THE 1st CALIFORNIA MASONIC FUNERAL

The following article was forwarded to us by a Brother in Southern California and was originally printed in a May 1876 edition of Australian Freemason.
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The first Masonic funeral that that ever occurred in California took place in 1849, and was performed over a brother found drowned in the Bay of San Francisco.

On the body of the deceased was found a silver mark, upon which was engraved the initials of his name. A little further investigation revealed to the beholder the most singular exhibitions of Masonic emblems that were ever drawn by the ingenuity of man upon the human skin. There is nothing in the history of the traditions of Freemasonry equal to it.

Beautifully dotted on his left arm in red and blue ink, which time could not efface, there appeared all the emblems of the entire apprenticeship. There was the Holy Bible, square and compass, the twenty four inch gauge, and common gavel. There were also the Masonic pavement, representing the ground floor of King Solomon’s Temple, the identical tassel which surrounds it, and the blazing star in the centre. On his right arm, and artistically executed in the same indelible liquid, were the emblems pertaining to the Fellow-Craft’s degree, viz., the square, the level and the plumb. There were also the five columns representing the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite.

In removing his garments from his body the trowel presented itself, with all the other tools of operative masonry. Over his heart was the pot of incense. On other parts of his body were the bee-hive, the book of constitutions, guarded by the Tyler’s sword pointing to a naked heart; the All-Seeing Eye, the anchor and ark, hour glass, scythe, the forty-seventh problem of Euclid, the sun, moon, stars and comets; the three steps which are emblematical of youth, manhood and age.

Admirably executed was the weeping virgin, reclining on a broken column upon which lay the book of constitutions. In her left hand she held the pot of incense, the Masonic emblem of a pure heart; and in her right hand was a sprig of acacia, the emblem of the immortality of the soul.

Immediately beneath her stood winged Time, with his scythe by his side, which cuts the brittle thread of life, and the hour-glass at his feet, which is ever reminding us that our lives are withering away. The withered and attenuated figure of the destroyer was placed amid the long and flowing ringlets of the disconsolate mourner.

Thus were striking emblems of mortality and immortality blending in one pictorial representation.

It was a spectacle such as Masons never saw before, and in all probability, will never witness again. The name of the deceased was never ascertained.