GMThomas

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ISAIAH THOMAS 1749-1831

IT_Revolutionary.jpg

Senior Grand Warden, 1795-1797
Grand Master, 1803-1805
Grand Master, 1809

TERM

1803 1804 1805

1809

NOTES

  • 1903-186: Speech by Past Grand Master Gallagher; biographical information on Grand Master Thomas.

BIOGRAPHY

Isaiah Thomas. one of our best-known Grand Masters, was born in Boston a generation before the Revolution. He was apprenticed at an early age to a printer in the town, Zachariah Fowle, but his independent spirit ultimately forced him to seek employment elsewhere. Like another famous printer and Mason, Benjamin Franklin (whom he idolized), it had been young Thomas' intention to make his way across the ocean to London to improve his knowledge of the printing trade, but his travels only took him as far as Nova Scotia, where he found employment at the Halifax Gazette. His activities soon showed his political inclinations, forcing him to depart in haste after he published commentary in the newspaper regarding Nova Scotians' opposition to the Stamp Act.

By 1767 Thomas, now 18 years old, had retumed to his native Boston and reconciled with his former master, who employed him as a journeyman. After a brief sojourn south - which resulted, among other things, in his marriage to Mary Dill in Charleston, South Carolina, on Christmas Day 1769 - he returned and established himself in partnership with Fowle. By the fall of 1770 he had bought out Fowle, and was now the sole publisher of a newspaper of his own, lhe Massachusetts Spy, that reflected his own increasingly radical point of view. The paper, and Thomas himself, became increasingly associated with the Sons of Liberty, attracting contributors who favored the Patriot cause and opposed British rule. On April 19, 1775 he even published an account purported to be an eyewitness account of the battles of Lexington and Concord - electrifying news back in Boston. Shortly afterward, it became necessary for Thomas and the Spy to depart Boston; for the next few years both had a somewhat itinerant existence.

Thomas finally settled in Worcester, which thereafter became his home. Despite'the economic hardship of the Revolution, the young printer was able to flourish due to the prodigious output of his "forge of sedition." He made a number of close friends who assisted him in his efforts: prominently, Joseph Warren, Paul Revere, and Timothy Bigelow; Warren and Bigelow assisted him in transporting his press and type to Worcester just ahead of British soldiers, and Revere's engravings appeared in the Spy and even more frequently in the literary publication that would soon be renamed the Massachusetts Magazine.

In 1779 Isaiah Thomas remarried. Unusually for the time, he had been granted a divorce on the justifiable grounds of adultery on the part of his wife. His second wife Mary Thomas Fowle would be a loyal and loving companion until her death in 1818. In 1780 he was conscripted for military service, but his apprentice Benjamin Russell went in his stead and served with distinction. Thomas, meanwhile, built success upon success, establishing himself as the most prominent printer in Massachusetts and ultimately in the entire United States; in addition to his periodicals he began to print almanacs and books, including many children's books and some of the earliest editions of popular novels as well as the original Constitutions and Regulations of our Grand Lodge. In 1789 he acquired the rights to Noah Webster's spelling and grammar books, ultimately a very lucrative investment that helped establish his fortune.

Bro. Thomas' Masonic career began in the old Trinity Lodge in Lancaster, chartered by the Massachusetts (Independent ) Grand Lodge, where he was initiated some time after 1787. His first appearance in the Proceedings is in 1793 at the constitution of Morning Star Lodge in Worcester, where he was the first installed master. He was one of the first District Deputy Grand Masters after the positions were established, and by 1802 he had risen high enough in the Grand Lodge that he was chosen as Grand Master of Masons to succeed Samuel Dunn. His three-year term was extremely active; he granted thirteen charters, including five in the District of Maine and one in the State of Ohio (Scioto Lodge in Chillicothe, which would soon surrender its Massachusetts credentials to help found the Grand Lodge of Ohio).

After Most Wor. Timothy Bigelow's first three-year term, Bro. Thomas returned as Grand Master; his most memorable act was the recognition and welcome of the Lodge of Saint Andrew to Massachusetts jurisdiction, according it the second position of precedence behind only Saint John's Lodge of Boston.

Like his long-time friend Paul Revere, Thomas was well-known outside the fraternity as well as within it. His success as a businessman permitted him to retire in 1802, and gave him ample time to devote his attention to other interests. In addition to Freemasonry, Thomas was a skilled antiquarian; he published the seminal History of Printing in America in 1810, and in 1812 was a principal founder of the American Antiquarian Society, to which he ultimately donated his extensive library. He served as president of that organization until his death in 1831.

The building containing his 1796 printing office is currently located at Old Sturbridge Village; it lies a few hundred yards from the town green, near the stately house of Bro. Salem Towne. The press and other facilities are modest, yet it is the workplace of a skilled craftsman, a master of his trade in a small but growing town. It is in some ways quintessentially American, the sort of humble surrounding from which came the sorts of words that could start a revolution or build a nation. It is a fitting memorial to the indomitable spirit of Isaiah Thomas.

MEMORIALS

From Boston Masonic Mirror, New Series, Vol 2. No. 41, April 9, 1831, Page 327:

The venerable Isaiah Thomas is no more!

This venerable and well-beloved man died at Worcester on Monday last. He was the father of American printers; and past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of this Commonwealth. He was born in this city in January, 1749. "He began his career," says Mr. John Russell, in his address to the members of the Faustus Association in 1808, "about the time Franklin was called from the private studies of his office, to fulfil the duties of public minister abroad. On his first entrance into business, he was distinguished for enterprise and ingenuity — and possessing an ardent mind, he pursued tbe natural bent of his enthusiasm in the cause of liberty, by eminently contributing in his private example, and professional ability, as editor of a newspaper, to the progress and consummation of that glorious revolution, which seated the proud empire of America on the throne of independence."

At a meeting of the Council of the American Antiquarian Society, held at tbe house of tho Rev. Dr. Bancroft, on Monday the 4th day of April, A. D.1831, being the day of the decease of the late Isaiah Thomas, L. L. D. and late President of said Society—

  • Resolved, That this Society deplore (he death of their venerable President, as a distinguished public benefactor, to whose munificence we are almost exclusively indebted for our valuable literary and other property.
  • Resolved, That for a long succession of years he has devoted his valuable services with great zeal to the interests of this Society, and has left to the public in the Library,a legacy for wbicb tbey ought to be grateful.
  • Resolved, That this Society will attend his funeral, and request a member of their body to deliver an appropriate address on that occasion.
  • Resolved, That Rejoice Newton, Esq. be requested to communicate these Resolutions to the surviving relatives and to make all necessary arrangements.

Attest, REJOICE NEWTON, Rec'g. Sec.

His funeral was attended at the meeting house ef the Second Parish in Worcester, on Thursday last.

CHARTERS GRANTED

1803-1805

1809

RULINGS



Grand Masters

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