Frederick Dalcho

From SourceryForge

Frederick Dalcho (died 1836) was a very important figure in Freemasonry in the United States of America.

Arthur Edward Waite,in his A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (pp. 169-71),states that Dalcho was born in London,the son of an officer in the army of Frederick the Great of Prussia,but immigrated early in life to the United States,living in Baltimore before becoming a physician in Charleston,South Carolina (where he entered private practice in 1799 after serving there in the U.S. military).He eventually became an Episcopal priest in 1814.

In his Masonic career,Dr. Dalcho was one of the founders of the world's first Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite,and possibly one of the devisers of the 33-degree Scottish Rite itself,an expansion of the French 25-degree Rite of Perfection that first became known to the world in 1801,with Dalcho already holding the highest grade of Sovereign Grand Inspector General.(Dalcho however maintained that the Supreme Council dated to 1786).

In orations delivered at the festivals of the Vernal Equinox of 1803 and 1804,Dalcho maintained that Freemasonry dated to the creation of the world,that its principles of teaching derived from the Druids and its moral maxims from Pythagoras.In 1807 (revising it in 1822) he published An Ahiman Rezon,an institutional text on Freemasonry not to be confused with an earlier work of that title by Laurence Dermott.

In 1816 Dalcho rose to the highest position,Sovereign Grand Commander,of what is most fully and formally titled The Supreme Council (Mother Council of the World) of the Inspectors General Knights Commander of the House of the Temple of Solomon of the Thirty-third degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America.However,he was driven to resign amid dissension and in 1823 ceased not only his participation on the Supreme Council but all Masonic activity for the rest of his life.