Roger Hugh Lacey
| Freemasonry began in Georgia in February, 1734, with
the organization of a Lodge in Savannah. General James Edward Oglethorpe,
founder of Georgia, was the organizer and first Master of the Lodge. In December, 1735, the Lodge was enrolled on the register of the Grand Lodge of England and was known as "the Lodge at Savannah in Ye Province of Georgia". In 1736, Roger Hugh Lacey arrived in Savannah with a Deputation from the Grand Master of Masons in England to Constitute the Lodge at Savannah of Georgia in America. This Lodge is now known as Solomon's Lodge No. 1, Savannah. (It was the second regularly constituted Lodge in North America and is now the oldest continuously operating Lodge in the Western Hemisphere.) It continued as a subordinate Lodge of the Grand Lodge of England until it and other Lodges created and proclaimed the new and sovereign Grand Lodge of Georgia, F. & A.M., on December 16, 1786. |