By: Midnight Freemason Contributor Bro. Robert H. Johnson 32°
Labor Day, the very idea of the holiday invokes the excitement of barbecues, back to school for our children and the end of summer. Labor Day is now marked by the first Monday in September, but the first labor day was actually on a Tuesday, Tuesday September 5th 1882 to be exact. It was celebrated for the first time in New York City and was organized by the Central Labor Union.
So who started Labor Day? Well, the answer can not be definitively answered. There are two men who are credited with its creation. Peter McGuire and Mathew Maguire were both labor leaders and worked for the rights of workers. Peter was a carpenter and Mathew a machinist.
Many people ask whether either of these two men were members of our great fraternity, the Freemasons. Of these two men, Peter McGuire was a member of a Brotherhood. It just wasn’t the Freemasons. He belonged to the Brotherhood of Carpenters and was quoted as saying something which to me, sounds Masonic in nature…
[There needs to be a day to celebrate those] “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold”
However promising this sounds, neither Peter nor Mathew have any record of being involved or affiliated with the Freemasons.
Unity Lodge No. 146 