Kingsport 1844: Masonic Lodge

30) Masonic Lodge
Clairborne Street & Quinn Street, South Shore. Est. 1795

Keeper’s Note: The Kingsport Masonic Lodge is a location in “Kingsport 1844,” and was written for the White Leviathan campaign. It can be adapted to any nineteenth-century campaign set in Essex County. It contains minor spoilers for anyone intending to play the campaign.

A) Lodge No. 13
This two-story Federal building is painted in handsome earth-tones with Sienna highlights. Twin columns support a rectangular portico, the words “KINGSPORT LODGE No. 13 A.F. & A.M.” emblazoned below a Masonic compass. A private establishment, the lodge is closed to all non-Masons, and is not accessible to the general public.

Mason Lodge in Marblehead
(Author’s Photo, 2020)

B) Kingsport Freemasonry
Kingsport has supported a thriving community of Freemasons since colonial times, and for the most part, they behave like a typical New England lodge. Many city officials, sea captains, and businessmen count themselves as Masons, and the most sinister thing that transpires during meetings is nepotistic schmoozing. However, many of Kingsport’s high-ranking Masons are also Bons pêcheurs, and the lodge is quietly utilized for Covenant purposes when required. It also provides the Covenant with a convenient mechanism for screening potential candidates for initiation into more esoteric practices. In order not to alarm the genuine Freemasons among their ranks, Covenant activities are restricted to mundane, low-level meetings and ceremonies conducted off-hours.

C) Personalities
The Worshipful Master of the Kingsport Lodge is the retired sea captain Isaac Macy. Arthur Illsley, Jr. serves as First Warden, Gideon Sleet is Second Warden, and Addison Sleet is Secretary and Treasurer. The ceremonial guard position of Tyler is filled by Oliver Hall, Roland Hall’s father and one of the founders of the Kingsport Turks. Of these five officers, only Illsley and Hall are not associated with the Covenant. Other important non-Covenant members of the lodge include Mayor Sherwood Cabot, Kirby Spencer, and Cornelius Alwyn.

Keeper Note: It is unlikely the player characters will visit the Masonic Lodge, and none of the player characters are Freemasons. The only character who might qualify is Dr. Lowell, and that should be up to the player to decide. (It should also entail a bit of research.) Unlike the Covenant, the Masons of 1844 do not extend membership to women or non-whites, and their relationship to Catholicism remains “complicated.”

Elijah Watts
It’s possible that Watt’s ravings may lead characters to the Masonic Lodge to ask whether or not Watts was a Mason. Such attempts are initially met with courteous sympathy—“Yes, Brother Watts was new to Masonry. It’s such a shame what happened to him! We’ve been generously contributing to his stay at St. Erasmus, and he’s in our thoughts and prayers.” Any attempts for more information are stonewalled, and Jacob Macy is quickly alerted.

D) Interior
The lodge contains a parlor, an assembly hall, several offices, and a library. The library holds numerous works about Freemasonry, theology, and the occult, but nothing related to the Mythos or the Covenant in particular. However, worked among the mystic symbols “guarding” the library are the rooster-headed anguiped Abraxas, the seven-headed goat Azazel, the lion-headed serpent Ialdabaoth, and the mitered merman Dagon. There’s also a bronze statue of Baphomet perched beneath crossed Crusader swords.


Choose your fighter: Abraxas and Dagon

 

White Leviathan > Chapter 1—Kingsport 1844
[Back to Encounter 30, Mercy Hospital | White Leviathan TOC | Forward to Encounter 32, Revenue Marine]

Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 5 December 2021
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
White Leviathan PDF: [TBD]

Leave a comment

Copyright © Dandelion by Pexeto