4 May 2010 / The Northern Light

Joseph Cerneau’sSupreme CouncilMISUNDERSTANDING OR MALICE?By AIMEE E. NEWELL, Ph.D.

On June 3, 1899, William T. Petherbridge(1848-1924), Thrice Potent Master ofOnota Lodge of Perfection in Pittsfield,

MA, wrote to Charles C. Dame, 33°, Deputy ofMassachusetts, petitioning for a dispensation forthe lodge to work on the coming Festival of St.John:

Owing to our close proximity to the so-calledCerneau Consistory at Lenox, it is a diff icult matterto build up an active Scottish Rite body, we havemany loyal Masons, but to the majority whounfortunately take no pains to investigate, they arejust as apt to take the word of the members of thespurious body as they are to believe what we tellthem . . .

In these brief lines, Petherbridge raised anumber of questions and outlined pressing issuesthat confronted the Scottish Rite then and now.What was the Cerneau Consistory? Why was it a“spurious body?” Why was the Lodge ofPerfection finding it difficult to attract members?Just as the Rite is working today, over 100 yearslater, to bring in new members, Freemasons in1899 were struggling to do the same, thwarted, inpart, by a spurious group that took its name fromone created almost 100 years earlier, in 1807, byJoseph Cerneau.

Who was Joseph Cerneau?Most of the details about Joseph Cerneau’s life

— whether Masonic or not — are far fromsecurely documented. According to George A.Newbury and Louis L. Williams’ 1987 History ofthe Scottish Rite, Cerneau was born in Villeblevin,France in 1763 and became a jeweler. During the1780s, Cerneau went to Santo Domingo wherehe served as Secretary of a Masonic lodge in1802. Later in 1802, a slave rebellion forced

Cerneau to leave Haiti and relocate to Cuba. In1804, he petitioned the Grand Lodge ofPennsylvania for a warrant for a new lodge thereand became the lodge’s first Master.

Cerneau’s connection to the Scottish Riteseems to begin in Cuba. Antoine Matthieu DuPotet, a Freemason in Santo Domingo, wasappointed a Deputy Inspector General of theLodge of Perfection there, but fled to Cubaduring the same slave rebellion that provokedCerneau to leave. According to Newbury andWilliams, Du Potet gave Cerneau the authorityof a Deputy Inspector General for the northernpart of Cuba in July 1806. Newbury andWilliams point out that this Lodge of Perfectionwas not the same as today, but modeled on theold style, which originated in France in 1760, andgoverned 25 degrees. This Lodge of Perfectionhad no connection with the Supreme Councilfounded in Charleston, SC, in 1801.

Cerneau was expelled from Cuba later in 1806and moved to New York with his patent from

New Yorkcirca 1806,

when Cerneaumoved to

the city.

The Northern Light / May 2010 5

Du Potet. Although Cerneau’s patent allowedhim to confer the degrees up to and including the24th and the 25th degree on one candidate peryear in Cuba, this jurisdictional restriction doesnot seem to have stopped Cerneau fromconferring the degrees once he reached New York,nor did the fact that there was already a group ofmen who had received the 32° in the city.Antoine Bideaud, who became an ActiveMember of the Supreme Council in the FrenchWest Indies, initiated J.J.J. Gourgas and four othermen as Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret, 32°,in August 1806.

Exuberant Brother orMalicious Charlatan?

At this point in the story, Newbury andWilliams suggest that Cerneau pursued hisMasonic activities with definite purpose and not alittle nefariousness. They write that he sought out“New York’s leading Masons,” including futuregovernor DeWitt Clinton, and formed a “GrandConsistory” in 1807 of 25 degrees. Someinterpretations of the history of the Scottish Ritein New York city at this time find strongcompetition between Cerneau’s group andBideaud’s group. In his 1938 history of theScottish Rite, Samuel Harrison Baynard Jr.,suggested that the competition between the twogroups stemmed from political differences andwas further stoked by one group offering only 25degrees in comparison to the second group’s 32degrees.

In his history of Freemasonry in New York,Peter Ross remarked that Cerneau has been the

subject of a “violent paper war” which started inthe early 1800s and lasted for 200 years. No lessan authority than Albert Gallatin Mackey joinedthe fray writing that Cerneau “changed the namesof his bodies as suited his pleasure” and that theNorthern Supreme Council was “infected with anunhealthy absorption of bad material.” Yet,Mackey grudgingly admitted that it would be“unwise not to acknowledge that [Cerneaubodies] had an existence.”

Joseph Cerneau himself endured personalattacks in the 1810s and 1820s, labeling him a

peddler of Masonic materials and degrees as wellas a swindler. While most subsequent ScottishRite historians, starting with Albert Pike, haveexpressed a negative view of Cerneau and hisactivities, there are always two (or more) sides toevery story. In his 1862 history of the ScottishRite, Robert B. Folger offered a counterpoint,comparing Cerneau’s activities to those of JeremyCross and suggesting that Cerneau did nothingwrong. For example, as a working jeweler,Cerneau made and sold silver boxes, which wereused by lodges to hold charter seals. Indeed, thisseems to parallel Paul Revere’s work of craftingMasonic officer jewels and selling them to hisown lodge, as well as other Boston-area lodges.Yet, Cerneau was vilified and Revere was, well,revered.

Baynard makes the point that the ScottishRite’s cherished motto, “Ordo ab Chao,”translated to “order out of chaos,” was inspired bythe competing Supreme Councils that began tocrop up in the early 1800s. By 1813, the SupremeCouncil in Charleston, SC, which considereditself to be properly established, decided to resolve

Timeline of Cerneau’s ActivitiesIn the 1780s Cerneau was a lodge member (and later, Secretary) in Haiti. During the slave rebellion of 1802,he leaves for Cuba.

1802 1804 1806 1807 1813 1827FleestoCuba.

PetitionsGrand LodgeofPennsylvaniafor lodge inCuba.Becomes firstMaster.

Appointed asDeputyInspectorGeneral fornorthernCuba.Moves to NewYork.

Formed“GrandConsistory”25 degrees.

De La Mottadelegated byS.J. inCharleston tosort outsituation inNew York.

LeavesNew YorkforFrance.

6 May 2010 / The Northern Light

the issue of multiple Supreme Councils operatingin New York. Emmanuel De La Motta wasdispatched to examine the patents of each groupand to determine which one was the “real” one.

De La Motta, who was the Treasurer Generalof the Supreme Council in Charleston, foundthree major active Scottish Rite groups when hearrived in New York. One was the group headedby Cerneau, another was the group established byBideaud, and the third was a group with membersinitiated by Abraham Jacobs who had received apatent in 1790 in Jamaica. De La Motta askedeach group to allow him to inspect their records.Cerneau refused the request leading De La Mottato denounce him “as an imposter of the firstmagnitude, and whom we have expelled fromMasonic Asylum within our jurisdiction.”Bideaud’s group was regularized, forming theSupreme Council for the Northern MasonicJurisdiction in 1813. Members of Jacobs’ groupwere received into this Supreme Council onceappropriate paperwork was completed.

De La Motta’s decision has alternately beendescribed as the correct choice and a completelyarbitrary one. While Bideaud’s group was formedfirst, it, like Cerneau’s, was not regular and alsocame from the West Indies.

Regardless of which interpretation of De LaMotta’s decision seems most accurate,

questions still abound as to Cerneau’s true goals.Was it simply that he misunderstood what hispatent allowed him to do? Or was he really onlyin it for the money? These questions will likelycontinue to be debated and dissected for decadesto come. It does seem likely that Cerneau did nothave a good grasp of English. He also may havebelieved that he was working with the authorityof a different group. According to the 1862history by Folger, Cerneau applied to both theGrand Orient of France and the SupremeCouncil of France for recognition and wasgranted it by both. The Scottish Rite MasonicMuseum and Library is fortunate to have aminute book kept by Cerneau’s group coveringthe years from 1816 to 1825. The records in thebook resemble those of countless lodges. Theentries track the group’s business — theydocument meetings, note charters granted andmembers nominated, review reports bysubcommittees, and discuss correspondence andaccounts. In short, these pages present a group

that had a common aim and went about itsbusiness with its members thinking they weredoing nothing wrong.

After De La Motta’s decree, in 1813, theBideaud group was recognized by the SupremeCouncil in Charleston and continued to offer 33degrees, just as they had for several years. Aroundthe same time, Cerneau’s group changed its nameto “Sovereign Grand Consistory for the UnitedStates of America.” But, was this an attempt tooutdo the other group by taking on a grander,more expansive name, or was it merely an attemptto differentiate itself and attract new members?

After 1813, Cerneau continued to conferdegrees and fashioned himself as SovereignGrand Commander until 1827 when he left NewYork to return to France. Unfortunately, like somany of the events of his life, Cerneau’s reasonsfor this return and what happened to him inFrance are unknown. Even his date of death isunclear — just that it was sometime in the early1840s.

Cerneau’s successor in New York was EliasHicks. The group had been successful in startinga number of subordinate bodies in six states andfive other countries, but the Anti-Masonicmovement, which gained strength in the late1820s and 1830s, reportedly wiped out all ofthese groups, except for the one in New Orleans.

‘‘‘‘This chapter of Scottish Rite

history touches on the fraternity’s

origins while also demonstrating

how cherished the bonds of

Brotherhood were — provoking

strong feelings and passionate

emotions.

The Northern Light / May 2010 7

Yet, just as recognized Freemasonry and itsestablished Grand Lodges withstood the attacksof Anti-Masonic proponents, the 1899 letterquoted at the beginning of this articledemonstrates that competing groups continued toexist as well. While Cerneau returned to Francein 1827, just as American anti-Masonic fervorwas mushrooming, his name continued to serve asan umbrella term for spurious and irregularMasonic groups. Although not directly connectedto Cerneau’s Supreme Council in New York cityin the 1810s and 1820s, the designation“Cerneauism” continued to be used by proponentsand opponents into the 20th century and beyond.

Cerneau’s Lasting InfluenceThe existence — and persistence — of the

Cerneau Supreme Council, and “Cerneauism” ingeneral, has confounded members of therecognized Supreme Councils of the NorthernMasonic and Southern Jurisdictions for centuries.As mentioned above, the official history of theNorthern Masonic Jurisduction, published in1987 and written by former Sovereign GrandCommander George A. Newbury and ActiveEmeritus Member Louis L. Williams, takes anoticeable bias against Cerneau and his Brothers.These authors suggest that Cerneau started hisgroup for unsavory reasons and was acting solelyfrom hubris or some other ambition. Yet, morerecent articles have started to suggest thatCerneau acted out of less malicious intent. In a1995 article published in Heredom, Michael R.Poll reviewed the work of Albert Pike in anattempt to resolve the question of the validity ofCerneau’s “right” to establish Scottish Rite bodies.He presented a convincing argument thatCerneau believed he had the authority to act andwas doing so out of his own love for hisfraternity.

In a 1997 article in Heredom, Alain Bernheimtranscribed a newly-found document originallypresented to Cerneau by the Sovereign GrandConsistory of the United States of America in1827 when he returned to France. Presented byCerneau’s own group, the document attests to his“zeal for the interests of the Order” and statesthat his Brothers “entertain the highest esteem &regard for his person, virtues and services.” Whiledocuments in Cerneau’s own hand remain

unlocated, this document does provide acounterpoint to the negative impressions offeredby the previous biographers of Cerneau and themen who ran the Supreme Councils of theNorthern Masonic and Southern Jurisdictions inthe 1810s and 1820s.

While Cerneau himself sailed away, theNorthern Masonic Jurisdiction experienced the“chaos” of spurious groups until the Union of1867, which once again settled questions ofregularity and recognition by bringing multipleScottish Rite groups together. Bideaud’s groupcontinued to present itself as the authority afterDe La Motta confirmed it as lawful in 1813. Asexplained above, Cerneau’s group was taken overby Elias Hicks in 1827 and continued to meetuntil 1846 when it was dissolved and its fundswere distributed to its members. But not all ofCerneau’s members followed Hicks. Henry C.Atwood started his own Supreme Council aroundthe same time. In 1858, leadership of this groupwas bestowed on Edmund B. Hays.

In 1860, Sovereign Grand Commander EdwardAsa Raymond walked out of the recognized

Supreme Council’s August meeting and declaredit closed. Roundly understood to be sufferingfrom a mental disorder, Raymond claimed“supreme and autocratic power” in December1860 and started another Supreme Council. Thisgroup existed until 1863 when it merged with theAtwood-Hays Council. Four years later anagreement was worked out regularizing themembers of this Council and bringing themtogether with the recognized Supreme Council— the original Bideaud group that De La Mottaaccepted in 1813.

The history of Joseph Cerneau and his patentcontinues to inspire debate and curiosity today,200 years later. This chapter of Scottish Ritehistory touches on the fraternity’s origins whilealso demonstrating how cherished the bonds ofBrotherhood were — provoking strong feelingsand passionate emotions. Yet it may also offerinsight that can assist us today withunderstanding some of the factors that makemembership attractive.

Aimee E. Newell, Ph.D., is Director of Collectionsat the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library.To discuss a donation for the collection, or to ask aquestion, email anewell@monh.org or call781-457-4144. NL