Grand Lodge of Virginia

The The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge, A.F. & A.M. of the Commonwealth of Virginia, commonly known as "Grand Lodge of Virginia", is the oldest, continuous, independent masonic grand lodge in the United States with 25,000 members in over 276 lodges.[1] Both the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts dispute this claim, each claiming to be the oldest Grand Lodge in the United States. A Pennsylvania Grand Lodge was probably working as early as 1727, or slightly before the one that was next formed in Massachusetts, circa-1730. However, both of those older grand lodges did not last, and both bodies had to be re-formed later in the eighteenth-century. The Grand Lodge of Virginia was constituted on 30 October 1778, with its first headquarters in Williamsburg, Virginia. The grand lodge relocated its offices to Richmond, Virginia, in 1784, where it remains to this day.[2]

  1. ^ "About the Grand Lodge of Virginia". Grand Lodge of Virginia. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  2. ^ “Encyclopedia of Freemasonry Part 2" by Albert Gallatin Mackey, H. L. Haywood, Google Books