Twenty years ago, Douglas E. Connell was helping restore a classic car for former Glocester Police Chief Jamie Hainsworth when he happened to notice Hainsworth wearing a ring with a curious symbol: a square and compass joined together with each leg of the compass pointing in opposite directions and the letter G in the center.
"It was a very distinctive ring that had this interesting emblem. It really caught my attention," says Connell, 63, of Woonsocket.
Oddly enough, it was during another car restoration job a short time later that Connell would see that same emblem again. "This other gentleman was wearing a similar ring so I started talking to him to about what it all meant."
What he soon learned was that the square and compass is the single most universally identifiable symbol of Freemasonry and recalls the fraternity's early symbolic roots in stone-masonry.
Intrigued, Connell did some research and learned that Feemasonry was a world-wide fraternity that emphasized many of the same principals and ideals that were important to him. He also learned that Woonsocket had its own Masonic lodge, Morning Star No. 13 on Clinton Street, so he petitioned the lodge to become a Mason.
more The oldest of them all: The Freemasons | The Woonsocket Call
"It was a very distinctive ring that had this interesting emblem. It really caught my attention," says Connell, 63, of Woonsocket.
Oddly enough, it was during another car restoration job a short time later that Connell would see that same emblem again. "This other gentleman was wearing a similar ring so I started talking to him to about what it all meant."
What he soon learned was that the square and compass is the single most universally identifiable symbol of Freemasonry and recalls the fraternity's early symbolic roots in stone-masonry.
Intrigued, Connell did some research and learned that Feemasonry was a world-wide fraternity that emphasized many of the same principals and ideals that were important to him. He also learned that Woonsocket had its own Masonic lodge, Morning Star No. 13 on Clinton Street, so he petitioned the lodge to become a Mason.
more The oldest of them all: The Freemasons | The Woonsocket Call