The Cryptic Freemason Page 3
Volume 1, Issue 5 Fall, 2010 T HE CRYPTIC FREEMASON T HE ORIGIN OF THE CRYPTIC DEGREES T HE GRAND COUNCIL OF SELECT MASONS P ART 3 - BY RICHARD A. EPPLER, EDITOR The oldest document mentioning the degree we Wilman’s death, they inherited control now call Select Master is a certificate dated November of the Grand Council of Select Masons. 8, 1790 wherein Moses Cohen, in his capacity of Grand Philip P. Eckel was the foremost Inspector General of the Council of Emperors of the Mason of his time in Maryland. Like East and West, certifies that he had conferred several Wilmans, he was a native of Germany, degrees, including the “Select Master of Twenty‐Seven” born there in 1768. He came with his on Abraham Jacobs. This degree is now known to be father to Baltimore about 1781, where he obtained and essentially the same as our Select Master Degree. held the position of City Gauger for many years. He How Moses Cohen obtained the degree is not received his Lodge degrees sometime between the known. Although he was an associate of Stephen founding of Baltimore Union Lodge No. 29 in 1786 and Morin, who brought the degrees of the Rite of March 6, 1793, when he withdrew to become a charter Perfection from France to the New World in 1761, a member of Concordia Lodge. He was elected Master of letter states that three of Cohen’s degrees, including Concordia Lodge on December 4, 1797, and served for ten the Select Master of Twenty Seven did not come from terms.
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