With any luck, by the end of this year my book on the Early Sources on the emerging high degree Masonic bodies that became the Scottish Rite will see the press. COVID-19 has been challenging on all aspects of the economy and society, and the publishing industry is no exception. One positive aspect is that one finds themselves with extra time on their hands, allowing for some experimentation. These French sources will comprise a bilingual book (French and English) with all known correspondence from 1744-1767, containing all of the Sharp documents [a collection of Elus Parfaits corresponce covering France, the Antilles and Louisiana], the Etienne Morin letters published in St. Claudius by Choumitzky, along with the correspondence from the former Grand Lodge of France, that came into the possession of the Grand Orient de France. The project is a collaboration between the Grand Coll\u00e8ge des Rites \u00e9cossais and the Scottish Rite Research Society. It has been a massive undertaking and will yield an extremely useful source book for both Historians and Masons alike. I will try to give the data that went into the project here on FactGrid so that the research community can use and expand this base into any direction.<\/p>\n
The curious question leading me here is: What did Freemasonry look like in the colonial possessions of France during the 18th century? What role did it play among those who settled in this periphery with the power of European networks and military support? To solve this question, one would have to obtain the records for every lodge, which thankfully are digitally accessible from the Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France at a moderate expense. Fortunately, my work on the aforementioned project had already collected much of this data. The goal then became to first list every colonial French Masonic Lodge, its name, location, and year of founding from 1700-1799. These sources in conjunction the valuable work of Alain le Bihan, allowed for an excel matrix to be constructed and then reformatted and loaded into FactGrid. The results are intriguing.<\/p>\n