One fact about George Washington shows he became a Freemason in 1752, aged 20.
Almost without exception the other founding fathers of the United States – including Benjamin Franklin and James Madison – were Freemasons,
and the American constitution itself is said to be based on Masonic principles.
According to Cooper, Scottish Masons took the principles of Freemasonry over to America in the first place.
"Scotland is different from the rest of the world in that we go back before Freemasonry as an 18th century organisation.
We were ordinary working guys – craft guilds – with our own ancient knowledge and rituals.
It was the original egalitarian society, and that's what we took to America."
He says the first known Freemasons in North America were Scotsmen from Aberdeen and Melrose.
"That was in 1648, a hundred years before George Washington.
A hundred years after George Washington, during a Masonic ceremony, a Scotsman laid the foundation stone for the Statue of Liberty. Not a bad bit of continuity…"
Scottish Masons took the spark of revolution across the Atlantic, too.
The Lodge of St Andrew met in the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston, and on St Andrew's night 30th November, 1773. it was recorded that the Lodge meeting was adjourned as 'consignees of tea took up the Brethrens' time.'
The men dressed as Mohawks who tipped the British tea into Boston harbour (the act that started the revolution) were Lodge members.
One of the brothers was the famous revolutionary Paul Revere.
After the revolution the new nation used skilled stonemasons from Scotland (personally recruited by Washington) to work on the prestigious buildings around Washington DC.
These included the capitol building and the White House (where the Scottish masons wouldn't use slaves because they were not free men.)
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