John Rowe and “the Funeral of the Remains of Dr. Warren”

Yesterday I noted that on Thursday King’s Chapel will host a talk by Sam Forman on the funeral of Dr. Joseph Warren, which took place in that same church on 8 Apr 1776.

The organizers of that funeral were the Freemasons of the St. Andrew’s Lodge, which Warren had led. Deputy Grand Master Joseph Webb asked young member Perez Morton to quickly write and deliver an oration. Paul Revere, Edward Procter, and Stephen Bruce expressed the lodge’s thanks afterward, and printer John Gill’s edition of that speech highlighted the Freemasons’ support.

In addition to Warren’s family and the members of the St. Andrew’s Lodge, the funeral procession also included a contingent of Continental Army troops and members of the Massachusetts General Court. The Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper offered prayers, so the Patriot establishment was well represented.

However, one gentleman found he wasn’t welcome: the merchant John Rowe, also a grand master in the Freemasons. In his diary for 8 April Rowe wrote:

Afternoon I went by invitation of Brother Webb to attend the Funeral of the Remains of Dr. Warren & went accordingly to the Council Chamber [of the Old State House] with a Design to Attend & Walk in Procession with the Lodges under my Jurisdiction with our Proper Jewells & Cloathing but to my great mortification was very much Insulted by some furious & hot Persons witho. the Least Provocation

one of Brethren thought it most Prudent for me to Retire. I accordingly did so—this has caused some Uneasy Reflections in my mind as I am not Conscious to myself of doing anything Prejudicial to the Cause of America either by will or deed.

The Corps of Dr. Warren was Carried into Chapell Dr. Cooper prayed & Mr Perez Morton delivered an Oration on the Occasion. There was a handsome Procession of the Craft with Two Companies of Soldiers.

Those last sentences evoke a picture of Rowe standing outside the chapel, watching people go in—standing on the side of the street as the “handsome Procession” passed by without him.

Rowe was the leader of Boston’s other group of Freemasons: the St. John’s Lodge. That lodge had been wealthier and closer to the Crown than the upstart St. Andrew’s, which was at last in the ascendancy.

Furthermore, Rowe himself had “trimmed” his political sails enough during the preceding decade to make people on both sides of the political divide suspicious of him. And that April, there was no way to deny that he had spent the whole siege inside Boston with the royal government and royal military.

Rowe assured himself that he hadn’t done “anything Prejudicial to the Cause of America either by will or deed.” But some of his fellow Bostonians, “furious & hot” after twelve months of war, didn’t share his confidence.