Journal: Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal
Volume: DBSJ 27:1 (NA 2022)
Article: Baptists And Freemasonry: A Conflicted History
Author: Jeff Straub

DBSJ 27 (2022) p. 53

Baptists And Freemasonry: A Conflicted History

Jeff Straub1

My interest in Freemasonry began a few years ago, as I was asked to complete a writing project of Baptist historian Terry Wolever, who unexpectedly died, leaving a biography of Stephen Gano (1762–1828) unfinished. Gano, son of John Gano (1727–1804), founder of the First Baptist Church of New York City (1780), had pastored the important First Baptist Church of Providence, RI, arguably the first Baptist church in America. Terry amassed a significant amount of research on Stephen’s life and outlined a plan for a biography but died before the book was written. Stephen was an important Baptist in his own right at Providence, where he labored from 1792 until his death in 1828.

I discovered Stephen was a Freemason. He was active in the Mount Vernon Lodge of Providence, admitted July 1801. He received the degrees of Capitular Masonry in 1808 and was elected Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Rhode Island. He was remembered as “a true and faithful supporter of the Masonic institution.”2 Stephen had been married four times. His fourth wife, Joanna Latting of Hillsdale, NY, whom he wed in 1801, created a stir in FBC, when she accused Stephen of devilry and permanently separated from him. Stephen was pastor at Hillsdale, where they met years earlier. The church under his leadership joined the Shaftsbury Association in 1788. After Stephen moved to Providence but before he married Joanna, Shaftsbury examined the “merits and demerits of Speculative Free Masonry.” The response, “As a number of our churches are greatly distressed over members joining with Free Masons, for the peace of the churches, we pray for such to desist,” yet, “as this association claims no jurisdiction over the members of churches, each church must judge for itself, according to fact and circumstance.”3

DBSJ 27 (2022) p. 54

Joanna likely learned her anti-Masonic position at Hillsdale and apparently was not aware that her husband-to-be had become a Mason about four months before they were married. Stephen’s Freemasonry created controversy in the church. This event may have been “the most bizarre issue in the entire history of the Providence church.”4 In the summer of 1803, Joanna “complained that ‘she could not fellowship that allowance of Free masonry in the bosom of the church’” and brought charges against her husband and seven others. The Masons were part of the “Mystery of Iniquity” and were in a “Covenant of Death and agreement of Hell.”You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
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