Craft Masonry in Orange and Rockland Counties, New York

Tompkins was elected as a Republican to the 56th and 57th Congresses (4 Mar 1899-3 Mar 1903). He was not a candidate for
renomination in 1902. He resumed the practice of law in Nyack, NY.
Tompkins was elected justice of the supreme court of New York in 1906. He was reelected in 1920 and 1934. Raised to the
appellate division of the supreme court of New York in January 1930 and served until his retirement in 1936. He died in Nyack, NY,
20 Jan 1938. He was interred in Oak Hill Cemetery.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~vantasselfamilyhistoryhomepage/oldfamiliesofwestchester/tompkins.html
Arthur S. Tompkins of Nyack, 1868-1938, was descended from Nathaniel Tompkins, 1742-1822, who moved to Otsego County and
founded the family in central New York. Judge Tompkins was brought back to Nyack as a baby and his fame as a jurist was rivaled
only by his fame as an amateur driver of trotting horses, a star of the Goshen track.
22 Jun 1919 - Copyright © The New York Times >
“Legal and Judicial History of New York,” by John H. Dougherty, Lyman H. Weeks,
Alden Chester. Vol. III. 1911. page 206
In every commonwealth there have arisen men whose experiences have been
phenomenal, men to whom success has taken kindly at the very beginning. And this not
by reason of the favor of fickle fortune which has pursued the man, but because the
man from the outset has asserted his right and his determination to succeed, and has
then simply proceeded in the use of the appointed means to achieve the desired
success. Such a man is Arthur S. Tompkins. Judge Tompkins was born at Middleburg,
Schoharie, NY, in 1865.
He was educated in the public schools of Clarkstown and Nyack, NY. He studied law in
the offices of Abram A. Demarest and Seth B. Cole, of Nyack, and in the office of Henry
Griffin, of Tarrytown, NY. On 18 May 1889, he married Miss Jeanie C. Logan, of
Tarrytown, NY. In 1886 he was admitted to the bar, and practiced in Nyack. In 1887 he
was elected police justice of the village of Nyack. He manifested his aptness for political
life, and was elected to the State assembly as a Republican in a Democratic county in
1889. In 1903 he became the Republican candidate for county judge and was elected.
In 1898 he was elected representative in congress from the Seventeenth congressional
district, composed of the counties of Rockland, Orange and Sullivan, and in December
of that year resigned from the judgeship. In 1900 he was returned to congress and
served his full term, and then resumed the practice of law in Rockland and adjoining
counties. As a trial lawyer Judge Tompkins had no superior and very few equals in the
district in which he practiced. In 'the examination of witnesses he was shrewd, alert and
incisive. In argument to the jury he was a marvel of freshness, simplicity and power. He
always knew his juror and talked to him. His arguments were replete with illustrations which found their duplicate in the experiences
of the individual juror. History, poetry and anecdote were brought into requisition by this master of the legal art, and all were blended
in a production of argument, appeal, pathos, denunciation and eloquence which were sure to win a good case, and save a poor one
from total destruction. In 1906, when the old Second judicial district was divided and made two separate districts, the committee
appointed by the State Bar Association for the purpose of investigating and recommending suitable candidates for the office of
Supreme Court judge in the new Ninth judicial district, presented the name of Judge Tompkins for that office. The bar of Rockland
county, proud of the lustre of his brilliant record and of the prominence which was his because he earned it, and realizing his sterling
worth, with one accord supported him for that high position. He was elected by a handsome majority, and at the present writing he
has served three years upon the bench, with favorable comment everywhere on his ability and fairness in that position. He is clean,
dignified, kind and just, and with all his rare and brilliant experience, Judge Tompkins is still a young man, and with the continuance
of health and strength is surely destined to accomplish vastly more than he has already achieved in the successes of the past and
present.
Upon the resignation of Judge Tompkins from the county judgeship in 1898, he was succeeded by Alonzo Wheeler.
Finland gained its independence, and in 1918 certain Finnish Masons who had been initiated in the U.S. returned to Finland and
petitioned the Grand Lodge of New York for a lodge at Helsinki. It was granted, and in 1922 Grand Master Arthur S. Tompkins
visited Finland, where on August 18th, in the old Parliament House, the three degrees were conferred on 27 leading citizens of
Finland, including Jean Sibelius, the famed composer.
See also “Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of New York,” 1938. pages 9-10; Edict, pages 193-95.
Masonic Record:
8 Dec 1891 Raised in Enterprise Lodge No. 228, New York City
1983 Affiliated with Rockland Lodge No. 723, Nyack; Master 1897
1897-98 District Deputy Grand Master of the Orange-Rockland District
1914-17 Junior Grand Warden
1918-19 Senior Grand Warden
1920-21 Deputy Grand Master
1922-23 Grand Master, F&AM, in the State of New York
Served on Committees, to include Jurisprudence, Foreign Correspondence, Constitution and Hall & Asylum Fund.
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