Was George Washington a Freemason?

Washington became a Freemason as a young man. He was initiated an Entered Apprentice on November 4, 1752, in the lodge at Fredericksburg, Virginia, later chartered as Fredericksburg Lodge No. 4, when he was twenty years old. He was passed to the degree of Fellowcraft in March 1753 and raised to the degree of Master Mason on August 4, 1753. He was a Mason for the rest of his life, a span of about forty-seven years.

Washington led a lodge as well as belonging to one. When Alexandria Lodge No. 22 received its charter from the Grand Lodge of Virginia in 1788, Washington was named its first Worshipful Master, and he was still serving in that office when he was elected the first President of the United States in 1789. The lodge later took his name and is known today as Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22.

His Masonry was woven into the public life of the new nation. At his first inauguration in 1789, the oath of office was taken on a Bible borrowed from St. John’s Lodge No. 1 in New York, and the oath was administered by Robert R. Livingston, the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York. Throughout his presidency Washington received and answered addresses from grand lodges across the states.

The most famous moment of Washington’s Masonic life came on September 18, 1793, when he laid the cornerstone of the United States Capitol in a full Masonic ceremony. Wearing a Masonic apron and sash, he was assisted by Joseph Clark, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Maryland, and by Masons from lodges in Virginia, Maryland, and the new Federal City.

Washington placed a silver plaque, then stepped into the trench and struck the cornerstone three times with a gavel, in the order of corn, wine, and oil prescribed by Masonic custom. The plaque dedicated the building in the first year of his second term and, in the Masonic reckoning of years, in the year of Masonry 5793. The trowel he used survives in the collection of Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22.

Washington wore a Masonic apron at the Capitol ceremony, and he owned more than one. Which specific apron he wore that day is debated among historians and curators, so the honest answer names the candidates rather than settling it by legend.

Popular accounts often merge the two and credit the apron Washington wore at the Capitol to Madame Lafayette’s needle. The more careful reading, supported by Mount Vernon and the Memorial, points to the Watson-Cassoul apron for that day, while granting that Washington received several aprons from his Brethren in the 1780s.

Washington was a Worshipful Master, the head of his own lodge, but he was never the standing Grand Master of a grand lodge, and he was never a national Grand Master of the United States, because no such office has ever existed. The confusion is common, and worth correcting plainly.

At the Capitol cornerstone he presided over the Masonic ceremony, acting in a leading role for that occasion alongside the Grand Master of Maryland. That is a different thing from being elected to govern a grand lodge. American Freemasonry has never had a single national grand lodge, and proposals in the 1790s to create one and place Washington at its head came to nothing. His real Masonic offices were Worshipful Master of Alexandria Lodge No. 22 and, before that, a member at Fredericksburg.