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Charlotte: |
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The strange tale of two Abraham Alexanders
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Two Masons named Abraham Alexander were keys to the very existence of the Scottish Rite Valley of Charlotte and of Charlotte itself.
One was Presbyterian, one was Jewish. One was born in London, the other in Maryland. The first lived in Charleston, the other in Charlotte.
They never met.
But they were great Masonic leaders during the same 18th century years. In the fall of 1765 a thousand wagons were in the process of bringing settlers from the Philadelphia region to this back-country outpost called Charlottetown. Among them were almost 300 folk named Alexander, including one named Abraham.
In February, 1766, he and his close relatives bought hundreds of acre of North Carolina land and laid out lots for their new town.
Two years earlier Rabbi Abraham Alexander took over the pulpit of Temple Beth Elohim on Hasell Street in Charleston. He was the son of Rabbi Joseph Raphael Alexander of London, England. He served as minister without compensation for 20 years.
His low-country congregation had opened its doors September 3, 1749. It was thriving and expanding when Charlotte was “a trifling place,” as Brother George Washington described it, a village of log cabins and muddy roads.
The Charlotte Abraham Alexander was among Masons who met in lodge in his cousin Hezekiah Alexander’s 1774 stone house next to his own. The 27 men who signed the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence elected him chairman of their convention.
The Charleston Abraham Alexander was one of the founders of the Scottish Rite.
Thus two Masons with the same name at the same moment in history helped to build both Charlotte and Freemasonry.
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Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
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