Next in importance to the churches in a community, dedicated to the service of God, come the charitable and benevolent societies and institutions. The former show the state of religion among the people, or their relations to their Maker, while the latter is an evidence of that fraternal feeling existing from one to another which binds all the members in one common cause for humanity. And as Fredericksburg is not wanting in her church privileges and accommodations, so she is not deficient in the number of her charitable and benevolent societies. The oldest of these societies is the Masonic institution. Fredericksburg Lodge, No. 4, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons, was organized on the first day of September, 1752. Under what authority it was organized is not positively known, and therefore three authorities are suggested. The first source of authority claimed is that of Thomas Oxnard, Grand Master of St. John's Lodge, of Massachusetts and "Provincial Grand Master of all of North America." A second claim is made that the Masons in the community organized themselves into a lodge and continued as a self-constituted body until a charter was obtained from Scotland. This could hardly have been true. The third claim is, and it is believed by the best authorities to be the original source of authority, that a dispensation was obtained from the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and this was the authority by which the lodge was held until it was regularly chartered by said Grand Lodge. The lodge held its meetings under the authority of this dispensation for six years, and made Masons, among others, of George Washington, George Weedon, Hugh Mercer, Wm. Woodford, Thomas Posey, Gustavus B. Wallace, all of whom became general officers and did distinguished service in the Revolutionary war. In the year 1758 Daniel Campbell, for several years master of the lodge, visited Scotland, and, at the request of the lodge, applied for and obtained a charter for the lodge from the Grand Lodge of Scotland, which was dated July 21, 1758, and designated the organization "The Lodge at Fredericks-Burg," Virginia. Possessed with this charter the lodge concluded it had the authority to charter other lodges, and exercised that authority in chartering one at Falmouth, Va., and one at Gloucester Courthouse, Va. The latter soon obtained a charter from England and the former from the Grand Lodge of Virginia. In 1775 the Fredericksburg Lodge united with four other lodges in the State and organized the Grand Lodge of Virginia, and received a charter from that Grand Body, dated January 30, 1787, under the name and title of Fredericksburg Lodge, No. 4. The lodge is holding its authority now under the Virginia Grand Lodge charter, but still has in its possession the old Scotch charter, which is well preserved. The original dispensation has disappeared and was probably lost more than a century ago.