Mackey wrote that Calcott "saw in Freemasonry something more than a museum of Medieval relics, and more than a set of convivial clubs, and undertook to write a rational, or philosophy, on the Craft, becoming thereby the first of a line of greatly distinguished Craftsmen, in which were to stand Hutchinson, Preston, Oliver, .etc" "In 1769 (and with 1200 subscribers) he published A Candid Disquisition . Oliver described this book, so simple, so gentle in spirit, and with few obvious displays of the classical learning behind it, "the gem of the period." Kenning describes Calcott: "Indeed he may fully be called the father of the Masonic philosophical and didactic school." Hughan characteristically valued it because it contained a list of Boston Lodges, as follows : under the Provincial Grand Lodge headed by John Rowe: Master's, First, Second, Rising Sun; and under the Scottish Provincial Grand Lodge under Joseph Warren: St. Andrew's, Lodge No. 2: and under an Ancient Grand Lodge Warrant: Ancient York, No. 169. Calcott was twice in America, both times in the Carolinas, possibly in New York or Boston."

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