Brother Weed assisted in the formation of the first Grand Lodge of Michigan in 1826, and was elected the first Junior Grand Warden. He appears to have been an active and influential member of that Grand Body, serving on important committees, and in 1827 he was appointed by General Cass as Grand Steward of Charity.

During the eleven or twelve years of Masonic inactivity in Michigan, we have no record of Brother Weed, but when it was decided to again resume labor in the deserted quarries, we find him "chief among his equals," a zealons and active worker. When in 1841 it was decided to reorganize Grand Lodge, he was elected Deputy Grand Master, but Brother Levi Cook, who had been elected Grand Master, declining to be installed, the duties of the Grand Master's office devolved upon Brother Weed, and the following year he was elected and installed Grand Master, and served as such for one year. He appears to have taken no active part in the present Grand Lodge after the dissolution of the one to which he had devoted his time and energies. The only record we are able to find concerning him after that date being that he was present at the second annual meeting of this Grand Lodge in 1845, and was elected Grand Sword Bearer. Soon after this the charter of his Lodge was surrendered and we find no further mention of Brother Weed among Grand Lodge records. On June 16, 1848, he was made an honorary member of Pontiac Lodge, No. 21, and died fourteen days later, June 30, 1848; but the work he did in assisting to lay the foundation for this great structure entitles him to a place in the memory the craft while Masonry endures in Michigan.

In November, 1841, the following circular letter was sent to all Lodges then working in the state.

CIRCULAR.

The Grand Lodge of Michigan will assemble at B. Woodworth's Hotel, in the city of Detroit, on the first Wednesday of January, 1842, at high twelve, for the transaction of special and important business. You are hereby ordered to be in attendance at such time and place by your three highest officers or their representatives, and such other members as are entitled to seats from your Lodge.

Dated at Mt. Clemens

November 12, 1841.

By order of the Right
Worshipful Acting Gr. M.

A. C. Smith,
Grand Secretary.

January 5, 1842, the Grand Lodge met in Detroit, pursuant to the above call. In the meantime, a dispensation had been granted by Acting Grand Master Weed, for Napoleon Lodge at Brooklyn, and this Lodge was represented in this meeting, making four Lodges thus far enrolled in this Grand Lodge. The Grand Secretary was ordered to procure a seal, of a device to be prepared by a committee appointed for that purpose. The Grand Secretary was invited to deliver an address at Pontiac on the next anniversary of St. John the Baptist.

A committee appointed upon the matter of correspondence with the Grand Lodge of New York, submitted the following report, by its chairman, Brother William Jones:

REPORT.

That in the opinion of this Committee, every Grand Lodge has an inherent power and authority to make local ordinances and new regulations, as well as to amend and explain the old ones, for their own particular benefit and the good of Masonry in general. Provided always, That the ancient landmarks be carefully preserved and that such regulations be first duly proposed in writing for the consideration of members, and be at least duly enacted with the consent of the majority. That the members of every Grand Lodge are the true representatives of all the fraternity in communication, and are an absolute and independent body with legislative authority, and that in the opinion of your Committee the Grand Lodge of Michigan had ample power and right in the year 1829 to suspend Masonic labors in her jurisdiction until such time as prudence would dictate a return to labor. In the meantime, Michigan had become an independent government by voluntary assumption or organization, secured inherently in the people by the Constitution of the United States, and thereby severing forever all political dependence between Michigan and every other portion of the American Union; and as Michigan adopted the elective principle as one of the cardinal supports of the Republic, a due regard to a fundamental principle of the craft requires conformity to the principles of the government under which we live, and that the complete organization of a Grand Masonic jurisdiction in Michigan, even had suspension of labor never been authorized by the same body, could only be accomplished by 'assumption,' based on an 'elective supremacy.'

Your Committee find on examination, that this is no new principle. The Grand Lodge of England recognized it in the year 1717, and the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in the year 1780, by a unanimous adoption of a report of a committee appointed for the purpose of considering the subject-this last case presenting a much stronger one than does that of Michigan, for her Grand Lodge was broken up without form and every Grand office vacant in 1775, her subordinate Lodges absolved from foreign allegiance in 1776, and the final jurisdiction of the Grand

Lodge (recognized in 1777) not settled until 1783. In the meantime it was never pretended that the subordinate Lodges were irregular Lodges because they were left without a head, although they ceased for a time to hold Lodge meetings, and one is said to have lost its records; and the 'Ahiman Rezon' informs us that the Lodges in the several States, 'after the termination of the war, resorted to the proper and necessary means of forming and establishing independent Grand Lodges for the government of the fraternity in their respective jurisdictions.'

Your Committee find that this Grand Lodge was organized regularly in 1826, and recognized by most of the Grand Lodges in the Union, including New York; that she was invested with corporate rights as a Grand Lodge by the Legislative Council of the Territory in 1827, and that by a formal resolution passed in Grand Communication in the year 1829, all Masonic labor was suspended for the time being.

The position of this Grand Lodge at the time of its suspension of labor, and while Michigan was yet a territory, and the hostility exhibited toward the institution everywhere by the public sentiment of the day, fully warranted the Grand Lodge in an exercise of all her powers, not inconsistent with the fundamental principles of Masonry, in order to allay, by the most prudent course, an unjust persecution which at that time pervaded the length and breadth of the land.

At the Annual Communication in June 1841, delegates from a constitutional number of legally constituted subordinate Lodges, met agreeably to prior notice at this place and resolved to open a Grand Lodge under the existing constitution and recommend a general resumption of labor in the jurisdiction; and accordingly an election of officers was held; and the Grand Lodge fully re-organized, and the files, blanks and records thereof, duly made over into the hands of the Grand Secretary by the former officer having them in charge.

The Committee are therefore decidedly of the opinion, from all the evidence they have the means of obtaining, and from a careful perusal of the constitutions of the order and the practice of other Grand Lodges under them, that the present Grand Lodge was legally and constitutionally re-organized.

The doings of the Acting Grand Master, in appointing Benj. C. Howard to represent this Grand Lodge in the general convention of Grand Lodges in Washington, D. C., in the coming March, were approved, but it was resolved that "it was injudicious and inexpedient to organize a General Grand Lodge."

The second annual meeting was held June 1st, 1842, and at this time Detroit Lodge was represented, in addition to the four that had previously constituted the Grand Lodge. At this time Leonard Weed was elected Grand Master, Gen. John E. Schwarz, Deputy Grand Master, Ebenezer Hall, Senior Grand Warden and William Jones, Junior Grand Warden. Charters were granted to Napoleon and Stony Creek Lodges, and the following resolution relative to Lodges, was adopted:

Resolved, That any Lodge, subordinate to the Grand Lodge of Michigan, in regular standing, within the jurisdiction, and which suspended labor in the year 1829 in obedience to a resolution of the Grand Lodge, be cordially invited to resume labor under their original charter, subject to the provisions and restrictions heretofore prescribed, provided a sufficient number of members of said Lodge in possession of their charter and records may wish to do so, and provided further that the same be done within two years from this first day of June, A. L. 5842.

At the semi-annual communication on October 5, 1842, a charter was granted to Detroit Lodge and the Lodges were classified and numbered as follows:

Detroit Lodge, No. 1
Oakland Lodge, No. 2

Stony Creek Lodge, No. 3
Lebanon Lodge, No. 4

Napoleon Lodge, No. 5.

A committee consisting of William Jones, Levi Cook and Jeremiah Moors, was appointed to remonstrate with the brethren at Niles, who had organized a Lodge at that place and were working under a dispensation from the Grand Master of New York. The committee was instructed to endeavor to have this Lodge surrender its dispensation and come under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Michigan. The effort, however, was not successful.

A committee was appointed "to prepare a condensed history of the re-organization of the Grand Lodge of Michigan, and report at the

next meeting, accompanied with the views of said committee touching the legal existence of said Grand Lodge."

Steps were also taken to protect the Lodges from the intrusion of such persons as had renounced Masonry during the years of persecution, and they were required, when examining strangers, to take from them a statement that they had not seceded from or renounced Masonry.

Michigan matters, as related to Masonry, were now attracting much attention and causing a great amount of discussion in all the Grand Lodges in the United States. This Grand Lodge having asked for recognition from all others in the country, it followed, as a necessity, that everything connected with its organization and history became of interest to the whole fraternity. The matter was discussed in all its bearings, by the ablest Masons in all the states, and, in most instances, the Grand Lodges decided against the recognition of Michigan. In the General Masonic Convention held in Washington, in March, 1842, Brother Benjamin C. Howard, who had been chosen to represent Michigan, was denied such representation. The committee on dentials at that convention, reported as follows on the Michigan case:

The Committee have had put into their hands a document emanating from a body of Masons calling itself "The Grand Lodge of Michigan," appointing a very respectable and worthy Brother a Delegate to this Convention, and your Committee regret that not having the requisite evidence before them of the constitutional existence of any Grand Lodge in the State of Michigan, they are under the unpleasant necessity of reporting adversely to the claim of that Brother to a seat in this body. The reasons which have led your Committee to this conclusion, are briefly as follows:

From documents in their possession, your Committee learn, that in 1826, a Grand Lodge was regularly organized in the then Territory of Michigan; that in 1827, it was incorporated by the Legislative Council of the Territory, that in 1828 or 1829, in consequence of the violence of the anti-masonic excitement, which at that time was spreading over the northern parts of the country, like the desolating sirocco of the desert-at the suggestion and on the recommendation of General Cass, the then Grand Master, the labors of the Grand Lodge of Michigan, and of the Subordinate Lodges holding under its jurisdiction, were, by a unanimous vote of the Grand Lodge, suspended; the Masonic organization in the Territory was dissolved, and it does not appear that any attempt was made to revive it, until the year 1840, when a public meeting of the Masons in that State was called, through the public papers, to be holden in the town of Mount Clemens; at this meeting, it