Masters Lodge No. 2 (now No. 5), was organized March 5th, 1768, with William Gamble as its first Worshipful Master. Samuel Stringer was the Senior Warden, and Jeremiah Van Rensselaer was Junior Warden.
Henry Andrews Francken came from the island of Jamaica and on the 20th of December, 1767, instituted the Ineffable and Sublime Grand Lodge of Perfection. The Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem was organized at the same time.

Union Lodge did not accede to the proposition made by the Ineffable Body to construct and maintain a joint lodge in the same lodge building. The latter occupied rooms at the inn of Richard Cartwright, to whom each member paid one shilling on lodge night. The society provided the candles. After much discussion, it was finally agreed to accept the proposal of Brother Peter Sharp to construct a lodge building at a cost of 300 pounds.

Samuel Stringer purchased from Union Lodge the lot obtained from the city in 1766. It consisted of 74 feet on the west side of Lodge Street and 79 feet along the north side of Maiden Lane and cost four English pounds. The City of Albany conveyed to Samuel Stringer six additional feet on Lodge Street and work was begun on the new Temple on April 1st. The corner stone was laid May 12th, and the building, the first in America, was completed on June 24th, 1768.

This was the time when there were rumblings in the colonies against the oppressive tactics of the English. In 1774, the first Continental Congress convened at Philadelphia to consider grievances against British rule. A young man named George Washington was making quite a name for himself as a surveyor. It is interesting to call attention to the fact that in addition to being the First President of the United States, George Washington was also the first Master of Alexandria Lodge No. 39 in Alexandria, Virginia. He even served in that office while he was Chief Executive of the nation. He was also elected Grand Master of Virginia, but was unable to accept because his duties as Commander-in-Chief of the American Armies absorbed all this attention and energy.

The governors of every one of the original thirteen states at the time Washington was inaugurated were Masons. President Harry S. Truman was the thirteenth President of the United States who was a Mason. His predecessors who shared the same distinction were Washington, Monroe, Jackson, Polk, Buchanan, Johnson, Garfield, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

President Truman was the second President of the United States to have been Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of his home state. Andrew Jackson was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee during 1822-23 and Harry S. Truman was the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Missouri during 1940-41.