Frederick County — ranks as the tenth oldest, chartered in 1815. An Annapolis lodge is known to have met as early as 1750, though no records of it survive. Fervency Lodge No. 200 makes no claim to any part of that early history — our own charter dates only to 1898 — but we hold genuine respect for the lodges of Baltimore and southern Maryland whose members were doing this same work of moral instruction and brotherhood a full century before our eleven charter members ever petitioned for a warrant.

How Many Lodges Call Maryland Home

The precise number of lodges currently chartered under the Grand Lodge of Maryland shifts from year to year, as small lodges merge or occasionally surrender their charters; as of this writing, the Grand Lodge of Maryland counts roughly 100 lodges under its jurisdiction (the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Maryland, a separate and parallel body, counts about 81 of its own). What can be said with certainty at the county level is smaller and more concrete: Frederick County alone is home to four — Columbia No. 58 and Fredericktonian No. 12 in Frederick city, Brunswick No. 191, and Fervency No. 200 in Point of Rocks — which gives some sense of how densely the Craft settled into even a single Maryland county over two centuries. Read more about Freemasonry across Frederick County.

Frederick County's Place in the Craft

Frederick County sits toward the western edge of Maryland's Masonic map, closer in spirit to the mountain lodges of Washington and Allegany Counties than to the older, denser network of lodges in Baltimore and southern Maryland. That geography shaped how Freemasonry arrived here: later, more sparsely, and often organized around the same rivers, roads, and rail lines that shaped the county's towns. Fervency Lodge No. 200, chartered in 1898 by railroad men, merchants, and farmers along the Potomac, is a product of that pattern — a small rural lodge born of practical necessity rather than urban abundance. Read the full history of Fervency Lodge No. 200.

One Lodge's View

We do not pretend to speak for the whole of Maryland Freemasonry from a lodge room in Point of Rocks, and we would be suspicious of any lodge that claimed to. What we can offer is a faithful, local account of the Craft as it has been practiced here for over a century — modest in size, serious in its obligations, and connected, through the Grand Lodge of Maryland, to a statewide brotherhood that stretches back to before the state itself had settled its final borders. A man in Frederick County who wishes to know Maryland Freemasonry firsthand is welcome to begin at Fervency Lodge No. 200, or to read directly how to petition for membership.