The Architects of America: Freemasons and the Growth of the United States

Mathematics resemble a well built arch; logic, a castle; and romances,
castles in the air.

—Jonathan Swift, 1728

Less than two years after the foundation of Georgia, over the Christmas and New Year of 1734/35, the Duke of Montague hosted a house party at his home at Ditton, in the County of Surrey. The idea of such a gathering at a large country house—at least for the well to do—wasn’t unusual for the era, and the guests, who started arriving on the day after Christmas, soon began to unwind in a boozy revelry that would continue until New Year. Indeed, so typical was Montague’s hospitality that any record of the party ever happening would almost certainly have been lost to posterity, if it wasn’t for two notable occurrences. The first was Montague possibly attempted to introduce a whiff of novelty to proceedings by the inclusion of several “brethren” from the Fraternity he had previously been Grand Master of, whilst secondly, and more specifically, the celebrations are remembered—at least in Masonic circles—for the actions of one partygoer in particular, an individual who went by the rather un-aristocratic name of Mick Broughton.

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