It used to be that Freemasons would act as stealthy public servants, shunning the spotlight and sealing their lodges and secrets from those outside their brotherhood.
But statewide, the fraternity is suffering from decreased enrollment and has been forced to open up a bit.
Since 2000, the number of Freemasons in New Jersey has decreased by nearly 8,000 to 27,800.
In its heyday, after World War II, the fraternity had 110,000 members statewide because of postwar morale, said Douglas Policastro, administrator at the Masonic Home of New Jersey on Jacksonville Road here, which now provides health care to the general public.
Freemasonry, which grew from the stone gills of the Middle Ages, has a long history in this state.
New Jersey claims to have the first known Freemason in America, John Skene of Scotland, who settled in Burlington County in October 1682, according to Freemason historian Richard Mekenian, who joined the fraternity 27 years ago. Other foreign-born Freemasons, such as Andrew Robeson, followed Skene and settled in Greenwich, the 73-year-old Spring Lake resident said.
Daniel Coxe from Burlington County was the first provincial Grand Master Mason in America in 1730, governing Masons in the state under the auspices of the Grand Lodge in England where modern Freemasonry was founded in 1717, he added.
New Jersey's first local lodge, St. John's No. 1, opened in Newark in 1761, Mekenian said.
Freemasons of the state's 145 local lodges are men, 21 and older, of diverse careers and religions, living clean lives of service, said Mekenian.
Numbers have declined because some men have turned to different types of organizations while some have more than one job or take care of their children, Policastro said.
Freemasons are not allowed to solicit potential members. Instead, those interested must ask a Master Mason to join.
"However, now we're more open and say "Have you considered it? Here's a pamphlet,' " Policastro said. "We try to take good men and make them better."
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