By Anne W. Semmes
With the 250th Anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence climaxing on July 4, Greenwich is being treated with memorable and historic visits, such as last Saturday’s chance to see up close and personal the very King James Bible, circa 1767, upon which our first President George Washngton took his oath of office on April 30, 1789 to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Greeting the 528 generational visitors in line to see that Bible across the four hours offered at Greenwich Library’s Jewel Room, was John Hopkins, the new Master of the Mason’s St. John’s Lodge No. 1 located in New York City, where that Inaugural Bible is preserved. Hopkins gave some history of that Manhattan fire of 1770 having destroyed the Lodge with a new Bible needed as procured by then Master Jonathan Hampton from the prominent Bassett bookselling family in London.
“This Bible was officially sanctioned by the King,” said Hopkins, “So the opening frontispiece has an image of King George… but the Brothers of the Lodge later inserted an opposite page commemorating the fact that George Washington had used the Bible, and curiously people have crossed out every mention of royalty in the Bible… and they made sure that the picture of George Washington is higher on the page than that of the King!”
But back to that extraordinary inaugural moment on April 30, 1789, with the Masons having done a lot of the preparing – with Washington himself being a Mason. But something was amiss! With the ceremony about to begin in Federal Hall on Wall Street (the first U.S. Capitol) there was no Bible for Washington upon which to make his oath of office! That Bible was swiftly brought from that nearby St. John’s Lodge – its altar Bible, impressively bound in deep brown leather with pages edged in gold.
And thanks again goes to the Masons for having brought that famous Bible to Greenwich, with its fame now having been used by subsequent Presidents in their inaugurations: Warren H. Harding, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush, as well as being “laid in state alongside the body of Abraham Lincoln.” It was Greenwich’s Mason Andrew Melillo, of Acacia Lodge No.85, A.S &A.M., based in Cos Cob, who initiated the idea to bring the Bible to Greenwich, arranging its exhibit at Greenwich Library.
Melillo was gifted a replica of the Washington Inaugural Bible that has the imprinted words on its cover unreadable on the Inaugural Bible. Following on are those words, but note the odd dating of 5757 for 1757, and 5770 for 1770. Those are Masonic dates, said Melillo, with the adding of 4,000 years “since Masonic Knowledge and the Craft have been present and active on Earth.”
The title reads: GOD SHALL ESTABLISH / ST. JOHNS LODGE CONSTITUTED / 5757 /BURNT DOWN THE 8TH OF MARCH /5770 / REBUILT AND OPENED / NOVEMBER 28 5770 / OFFICERS THEN PRESIDING / JONATHAN HAMPTON M / WILLIAM BUTLER S W / ISAAC HERON J. W
So, the story goes, with that St. John’s Lodge Mason Bible being hastily handed to Washington, he opened it quickly placing his hand on the pages of Genesis 49 and 50, told Melillo. And “If you read it, it talks about the founding of a great nation.”
Melillo shared also of how Masonic lodges had arrived “on the American continent from the 1730’s… and since that time, wealthy individuals of the fraternity have been procuring Bibles for the Lodges’ use. For example, the Lodge in Fairfield has a very old Bible from 1792, but their Lodge dates back to 1762.”
Melillo told of the intention of his Acacia Lodge was “to bring some of that American history of the birth of the country to the people of Greenwich, to hopefully have fathers, sons and grandfathers and grandchildren come together to reconnect with their history in a positive way.” With the hundreds of attendees arriving at the Jewel Room at Greenwich Library, he believed, “We achieved that. It really makes me happy to see that people are so curious and eager to have that physical link with history itself.”
Another Related Historic Bible and Common Prayer Book Found at Christ Church Greenwich
Set within a glass covered cabinet in the Rectory Room of Christ Church Greenwich is a “Book of Common Prayer” also published by the Bassett booksellers of London, dating to 1762, five years older than the Washington Inaugural Bible. And note that the Common Prayer Book is opened with the right page also showing the crossing out of British royalty. Beside it rests a 1762 Bible published by Joseph Bentham from Cambridge, printer for the University.
Credit the 18th century Reverend Ebenezer Dibble of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Stamford for providing those two holy books to what was the first Anglican church in Greenwich, the Horseneck Chapel, founded in 1749 and thought to be located where the parking lot of Christ Church is as shared by Christ Church historian Lynn Garelick.
Having written a notable timeline “chronologically from before 1706,” as displayed in the Parish Hall of Christ Church, Garelick said that back in those early days “the Anglicans first met in a home with guards because … the Congregational church controlled everything at that point.”
Garelick also cited a prominent British organization, the Society for the Propagation of the Bible of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) “for its support of Anglican churches in British colonies to propagate Christianity and the gospel.” And “That organization was in touch with Reverend Dibble, and Horseneck Chapel was actually a mission of St. John’s Church. And that connection is how Christ Church got the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.”
Credit historian Lynn Garelick also for having found these historic items over two decades ago packed away in a closet.
