Founded in 1931, The American Lodge of Research is the oldest, continuous lodge of research in America.

Master’s Message

The American Lodge of Research will shift gears for the 2024-25 term. For our Stated Communications, we have a schedule of meetings organized around themes.

Beginning at the beginning, our Annual Meeting will open Tuesday, June 25 at 7 p.m. in the Empire Room on the twelfth floor of Masonic Hall. We will add a few new faces to the officer line. Bro. Erich Huhn will take the Junior Deacon’s place in the lodge, seeing that we are duly tiled; and Bro. Ziad Jalbout will be our Master Mason without, observing the approach of you-know-who, as our Tiler. Rounding out our team of Trustees will be R.W. Bro. Michael Chaplin, a Past Master of the lodge.

After elections and the installation of officers, the new Worshipful Master will present his inaugural paper. “It’s Just Common Sense: Thomas Reid and the Fellow Craft Degree” will explain how man’s Five Physical Senses came to be added to the Middle Chamber Lecture.

Active Members of the lodge will be asked to remain after the presentation for the transaction of regular and constitutional business. No collation is planned.

Tuesday, October 29: “Masonic Hall Monitors” will be our theme. Our keynote speaker, R.W. Ben Hoff, will present his new paper on the origins, evolution, and diversity of Masonic ritual ciphers, monitors, and exposures. Also, R.W. Samuel Lloyd Kinsey, Chairman of the Custodians of the Work, will visit to discuss the research that went into Grand Lodge’s latest ritual book and the upcoming monitor (the first monitor since the 1980s). R.W. Michael LaRocco, Executive Director of the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library, will exhibit choice samples of such books—the antique, the rare, the odd. And the Worshipful Master will conclude the evening with a very brief explanation of the newly published reprint of the Macoy Monitor of 1867. (That’s a fifth Tuesday.)

Monday, March 31, 2025: “A Night for the Marquis and the Count” will be the theme. R.W. Bro. Chris Ruli of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia and author of the upcoming book “Brother Lafayette,” will discuss the Masonic aspects of the Marquis de Lafayette’s farewell tour of the United States in 1824-25. Bro. Huhn, Junior Deacon of our lodge, will discuss Alexis de Toqueville’s thoughts on Freemasonry, as gleaned from his tour of America in 1831-32. This meeting will be a small part of New York Freemasonry’s commemoration of Lafayette’s tour. (That’s a fifth Monday.)

Monday, June 30, 2025: Annual Meeting. R.W. Yves Etienne to become our next Worshipful Master! (A fifth Monday.)

In addition, we most likely will hold a meeting on the road, possibly at New Rochelle. Also, a series of Zoom sessions, bringing together our members wherever dispersed about the face of the earth, is conceived. Plus, there’s always time for a Festive Board!