Yes, I know that this is seveal months late, but I was wandering through pictures from this summer and thought that this would be amusing to post. So here it goes.
July 26th marks the birth of William J. Florence, one of the founders of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine [...]
The other night I was randomly walking by St. Mark’s church on 2nd Avenue and Stuyvesant Street after our normal Tuesday meeting at McSorley’s Old Ale House. I noticed that the park was still open and I was aware that Peter Stuyvesant was buried there. Peter Stuyvesant was a Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam and a very controversial figure. So I went in to check it out.
Upon walking about the very poorly kept grave yard and the tomb of Stuyvesant, I ran across the grave of Daniel Tompkins. It said that he was the 6th Vice President of the United States. All of this piqued my curiosity. There is a Tompkins Square Park just a few short blocks away. What was it about this man that was so celebrated at one time and why was he forgotten by us now? So I went home and did a simple online search into his history.
It turns out that not only was he the 6th Vice President of the United States, he was a Freemason as well. Not only that, the first Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council for the newly established Northern Masonic Jurisdiction for the Scottish Rite in the United States.
