Grand Lodge of Massachusetts - Beyond The Bay State

Beyond The Bay State

The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts continues to maintain lodges in other parts of the world. As early as 1821, the Grand Master formed a Deputy Grand Lodge at Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, and constituted a lodge there. An independent Grand Lodge was organized in Puerto Rico in 1885. A dispensation was issued to Bethesda Lodge in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1853. Eventually a District Grand Lodge was created, but by 1921 the lodges became merely a district of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge. The Massachusetts` Grand Lodge was responsible for the constitution of several other lodges in China, but by 1950, Grand Master Roger Keith had advised the lodges to go into voluntary recess. In 1952 the charter for Talien Lodge in South Manchuria was revoked and Sinim Lodge was allowed to move from Shanghai to Tokyo. With the construction of the Panama Canal, dispensations were issued to Isthmian Lodge in 1906 and Sojourners Lodge in 1912, both located in the Canal Zone. Grand Master A. Neil Osgood granted a dispensation to Caribbean Naval Lodge at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba in 1965. The lodge had been under the Grand Lodge of Cuba but surrendered its charter and petitioned the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.