| Thomas Smith Webb
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![[Thomas Smith Webb]](https://dev.freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/images/webb_t.jpg)
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October 13, 1771 – July 6, 1819 Born and educated in Massachusetts, Thomas Smith Webb was either a bookbinder or printer whose trade first took him to New Hampshire and then to Albany, New York. He later relocated to Providence, Rhode Island to engage in wallpaper manufacturing and then retired to Boston in 1815. Web is revered by American freemasons for his The Freemason’s Monitor; or, Illustrations of Masonry (1797), a distillation of Preston‘s ritual into what is now called the “American Rite”. He was an active and tireless promoter of concordant bodies and is considered to be the founder of the American system of chapter and encampment Freemasonry. He was also the first president of the Psallonian society, an organization for the improvement of its members in sacred melody. In 1815, he was a founding member and first president of the Boston Handel and Haydn society. Initiated: December 17th, 1790 Rising Sun Lodge, New Hampshire Worshipful Master Temple Lodge, Albany Member New England Lodge No. 4, Worthington, Ohio Grand Master: 1813, 1814 Grand Lodge of Rhode Island
Source: Grand Lodge of New Hampshire records; Grand Lodge of Ohio records; Masonic Service Association, Short Talk Bulletin June 1938, No. 54. Portrait: frontispiece, History of the Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons in New York from the earliest date. vol ii. New York : Published by the Grand Lodge, 1888. |