You’re looking for a tall, reddish-brown brick building with tall arched windows and a pointy roof-just glance up Germain Street and you can’t miss its grand, four-storey presence right beside the sloping grassy yard and iron railing.
Now, let me transport you back in time, right to the footsteps of the Saint John Masonic Temple, a spot brimming with stories hotter than a pot of lobster stew! Imagine the steady hammering of builders in 1881 as architects McKean & Fairweather scrambled to finish this Italianate beauty, determined to give the Freemasons a new home after the catastrophic Great Fire of 1877 turned their old temple to ash. This wasn’t just a renovation-it was a phoenix rising, costing almost three million in today’s dollars! The first floor was always buzzing with shops, but venture higher, and you’d have found secretive Grand Lodge meetings and even New Brunswick’s own Premier Baxter conducting ceremonies. But fate had one more trick up its sleeve-on a chilly morning in 1929, flames devoured the temple once more, leaving memories smoldering in the rubble. Yet, these Freemasons had grit! Plans for rebuilding kicked off before the ashes cooled, with Saint John Masonic Temple Limited springing to life by midsummer. By November 1930, the temple was reborn, proof that in Saint John, tradition is as tough as old maritime boots! I hope the building doesn’t catch fire while you’re visiting-after all, lightning rarely strikes three times… right?
