On July 30, 1733, 18 men gathered at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern on King (now State) Street in Boston. Among them was Henry Price, Provincial Grand Master of the Freemasons in America, who exercised his authority to grant a charter to St. John's Lodge, the first duly constituted and chartered lodge of Masons in America. Henry Hope, a Boston merchant, served as the first Master of the Lodge.

From that time, St. John's has had a distinguished place in history. Among its members were Paul Revere, Josiah Quincy, John Rowe ("One wonders how tea will mix with salt water"), James Otis ("Taxation without representation is tyranny!"), Robert Newman ("One if by land, two if by sea") and Lowell Thomas (the writer who first wrote about Lawrence of Arabia). Guests of St. John's have included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and the Marquis de Lafayette.

Last night I had the privilege to join with 17 (a fortuitous number as 3 people were absent) other Masons of St. John's Lodge to commemorate our 273rd anniversary. As the Bunch of Grapes has receded into history, we met in the shadow of the Bunker Hill Monument at the Warren Tavern (1780, birthplace of King Solomon's Lodge) where we recalled our history, raised a toast to the two Henry's and to a recently fallen brother and renewed the spirit that has kept St. John's the oldest continuous Lodge in America. Poignant hardly sums it up.

So mote it be.