VINTAGE MASONIC CATECHISM SCOTTISH RITE 1-2-3 DEGREES HOUSE OF MASONS DETROIT #2 For Sale

Up for sale is a Revised Catechism of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite Masons, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Degrees — a 34-page pocket booklet in a blue paper wrapper, published by the National Headquarters, House of Masons, 5040 Joy Road, Detroit, Michigan 48204, and issued under Dr. Wm. J. Fitzpatrick, M.P.S.G.C. (Most Puissant Sovereign Grand Commander).

The cover and title page carry the double-headed eagle of the Scottish Rite — wings displayed, a triangle on the breast, a sword held horizontally, a ribbon beneath. Inside are three question-and-answer sections, one for each degree: the Apprentice's, the Second and the Third. In keeping with Masonic practice the sacred words themselves are left blank — printed as rows of dots — so the booklet served as a memory aid for men who had already received them in lodge.

The last three pages print the organization's own "History of the National Supreme Council, Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite," tracing its founding to New York on November 30, 1864, and naming its early officers — among them Patrick Reason and Dr. Peter W. Ray, both well-known figures in nineteenth-century African American New York. It records the Supreme Council's incorporation in Washington, D.C. on October 17, 1898, and its re-incorporation on October 14, 1948, and closes with a printed note that this is "the more accurate history," superseding earlier versions. The National Supreme Council still gives 5040 Joy Road as its address today.

This copy carries a previous owner's name and telephone number in blue ink inside the back cover — a small human trace of the man who owned it and carried it to lodge.

Historical context

What a catechism is

Masonic instruction is oral. A candidate advances by memorizing a fixed set of questions and answers — the "lecture" — and reciting it back in open lodge. Printed catechisms like this one are the study aids: pocket-sized, plain, cheap, meant to be carried in a coat and worn out. Very few survive in any condition, because nobody kept them once the degrees were done.

The 1864 New York origin

Pages 32–34 tell the organization's own story, and it's worth reading. On November 30, 1864, in New York City, Baron Auguste Hugo de Bulow — described in the booklet as a Sovereign Grand Inspector General and active member of the Supreme Council of France — organized a Supreme Council of the State of New York, later restyled as a Supreme Council of Sovereign Grand Inspectors General of the 33rd degree for the United States.

The officers the booklet lists are the interesting part:

• Patrick Reason, Lieutenant Grand Commander (Sovereign Grand Commander 1870–1879)
• Dr. Peter W. Ray, Adjoint Lieutenant Grand Commander (Sovereign Grand Commander 1879–1892)
• Ramson Wake, Grand Orator · George Laurance, Grand Secretary · Alexander Peters, Master of Ceremonies

Patrick Henry Reason (1816–1898) was one of the earliest African American engravers and lithographers in the United States. He cut the famous 1835 kneeling-supplicant abolitionist image, engraved the frontispiece for Henry Bibb's 1849 slave narrative, and designed Daniel Webster's coffin plate. Turned away by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, he helped found the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America and in 1858 wrote the Ruth degree, the first conferred on women, which became the Household of Ruth.

Dr. Peter W. Ray (1825–1906) graduated from Castleton Medical College in Vermont around 1850 and built a medical practice and pharmacy in Brooklyn. He is remembered as a political activist and, in the Black Gotham Archive's phrase, an "ardent freemason."

These are not filler names. They are men of substance in nineteenth-century Black New York, and the booklet places them at the founding of African American Scottish Rite Masonry.

The line down to Detroit

The booklet traces the succession: A. B. Allen 1892–1897; D. F. Seville 1897–1911, under whom the Supreme Council was incorporated in Washington, D.C. on October 17, 1898; H. M. Rennick 1911–1920; Dr. W. H. Benderson 1920–1948; and Prof. Wm. J. Fitzpatrick from 1948, the man on your cover. The final page records a certificate of re-incorporation dated October 14, 1948 — "the incorporation under which it operates at the present time."

Why Detroit? Because the Great Migration moved hundreds of thousands of Black Americans north to the auto plants, and Black fraternal life moved with them. Under segregation, lodges were not merely social — they ran burial and insurance funds, extended credit, trained men in parliamentary procedure and public speaking, and formed the backbone of Black civic leadership. A national headquarters on Joy Road, on Detroit's west side, is exactly where that history put it. The National Supreme Council is still at 5040 Joy Road today.

The lineage is contested — and the booklet knows it

Several rival Supreme Councils claimed the same 1864 descent, and the claim is disputed. The Phylaxis Society, Prince Hall Masonry's own research body, lists the National Supreme Council among organizations it does not recognize, arguing the body was organized in 1897, not 1864, and citing a 1962 court case that found the founding claims unsubstantiated.

You can see the argument happening on the page. The booklet's last paragraph reads: "The foregoing, according to recent research, being the more accurate history of the National Supreme Council, all other versions of said history as hereinafter given will be corrected to conform herewith." A printed notice, inside the booklet, that its own history has been revised.

One structural oddity worth knowing

The first three degrees — Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, Master Mason — belong to a Grand Lodge in ordinary American practice, not to the Scottish Rite, which works the 4th through 33rd. A Supreme Council publishing a 1°–3° catechism follows the continental European pattern, in which a Supreme Council also governs its own symbolic (craft) lodges. Not an error on the booklet's part — a different tradition.

A genuine used booklet, complete and intact, from a collection of items gathered over the years.

• Title: Revised Catechism of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite Masons, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Degrees
• Publisher: National Headquarters, House of Masons, 5040 Joy Road, Detroit, Mich. 48204
• Issued under: Dr. Wm. J. Fitzpatrick, M.P.S.G.C. (the history page on p. 33 styles him Prof. Wm. J. Fitzpatrick)
• Date: copyright 1953. This printing is 1963 or later — the title page carries the ZIP code 48204, and ZIP codes were not introduced until July 1, 1963.
• Pages: 34 (last numbered page 33, plus a final unnumbered page)
• Measurements: 4¼″ wide × 5½″ tall
• Binding: blue paper wrapper stapled at the centre fold.
• Condition: Front cover: the blue is strong and all printing is crisp and fully legible. A diagonal crease runs across the upper left, with light overall surface creasing. A small pale scuff sits just above "NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS" where the paper surface is rubbed. Light soiling, some darkening along the bottom edge, and lightly rounded corners.
• Spine: two small rust-brown marks on the fold where the staples sit; the staples are lightly rusted. Binding is sound and tight.
• Back cover: clean apart from two darkened stains across the upper portion — the larger about ½ inch, near the upper-left corner, the smaller a couple of inches to its right — with faint diffuse soiling between them and a few small specks.
• Interior: text block clean and bright with light tanning at the edges. Scattered light foxing (small tan age spots), most noticeable on pages 8–9 and pages 20–21. Text is unaffected throughout and every page is fully readable.
• Inside back cover: a previous owner's name and telephone number written in blue ink cursive across the top. The telephone number is covered in the photographs.
• No tears, no loose pages, no other writing or marking.
• Sold as-is. Please see the detailed photos. BEING SOLD IN "AS IS"/USED CONDITION Front cover: the blue is strong and all printing is crisp and fully legible. A diagonal crease runs across the upper left, with light overall surface creasing. A small pale scuff sits just above "NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS" where the paper surface is rubbed. Light soiling, some darkening along the bottom edge, and lightly rounded corners. Spine: two small rust-brown marks on the fold where the staples sit; the staples are lightly rusted. Binding is sound and tight. Back cover: clean apart from two darkened stains across the upper portion — the larger about ½ inch, near the upper-left corner, the smaller a couple of inches to its right — with faint diffuse soiling between them and a few small specks. Interior: text block clean and bright with light tanning at the edges. Scattered light foxing (small tan age spots), most noticeable on pages 8–9 and pages 20–21. Text is unaffected throughout and every page is fully readable. Inside back cover: a previous owner's name and telephone number written in blue ink cursive across the top. The telephone number is covered in the photographs. No tears, no loose pages, no other writing or marking. PLEASE REFER TO PHOTOS FOR CONDITION.

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