Ritual , Secrecy , and Civil Society
George Washington in laying the cornerstone of the Capitol in 1793 , Washington presented him with the gavel that he had used . His brother also joined Potomac and the lodge met in his home until 1811 , when it built a hall at the corner of Jefferson Street and the Canal in Georgetown . That same year he became Grand Master .
Two hundred years brings curious resonances . On March 3 , 2003 , a petition for the Degrees of Freemasonry of Mr . William Bernard Reintzell , Jr ., was read in Potomac Lodge No . 5 . William B . Reintzell , Jr ., is the great , great , great , great grandson of Valentine . ( Mr . Reintzell ends his name as “ zell ” rather than “ zel .”). 56 Off and on , members of the Reintzell family have been members of Washington lodges for two centuries , almost as if Valentine still was making sure things are still done on the level and square by the Grand Lodge that he helped found . This was not always easy , as the next chapter demonstrates .
In Freemasonry , symbols of a philosophical world and of a practical trade are ingeniously twinned . Similarly , in Washington , national symbols are integrated with the practical apparatus of the state . The masonic contributions to this American mythopoeia , to the national narrative , to America ’ s totems , have strengthened the country ’ s unity , a unity born out of the creation of an identity when the alternative would have been chaos .
56 cf . Hodapp , Builders , 151 . 14