glohio

Grand Lodge of Ohio website – Click Here

The Grand Lodge of Ohio, is the governing body of the nearly 480 Masonic Lodges and nearly 80,000 members in Ohio.

The Grand Lodge of Ohio was formed on January 4–8, 1808 by a convention of five of the six Masonic lodges then meeting in Ohio. The convention was held in the statehouse at Chillicothe and, on January 7, Rufus Putnam was elected Grand Master.

Prior to formation of the Grand Lodge of Ohio, six lodges operated under authority of charters issued by their individual parent grand lodges in the eastern United States:

  1. American Union Lodge No. 1 – chartered in 1776 by the Provincial Grand Lodge of New England (Moderns), one of the predecessors of the current Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Originally a military traveling lodge, it settled permanently in Marietta in June 1790.
  2. Cincinnati Lodge No. 13 – chartered in 1806 by the Grand Lodge of Kentucky and located in Cincinnati. Its members had originally formed Nova Caesarea Lodge No. 10, chartered by the Grand Lodge of New Jersey in 1791, which charter they returned to that Grand Lodge previous to requesting a new one from the Grand Lodge of Kentucky.
  3. Erie Lodge No. 47 – chartered in 1803 by the Grand Lodge of Connecticut and located in Warren.
  4. New England Lodge No. 48 – chartered in 1803 by the Grand Lodge of Connecticut and located in Worthington.
  5. Lodge of Amity No. 105 – chartered in 1805 by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and located in Zanesville.
  6. Scioto Lodge No. 2 – chartered in 1805 by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts and located in Chillicothe.

Erie Lodge was the driving force behind the formation of the Grand Lodge, and proposed the idea to the other lodges in the state. Due to a dispute over the credentials of its representative, James Kilbourne, New England Lodge was not present at the convention but is considered a founding lodge nevertheless.

The Grand Lodge of Ohio has had a continual existence since 1808 and in 2010 had over 500 chartered lodges operating in Ohio with a total membership of over 100,000.