Editing Scottish Rite (section)

===Scottish Perfection Lodges===
A Loge de Parfaits d' Écosse was formed on 12 April 1764 at [[New Orleans]], becoming the first high-degree lodge on the North American continent. Its life, however, was short, as the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)]] ceded New Orleans to Spain, and the Catholic Spanish crown had been historically hostile to Freemasonry. Documented Masonic activity ceased for a time. It did not return to New Orleans until the late 1790s, when French refugees from the revolution in [[Saint-Domingue]] settled in the city.<ref name=Fox1997 />{{rp|16}}

Francken traveled to New York in 1767 where he granted a Patent, dated 26 December 1767, for the formation of a Lodge of Perfection at [[Albany, New York|Albany]], which was called "Ineffable Lodge of Perfection". This marked the first time the Degrees of Perfection (the 4th through the 14th) were conferred in one of the Thirteen British colonies in North America. This Patent, and the early minutes of the Lodge, are extant and are in the archives of Supreme Council, Northern Jurisdiction.<ref name=Fox1997 />{{rp|16}} The minutes of Ineffable Lodge of Perfection reveal that it ceased activity on December 5, 1774. It was revived by Giles Fonda Yates about 1820 or 1821, and came under authority of the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction until 1827. That year it was transferred to the Supreme Council, Northern Jurisdiction.

While in New York City, Francken also communicated the degrees to [[Moses Michael Hays]], a Jewish businessman, and appointed him as a Deputy Inspector General. In 1781, Hays made eight Deputy Inspectors General, four of whom were later important in the establishment of Scottish Rite Freemasonry in South Carolina:
*Isaac Da Costa Sr., D.I.G. for South Carolina;
*Abraham Forst, D.I.G. for Virginia;
*Joseph M. Myers, D.I.G. for Maryland;
*Barend M. Spitzer, D.I.G. for Georgia.

Da Costa returned to Charleston, South Carolina, where he established the "Sublime Grand Lodge of Perfection" in February 1783. After Da Costa's death in November 1783, Hays appointed Myers as Da Costa's successor. Joined by Forst and Spitzer, Myers created additional high-degree bodies in Charleston.<ref name=Fox1997 />{{rp|16–17}}

Physician [[Hyman Isaac Long]] from the island of [[Jamaica]], who settled in New York City, went to Charleston in 1796 to appoint eight French men; he had received his authority through Spitzer. These men had arrived as refugees from [[Saint-Domingue]], where the slave revolution was underway that would establish [[Haiti]] as an independent republic in 1804. They organized a Consistory of the 25th Degree, or "Princes of the Royal Secret," which Masonic historian Brigadier ACF Jackson says became the first Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite.<ref name="JacksonRoseCroix"/>{{rp|66–68}} According to Fox, by 1801, the Charleston bodies were the only extant bodies of the Rite in North America.<ref name=Fox1997 />{{rp|16–17}}