COCKBURN, JOHN [SSNE 6624]

Surname

COCKBURN

First name

JOHN

Nationality

SCOT

Region

MELROSE, BORDERS

Text source

John Cockburn was a mason & Freemason who emmigrated from Scotland in 1684 and went to live in East Jersey to the annoyance of his uncle George Faa or Fall, a Freemason from Kelso. From there he wrote several letters home encouraging others to join him. In one he noted that he was building a stone house in Perth Amboy (the earliest one) and stressed that there was plenty of work for masons in America. Cockburn had signed the 1675 'agreement' in the Masonic Lodge of Melrose and is probably one of the earliest initiated Freemasons in America.

D. Stevenson, The First Freemasons: Scotland's Early Lodges and their Members (Aberdeen, 1988), pp.116 and 145.

Service record

AMERICA, EAST JERSEY, NEWARK, NEW YORK

Arrived 1684-01-01

Capacity MASON, ARTISAN, purpose TRADE