RI Freemasonry begins in 1749 when the Provincial Grand Master of New England, Thomas Oxnard, and the Grand Master of Massachusetts approved the Constitution for St. John’s Lodge of Newport, the colony’s first Masonic lodge.

Their first master was Brother Caleb Phillips, and the meetings were held in the Council Chamber of the Old State House, a space that would later become a courthouse. The early chapter inspired the founding of a second lodge, St. John’s of Providence. On January 17, 1757, the charter for that lodge was granted and, the day after, signed by Jeremy Gridley, the Provincial Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.

Rhode Island Freemasons were early participants in the Revolutionary War: they destroyed the British revenue sloop “Liberty” at Newport, ignited the burning of the revenue schooner “Gaspee” in Narragansett Bay, the pursuit and grounding of the British frigate “Rose” on Conanicut Island, and the capture of General Richard Prescott by Col. William Barton.

With the war’s end came a revival of Masonic activity. By 1791 the two lodges voted to form a Grand Lodge. On March 14 and April 6, 1791, St. John’s Lodge in Newport and St. John’s Lodge in Providence respectively approved the plan that would become the Rhode Island Grand Lodge.

The Grand Lodge’s first officers were to be appointed equally between the two districts, with the alternating Grand Master tradition beginning in 1791. Newport elected Christopher Champlin as the Grand Master, and Providence elected Jabez Bowen as Deputy Grand Master, with the remaining officers divided between the Newport District (counties of Newport, Washington, and Bristol) and the Providence District (counties of Providence and Kent). The original officers served until 1793.

On Monday, June 27, 1791, the Feast of St. John the Baptist served as the occasion on which the two lodges met in the Newport State House to formally organize the Grand Lodge in accordance with the approved plan.

This historic gathering marked the birth of a unified Masonic organization in Rhode Island, rooted in the island’s early operative heritage and its involvement in the nation’s struggle for independence.